Scorsese’s autobiography as a 3rd generation Italian America

“No American director has been more influenced by his background than Martin Scorsese” (Dougan). From his earliest films such as Italianamerican at New York University to the films like Raging Bull, GoodFellas, and Casino, he has devoted more than thirty years to exploring his culture on screen. “His films are an almost anthropological study of what it means to be Italian, Catholic, and repressed in post-war America.” (Dougan). Through Martin Scorsese’s films, the audience enters a world in which they may relate to by the intimacy of family and the injustices of class or through the romanized violence and power in which certain groups contained.

Martin Scorsese’s roots, as also for many Italian Americans, began in Sicily. The Scorsese family tree has its roots in the town of Polizzi Generosa, which is near Palermo. Francesco Scorsese was born around 1880. His mother died when he was six or seven, and when his father remarried Francesco was not welcome. A neighbor eventually took him in and put him to work on his farm until he was 19 at which point Francesco announced that he was going to America. When he came to America he found work as a labor

Across the street at number 232 lived the Cappa family who where also from Sicily from the town of Cimmina. Martin Cappa, like Francesco Scorsese, had been an orphan raised by another family but he had joined the army instead of working in the land. He was a cavalryman and one day, in his blue uniform, he went riding through Cimmina. He saw a young woman who was standing on her balcony and he was so close that she could reach down and touch the tip of his cap. They fell in love and within three weeks Martin and Domenica Cappa were married. Martin went to America to seek a new life for his family. He wanted Domenica and their two young daughters, Catherine and Sarah, to come meet him. Catherine had been born in 1913. Domenica refused to leave Sicily for the trip would be difficult and she feared her and their daughters’ lives. Finally, her brother tricked her into going on the boat and they were all reunited.

Almost from the moment he was born, Martin Scorsese was a sickly child. He suffered from asthma and required injections and treatments almost constantly. He was too weak to spend a lot of time with the other children and spent many hours at their home. Instead of being as active participant on neighborhood children’s activities, he was often an observer of the action from a window of his family’s apartment. Martin’s health was a genuine concern and there were really only two places he could go – the church or the movies. When Scorsese was eight or nine, he decided he wanted to become a priest and when he was fourteen, he enrolled in a junior seminary school, Cathedral College. He fell in love with the c

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