Good Fella: Martin Scorsese Studies

Updated August 19, 2010

Ray Liotta as Henry Hill in Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)

Charlie Rose - An hour with Martin Scorsese (1998)

(Persevere beyond the opening few minutes - it's worth it)

Here's a not so little links list that Film Studies For Free has been concocting for tanto tempo... It's a collection of mostly academic, and all great quality, studies of the work of American filmmaker Martin Scorsese, one of the most utterly beloved of all directors among Film Studies undergraduates. And with Afterhours, Goodfellas and The Age of Innocence among this blog's author's favourite films, who is FSFF to disagree with such intensity?

Suggestions for any high-quality additions to this list would be most welcome.

• Marc Abramson, 'Mountains, Monks and Mandalas: Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet', Cineaste, Vol. XXIII, No. 3, 1998

• Daniel Balderston, 'Borges and The Gangs of New York', Variaciones Borgianas, 16, 2003 

• Bruce Alistair Barber, Trans/actions: Art, Film and Death, PhD Thesis, European Graduate School, August 2005 

• Todd Berliner, 'Visual Absurdity in Raging Bull', Preprint of Chapter in Raging Bull: A Cambridge Film Handbook. Ed. Kevin Hayes. Cambridge, U.K. and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005

• David Bordwell, 'Scorsese, 'pressionist', Observations on Film Art, April 21, 2010 

• Lenay Breeland, 'A Hieroglyphic World: Representations of Repression in Scorsese’s Age of Innocence',  in Fixing a Hole: Bridging the Gap between Text and Performance, State University of West Georgia, 2001 (scroll to p. 21 in PDF) 

• Aaron V. Burton, Jesus in the Movies: A Rhetorical Analysis of Selected Films from 1912-2004, PhD Thesis, Bowling Green State University, May 2008

• Andre Caron, 'Last Temptation of Travis Bickle', Offscreen Journal, September 1997

• Robert Castle, 'Average Nobodies: The Dark Knights of Goodfellas', Bright Lights Film Journal, issue 32, April 2001

• James A. Clapp, '‘‘Are You Talking to Me?’’—New York and the Cinema of Urban Alienation', Visual Anthropology, 18, 2005

• Adrian Danks, 'Who’s That Knocking at My Door', Senses of Cinema, Issue 54, 2010 

• Russell E. Davis, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore: Under the comic frosting', from Jump Cut, no. 7, 1975

• Jonathan Dawson, 'After Hours', Senses of Cinema, Issue 54, 2010

• Rebecca Dawson, And Staring as Jesus Himself: Cultural Context and Images of Christ in North American film, PhD Thesis, Bowling Green State University, August 2007 

• Carolyn D’Cruz and Glenn D’Cruz, 'The body of Christ: Blasphemy as a necessary transgression?', Negotiating the Sacred II: Blasphemy and sacrilege in the arts, pp. 93-101, ANU E Press, 2008

• Christopher Robert Deacy, 'Redemption and Film: Cinema as a Contemporary Site of Religious Activity', WACC Archive, 2001

• Cristina Degli-Esposti Reinert, 'Martin Scorsese's Invisible City in Bringing Out the Dead', Film-Philosophy, Vol. 4, No. 12, May 2000

• Roger Ebert, 'Introduction', Scorsese by Ebert (University of Chicago Press, 2008) 

• Rebecca Feasey. 'Stardom and Distinction: Sharon Stone and the Problem of Legitimacy', Scope, May 2004

• Christopher Garbowski, 'The Catholic Imagination in Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz', Journal of Religion and Film Vol. 5, No. 2 October 2001

• Luis M. García-Mainar, « Contemporary Hollywood Crime Film and the New Individualism », European journal of American studies, 2, 2009

• Paul A. Gilje, 'Gangs, the Five Points, and the American Public', Common-Place, Vol. 3, No. 4, July 2003

• Paul E. Graham III, Violence and the Scapegoat in American Film: 1967-1999, PhD Thesis, Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, December 2002

• New Leighton Grist, Authorship and Context: the Films of Martin Scorsese, 1963-1977, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 1996

• Leighton Grist,  'Masculinity, Violence, Resistance: A New Psychoanalytic Reading of Raging Bull', Atlantis Journal, 29.1, June 2007

• Peter Hourigan, 'Scorsese Missing In Action: Martin Scorsese’s America by Ellis Cashmore Hollywood Under Siege: Martin Scorsese, the Religious Right, and the Culture Wars by Thomas R. Lindlof', Senses of Cinema, Issue 54, 2010 

• Christine Hoff Kramer, 'Wrestling with Flesh, Wrestling with Spirit: The Painful Consequences of Dualism in The Last Temptation of Christ', Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Vol. 8, Fall 2004 

• Peter Hutchings, '[Review of] A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies by Martin Scorsese and Michael Henry Wilson, London: Faber, 1997', Scope, August 1999

• Matthew J. Iannucci, 'Postmodern Antihero: Capitalism and Heroism in Taxi Driver', Bright Lights Film Journal,Issue 47, February 2005

