Publisher's Synopsis
One of the great contemporary film-makers celebrates American movies. Martin Scorsese's masterly account of American movies is balanced between subjective enthusiasm and objective analysis. Scorsese, probably the most cinephile of all directors, starts from his own childhood love affair with the movies when he discovered King Vidor's delirious Duel in the Sun as a boy. This is not an orthodox film history, but rather a genuinely personal voyage of discovery. Scorsese recalls from his youth that all kinds of movies had strong influences on him: not only the prestige titles from major directors and studios, but also the unsung B-movies, the despised and undervalued genres. What Scorsese responds to, and celebrates, is film itself - the movies that make the fullest use of the medium's potential, and the film-makers who worked within the system yet still retained a personal vision. Lavishly illustrated and strikingly designed, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in movies.
