Martin Scorseses America

For over four decades, Martin Scorsese has been the chronicler of an obsessive society, where material possessions and physical comfort are valued, where the pursuit of individual improvement is rewarded and where male prerogative is respected and preserved. Scorsese has often described his films as sociology and he has a point: his storytelling condenses complex information into comprehensible narratives about society. In this sense, he has been a guide through a dark world of nineteenth century crypto-fascism to a fetishistic twentieth century in which goods, fame, money and power are held to have magical power. Author of Tyson: Nurture of the Beast and Beckham, Ellis Cashmore turns his attention to arguably the most influential living film- maker to explore how Scorsese envisions America. Greed, manhood, the city and romantic love feature on Scorseses landscape of secular materialism. They are among the themes Cashmore argues have driven and inform Scorseses work. This is America, as seen through the eyes of Martin Scorsese and it is a deeply unpleasant place. Cashmores book discloses how, collectively, Scorseses films present an image of America. Its an image assembled from the perspectives of obsessive people, whether burned-out paramedics, compulsive entrepreneurs, tortured lovers, or celebrity-fixated comedians. Its collected from pool halls, taxicabs, boxing rings and jazz clubs. Its an image thats specific, yet ubiquitous. It is Martin Scorseses America.