Martin Scorsese Joins Letterboxd and List Companion Films for His Filmography
Here is a comprehensive list of all of the movies that have served as inspiration in one way or another for Martin Scorsese.
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.
'Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story'
Scorsese's second project about Bob Dylan couldn't be a continuation of No Direction Home. For Rolling Thunder Revue, Scorsese focused on Boby's life and music, bending reality and fiction to explore the creation of great art.
Abbas Kiarostami's film, Close-Up, which tells the story of a man named Hossain Sabzian who impersonated the Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, deals with loneliness, cinema, and what happens when you try to make a film. For Scorsese, "this community of artists that he wanted so much to be a part of is like the traveling troupe of artists in the Rolling Thunder Revue. They’re the best of family and the worst of family, but a family all the same. Close-Up really represents that."
The companion film for Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story is Close-Up (1990).
Credit: Celluloid Dreams
Source: Letterboxd