This Italian movie inspired five-year-old Martin Scorsese to become a filmmaker
During his speech, Scorsese also paid tribute to Hollywood movie legend Frank Capra, a fellow director with Sicilian roots.
During his speech, Scorsese also paid tribute to Hollywood movie legend Frank Capra, a fellow director with Sicilian roots.
During his speech, Scorsese also paid tribute to Hollywood movie legend Frank Capra, a fellow director with Sicilian roots.
Legendary director Martin Scorsese recalled how he decided to make movies after watching an Italian war drama at the age of five. The filmmaker took a trip down memory lane at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily and recalled the moment he 'had a calling to make movies'.
According to him, the watched the Italian war drama 'Paisan' with his family and heard the Sicilian dialect spoken by relatives in New York onscreen for the first time.
"It was there in that room, that night, that I had a calling to make movies, and to touch people in the same way that this film touched us that night. "So it is Sicily that helped draw me to cinema and cinema drew me to Sicily." He added of his American upbringing: "With the exception of Native Americans, we’re all either immigrants, children of immigrants or descendants of immigrants. The country is very young. It’s 250 years old, which is nothing in terms of world history. We’re learning. We’re just crawling. We haven’t begun yet to walk or talk," said the filmmaker while accepting the lifetime achievement award.
During his speech, Scorsese also paid tribute to Hollywood movie legend Frank Capra, a fellow director with Sicilian roots. The moviemaker ended his speech by saying: "I wonder, where I would be without Italian cinema. The debt I owe to Italian cinema and the people that made it and are continuing to make it, is really incalculable. I’ll never stop talking about it, to the entire world, wherever I go and I thank you for this wonderful honor to be here tonight. "Thank you for bringing me back home." In an interview with Variety, Scorsese went on to explain his strong connection to his Italian homeland, saying: "Growing up, my first formative years, even before my early teenage (years), I was really living in a Sicilian village. It just happened to be downtown in Manhattan. What I mean by that is the thinking, the behaviour, the language. All of this was very, very much part of who I am.
"Then we became American, kind of. In a way, I think that for me that (Sicilian link) combined with religious experiences, has prompted a curiosity and a search as to my own identity. As to who I am."