Story vs Plot

Jon Favreau interviewing Martin Scorsese for the third season of Dinner for Five - in this excerpt Jon asks him about story versus plot in filmmaking.


First posted: 10 August 2014

The Art of Silence - Martin Scorsese

Even though Martin Scorsese is famous for his use of music, one of his best traits is his deliberate and powerful use of silence. Take a glimpse at fifty years of this simple technique from one of cinema's masters. “The Art of Silence” also examines the depreciation of quietude in Hollywood blockbusters, from 1978′s Superman to 2013′s Man of Steel, alongside Spielberg’s inventive deployment in Saving Private Ryan.


First posted: 3 July 2014

The Making of "Goodfellas"

Here are the people who wrote and made Goodfellas telling you how they did it—Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese, Irwin Winkler, Paul Sorvino, Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco, Robert De Niro, Henry Hill, Thelma Schoonmaker, Joe Pesci, Michael Ballhaus, Frank Vincent, Barbara DeFina. This is not to be missed by anyone interested in screenwriting or filmmaking.


First posted: 23 May 2014

The Early Years of American Zoetrope

I first came across A Legacy of Filmmakers: The Early Years of American Zoetrope (2004) as a Special Feature on the 2-Disc edition DVD for THX 1138.

The winner of numerous awards, this one-hour documentary focuses on the creation of Francis Ford Coppola’s landmark San Francisco film company, American Zoetrope. The story is set against the changing landscape of American cinema in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The documentary—which is narrated by Richard Dreyfuss and features interviews with Coppola, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and many others—is now part of the curriculum at several prominent film schools. Everyone interested in cinema should watch this documentary; it has particular lessons for the time in which we are living.

First posted: 12 October 2013

Martin Scorsese on Framing

"Sometimes when it all comes together ... you become the film you’re making." - Martin Scorsese in 1990, as told to T.J. English.

In this episode we have a previously unheard conversation with Martin Scorsese on how he's framed his movies and his life. The early foray into making a movie as a kid, toying with becoming a priest, and where his parents fit into all this.

Conclusion - Martin Scorsese - A Personal Journey Through American Movies

This is Part 14 of Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey Through American Movies.

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
America America (1963) - Elia Kazan

Iconoclast - Martin Scorsese - A Personal Journey Through American Movies

This is Part 11 of Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey Through American Movies.

NOTE: There are three videos (below) to this episode.

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
Broken Blossoms (1919) - D.W. Griffith
The Wedding March (1927) - Erich von Stroheim
Hell's Highway (1932) - Rowland Brown
Wild Boys of the Road (1933) - William Wellman
The Scarlet Empress (1934) - Josef von Sternberg
Citizen Kane (1941) - Orson Welles
The Magnificant Ambersons (1942) - Orson Welles
The Great Dictator (1940) - Charles Chaplin

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) - Elia Kazan
On the Waterfront (1954) - Elia Kazan - EDITED due to copyright, Scorsese commentary remains.

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) - Otto Preminger
Sweet Smell of Success (1957) - Alexander Mackendrick
One, Two, Three (1961) - Billy Wilder
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) - Arthur Penn
Lolita (1962) - Stanley Kubrick
Barry Lyndon (1975) - Stanley Kubrick
Faces (1968) - John Cassavetes

Smuggler - Martin Scorsese - A Personal Journey Through American Movies

This is Part 9 of Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey Through American Movies.

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
Cat People (1942) - Jacques Tourneur
I Walked with a Zombie (1943) - Jacques Tourneur
Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) - Max Ophuls
Scarlet Street (1945) - Fritz Lang
Detour (1945) - Edgar G. Ulmer
Double Indemnity (1944) - Billy Wilder
Crime Wave (1954) - Andre De Toth
Outrage (1950) - Ida Lupino
Gun Crazy (1950) - Joseph H. Lewis
T-Men (1947) - Anthony Mann
Raw Deal (1948) - Anthony Mann
Kiss Me Deadly (1955) - Robert Aldrich

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
Silver Lode (1954) - Allan Dwan
All that Heaven Allows (1956) - Douglas Sirk
Bigger Than Life (1956) - Nicholas Ray - REMOVED due to copyright
Forty Guns (1957) - Samuel Fuller - REMOVED due to copyright
Pick up on South Street (1953) - Samuel Fuller - REMOVED due to copyright
Shock Corridor (1963) - Samuel Fuller
Two Weeks in Another Town (1963) - Vincente Minnelli

Illusionist - Martin Scorsese - A Personal Journey Through American Movies

This is Part 7 of Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey Through American Movies.

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
The Cameraman (1928) - Buster Keaton
The Birth of a Nation (1915) - D.W. Griffith
Death's Marathon (1913) - D.W. Griffith
Cabiria (1914) - Giovanni Pastrone
Intolerance (1916) - D.W. Griffith
The Ten Commandments (1923) - Cecil B. DeMille
Samson and Delilah (1949) - Cecil B. DeMille
The Ten Commandments (1956) - Cecil B. DeMille
Sunrise (1927) - F.W. Murnau
Seventh Heaven (1927) - Frank Borzage
Anna Christie (1930) - Clarence Brown
Her Man (1930) - Tony Garnett
The Big House (1930) - George Hill
Scarface (1932) - Howard Hawks
The Public Enemy (1931) - William Wellman
Leave Her to Heaven (1945) - John Stahl

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
Johnny Guitar (1954) - Nicholas Ray
The Robe (1953) - Henry Koster - First movie in Widescreen
East of Eden (1955) - Elia Kazan
Some Came Running (1958) - Vincente Minnelli
Land of the Pharaohs (1955) - Howard Hawks
The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) - Anthony Mann
Young Indian Jones Chronicles (1993) - George Lucas, Producer
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Stanley Kubric - Birth of Special Effects
Cat People (1942) - Jacques Tourneur

Musical - Martin Scorsese - A Personal Journey Through American Movies

This is Part 6 of Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey Through American Movies.

