LIFE

Pure cinematic fantasy

Life, Plalai Faifa, Published on 30/03/2012

» Almost as impressive as his own films in recent years has been Martin Scorsese's work as a guide to and curator of other directors' work. His loving cinematic tours of Italian cinema and personal favourites from the US and other countries have attracted millions of viewers to films that they may never had heard of otherwise. He does not take us back yet again to Citizen Kane or Grand Illusion or Intolerance. His choices are often obscure movies that he saw on television as a boy in New York _ often, I suspect, on the old 1950s Million Dollar Movie programme_ and never forgot. Scorsese has also been active in the restoration old films, and viewers who watch elaborately-documented DVD editions of classic films like those issued by Criterion will find him turning up from time to time doing commentary tracks on which his enthusiasm is impossible to resist.