Martin Scorsese

TWO years ago, Martin Scorsese saw his shot at the best director Oscar for the ambitious Howard Hughes biopic "The Aviator" slip through his fingers when Clint Eastwood snatched the trophy for "Million Dollar Baby." Sunday evening the two iconoclastic filmmakers were again competing -- only this time, the decision went to the 64-year-old Scorsese, winning his first Academy Award for his work on the gangster film "The Departed."

Martin Scorsese is an Oscar-winning director, actor, producer, film historian and film preservationist. And now he can add lecturer to his resume. The director of such classics as "The Departed," 'Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "GoodFellas" has been named the 42nd Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities. The annual lecture, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, is considered the most prestigious honor the federal government can bestow for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.

BACK when Martin Scorsese was getting ready to direct "The Departed," he confided that his first instinct had been to turn down the Boston-based film about infiltration and intrigue in the mob and police ranks alike. "I did not want to do another gangster movie," said Scorsese, whose breakthrough film, "Mean Streets," was of that genre, and who capped his trilogy of violent masterpieces (the others being "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull") with 1990's "GoodFellas," which helped redefine it.

Get your gangster fix with a double feature of Martin Scorsese's lauded life-of-crime classic "Goodfellas" and the Coen Brothers' equally classic mob tale, "Miller's Crossing. " Bloody and bold, these two films will have you cocking your fedora and dusting off your spats in no time. The Egyptian Theater, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. Sat. 7:30 p.m. $11. (323) 466-3456; http://www.americancinemathequecalendar.com.

Martin Scorsese is an Oscar-winning director, actor, producer, film historian and film preservationist. And now he can add lecturer to his resume. The director of such classics as "The Departed," 'Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "GoodFellas" has been named the 42nd Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities. The annual lecture, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, is considered the most prestigious honor the federal government can bestow for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.

Martin Scorsese has found his next film subject: Bill Clinton. The Oscar winner will produce and direct a documentary on the former president for HBO, the network announced Monday. The documentary will explore the 42nd president's perspective on history, politics and the like during his time in office and the years since - with Clinton offering his full cooperation. Scorsese's previous collaborations with HBO include "Public Speaking" and most recently, "George Harrison: Living in the Material World," which won an Emmy.

You think you know by now what you'll get in a Martin Scorsese movie. Someone will be gothically whacked. A person's tenuous grip on reality might slip away, possibly in a mental institution. Vengeance will be doled out - with guns, knives, fists or anything else that causes great bodily injury. And a sweet orphan will search for a new family. What looks at initial inspection like Hollywood's version of a shotgun marriage - the man behind "Goodfellas," "Raging Bull," "The Departed," "Shutter Island," "Cape Fear" and "Gangs of New York" directs the 3-D family film "Hugo" - makes sense if you look closer.

Martin Scorsese stands out for his commitment to, and knowledge of, film history. So it's appropriate that a director steeped in Italian neo-realism, film noir and other styles would expose his "Shutter Island" cast and crew to films of the past: "Laura": Scorsese showed this Otto Preminger-directed noir from 1944 to Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, who play federal marshals. "It was the nature of Dana Andrews' behavior, his body language, and then his falling in love with a ghost," Scorsese says of the actor, who plays a police detective investigating a murder.

"The shot's out of focus!" Martin Scorsese would often say on the set of "Hugo," as he watched replays of scenes that had just been shot. "Wait a second," producer Graham King would say. "Your 3-D glasses aren't on. " Remembering to flip down his stereoscopic spectacles was only part of the director's education while filming "Hugo. " The director of "Taxi Driver" and "GoodFellas" had to develop a new cinematic language — one that not only accommodated 3-D cameras but also looked at the world from a child's perspective, somehow capturing the central, 12-year-old character's sense of wonder, fear and inquisitiveness.

Jess Manafort jokes that she was born with a "put-on-a-production" gene because, at age 4, she was already directing her parents while they were taking home movies of her. "You can see in the actual home movies, I am, like, stamping my foot, ordering them to turn my Cinderella record up loudly and telling them to move closer." And now, 21 years later, she's directing young actors -- including Amber Heard and Alexa Vega -- in her first feature film, "Remember the Daze," which opens Friday.

Martin Scorsese has found his next film subject: Bill Clinton. The Oscar winner will produce and direct a documentary on the former president for HBO, the network announced Monday. The documentary will explore the 42nd president's perspective on history, politics and the like during his time in office and the years since - with Clinton offering his full cooperation. Scorsese's previous collaborations with HBO include "Public Speaking" and most recently, "George Harrison: Living in the Material World," which won an Emmy.

