Martin Scorsese in the 21st Century

Martin Scorsese’s recent films are among his most impressive productions, at once lavish in scale but marked with the intimacy and psychological intensity that runs throughout his oeuvre. His protagonists are singularly driven, to the point of obsession—from the murderous Bill the Butcher, ruling the streets of lower Manhattan in Gangs of New York, to the enigmatic multimillionaire Howard Hughes in The Aviator, to the greed-and-sex-fueled finance wizard Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street. Whether working in epic scale or within the genres of the gangster movie and psychological thriller, these movies also show the master director at the height of his craft, in particular demonstrating that his collaboration with editor Thelma Schoonmaker is one of the most fruitful artistic partnerships in the history of American cinema.