• Karyn Kay and Gerald Peary, 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore: Waitressing for Warner's', Jump Cut, no. 7, 1975

• David Kelly, 'Model Citizens: The Irish Films of Martin Scorsese', Australasian Journal of American Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1, July 2007

• Tammie Kennedy, '(Re)Presenting Mary Magdalene: A Feminist Reading of The Last Temptation of Christ', Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Vol. 9, Spring 2005

• Robert P Kolker, 'Algebraic Figures: Recalculating the Hitchcock Formula', in Horton, Andrew, and Stuart Y. McDougal, editors Play It Again, Sam: Retakes on Remakes (Berkeley:  University of California Press, 1998)

• Robert P. Kolker, 'The Moving Image Reclaimed', Postmodern Culture, 5.1, September 1994 

• Ekkehard Knörer, "Why Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" does not live up to [...] "Internal Affairs"', Signandsight.com, January 2007

• Joseph Jon Lanthier, 'Outstanding Defense Mechanisms: The Phrenology of Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 68, May 2010

• Maximilian Le Cain, 'Orphans of the Storm: Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York', Senses of Cinema, Issue 25, 2003

• Karli Lucas, 'Creative Visions: (De)Constructing “The Beautiful” in Scorsese's The Age of Innocence', Senses of Cinema, Issue 25, 2003

• Brian McIlroy, 'Exodus, Arrival & Return: The Generic Discourse of Irish Diasporic and Exilic Narrative Films' [First published in Keeping It Real: Irish Film and Television, eds. Ruth Barton and Harvey O’Brien (London: Wallflower Press, 2004): 69-77

• Duncan McLean, 'The Evolution of the Term ‘New Hollywood’, NEO, 2009

• Eve L. Mullen, 'Orientalist Commercializations: Tibetan Buddhism in American Popular Film', Journal of Religion and Film, Vol. 2, No. 2 October 1998 

• Kartik Nair, 'Aura, Auteurism and the Key to Reserva', Widescreen Journal, No. 2, 2010

• Josh Nelson, '[Review of] Roger Ebert, Scorsese by Ebert. Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, 2008', Screening the Past, Issue 26, 2009

• Richard Oestreicher, 'How Should Historians Think about ‘The Gangs of New York’?', History Workshop Journal, Issue 56, 2003

• Colm O’Shea, 'Review: Thomas R. Lindlof (2008) Hollywood Under Siege: Martin Scorsese, the Religious Right, and the Culture Wars. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky', Film-Philosophy, 14.1, 2010

• Steven Peacock, 'Holding onto moments in The Age of Innocence', Film Studies, Volume 9, Winter 2006

• Åke Persson, 'The Mafia in the Drawing Room: Martin Scorsese’s Film Adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence', Nordic Journal of English Studies, Vol 7, No 2 (2008)

• Linda Petříkova, 'Review: Mark T. Conard (ed.) (2007) The Philosophy of Martin Scorsese Lexington: University Press of Kentucky', Film-Philosophy, 11.3, December 2007

• Patrick Phillips, 'Genre, star and auteur critical approaches applied to Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York', in Jill Nelmes' (ed), Introduction to Film Studies, 4th edition (London: Routledge, 2007) 

• Mark C. Pilkinton, 'The True Temptation of Christ: "To Suffyr temptacion it is grett peyn"', The Journal of Religion and Theatre, Vol. 3, No. 1, Summer 2004

• G. Thomas Poe, '(Beyond) The Pleasures of the Hollywood Musical Film: A Re Viewing of Martin Scorsese's New York, New York', Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Vol. IV, No. 2: Spring 1990

• Marc Raymond, 'Martin Scorsese', Senses of Cinema, May 2002

• Constanza del Río Álvaro, 'Genre and Fantasy: Melodrama, Horror, and the Gothic in Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991)', Atlantis Journal, 26.1, June 2004

• Wieland Schwanebeck, 'From Shakespeare’s Kings to Scorsese’s Kingpins: Contemporary Mob Movies and the Genre of Tragedy', ASPeers, Issue 3, 2010 

• Martin Scorsese: "Discusses Film-Making" at Princeton University, May 4 1999 (scroll down page for videocast)

• Martin Scorsese, 'Pinewood Dialogues', Moving Image Source, November 9, 2002

• Kaile Shilling, 'Servant of the Story: Judas as Tragic Hero in Film', Journal of Religion and Film. 8 (2): October 2004  

• Matthew Sorrento, 'Scorsese by Ebert by Roger Ebert', Senses of Cinema, Issue 51, 2009

• Katherine Spring, 'After Hours on the Miracle Mile: The Logic of Nightmares in Film', 16:9, No. 11, November 2007

• David Sterritt, 'Six Books about Scorsese', Film Quarterly, Vol. 63, no. 2, 2009

• John Thurman, 'Citizen Bickle, or the Allusive Taxi Driver: Uses of Intertextuality', Senses of Cinema, Issue 37, 2005

• Daniel J. Walkowitz, ‘The Gangs of New York’: the Mean Streets in History', History Workshop Journal, Issue 56, 2003

• Teena Webb and Betsy Martens, 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore: A Hollywood liberation', Jump Cut, no. 7, 1975

• Martin Weinreich, 'The urban inferno. On the æsthetics of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver', 'The Art of Film Editing', Special Issue of P.O.V: A Danish Journal of Film Studies, edited by Richard Raskin, Number 6 December 1998 (scroll down in PDF) 

• M.C. Zenner, 'Bringing Out the Dead', Senses of Cinema, Issue 7, 2000

A monstrous talent: Blue Velvet Studies in Memory of Dennis Hopper

R.I.P. Dennis Hopper, 1936 - 2010

"Why are there people like Frank?"

