A Love for Cinema
This may be the single-best tool you could ever study to understand how one great cinematic mind realized its vision. Scorsese is selfless; he shows us how his vision came to be. Most directors would rather us not see how their illusions are created; Scorsese's purpose is the complete opposite.
This set includes three video cassettes (75 minutes apiece). He begins by focusing on the American Western, an understandable starting place as the American Western is arguably the most indigenous genre Americans can lay claim to. The most enlightening section from this section was his analysis of three John Ford movies, starring John Wayne. Scorsese's purpose was to show how the Western, along with Ford, grew more complex in three decades. As he says, "Same Director, Ford. Same star, John Wayne. Same setting, Monument Valley." However the image of the black-and-white cowboy-and-Indian hero of "Stagecoach" is a contrast between Ford's later "The Searchers," where...
Masterful Movie Commentary by The Master
Equally fascinating for the film novice and scholar alike, Martin Scorsese provides us with an uniquely personal view of American cinema. This thoroughly fascinating video series will intrigue all those who are open-minded enough to learn from the broad vartiety of films which Scorsese has selected. This is a far cry from pretentious film school fare. Scorsese is equally comfortable discussing B-films as well as the more established classics. If you love American movies, you positively MUST own this boxed set. If you're new to film study, these tapes will help you to fall in love with film. An extraordinary delight.
A Brilliant, Unpretentious Film Teacher
I don't know if Marty Scorsese teaches at New York University's Film School anymore. If he doesn't, it is a huge loss to the school. Here is a man, who if he weren't one of the world's top film directors, could have had an equally eminent career as one of the great film teachers of all time. Scorsese tells us that this is his highly personal collection of American film which had a profound influence upon him as a filmmaker. With this one qualifying statement, he then shows us film clip after film clip with his accompanying commentary about exactly what was so important to filmmakers about each film and how it influenced him. His delivery is casual, unpretentious, friendly and approachable. Hubby and I have watched this series several times and learned a great deal from it even though we thought we already knew a great deal. Since these are Scorsese's personal choices, naturally some films that we would have liked to have seen discussed aren't here. He's made it clear from the...
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