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A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies

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A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies

• Episode aired May 21, 1995

Martin Scorsese describes his initial and growing obsession with films from the 1940s and 50s as the art form developed and grew with clips from classics and cult classics. Martin Scorsese describes his initial and growing obsession with films from the 1940s and 50s as the art form developed and grew with clips from classics and cult classics. Martin Scorsese describes his initial and growing obsession with films from the 1940s and 50s as the art form developed and grew with clips from classics and cult classics.

• Martin Scorsese
• Michael Henry Wilson
• Allison Anders
• Kathryn Bigelow
• 18 User reviews
• 31 Critic reviews
• 1 nomination

• Self - Presenter

• Manny Davis, 'The Sweet Smell of Success'
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• (uncredited)

• Alonzo Smith, 'Meet Me in St. Louis'

• Zachary Evans, 'Silver Lode'

• Peripetchikoff, 'One, Two, Three'

• Tony Hunter, 'The Band Wagon'
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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia The machine gun spray that comes close to hitting James Cagney as he and Edward Woods turn the corner are real bullets fired by a real machine gun.

Martin Scorsese - Narrator : Actually when I was a little younger,there was another journey I wanted to make, It was a relgious one. I wanted to be a priest. However, I soon realized that my real vocation, my real calling, was the movies. I don't really see a conflit between the church and movies - the sacred and the profane. Obviously there are many differences, but I also could see great similarities bwtween a church and a movie house. Both are places for people to come together and share a common experience. and I believe there's spirituality in films even if it's not one which can supplant faith.

• Connections Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Lost in Space/The Spanish Prisoner/Mercury Rising/Kurt & Courtney/Character (1998)

User reviews 18

• MartinTeller
• Jan 12, 2012
• May 21, 1995 (United Kingdom)
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Official site
• Un viaje personal con Martin Scorsese a través del cine americano
• British Film Institute (BFI)
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

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• Runtime 3 hours 45 minutes
• Black and White

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A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies

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Brief Synopsis

Cast & crew, martin scorsese, kathryn bigelow, francis ford coppola, brian de palma, technical specs.

Leading American filmmaker Martin Scorsese's entry in the BFI's "The Century of Cinema" series is three-part, 235-minute odyssey. Showing the same mastery of the documentary form as he has of fictional narratives, he chronicles his self-discovery as a filmmaker, using as touchstones both Hollywood masterworks and unsung B-movies. At the same time, he examines the central conflict in American cinema: the director's need to reconcile his role as a team player with his own personal expression.

Michael Henry Wilson

Carl Franklin

Jodie Foster

Arthur Penn

John Cassavetes

Gregory Peck

Howard Hawks

George Lucas

Clint Eastwood

Andre Detoth

Orson Welles

Douglas Sirk

Samuel Fuller

Billy Wilder

Nicholas Ray

Brydon bertram baker iii, elmer bernstein, raoul a bruce, linda coffey, florence dauman, raffaele donato, jean yves escoffier, william flick, kenneth i levis, david lindbloom, colin mccabe, frances reid, thelma schoonmaker, nancy schreiber, sharon sprague, dale ann stieber, william g webb, a personal journey through american movies.

Miscellaneous Notes

Released in United States Fall November 23, 1996

Released in United States February 1996

Released in United States June 1998

Released in United States March 1996

Released in United States May 1995

Re-released in United States March 6, 1998

Shown at Cannes Film Festival (Special Screening) May 17-28, 1995.

Shown at Newport International Film Festival (Retrospective Program) June 2-7, 1998.

"The Century of Cinema" is a series of personal documentaries commissioned by the BFI to celebrate the centenary of film. For this series, some of the world's leading filmmakers were invited to provide individual interpretations of the history and development of cinema in their countries. The result is a fascinating look at highly disparate national cinemas and 100 years of film around the globe.

Began shooting July 1993.

Completed shooting August 1993.

The participating filmmakers include: George Miller (Australia), Stephen Frears & Mike Dibb (England), Shu Kei (China), Anne-Marie Mieville & Jean-Luc Godard (France), Edgar Reitz (Germany), Mrinal Sen (India), Donald Taylor Black (Ireland), Bernardo Bertolucci & Enrico Ghezze (Italy), Nagisa Oshima (Japan), Jan Sun Woo (Korea), Nelson Pereira dos Santos (Latin America), Sam Neill & Julie Rymer (New Zealand).

The participating filmmakers include: Mohamed Tazi (North Africa), Pavel Lozinski (Poland), Stig Bjorkman (Scandinavia), Jean Pierre Bekolo (Sub-Saharan Africa), Sergei Selyanov (USSR/CIS), and others.

Released in United States February 1996 (Shown in New York City (MOMA) as part of series "The Century of Cinema" February 23-24, 1996.)

