To understand Scorsese's vision in films, it is necessary to talk about his early life.

Without identifying the young Martin, it would be impossible to appreciate the countless symbolic and technical elements ever-present in his film work. This essay will attempt to show that Martin Scorsese had two major influences in his early life that set the course for his filmmaking ingrained in his psyche and forever imprinted in his creative cells: the grey, concrete, intolerant streets of Little Italy and the black and white concrete doctrine of the intolerant Catholic faith. Two worlds, pictured so vastly different in our minds, how is it possible to link the cruel street life with the sanctuary of the church? Actually, they are not so different. The streets of Little Italy were governed by "wise guys" who handed out their own form of justice and demanded loyalty. The Church was governed by wise men who handed out wafers and commanded loyalty. Both worlds would provide Scorsese with his settings for inner conflict, accompanied by his signature color, red the blood from the streets, the blood of Christ, and the red fires of hell. To imagine young Martin attempting to find solace away from and off those mean streets by going gung-ho into religion is ironic. What he found, probably, was that it would have been easier to have had his nose broken by some punk, a wound that would have eventually healed, instead of having his spirit and mind twisted for years and years, leaving the deeper wound of guilt. For a boy with asthma, frail and small, life in the streets playing stickball or stoopball, or anything with a ball was impossible. To entertain Martin, his parents took him to the movies, a hobby that quickly turned into an obsession. Watching movies and creating his own clumsy storyboards was a private sport. For community, and to be part of a club, Martin found the church, and the less strenuous activities they offered. He admits that he needed to be accepted somewhere and that he couldn't do it in the streets, so his acceptance was in the church. If we look at film and church as mediums, they are really quite similar. As Martin loved the biblical epics, the church, with its pageantry and operatic ceremonies, must have appealed to him, because he refers to it as theatrical. In the heart of Little Italy, Martin had a high-angle view from his window on Elizabeth Street of life on the streets. It would prove to be a prophetic POV in his directing style. The window frame would later become a film frame for the passionate Scorsese. In Scorsese on Scorsese, he describes his childhood: Italian-American communities lived in a series of about ten blocks . . . Little Italy was very sharply defined . . . we didn't care about the Government, or politicians or the police . . . we felt we were right in our ways . . . (3) Together with his unobstructed panorama of those mean streets, and his long relationship with religion, Scorsese's character was shaped. It infused in him just the right amount of guilt to develop stories about the struggle between good and evil and that dangerous place in between not bad enough for hell, not good enough for heaven.

His early Catholic school education cemented his dread of the loss of heaven and the pains of hell. The nuns would describe in detail visions of damnation to hell. As Scorsese often describes the experience, "They'd . . . lead us to the catacombs under the church . . . we'd pray the Rosary . . . echoing among the graves . . . " He admits that those images never left him. "The camera movement in a lot of my films . . . comes from creeping around those catacombs." The teen-aged Scorsese was expelled from a seminary for some of the reasons that would define his work: guilt, disillusionment, temptation, and an earful of pop music. Still hoping for a career in the priesthood, Scorsese applied to but was rejected by Fordham University. Instead he attended New York University. There he met the people who would become his friends, colleagues, and collaborators: Brian DePalma, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Robert DeNiro, and the brilliant film editor Thelma Schoonmaker. It was no accident that fate (and low grades) brought Scorsese to NYU, and all of a sudden, it became clear that his early journey took him to his destiny. He "realized," says critic Les Keyser, "that his Italian heritage, his Catholic faith, his rock-and-roll music, his inner turmoil could all be synthesized on screen . . . cinema can make him whole." Plaited into his editing style of directing, Scorsese found his signature color, red. While Woody Allen sees New York as black and white postcards, Scorsese sees the city as a beautiful lady in a red dress (who steps in a puddle on the way to the party). His red splashes and backgrounds bring the town to an almost bloody vividness. Yes, there are puddles and potholes, and Scorsese hides none of them. Allen's New York is all Porter and Gershwin. Scorsese's is rock and roll, and blues in the night. His New York is down and dirty pure grit. Roger Ebert observed a "Scorsese . . . whose movies teemed with life . . . whose camera used to prowl restlessly." The first time Scorsese looked at the script for Taxi Driver, he claims, "I was burning inside my skin . . . felt I had to make it" (Dougan, 45). Scorsese identified with the loner, Travis Bickle, an avenging angel. Scorsese admits that he knew this guy . . . the feeling of rejection, the killing feeling, of being really angry. This is how Scorsese confronts his demons. He is attracted to characters who are isolated, damaged, and in many cases, have the need to save others: Travis saves Iris from the pimp; Charlie tries to save Johnny Boy; Archer wants to rescue Ellen from scandal. In all of them, there is a Christ-like quality. Travis in Taxi Driver is the purest example of Scorsese's alter ego. Travis is a Vietnam veteran who was lied to by his country; Scorsese was a Catholic veteran, basically lied to by his religion. Travis is rejected by the smart, pretty blonde; Scorsese was rejected by the "cool" kids in his neighborhood. Travis is not redeemed at the end, and I doubt that Scorsese will ever feel worthy. It's just his nature. In his films we see at least one shared theme: man not worthy of woman Travis Bickle not good enough for Betsy; Christ not "manly" enough for Mary Magdalene. Newland Archer lives with an unfulfilled yearning for the Countess Olenska. Scorsese himself shows the urgent need to punish the boy in him throughout his films. The main character never seems to triumph how could he when he is always

