Martin Scorsese, left (Photo: David Shankbone / EVula / CC BY-SA 3.0) and Robert De Niro, right (Photo: Harald Krichel / CC BY-SA 4.0)
During the past half century, director Martin Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro have crafted searing and epic explorations of the dark side of American society and human nature. Corruption and organized (and disorganized) crime frequently factor into the Scorsese–De Niro narratives, which have evolved from the low-budget Little Italy indie drama Mean Streets into the large-scale historical thriller Killers of the Flower Moon, 50 years later.
In each of his ten Scorsese films, De Niro brilliantly applied his Method acting training to electrify audiences with a deceptive, calculating detachment. There is the mentally unstable Johnny Boy in Mean Streets; pathological Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver; arrogant jazz artist Jimmy Doyle in New York, New York; self-destructive boxer Jake Lamotta in Raging Bull; and delusional wannabe stand-up comic Rupert Pupkin in the misunderstood social satire The King of Comedy. And despite De Niro not having been the central focal point of Scorsese’s masterwork GoodFellas, the actor nonetheless dominated the proceedings as truck-hijacking thug Jimmy Conway.
These Scorsese–De Niro films are legendary and influential in their uses of striking camera choreography, precision editing, explosive musical soundtracks, unglamorized mental or physical violence, and gritty dark humor. While filmmakers throughout the world have attempted to replicate Scorsese’s directorial techniques, most have failed to capture (or even comprehend) the psychology and historical awareness behind his stylistic and narrative ironies. A former NYU film student and film instructor, Scorsese was just as inspired by the lyrical work of international directors such as Michael Powell, Satyajit Ray, Robert Bresson, and Kenji Mizoguchi as he was by the two-fisted Hollywood adventures of John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Samuel Fuller.
Join historian Max Alvarez as he offers an impactful multimedia tribute to a director–actor team unsurpassed in Hollywood history.
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