Released in United States March 1996 (Shown in New York City (American Museum of the Moving Image) March 9-10, 1996.)

Re-released in United States March 6, 1998 (Gotham Cinema; New York City)

Released in United States May 1995 (Shown at Cannes Film Festival (Special Screening) May 17-28, 1995.)

Released in United States June 1998 (Shown at Newport International Film Festival (Retrospective Program) June 2-7, 1998.)

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Fancy watching ' A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies ' on your TV, phone, or tablet? Discovering a streaming service to buy, rent, download, or view the Martin Scorsese-directed movie via subscription can be a huge pain, so we here at Moviefone want to take the pressure off. Read on for a listing of streaming and cable services - including rental, purchase, and subscription choices - along with the availability of 'A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies' on each platform when they are available. Now, before we get into the various whats and wheres of how you can watch 'A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies' right now, here are some finer points about the BFI Miramax documentary flick. Released March 6th, 1998, 'A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies' stars Martin Scorsese , Brian De Palma , Francis Ford Coppola , George Lucas The movie has a runtime of about 3 hr 45 min, and received a user score of 79 (out of 100) on TMDb, which assembled reviews from 120 experienced users. You probably already know what the movie's about, but just in case... Here's the plot: "Martin Scorsese celebrates American movies from the silent classics to the Hollywood of the seventies" 'A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies' is currently available to rent, purchase, or stream via subscription on Kanopy .

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A PERSONAL JOURNEY WITH MARTIN SCORSESE THROUGH AMERICAN MOVIES

Martin Scorsese explores the history of American cinema by focusing on the work of a number of highly influential filmmakers. In addition to examining pioneering productions by D.W. Griffith and F.W. Murnau, he looks at a variety of key directors, while featuring interviews with cinema luminaries.

Like having an intimate conversation with your favorite director about the movies, this acclaimed documentary offers a whirlwind tour through American film history. With his hallmark rapid-fire chat, Scorsese’s cinematic love letter is an inspiration (and a guiding light) for cinephiles everywhere.

Watch A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies

• 3 hr 45 min
• 8.6   (4,321)

A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies is a 1995 documentary that explores the history of American cinema. Directed by Martin Scorsese, the film features interviews with acclaimed filmmakers including Allison Anders, Kathryn Bigelow, and Francis Ford Coppola, as well as a range of film clips and still images.

The documentary is divided into three parts, each of which focuses on a particular period of American cinema. The first part covers the silent era, from the earliest films of D.W. Griffith to the work of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. In this section, Scorsese takes a deep dive into the pioneering techniques and storytelling devices that set the foundation for modern cinema.

The second part of the film covers the era of the studio system, from the 1930s through the 1950s. Here, Scorsese explores the ways in which Hollywood's powerful production companies exerted control over films and filmmaking, and how directors like Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Orson Welles pushed back against those constraints to create some of the most iconic movies of all time.

Finally, the third part of the film focuses on the New Hollywood era of the 1960s and 1970s, when filmmakers like Scorsese himself, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg ushered in a new wave of independent cinema. Here, Scorsese examines the ways in which these filmmakers challenged traditional notions of narrative structure and cinematography, and how they used their work to expose social and political truths.

Throughout the documentary, Scorsese speaks directly to the camera, offering his own insights and reflections on the films and filmmakers he discusses. He also weaves in personal anecdotes, discussing how certain films affected him growing up and how they influenced his own work as a director.

In addition to Scorsese's commentary, A Personal Journey features interviews with a range of filmmakers, critics, and historians. These figures offer additional context and interpretation for the films discussed in the documentary, offering a rich and multifaceted understanding of American cinema's evolution.

Overall, A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies is a masterclass in film history and appreciation. Whether you're a seasoned cinephile or just starting to explore the world of American cinema, this documentary offers a wealth of insight and inspiration.

A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies is a 1995 documentary with a runtime of 3 hours and 45 minutes. It has received mostly positive reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 8.6.

• Genres Documentary
• Cast Martin Scorsese Allison Anders Kathryn Bigelow Francis Ford Coppola
• Director Martin Scorsese Michael Henry Wilson
• Release Date 1995
• Runtime 3 hr 45 min
• Language English
• IMDB Rating 8.6   (4,321)

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A personal journey with martin scorsese through american movies.

Martin Scorsese’s contribution to the Century of Cinema series is a fascinating reflection on some of the landmarks of American cinema.

Martin Scorsese’s contribution to the Century of Cinema series is a fascinating exploration of some of the landmarks of American cinema, as well as some of its lesser known byways. Under chapter headings such as The Director’s Dilemma or The Director as Iconoclast, Scorsese analyses the work of filmmakers as diverse as DW Griffith, FW Murnau, Sam Fuller and John Cassavetes. This is no academic history, but a declaration of passion for cinema from one of its most celebrated contemporary practitioners.

