Prolific NYC filmmaker Martin Scorsese is the subject of a new exhibition opening December 11th at Astoria's Museum of the Moving Image. His wide-ranging body of work is as long as his half century career, boasting some 50+ films. Many of them are New York based, including classics like Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, After Hours, Goodfellas, The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York, and The Wolf of Wall Street.
Photo: Brigitte Lacombe
In addition to exploring Scorsese's films, the exhibit grants visitors unprecedented access to his personal storyboards (including one he made when he was 11 years old!), screenplays, photos, props, costumes, and letters written to him by Robert De Niro and directors including Frank Capra, Steven Spielberg, and Paul Schraeder.
An eleven-year old Martin Scorsese drew this storyboard for a film he called Eternal City, a Marsco Production. Photo: Marian Stefanowski, courtesy of Deutsche Kinemathek (Berlin)
The Martin Scorsese exhibit is organized by titles that keep with the themes that current through all of Scorsese’s work—Family, Brothers, Men and Women, Lonely Heroes, New York, Cinema, Cinematography, Editing, and Music.
Scorsese’s roots in NYC run deep. He was born in Corona, Queens, and moved at the age of eight to Little Italy. Often ill when he was young, his brother took him to the movies. He went to New York University, where he befriended fellow student Thelma Schoonmaker, who has edited all his films since Raging Bull (for which she won her first Oscar). His office is based in Manhattan. He made New York-based actor Robert De Niro (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino) a household name. You could say that in many of Scorsese's films, New York is its own character.
A young Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro on the set of Taxi Driver. Photo: Sikelia Productions
Also featured in the exhibit is material from Scorsese’s upcoming release, Silence, starring Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver as Christian missionaries during the 17th century that go to Japan in search of their mentor (Liam Neeson). The film will be released on December 23rd.
Scorsese’s love of cinema goes beyond his own filmmaking. When he saw firsthand the rapid deterioration of film stock in the late 1970s, he led an appeal to Kodak to create a more durable, quality film, garnering letters of support and praise from other directors, including Frank Capra, Steven Spielberg, and Sidney Lumet. In 1990, Scorsese teamed up with Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and Stanley Kubrick to establish The Film Foundation, aimed at preserving international film heritage.
Gangs of New York. The film will be shown on Dec. 16 as part of the MoMI's Martin Scorsese in the 21st Century film series. Photo: Sikelia Productions
During the run of the exhibition, the museum will present a retrospective of Scorsese’s films. From Dec. 16-30, it’s Martin Scorsese in the 21st Century, with screenings of Gangs of New York, Shutter Island, The Departed, The Aviator, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Hugo. There will be additional screenings in the new year, of movies restored by the Film Foundation under Scorsese’s supervision, and a selection of films that formed his lifelong love of cinema.
The 2006 film The Departed, for which Scorsese won an Oscar for Best Director. It will be shown on Dec. 17. Photo: Sikelia Productions
The Martin Scorsese exhibit is organized by Deutsche Kinemathek—Museum für Film und Fernsehen, Berlin, where it originated. It is curated here by David Schwartz, Museum of the Moving Image's Chief Curator of Film.
A must for cinephiles, Martin Scorsese will run at the Museum of the Moving Image through April 23, 2017. For more information and screening times, visit movingimage.us.