riddled with sin? Even when he tries a shot at redemption, as some of his self-appointed deliverers sometimes do, they always fall short. Just as in the Catholic religion, man always fall short of the glory of God. And, because women are to be worshiped, they should be off limits sexually, but Scorsese has his leading men fall into the "trap" several times, to find themselves in agony because they are not worthy just like those Catholics who believe they are not worthy of Christ's love. Moving from purgatory and plunging straight into hell brings us to Scorsese's gore-fest, Gangs of New York. As he explained to Mark Singer, he was no longer interested in filming graphic violence without some humanity to it. He defends Gangs by saying that the rivals were warriors, barbarians, and at that time, that's how it was in the streets people killing people. It was much the same way when Christ lived, and Scorsese, perhaps unconsciously, drops the innocent, or the loner, in the middle of hell and the lamb is either sacrificed or crawls his way out. Gangs is a red movie, cinematically: tinted in red, soaked in blood. Based on Herbert Asbury's book of the same title, it is set in New York's Five Points, some fifteen years before the Civil War. However, the book is just a collection of violent episodes in the neighborhood. It was up to writer Jay Cocks and Scorsese to weave a story. The result is the quintessential Scorsese, the master of movie violence and the seeker of redemption. The film begins with a scene beneath Manhattan tenements, in carved-out catacombs. And here Scorsese takes us back to the catacombs of his school. The Irish leader named Priest prepares for battle, and the preliminaries have all the action and ritual of a mass, even to Priest's putting on a collar (to protect his neck). The young Scorsese was terrified in those mysterious catacombs, listening to the recitation of the rosary echo off the walls below the church. Gangs' opener has that same sense of mystery and dread who are these guys and what are they doing in a cave? Scorsese deliberately omitted the name of the film from the opening title sequence. The audience is not sure what's going on down there. It is as if Priest and his followers emerge from hell into the light on to the white snow, pure snow that is about to be violated and soaked with blood. Scorsese never really emerged from those catacombs because Catholicism keeps alive the fear of what can happen in the daylight, too. The hero of Gangs is Amsterdam, set on avenging his father's murder. He does this by using the mobster motto of keeping your friends close but your enemies closer. His target is Bill Cutting (the Butcher). Again, as in many Scorsese films where we see things mostly through the hero's eyes, the point of view is mainly Amsterdam's, so we can get inside him and stay focused on his revenge. Amsterdam is almost Oliver Twist in appearance. He doesn't look tough, and he doesn't seem like he's a match for the bloodthirsty residents of Five Points. Amsterdam is an avenging angel. His girlfriend, Jenny, a skilled pickpocket and fiercely independent, eventually discovers her high moral qualities, and her priorities shift to the unwavering loyalty to Amsterdam. At the risk of repeating myself, hello Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Jay Cocks and Scorsese must have had a similar upbringing. It seems that all the guilt, the unresolved issues that dwell inside the writer and the filmmaker, are assuaged, temporarily, in this film. But like any kid riddled with religion, they must keep

repenting over and over again. And why not do penance on familiar ground? Whether it is the 1970s or 1870s, New York is the Temple to be revered. In Scorsese on Scorsese, the director describes Manhattan in Gangs as "the frontier meets the city." Because Amsterdam begins to admire Cutting, Scorsese claims that he "complicated . . . a straightforward revenge story because I was interested in emotions." Also in this book, interestingly, Scorsese only discusses the chronology and technical aspects of Gangs, and steers clear of the obvious religious overtones. Notes Alleva, Richard. It's Cold Up There, Commonwealth, February 11, 2005, 132(3), 19-20. Cademartori, Lorraine. The Martin Scorsese Collection, Forbes, Fall 2004, FYI, 174, 105. Corn, Andrew Lewis. Film Comment, May/June 1998, 34(3), 24. Dougan, Andy. Martin Scorsese, Close Up, The Making of His Movies. Thunders Mouth Press, 1998. Helmetag, Charles. Recreating Edith Wharton's New York in Martin Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence, Literary Film Quarterly, 1998, 26(3), 162. Italie, Hillel. The Restless Warrior at 55, World Tibet National News, Jan. 27, 1998 Keyser, Les. Twayne's Filmmaker Series, Martin Scorsese, Twayne Publishers, New York, 1992 Nicholls, Mark. Male Melancholia and Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence, Film Quarterly, 58(1), 25-30. Scorsese, Martin. Scorsese on Scorsese, Faber and Faber Limited, London, 2003 Singer, Mark. The Man Who Forgets Nothing: The Minestrone of Martin Scorsese's Mind, New Yorker, March 27, 2000, 76(5), 90. The Age of Innocence, Roger Ebert 9/17/93 Gangs of New York, Roger Ebert 12/20/02 Goodfellas, Roger Ebert 2005 The King of Comedy, Roger Ebert 5/15/83 Raging Bull , Roger Ebert 1/1/80

Taxi Driver, Roger Ebert 1/1/76