Oscar winner Martin Scorsese said
ahead of picking up the Italian Cinema Museum's top honour in
Turin Monday that he was not yet saying goodbye to cinema and
still had a lot of films to make.
"No, I absolutely don't mean to say goodbye to cinema. I still
have some films to make, I hope God gives me the strength and
the sun to do them", the 81-year-old Taxi Driver, Raging Bull,
Goodfellas, The Departed and The Aviator director said in a
meeting with the press at the Cinema Museum in the northwestern
Italian city, where he will receive the Stella della Mole Award
Monday evening.
"The film about Sinatra has been postponed, the one about Jesus
I'm working on" explained the Sicilian-American director
regarding the postponement to an indefinite date of the two
films he had announced he wanted to shoot shortly, Life of Jesus
and Sinatra, back-to-back.
Scorsese has been in his parent's native land recently shooting
a documentary on ancient
shipwrecks in Sicily.
The Little Italy-born maestro, whose parents were from villages
in the Palermo area, said he felt "I can unveil something
unknown to the audience" and said he was "grateful to Sicily and
the Sicilians for the welcome they have given me, once again" in
shooting the doc on the ancient Greek and Roman wrecks.
Scorsese is in Turin Monday and Tuesday to pick up the award
from the Italian Cinema Museum and to give a masterclass.
At Tuesday night's award ceremony there will be also be Italian
Oscar winning director Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso), and
Rome-based actor Willem Dafoe, and the screenwriters, as well as
husband and wife, Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo.
There has so far been no confirmation on the possible surprise
arrival of Leonardo DiCaprio who could present the award to
Scorsese.
The director is a guest for the first time at the Museo
Nazionale del Cinema, which in 2013 created an exhibition
dedicated to him in collaboration with the Deutsche Kinemathek
and which displays the original costumes of Gangs of New York in
its permanent exhibition.
Scorsese will hold a Masterclass on October 8, preceded by a
public red carpet at 5:30 pm.
Cinema Massimo will also dedicate a tribute to him (October
11-13) that will be introduced personally by the maestro, again
on Tuesday October 8 at 8 pm, together with the special
screening of one of his most beloved classics, Raging Bull,
which is already sold out.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
