Mr. Scorsese is “Marty” to his friends and “Legend” to admirers and imitators. But he’s also still that kid, the "minuscule asthmatic”--as lovingly described by his ex-wife, Isabella Rossellini--who fervently loved both the movies he watched in Times Square as well as the characters that populated the Little Italy of his youth. The results were "Mean Streets", "Taxi Driver", "Raging Bull", and "Goodfellas".

But as Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”, “Maggie’s Plan”, “Arthur Miller: Writer”) compellingly shows, Scorsese’s triumph was not inevitable, nor is it simply the inevitable result of personal history yoked to directorial will. For while Scorsese has an anthropologist’s eye, his films are not documentaries (except for the documentaries, of course!) Rather, they are the product of his own prodigious preparation combined with a willingness to trust his actors (notably, DiNero and DiCaprio) to improvise–and, in the end, phenomenal editing shaped by deep learning from the French New Wave as well as his decades-long professional relationship with Thelma Schoonmaker. While his films are often grounded in fully formed literary works, he makes of them what director Ari Aster calls “total cinema”. And while the visuals putatively reign, the music often seems to take the lead, almost directing the camera’s movements. And in the end, in complicating the work of what may seem to be one of our most personal filmmakers, Miller suggests that Scorsese's wider purpose is to chronicle “the American project.”

You can watch the 5-part series “Mr. Scorcese” on Apple+

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