A short film is even tougher in a way because it has to be a film. It has to be not something that is a prologue to a bigger work, it has to be contained in of itself, we all pulled together and we came up with these ideas ... and we shot five days straight. We also tried to make it a heightened ..., not biographical but reality-based with humor about ourselves.

Martin Scorsese

Categorized in : Entertainment

I think all the great studio filmmakers are dead or no longer working. I don't put myself, my friends, and other contemporary filmmakers in their category. I just see us doing some work.

Martin Scorsese

categories filmmaker thinking

I think what happened there was just the budget would be too big to build these sets because nothing really exists here in New York of that period; you have to build it all.

Martin Scorsese

new-york would-be thinking

Alcohol decimated the working class and so many people.

Martin Scorsese

alcohol class people

My father had this mythological sense of the old New York, and he used to tell me stories about these old gangs, particularly the Forty Thieves in the Fourth Ward.

Martin Scorsese

thieves new-york father

The only thing I really wanted was the freedom to be able to get what I want on film. I’ve dealt with the MPAA since 1973, so I know how to renegotiate and rework.

Martin Scorsese

film able want

I always wanted to make a film that had this sort of Chinese-box effect, in which you keep opening it up and opening it up, and finally at the end you're at the beginning.

Martin Scorsese

chinese film ends

Being independent... is being innovative out of inspiration as well as necessity.

Martin Scorsese

innovative independent inspiration

Because of the movies I make, people get nervous. They think of me as difficult and angry. I am difficult and angry, but they don't expect a sense of humor. And the only thing that gets me through is a sense of humor.

Martin Scorsese

sense-of-humor people thinking

If you don’t like the films of Samuel Fuller , then you just don’t like cinema.

Martin Scorsese

cinema film ifs

Being a father at a later age is different from when I had my other two daughters when I was in my 20s and 30s. If you're in your 60s and you're with the kid every day, you're dealing with the mind of a child, so it opens up that childishness in you again.

Martin Scorsese

daughter mother children

Well, I think in my own work the subject matter usually deals with characters I know, aspects of myself, friends of mine - that sort of thing.

Martin Scorsese

matter character thinking

An interviewer once asked me to discuss my collaboration with Elmer Bernstein, and precisely why I chose to work with him. My first thought was: How could I not work with Elmer, when I had the chance? Simply put, he's the best there is-the very best.

Martin Scorsese

collaboration chance firsts

Eradicating a religion of kindness is, I think, a terrible thing for the Chinese to attempt.

Martin Scorsese

compassion kindness thinking

As a child I had terrible asthma.

Martin Scorsese

asthma terrible children

The bottom line is, I tend to be going back to older and older music.

Martin Scorsese

bottom-line bottom lines

My working-class Italian-American parents didn't go to school, there were no books in the house.

Martin Scorsese

italian book school

More personal films, you could make them, but your budgets would be cut down.

Martin Scorsese

film cutting would-be

I also saw the Dalai Lama a few times.

Martin Scorsese

dalai lama saws

Well the thing is that the New York of 1846 to 1862 was very different from downtown New York now. Really nothing from that period still exists in New York.

Martin Scorsese

downtown different new-york

I think there's only one or two films where I've had all the financial support I needed. All the rest, I wish I'd had the money to shoot another ten days.

Martin Scorsese

support two thinking