Book description
Academy Award--winning director Martin Scorsese is one of the most
significant American filmmakers in the history of cinema. Although
best known for his movies about gangsters and violence, such as Mean
Streets, Goodfellas, Casino, and Taxi Driver, Scorsese has addressed a
much wider range of themes and topics in the four decades of his
career. In The Philosophy of Martin Scorsese, an impressive cast of
contributors explores the complex themes and philosophical
underpinnings of Martin Scorsese's films. The essays concerning
Scorsese's films about crime and violence investigate the nature of
friendship, the ethics of vigilantism, and the nature of unhappiness.
The authors delve deeply into the minds of Scorsese's tortured
characters and explore how the men and women he depicts grapple with
moral codes and their emotions. Several of the essays explore specific
themes in individual films. The authors describe how Scorsese
addresses the nuances of social mores and values in The Age of
Innocence, the nature of temptation and self-sacrifice in The Last
Temptation of Christ and Bringing Out the Dead, and the complexities
of innovation and ambition in The Aviator. Other chapters in the
collection examine larger philosophical questions. In a world where
everything can be interpreted as meaningful, Scorsese at times uses
his films to teach audiences about the meaning in life beyond the
everyday world depicted in the cinema. For example, his films touching
on religious subjects, such as Kundun and The Last Temptation of
Christ, allow the director to explore spiritualism and peaceful ways
of responding to the chaos in the world. Filled with penetrating
insights on Scorsese's body of work, The Philosophy of Martin Scorsese
shows the director engaging with many of the most basic questions
about our humanity and how we relate to one another in a complex world.
""Conard has compiled another jargon-free and
entertaining collection of essays that clearly and concisely define
traditional philosophical thought -- this time through the lens of
Scorsese's films.... Be the reader a Scorsese enthusiast or a
philosophy student, this collection serves as an excellent
interdisciplinary resource." -- A. F. Winstead, CHOICE" --
Mark T. Conard, assistant professor of philosophy at Marymount
Manhattan College in New York City, is the editor or coeditor of many
books, including The Philosophy of Film Noir and The Philosophy of Neo-Noir.
