A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies

by Martin Scorsese, Michael Henry Wilson

In an expert guide to the history of American film, enhanced by many wonderful full-color and black-and-white photographs and film stills, the acclaimed director takes a look at many American movies while exploring them from a both a professional and personal perpective.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Media Tie In, Art

191 pages, Hardcover

First published October 24, 1997

About the author

Martin Marcantonio Luciano Scorsese is an American Academy Award-winning film director, writer, and producer. Also affectionately known as "Marty", he is the founder of the World Cinema Foundation and a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema and has won awards from the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Directors Guild of America. Scorsese is president of the Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation and the prevention of the decaying of motion picture film stock.

Scorsese's body of work addresses such themes as Italian American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption, machismo, and the violence endemic in American society. Scorsese is widely considered to be one of the most significant and influential American filmmakers of his era.[3] He earned an MFA in film directing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Reviews

[Alireza · Rating 5 out of 5]

كتاب گشت و گذاري با مارتين اسكورسيزي در سينماي امريكا
كتاب بسيار جالبي ميباشد كتابي در مورد تاريخ سينماي هاليوود و كارگردانان تاثير گذار ان.
اين كتاب از روي مستندي به همين نام كه در سال ١٩٩٤ ساخته شده نوشته شده البته اين كتاب در سال ١٩٩٧مورد نگارش قرار گرفته است. كتاب از پنج بخش تشكيل شده است . اين كتاب با اينكه نوشته سال ٩٧ ميباشد واي كتاب جامعي نيست زيرا خيل عظيمي از كارگردانان را نام نبرده است و اسكورسيزي اين گونه بيان ميكند كه در مورد اين كارگردانان كتابهاي زيادي نوشته شده است و دليلي براي تكرار مجدد ان وجود ندارد.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's really no reason for this to exist. All it is is the script from a documentary and a few stills from the same.

Although it is handy to have the words in written form, the documentary would be several orders of magnitude more interesting, so if that's available to you, jump on that and ignore this.

[Mark Chadbourn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a screenwriter, a budding screenwriter, or if you just love movies, this book will make you see film in a different light. From the silent era through to the seventies, from the forgotten-but-great to the classics, no stone is left unturned as Martin Scorsese gives his account of how Hollywood shaped the film industry and - as the title suggests - the director's own career.

Don't think this is a dry history. To all intents and purposes, this is a film course, taught by one of the greatest teachers you could imagine. Scorsese dissects the films he considers the most important in this early period of the movie industry, examining scripts - with short scene extracts - direction, and cinematography. Stills abound. As a masterclass in what makes a movie great, it's unbeatable.

What really shines through is Scorsese's own passion and his love of the medium. He highlights the moments that made him want to be a director and talks about how he felt when he saw these great works unfold on the big screen. And he doesn't focus on one particular aspect. You're as likely to get an analysis of a romance as you are a noir, a western as a Biblical epic. Even if you consider yourself an expert, you'll likely find some movie here to surprise you.

And if you just love film and want to see something great, there's a filmography at the end, which takes you all the way from Douglas Sirk's lush All That Heaven Allows through to William Wellman's gritty Wild Boys of the road.

[Darin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is essentially a transcript of the documentary film of the same title that Scorsese made. While the book is a quick and informative read, I assume it does not compare to the documentary because nothing can describe the magic of the movies as well as actually viewing them.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a great amount of respect and admiration for Martin Scorsese and know I would enjoy the documentary this book is derived from, but the flow of the book is awkward. I enjoyed much of it, but reading it was something of a frustrating experience.

[Tanner Volz · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s fun, largely as a series of joyful blurbs about many of his favorite films. It’s lightweight and primarily addresses well known classics, but the illustrations and script snippets more than justify his enthusiasm. Spending any time with him, probing that encyclopedia, is a pleasure.

[Sonny Lekamge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome read. Martin Scorsese is a walking talking library of cinema. Felt like taking a whole course of cinema, taught by the greatest teacher on the subject.

[Gerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

How close is this to the syllabus of Prof. Scorsese's course at NYU? It really doesn't really make a difference to me whether these are his "personal" opinions or not--it's an incredibly valuable survey of cinematic technique. Particularly striking is the section entitled "The Director as Smuggler," highlighting how once-controversial themes were cloaked in the familiar fabric of genre pictures. Today when everything has to be so in-your-face obvious, there's a lot to be learned from these subtle visual and narrative tricks. P.S. get the DVD!

[Avital · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Scorcese's journey through the American cinema almost as much as his journey through the Italian cinema. I learned quite a lot about the dynamics behind the screen, the importance of the producer (who's usually ignored on IMDB) and history. Now I need to watch the series.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A companion piece to Scorcese's six-hour miniseries/mash note to cinema, the book comes off as a little lightweight by comparison. Still, a must for any cinephile, regardless of whether you agree with Scorcese's choices of films to feature. But stick with the TV version if you can.

[Tim]

coffee-tablish book based on the 2-episode tv documentary with scorsese talking about and showing clips of his favorite -- mostly B-type -- american movies, which is a great show, well worth watching. (As is scoresese's similar film about italian film.)

[Ian Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

the documentary series this book comes from I first saw as a teenager, doing my first course in film making. It remains the single item that has taught me more about film than any other.

[Nádia da Camuça · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential for cinema's lovers.