A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (Hardcover)

~ Martin Scorsese (Author), Michael Henry Wilson (Author), British Film Institute. African & Caribbean Unit (Corporate Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

An academically trained filmmaker (NYU film school) who is among today's most innovative directors, Scorsese presents an engrossing, idiosyncratic memoir of his experiences with motion pictures, including recollections of his first boyhood journeys to movie theaters and the impressions the films made on him. In analyzing American film since the silent era, he especially highlights Westerns, musicals, and gangster movies, genres that originated in America. As a freewheeling director who has shunned Hollywood, Scorsese is intrigued by maverick directors like Erich von Stroheim, who brought about their own downfall by bucking the system, as well as by the more effective iconoclasts who were able to produce great films while playing by the studios' rules. Though this volume is essentially the script of the successful 1995 TV series of the same name commissioned by the British Film Institute and later rebroadcast on PBS, and while the cinematic illustrations portrayed on the screen are obviously lost in book format, there is much here for the serious film student to consider. Recommended for academic libraries and cinema collections.?Richard Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

An engaging and lavishly illustrated look at American film, from the master director. Based on the scripts of two documentaries on American film by Scorsese and writer/director Wilson, this is less a history than a catalogue raisonn‚ of the films that have shaped Scorsese's own works. He is a notoriously devoted film buff, and his knowledge of cinema is both encyclopedic and deeply, even humbly, practical: ``The more pictures I make, the more I realize that I really don't know. I'm always looking for something or someone that I can learn from.'' One of the rewards of this book is the number of filmmakers, such as Boetticher and Ulmer, and films, such as Silver Lode, that Scorsese retrieves from obscurity--the filmography at the end is not to be missed. As a director, he is understandably a strong proponent of the auteur theory and its emphasis on films as personal expressions. In fact, this book is organized around various modes and manners of directing, from the ``Director as Storyteller'' to the ``Director as Smuggler'' to the ``Director as Illusionist.'' Scorsese and Wilson's discussion of the difference between directors who worked subversively within the system (smugglers such as Fritz Lang) and those who worked against the system (iconoclasts such as Orson Welles) is particularly revealing, as is their analysis of the three uniquely American genres: musicals, Westerns, and gangster films. However, in line with this work's coffee table aspirations, Scorsese and Wilson often tend to favor ``let's go to the highlights'' film appreciation over rigorous film criticism. This book also suffers from its screenplay origins--it doesn't read nearly as well as it plays--but it is a worthy albeit idiosyncratic window on American film and its shaping influence on a major director. (Book-of-the-Month Club selection) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 191 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion Books; 1st edition (December 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786863285
• ISBN-13: 978-0786863280
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 8.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,156,938 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommed book to supplement the programme, August 14, 1998

By A Customer

This book is more of a transcript of the 4½ hour long master piece of the documentary, but it's curtainly worth the money. Here you have all the still pictures from the hundreds of film Scorsese comments in his programme. A book for every filmbuffs bookself.

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Marty's Gem, December 31, 2007

By	Nikica Gilic (Zagreb, Croatia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Personal Journey Through American Movies (Paperback)

Great book;
discussing why American cinema is among the greatest in the world, co-written by one of the greatest living American directors.
Scorsese knows his history, understands his country and loves his art, he is a keen observer and amusing spirit.
Recommended to beginners in classical cinema and to American directors and students of cinema... Yes, I forgive Marty his association with Di Caprio - he has done enough already so he can chase the Oscars as much as he wants...

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful companion to the DVD., December 28, 2002

By A Customer

This extraordinary book on the last hundred years American cinema is an exceptionally well written, edited and researched document of the film, without any of the usual scholarly classroom didactics or conceited Hollywood self-congratulatory posturing. Scorsese's humble voice is evident throughout, and it is one of self-confidence, clarity and enthusiasm. The book is a wonderful companion to the DVD.