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935) - Busby Berkeley
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) - Mervyn LeRoy
42nd Street (1933) - Lloyd Bacon
Footlight Parade (1933) - Lloyd Bacon - Starring James Cagney
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) - Vincente Minnelli
My Dream is Yours (1949) - Michael Curtiz - Inspired Scorcese's New York, New York (1977)
The Bandwagon (1953) - Vincente Minnelli
A Star is Born (1954) - George Cukor
All that Jazz (1979) - Bob Fosse

Gangster Film - Martin Scorsese - A Personal Journey Through American Movies

This is Part 5 of Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey Through American Movies.

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
The Public Enemy (1931) - William Wellman
The Regeneration (1915) - Raoul Walsh
Scarface (1932) - Howard Hawks
The Roaring Twenties (1939) - Raoul Walsh - Inspired Scorsese's Short Film It's It's Not Just You, Murray! (1964)
I Walk Alone (1948) - Byron Haskin
Force of Evil (1948) - Abraham Polonsky
Production Photographs from The Godfather (1972) - Francis Ford Coppola
Point Blank (1967) - John Boorman

Western - Martin Scorsese - A Personal Journey Through American Movies

This is Part 4 of Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey Through American Movies.

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
Stagecoach (1939) - John Ford
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) - John Ford
The Searchers (1956) - John Ford
The Furies (1950) - Anthony Mann
The Naked Spur (1953) - Anthony Mann
The Tall T (1957) - Budd Boetticher
The Left-Handed Gun (1958) - Arthur Penn
Unforgiven (1992) - Clint Eastwood
Directed by John Ford (1971) - Peter Bogdanovich

Storyteller - Martin Scorsese - A Personal Journey Through American Movies

This is Part 3 of Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey Through American Movies.

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
The Great Train Robbery (1903) - Edward S. Porter
The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) - D.W. Griffith
High Sierra (1941) - Raoul Walsh
Colorado Territory (1949) - Raoul Walsh - Western remake of High Sierra.

Intro - Martin Scorsese - A Personal Journey Through American Movies

Using clips from more than 300 of the greatest movies ever made, this series explores film history and American culture through the eyes of over 150 Hollywood insiders, including Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, Sydney Pollack, Jim Jarmusch, Julie Dash, the Coen brothers, Steven Spielberg, John Milius, Jane Russell, Errol Morris, Walter Murch, Nora Ephron, and Quentin Tarantino.

This series is a survey of the American film industry as an art form, as an industry, and as a system of representation and communication. It explores how Hollywood films work technically, aesthetically, and culturally to reinforce and challenge America’s national self-image.

Produced by the New York Center for Visual History in association with KCET/Los Angeles and the BBC, 1995.

Movie clips included in this video are as follows:
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) - Vincente Minnelli
Duel in the Sun (1946) - King Vidor
The Naked Kiss (1964) - Samuel Fuller
Murder By Contract (1958) - Irving Lerner
The Red House (1947) - Delmer Daves
The Phenix City Story (1955) - Phil Karlson
Sullivan's Travels (1945) - Preston Sturges

Martin Scorsese on 'The Last Waltz'

Martin Scorsese discusses the experimental nature of the film, The Last Waltz. It functioned as a musical tapestry by presenting The Band's music alongside the various strains of American music — from Mississippi Delta blues to the early pop of the Brill Building — that had influenced them.
   While capturing those legendary performances was one thing, compiling all of them into the film was the true challenge.

Editing is the filmmaking itself, and so I've always been involved in the editing from the very, very beginning. It had to be just felt. Sometimes you couldn't really express it in words. It just felt more comfortable or it felt like it flowed better visually, or moved in tone. And it's something I can't define, but it's nerve-wracking and its anxiety-producing—but it's what we like to do.

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Women in the Works of Martin Scorsese

Here's another video essay from Press Play. You can read the more detailed written version, by Nelson Carajal and Max Winter, here.

Story vs Plot

Jon Favreau interviewing Martin Scorsese for the third season of Dinner for Five - in this excerpt Jon asks him about story versus plot in filmmaking.

The Art of Silence - Martin Scorsese

Even though Martin Scorsese is famous for his use of music, one of his best traits is his deliberate and powerful use of silence. Take a glimpse at fifty years of this simple technique from one of cinema's masters. “The Art of Silence” also examines the depreciation of quietude in Hollywood blockbusters, from 1978′s Superman to 2013′s Man of Steel, alongside Spielberg’s inventive deployment in Saving Private Ryan.

The Making of "Goodfellas"

Here are the people who wrote and made Goodfellas telling you how they did it—Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese, Irwin Winkler, Paul Sorvino, Ray Liotta, Lorraine Bracco, Robert De Niro, Henry Hill, Thelma Schoonmaker, Joe Pesci, Michael Ballhaus, Frank Vincent, Barbara DeFina. This is not to be missed by anyone interested in screenwriting or filmmaking.

Film Noir - PBS American Cinema

PBS takes a look at Film Noir, how it came about, what defines the style, where it went after the 1950s. Enjoy.