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A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies

Steve Daly is a senior writer at EW, and also author of EW.com's Money Shot column

No critic would put the 1946 clunker Duel in the Sun , producer David O. Selznick’s attempt to top his Southern epic Gone With the Wind with a Western love story, on a list of all-time great films. But Martin Scorsese would. As he recounts in A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies , a three-tape centennial-of-the-medium tribute commissioned by the British Film Institute in 1994 and now released as one of the year’s most appealing video collectibles (with an identically titled tie-in transcript book also available), Scorsese was 4 when he saw Duel in its initial run and felt director King Vidor’s violent, colorful imagery hot-wiring itself directly into his precocious psyche.

”It was all quite overpowering,” he narrates as clips unfold, clearly speaking for himself even though film historian Michael Henry Wilson cowrote and codirected this nearly four-hour survey. ”Frightening, too… How could the heroine fall for the villain?” The plot concerns an evil rancher’s son (Gregory Peck) who forces himself sexually on a half-Indian servant (Jennifer Jones). She’s finally driven to murder him. As Scorsese describes it, ”The two protagonists could only consummate their passion by killing each other.”

Scorsese is so abashed at recounting that his mother took him to this orgy of violence and lust, despite the film’s public condemnation by the Catholic Church — ”I guess she used me as an excuse to see it herself,” he shrugs, speaking into the camera — that the segment takes on the tone of a confession. It shows that the whole parade of Scorsese’s adult preoccupations — shame, desire, betrayal, the awful power of unbridled aggression — were seared into him before he ever picked up this Journey progresses through well-orchestrated snippets from 91 other baroquely intense movies, juggled by Scorsese’s longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker, you often think, this one or that one could be a Scorsese picture.

And that’s the great glory of this eclectic walking tour: It’s at once a highly original history of other directors and a primer on the roots of Scorsese’s own movies (which he occasionally mentions, though no footage from them is shown). Even if you think nothing could entice you to the Classics shelf of your video store, Scorsese endows the prospect with the allure of a dream harem — a thousand and one nights at the movies wouldn’t be enough for him. He first tackles genres: the Western, the crime film, the musical. He draws some astonishing parallels, as when he postulates that the megalomaniacal producer characters in all those Depression-era musicals were mirror images of the thugs in gangster pictures, identical expressions of the same economic imperative to ”make it” or die. As you savor the juxtaposition, you realize that the hyped-up rhythms of Scorsese’s great Mob-life opuses owe as much to Busby Berkeley numbers as they do to James Cagney tough guys.

Scorsese then builds masterfully to a meditation on two main ways that great auteurs have injected personal meaning into their work. The first group ”smuggled” their most passionate beliefs into pulpy B pictures (like such Jacques Tourneur horror films as Cat People ) and soapy, star-driven melodramas (like Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows ). Then there are ”the iconoclasts,” who ignored economic and thematic conventions, and whose careers were often hobbled as a result. We see the early glories — and eventual ruinous ends — of D.W. Griffith ( Broken Blossoms ), Erich von Stroheim ( The Wedding March ), and Orson Welles, whose The Magnificent Ambersons , the follow-up to Citizen Kane , was dismembered by the RKO studio — along with his reputation.

As a director whose films have never been at the top of the box office heap, Scorsese reveals a palpable wistfulness in his evaluation of these hard-headed visionaries. At a point where he’s alternating reasonably commercial movies like Casino with rarefied work like Kundun (”one for them, one for you,” as he puts it) he appears to need reassurance that he’s found a meaningful balance. In that sense, this diary-style history is an elaborate exercise in self-help.

Whether or not Scorsese has found lasting rules by which to live out the final decades of his own career, in the pondering he’s given the rest of us a rare gift. This is the most cogent, entertaining, and genuinely inspiring film-theory course you’re likely to find — and it doesn’t matter if old, obscure American movies aren’t of particular interest to you. The real subject here is the human cost of having a consuming interest in your craft. A

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A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies Hardcover – January 1, 1997

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• Print length 191 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Hyperion Books
• Publication date January 1, 1997
• Dimensions 8.25 x 1 x 10.25 inches
• ISBN-10 0786863285
• ISBN-13 978-0786863280
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hyperion Books; First Edition (January 1, 1997)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 191 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0786863285
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0786863280
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.25 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.25 x 1 x 10.25 inches
• #72 in Video Direction & Production (Books)
• #112 in Movie Direction & Production
• #658 in Performing Arts (Books)

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Martin Scorsese describes his initial and growing obsession with films from the 1940s and 50s as the art form developed and grew with clips from classics and cult classics.

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