Martin Scorsese has found his next film subject: Bill Clinton. The Oscar winner will produce and direct a documentary on the former president for HBO, the network announced Monday. The documentary will explore the 42nd president's perspective on history, politics and the like during his time in office and the years since -- with Clinton offering his full cooperation. “President Clinton is one of the most compelling figures of our time, whose world view and perspective, combined with his uncommon intelligence, make him a singular voice on the world stage.

Representatives for Martin Scorsese have dismissed a lawsuit filed against the director by Cecchi Gori Pictures as a "media stunt" whose claims are contradicted by an earlier agreement. In a complaint filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Cecchi Gori said Scorsese reneged on an agreement to direct a film called "Silence" for the production company as his next project. Cecchi Gori Pictures is the troubled film venture founded by Italian media mogul Vittorio Cecchi Gori.

Martin Scorsese has been sued by Cecchi Gori Pictures for choosing "The Wolf of Wall Street" over "Silence. " Cecchi Gori, the film company founded by Italian media mogul Vittorio Cecchi Gori, has been mired in financial restructuring and litigation with its former president, producer Gianni Nunnari, for the last several years. One of its primary remaining assets was the film rights to "Silence," based on the novel by Japanese author Shusaku Endo, and contracts that the company alleges obligated the Oscar-winning Scorsese to direct the movie after finishing last year's "Hugo.

"The shot's out of focus!" Martin Scorsese would often say on the set of "Hugo," as he watched replays of scenes that had just been shot. "Wait a second," producer Graham King would say. "Your 3-D glasses aren't on. " Remembering to flip down his stereoscopic spectacles was only part of the director's education while filming "Hugo. " The director of "Taxi Driver" and "GoodFellas" had to develop a new cinematic language — one that not only accommodated 3-D cameras but also looked at the world from a child's perspective, somehow capturing the central, 12-year-old character's sense of wonder, fear and inquisitiveness.

Everybody has them — waiters, bus drivers, lawyers: a bad day. For a filmmaker with a hundred-strong crew in the wings and millions of dollars on the line, the stakes can be considerably higher when things go off the rails. In this edited excerpt from the third annual Envelope Directors' Roundtable, the filmmakers behind some of this season's most talked about movies — Martin Scorsese ("Hugo"), Michel Hazanavicius ("The Artist"), Alexander Payne ("The Descendants"), George Clooney ("The Ides of March")

Luciano Charles Scorsese, 80, a garment industry presser who had cameo roles in the films of his son, director Martin Scorsese. A lifelong resident of Little Italy in New York City, Scorsese and his wife of 60 years, Catherine, were the subjects of their son's documentary "Italianamerican." Charles Scorsese, who also served as wardrobe consultant on many of his son's films, appeared as a card player in "Raging Bull" in 1980 and as a hit man in "GoodFellas" in 1990.

When Martin Scorsese was 8 years old, he drew. Sketches mostly, elaborate shot-by-shot renderings of flicks he'd seen at the local movie theater. Sometimes they were movies that existed only in his imagination, to be recreated on paper. Drawn in pencil and crayon, they were often titled "Directed and Produced by Martin Scorsese." By the age of 12, Martin was drawing colorful Bible epics and Westerns, grappling with how to compose his comic-book panels so as to achieve maximum visual effect.

In "Hugo," Martin Scorsese's new 3-D film based on Brian Selznick's bestselling "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," London-based costume designer Sandy Powell helps create the storybook image of an orphan boy (played by Asa Butterfield) living inside a Parisian train station in the early 1930s. Her awards are many (she's won three Oscars in nine nominations — her second was with Scorsese for 2004's "The Aviator"), and she's a favored Scorsese collaborator ("Shutter Island," "The Gangs of New York")

"Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel" is a highly entertaining tribute to Roger Corman, one of Hollywood's most prolific, enduring and unconventionally influential film producers. Alex Stapleton's generous documentary is a must-see for movie buffs, particularly those old enough to remember Corman's late-1950s and '60s heyday-output of such low-budget genre hits as (the original) "The Fast and the Furious," "A Bucket of Blood," "The Wild Angels" and "The Trip. " The penny-pinching visionary's more than 500 producing credits have veered from the blatantly exploitative ("The Hot Box," anyone?