Martin Scorsese caused a storm yesterday when the American auteur joined Letterboxd, an app that movie watchers use to log movies they've watched. While the memes have been plentiful, it is wonderful to see Scorsese join another Gen Z-heavy app (the filmmaker made an appearance on his daughter Francesca Scorsese's TikTok to show how well he knows Gen Z lingo) because it shows that Scorsese knows how to stay relevant in the modern culture.

Now on Letterboxd, Scorsese has found his young audience and is taking the chance to share some wisdom and cinema history with them.

In a list created by the filmmaker titled "Companion Films," Scorsese writes, "I love the idea of putting different films together into one program. I grew up seeing double features, programs in repertory houses, [and] evenings of avant-garde films in storefront theatres. You always learn something, see something in a new light, because every movie is in conversation with every other movie. The greater the difference between the pictures, the better."

Scorsese continues writing, saying that he has been asked over the years to pair his films with the ones that inspired him. While he states that "inspiration" and "influence" are not accurate terms for this list he created, he does say that these companion films capture the spirit of his related projects.

Here is a slide show of companion films to Scorsese's filmography, created by the legend himself.

'Shutter Island'

Scorsese showed DiCaprio, the star of Shutter Island, a few post-war noir films that captured the tone, imagery, and framing of Shutter Island. The biggest influence the Scorsese points to for this film is Out of the Past.

"Within the film, there’s something mysterious about the past itself as it unfolds in the flashbacks," Scorsese writes. "I felt this even at the age of six, when I saw the picture for the first time… on a double bill with Bambi! For me, it doesn’t have a beginning or a middle or an end—I’ve always felt like I could enter it anywhere, at any point, and experience it like a dream. In a sense, there’s a metaphysical level to the movie, in that it deals with the past as a presence, a force. I had that very much in mind when I made Shutter Island."

The companion film to Shutter Island is Out of the Past (1947).

Credit: RKO Radio Pictures

'Out of the Past'

Source: Letterboxd