Martin Scorsese Timeline

This Friday, one of our age’s most influential film directors turns 75. Born in New York on November 17, 1942, and aspiring to become a priest in his teenage years, Martin Scorsese would grow up to build an unparalleled career in filmmaking, gaining worldwide fame for his gritty dramas and violent crime movies. To celebrate the director’s birthday, let’s take a brief look at his life and career.

The Martin Scorsese Timeline illustrates important milestones in the filmmaker’s personal and professional life, including major movie releases such as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, or the more recent Silence. Although Mean Streets was Scorsese’s breakthrough film, Taxi Driver was certainly the one that cemented his career, being considered a cinematic masterpiece even four decades after its release – which, by the way, nearly didn’t happen.

When first shown to the MPAA, Taxi Driver was given an X rating for violence, and the studio threatened they will not release it unless Scorsese cuts it for an R. To get the R rating, the director de-saturated the color in the movie’s more violent scenes, making the blood seem less prominent and less shocking. The result pleased not only the ratings board, but Scorsese himself, who liked the color change and the grainier look of the film, considering it an improvement over the original.

The Martin Scorsese chronology was built with the help of Office Timeline, a PowerPoint add-in that enables users to generate visually-appealing timelines fast and effortlessly. The image is free to copy, edit and share and can be easily updated using the Plus edition of the add-in.

Download the Martin Scorsese Timeline for PowerPoint here.