Martin Scorsese

cinephile, movie director...biography: After serious deliberations about entering the priesthood, I entered a seminary in 1956 - I opted to channel my passions into film. I graduated from NYU as a film major in 1964. i co-edited Woodstock (1970), and directed the gritty exploiter Boxcar Bertha (1972) for producer Roger Corman after he saw my student films of the 60's. Mean Streets followed in 1973 and provided the benchmarks for my style: New York settings, loners struggling with inner demons, rock-meets-opera soundtracks and unrelenting cathartic violence. "Mean Streets" also featured Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel, two actors who would help shape my style. We were reunited for Taxi Driver in 1976. The film achieved notoriety five years after its release when the film inspired John Hinckley's assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981. After New York, New York (1977) (which one critic described as a wife-abuse musical) and The Last Waltz (1978), I released Raging Bull (1980). The biography of middleweight fighter Jake LaMotta earned two Oscars, Best Actor - De Niro, and Best Editing - Thelma Schoonmaker. It was later selected as the best film of the decade by U.S. critic gods Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. I then explored fans as pariah ( The King of Comedy (1983)), dark-comic dreams ( After Hours (1985)), and revisited pool shark Eddie Felson from The Hustler (1961) ( The Color of Money (1986) with Paul Newman). I outraged some religious groups by portraying a human son of God in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) before making Goodfellas (1990). I followed with two films which were remakes, Cape Fear (1991) and The Age of Innocence (1993). Besides directing and co-writing, I have has also acted. I played the gunman at the finale of Mean Streets (1973) and the cab passenger planning to kill his wife in Taxi Driver (1976). I was in Quiz Show (1994), and played Van Gogh in Akira Kurowsowa's Dreams. i was also in two episodes of Curb your Enthusiasm, playing myself.