The Greatest Film Director Is Martin Scorsese

Ellen Su 

Introduction To Film

Department of Fashion Business: LIM College 

The Greatest Film Director

Professor A. Symons

29 April 2025

Abstract

This paper explains why Martin Scorsese is the greatest film director. It goes in-depth about Scorsese’s consistent “personality” in films, cinematography skills, editing, narrative, use of costumes and specialized sets, and incorporation of important themes. Scorsese is internationally acclaimed for his work. His flourishing career has spanned over five decades. His films are unique and showcase his immense talent in realistic storytelling and conveying the characters’ story to the audience. Specifically, this paper discusses how The Age of Innocence and Goodfellas are some of Scorsese’s best works. These two films carry out Scorsese’s consistent personality, editing, narrative writing, appropriate costumes, realistic sets, and delve into themes about social issues. 

The Greatest Film Director Is Martin Scorsese

World-renowned for realistic storytelling, unconventional editing, irregular continuity breaks, distinctive visual style, creatively expanding on themes, and captivating the audience, Martin Scorsese is the greatest film director. For over five decades, Scorsese’s bold combination of jump cuts, rapid cuts, flashbulb cuts, purposeful indiscreet continuity errors, and unique narrative telling differentiates Scorsese from other directors. Scorsese is a film director who can be recognized as an “auteur” for meeting the qualifications of authorial control of creative elements, distinctive visual style, and consistent personality. 

Martin Scorsese is a second-generation Italian American. He was born in 1942 in Flushing, Queens, to Sicilian Catholic parents (Barboza, 2020). Scorsese grew up in Little Italy, Manhattan, where he maintained ties to his Italian roots: culture, food, and traditions. He created his first fictional movie when he was eleven. His passion for drawing storyboards and writing imaginative stories led him to pursue higher education at New York University. Scorsese taught film at the university while continuing film projects. 

Scorsese emerged with his debut, Who’s That Knocking At My Door (1967), challenging traditional continuity editing known as the Classical Hollywood Editing style. His second film, Mean Streets, released in 1973, cemented his newfound position as an “auteur” director, a leader in Hollywood filmmaking and creative direction. “Scorsese has often recalled that his childhood neighborhood inspired his breakthrough 1973 film, Mean Streets” (Barboza, 2020). The legendary director came from humble beginnings in New York, the son of a seamstress mother and a garment presser father. “He used to sit on the fire escape or roof of his building and stare down at the crowded streets, where he would see a mix of working-class Americans of Italian descent, street kids and social club patrons, occasionally dressed up in bespoke suits with bold-colored patterns” (Barboza, 2020). 

The Age of Innocence (1993) was not a blockbuster hit at the box office, but it achieved international acclaim for Scorsese and a significant cultural impact. The Age of Innocence is considered a classic film and won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Barboza, 2020). Scorsese’s parents were wardrobe consultants on Goodfellas and The Age of Innocence. Style was the epitome of his films’ realistic nature. Historically accurate garments were seen in these films, contributing to the genuine perception of the gangsters in Goodfellas and the elegance in The Age of Innocence. “One of the first things Scorsese does when an actor arrives on set in a new costume is touch the garment. He inspects them from head to toe, like a tailor checks for size and fit” (Barboza, 2020) is a quote that refers to Scorsese’s demand for authenticity of costume design within his films. Scorsese controls each creative element of his film. 

His racial identity as a white American man means he likely did not face racism himself, but saw the difficulties that underprivileged people in his neighborhood experienced. His multicultural childhood influenced his cinematic work, specifically incorporating themes of immigrant experience, family, cultural identity, assimilation, and described criminal/mafia life. Scorsese’s portrayal of mafia life in his movies showcases his Italian influences. His careful depiction of complex criminal characters in his films Goodfellas and The Irishman demonstrates his desire to explore the darker aspects of human nature and the direct consequences of people’s actions. These realistic simulations of characters dive into the moral ambiguities they face and their troubling, violent environment. Scorsese does not label his characters as flat or one-dimensional; rather, he uplifts their positives and various multifacets.

