Martin Scorsese Film Quotations

Young film makers should learn how to deal with the money and learn how to deal with the power structure. Because it is like a battle.

I always wanted to make a film that had this sort of Chinese-box effect, in which you keep opening it up and opening it up, and finally at the end you're at the beginning.

Death comes in a flash, and that's the truth of it, the person's gone in less than 24 frames of film.

I didn't realize there are generations who do not know about the origins of film.

When I'm making a film, I'm the audience.

More personal films, you could make them, but your budgets would be cut down.

I go through periods, usually when I'm editing and shooting, of seeing only old films.

Film in the 20th century, it's the American art form, like jazz.

If you don’t like the films of Samuel Fuller , then you just don’t like cinema.

The only thing I really wanted was the freedom to be able to get what I want on film. I’ve dealt with the MPAA since 1973, so I know how to renegotiate and rework.

Watching a Kubrick film is like gazing up at a mountaintop. You look up and wonder, how could anyone have climbed that high?

I’m not interested in a realistic look, not at all, not ever. Every film should look the way I feel.

Music and film are inseparable. They always have been and always will be.

My films really have to be a part of a whole body of work that says something to me.