Martin Scorsese has been making great cinema for 60 years - the director turns 80 on Thursday

Created: 11/17/2022 11:54 am

Legendary director Martin Scorsese turns 80. Hardly any other filmmaker has shaped Hollywood cinema as much as he has.

© Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/ImageCollect

With films like "Good Fellas - Three Decades in the Mafia", "Taxi Driver" or "The Irishman", Martin Scorsese is considered one of the most influential filmmakers in the world.

"Marty" celebrates his 80th birthday on Thursday.

The film was invented almost 140 years ago.

Martin Scorsese has been an integral part of the past 60 years.

He has not only immortalized himself in history with masterpieces such as "Hexenkessel", "Raging Bull" or "Departed".

As the driving force behind the Film Foundation, he has been committed to the restoration and preservation of historically and artistically significant films for years.

"Marty" celebrates his 80th birthday on Thursday.

He's far from tired.

His next film, Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, is slated to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in Spring 2023.

Like many great artists, such as the painter Frida Kahlo or the pop artist Andy Warhol, Scorsese's childhood was marked by illness.

Due to his asthma, it was often not possible for him to spend his free time with his peers.

Instead, his parents or his big brother often took him to the cinema.

So an obsession developed pretty quickly.

At the age of 22 he received his bachelor's degree from New York University.

Together with other directors such as Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma or Francis Ford Coppola, Scorsese now formed a counterpart to classic Hollywood.

Because: This generation was not just out to make entertainment films.

They were all graduate filmmakers, had extensive academic knowledge of film history and European film culture, understood each other outside the mainstream, made films with companies outside the studio system, and thus modernized traditional Hollywood.

This revolution was called "New Hollywood", the US equivalent of the French Nouvelle Vague or the New German Film.

Marty has been making films for 60 years.

The films already mentioned, or “The King of Comedy”, “Shutter Island” or “Casino” are regarded as masterpieces in international film.

Some of his works also attracted a lot of protests.

“The Last Temptation of Christ”, arguably the best father-son story ever told in cinemas, was met with severe criticism from the Vatican even before it premiered.

The second part of his faith trilogy, "Kundun," which tells the story of the Dalai Lama, gave Scorsese an entry ban to the People's Republic of China.

For Scorsese, of course, no reason to break with China: As part of the World Cinema Project under the umbrella of his Film Foundation, the Chinese film Pickpocket was restored by director Jia Zhang-ke.

In any case, Scorsese's passion for the art of film itself is arguably far more remarkable than his talent for filmmaking.

With writings, lectures and commentaries, he repeatedly expresses himself about the classics of film history and often brings forgotten films back to the minds of a large number of people.

His four-and-a-half-hour documentary, A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies, is like a quick study of US film language and history.

With "Hugo Cabret" Marty created a childishly beautiful homage to the film pioneer Georges Mélies.

With "Cape of Fear" he paid homage to Alfred Hitchcock.

Martin Scorsese has had a significant influence on almost half of film history and continues to do so today.

Whether there are better directors is debatable.

Whether the art of film has a greater admirer and propagandist is not really the question.