Scorsese elaborately conveys the narrative to the audience, utilizing technical competency, consistent personality, and thought-provoking commentary on social issues and cultural significance. “Whether or not they are evil is something much harder to determine” is a quote that agrees with Scorsese’s portrayal of complex characters (Solomonides, 2021). Scorsese’s ability to tell the character’s story with emphasis on problematic actions benefits the intrigue of scenes. His understanding of human psychology helps him create three-dimensional characters who ensnare the audience with their charm and wit, while also disappointing the audience with their bad decisions to carry out evil. 

His production and narrative techniques create suspense in films, such as action-packed Goodfellas, The Irishman, The Age of Innocence, Mean Streets, and more. For example, Goodfellas shows a young man led “down the dark road of drug trafficking, leading to his arrest, and ratting out on his entire criminal organization” (Solomonides, 2021). Goodfellas has several jump cuts to show the unpredictable mob life, which creates narrative tension (Intelliminds, 2024). The nonlinear narrative resembles real life, chaotic and ever-changing. He particularly likes to employ build-up scenes that gain momentum before reaching the pinnacle of the plot. The unconventional narrative telling leaves viewers on the edge of their seats, waiting for the next scene. 

The Steadicam shot of Goodfella’s Henry and Karen entering Copacabana nightclub was a dynamic tracking shot (Intelliminds, 2024). Scorsese utilized long takes without cuts to visualize the intimate atmosphere. Precise camera angles, lighting, props, and time-appropriate costumes set the scene on each Scorsese movie. “Scorsese’s ambition is wider: he wants to make the past, both historic and cinematic, fully visible in the present, a country we can visit and marvel at” (Christie, 2022) describes Scorsese’s goals. A short synopsis of The Age of Innocence, “Archer falls in love with Ellen, but stifling social pressures prevent him from consummating their relationship and he is torn between his passion for the Countess and his life with May” (Christie, 2022) illustrates Scorsese’s intention of visualizing the novel into an accurate motion picture. Social pressures largely affected people’s romantic relationships in the 1800s and continue to do so in less obvious ways. Viewers timetravel when watching this film since the outfits are age-appropriate, the setting appears real, the lines sound like they’re from an earlier century, and the love story reflects timeless themes of loyalty, familial values, and honor. 

Scorsese is producing a new documentary for “communities around the world to highlight their identities, histories, and values,” including a recent interview with Pope Francis (Taylor, 2025). Scorsese is committed to telling people’s stories of their relationship with religion, God, and how they perceive life. He focuses on themes and social issues that affect everyone in the world. His films are inclusive by nature and range in topics. Viewers think about current situations and how life has changed, empathize with villains, and view heroes as imperfect humans. There are no simple characters or thoughtless shortcuts in Scorsese films. To finalize, Scorsese is widely acknowledged as the greatest film director. 

References 

Barboza, C. (2020, September 23). How Martin Scorsese helped define Italian American style. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/style/article/martin-scorsese-italianamerican

Solomonides, H. (2021, January 28). Scorsese’s “The Age of Innocence”: His most violent film? The Oxford Student. 

https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2021/01/28/scorseses-the-age-of-innocence-his-most-violent-film/

Intelliminds. (2024, August 14). What is Martin Scorsese’s approach to screenwriting? Greenlight Coverage. 

https://glcoverage.com/2024/08/14/martin-scorsese-screenwriting/#:~:text=Martin%20Scorsese%20often%20eschews%20conventional,multifaceted%20nature%20of%20human%20experiences.

Taylor, D. (2025, May 1). Martin Scorsese got one of Pope Francis’ last interviews. The New 

York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/movies/martin-scorsese-pope-francis-documentary.html

Christie, I. (2022, November 10). Martin Scorsese on The Age of Innocence. British Film 

Institute. https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/martin-scorsese-age-innocence