"A truly Bad Bad Guy is not believable and impossible to connect with. That is unless your whole story world is twisted and strange in itself; Like Dennis Hopper's truly Bad Bad Guy in David Lynch's Blue Velvet." Sune Liltop, 'Good Guy / Bad Guy',  P.O.V. No.28, 2009

"...the conflict between smoothness and pent-up rage that defines Hopper's roles in films like David Lynch's Blue Velvet [1986]" Adrian Danks, "Nice 'N' Easy: Speaking Frankly about The Night We Called it a Day', Senses of Cinema, Issue 28, 2003

As Film Studies For Free is sure all of its readers will have learned by now, American movie actor, director and artist Dennis Hopper died yesterday. Some remarkable tributes to him have appeared in the last weeks, few if any better than those by filmmaker-critic Matt Zoller Seitz (see his video essay here; and a further written tribute here). Since the news of his death was made public, David Hudson has been collecting a full list of online tributes to Dennis Hopper here.

For FSFF's author, while she has a big soft spot for The Hot Spot (1990) as well as Easy Rider (1969), two films directed by Hopper, his most memorable contribution to the cinema was, in her view, his performance as the raging psychopath Frank Booth in David Lynch's 1986 film Blue Velvet. So this masterful film forms the (usually main) subject of each of the notable resources linked to in the scholarly webliography offered up today.  

Rest in peace, Mr Hopper.

• Jason Bainbridge, 'Soiling Suburbia: Lynch, Solondz and the Power of Dirt', M/C Journal, Vol. 9, Issue 5, 2006 

• Jenny Barrett, ''You've Made Mistress Very, Very Angry': Displeasure and Pleasure in Media Representations of BDSM'', Participations, Volume 4, Issue 1, 2003

• Michael Bloom, 'Rhetoric of Excess: Hyperbolical Irony as Transcendence in Blue Velvet', Offscreen Journal, Volume 13, Issue 9, 2009  

• Barbara Creed, 'A Journey through Blue Velvet: Film, Fantasy and the Female Spectator', New Formations, Number 6 Winter I988

• Stephan Gullatz, 'The Enigmatic Mr. Lynch', Offscreen Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 10, 2009

• Bernd Herzogenrath, 'On the Lost Highway: Lynch and Lacan, Cinema and Cultural Pathology', Other Voices, v.1, n.3 (January 1999)

• Randolph Jordan, Starting from scratch : turntables, auditory representation, and the structure of the known universe in the films of David Lynch, Masters thesis, Concordia University, 2003

• Valtteri Kokko, 'Psychological Horror in the Films of David Lynch',Wider Screen, 1, 2004 

• Stephanie Lam, 'David Lynch’s Blue Velvet: The Use of Binary Oppositions and Space', Offscreen Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 10, 2009

• Andrew Leggett, 'Violence Against Civility and the Destruction of Fantasy: The Waning of the Oedipus Complex in David Lynch’s "Blue Velvet"’, Croosroads, Rhizomes Conference 2008 Issue, Volume 111, Issue 11, 2009

• Clare Nina Norelli, 'Suburban Dread: The music of Angelo Badalamenti in the films of David Lynch', SOUND SCRIPTS Volume 2 (2009), Edited by Cat Hope and Jonathan W. Marshall, Published by Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts Faculty and Education Edith Cowan University and the Australian Music Centre (Scroll to p. 38)

• Matt Pearson, Authorship and the Films of David Lynch, e-book, BritishFilm.org.uk, 1997

• Fred Pfeil, 'Revolting Yet Conserved: Family "Noir" in Blue Velvet and Terminator 2', Postmodern Culture, Vol. 2, No. 3, May 1992 

• David Roche, 'The Death of the Subject in David Lynch’s Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive', E-rea, 2.2 | 2004 

William Friedkin in conversation

A quick post, today, to give Film Studies For Free's readers something good to watch while this blog undergoes some layout changes.

The above video presents a highly entertaining, and very informative, hour-long Q & A session with film director William Friedkin. The event, facilitated by Joseph Pascal, took place on February 24, 2009 at the Hudson Union Society, New York City, and was made available online thanks to the wonderful people from FORA.tv.

Friedkin, director of The Exorcist and The French Connection, discusses his legendary film career. He describes his on-set experiences, and explores the past, present, and future of the film industry.