Much like Alfred Hitchcock, director Martin Scorsese likes to make cameos in the movies he makes. They’re not always as overt as those that Hitchcock made, and there are probably some that weren’t even aware of, but they always have some kind of larger significance. Whether it’s revealing his own hand guiding his characters acting as a character who calls attention to the core of his stories, Martin Scorsese makes his cameos matter.
A new video essay takes an in-depth look at a bunch of the Martin Scorsese cameos there have been over the years, including roles that you would even consider more than a cameo. However, it’s some of the movies that Scorsese doesn’t appear in that may reveal even more about the director himself. Watch the video essay below.
While there are quick, barely recognizable cameos in movies such as Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore or his mugshot in Michael Jackson’s music video for “Bad“, it’s his lingering presences that seem to add a significant touch, whether it’s in the background of a scene, or sitting in the backseat in Taxi Driver. Even his documentaries give us a glimpse into his perspective of the subjects, even moreso than the film itself.
However, what’s most fascinating to me is that Martin Scorsese specifically doesn’t make cameos in The Last Temptation of Christ and Kundun, two of his overtly religious based movies. Since Scorsese was dismissed from seminary school in his younger years, this almost seems like a commentary on his own experience with religion. However, he did make a cameo as a religious man in the background of Silence, so maybe it wasn’t as much of a consciously significant decision as much as a logistical one.
Thanks to Film School Rejects for bringing this to our attention.
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