Scorsese on Scorsese (1989)
The director's own account, film by film, assembled from interviews. Intention straight from the source — with the usual caveats.
- book
- interview
- scorsese
Scorsese on Scorsese, edited by David Thompson and Ian Christie (Faber & Faber, 1989; revised editions since). Scorsese narrating his own filmography, from the Little Italy shorts onward, in the Faber "directors on themselves" series. Publisher page ↗
Good for
Intention and film-memory: what he thought he was quoting, what the studio fought him on, how Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) fit between Mean Streets and Taxi Driver. Feeds Martin Scorsese, Alice — the prologue and the Personal context note — no filmmaker documents his own influences more willingly.
Handle with care
Like Truffaut, it's a self-portrait: interviews compiled with the subject's cooperation, decades of retelling smoothing the anecdotes. Cross-check production claims against Biskind and Burstyn.