Martin Scorsese

Guilt, ambition and violence in Catholic terms. Scorsese's men talk their way into damnation with enormous energy, and the camera moves with them — restless, subjective, cut to a needle-drop — until the ledger comes due.

Signature

• Kinetic tracking shots and freeze-frames driven by pop music.
• Voiceover narration from an unreliable and self-justifying subject.
• Catholic guilt structuring rise-and-fall arcs.
• Ensembles of male self-mythologisers overtalking each other.