Martin Scorsese is an american film director, his career spans over 53 years and thus he has built a huge list of directing credits. His lengthy career means that he has built up a very specific and certainly very influential directing style. His directorial career began with 'Who's that kicking at my door' in 1967, he became known for his work as a director, and began to win many awards with the release of his more popular films, 'Taxi Driver' in 1976 and 'Goodfellas' in 1990. One of his recognisable directorial traits, is to feature long tracking shots within most of his films. Scorsese was dubbed "King of the Tracking Shot" as it is a hard shot to perfect, something which Scorsese did multiple times. His most famous tracking shot, is from Goodfellas in 1990, following Henry Hill and his wife Karen as they walk through the basement of Copacabana nightclub.
Colour is a very interesting and particular use within Scorsese films, a very distinct colour to feature is red, for example Taxi Driver. However in more recent times, Scorsese has used more colder colours, prominently blue, in his films, for example in Hugo. Also another recognisable feature is popular music, Scorsese likes to use many songs by The Rolling Stones in many of his films such as Mean Streets and The Departed. Martin Scorsese is one of the most influential directors of his time, he was and still is a director who strays from traditional conventions of directing and it is because of this that his work became so well known and famous. The biggest example that i am most intrigued and engaged by within Scorsese work, is the following clip from Taxi Driver. Within this clip, there are multiple things that link to both the cinematography and the editing. There is a panning shot that goes from Travis looking at himself in the mirror, panning across the room to Travis himself. As well as this, the scene is edited in an engaging way, at some points it is fast in pace and in others it is slow, moreover at one point a clip is repeated.
Martin Scorsese's work is very interesting for me. My director for the directions unit is Ariel Schulman, who in comparison to Scorsese is an extremely new and modern director, who's feature length films are no where near the sheer number Scorsese himself has directed. Looking at a director who has a career which spans across 50 years is interesting because you can look at how his work has been adapted throughout, how it has perhaps changed for different audiences and different generations. For example in Scorsese's recent work Hugo, there are still many elements that are recognisable throughout his career, such as the use of colour throughout to influence mood and tone, the same popular music as well as long takes instead of short and snappy ones edited tightly together. Whereas there are also new elements which could demonstrate how Scorsese has adapted his work for more modern audience, such as science fiction elements.
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