The fifth in the ultrascreen series of eclectic anthologies examines the influence of Scorsese’s upbringing in Little Italy on Mean Streets and Goodfellas; the urban madness of Taxi Driver and Bringing Out the Dead; the Catholic religiosity that permeates all the way from Mean Streets to the controversial interpretation of the Gospels in The Last Temptation of Christ.
It also describes the devotion to US cinema that led the director to tackle the all-American musical in New York, New York, make a sequel to a classic in The Color of Money, and remake a pulp crime movie in Cape Fear. In its surprising wealth of interviews, essays and reviews, Martin Scorsese: A Journey through the American Psyche examines a filmmaker whose works offer little pieces of history reflected through the viewfinder, be it in the era-of-assassination backdrop of Taxi Driver or the bloody nineteenth-century canvas of Gangs of New York.