Italianamerican

Martin Scorsese sets the camera up in his parents' flat in New York and talks with them. Charles and Catherine Scorsese are the children of families who came from Italy; they talk about their grandparents from Sicily, about growing up on the Lower East Side, finding work, marrying and life in the neighbourhood. While they talk Catherine is cooking and the subject keeps sliding; the couple interrupt each other and argue. Martin Scorsese directs. The documentary dates from 1974 and is short. The method does not intervene: the camera stays put, the director asks a question now and then, and the editing does not break the talk. What the narrative describes is not the history of a family but the everyday memory of an immigrant generation; the information is given as remembering rather than record. Its best known feature is the closing credits; Catherine Scorsese's sauce recipe comes up on screen in writing. Catherine Scorsese appeared in small parts in her son's films in later years, and this documentary is considered the start of that. It was taken into preservation by the Library of Congress in America. Its limit is scale; the narrative never leaves one flat and the context is left to the viewer. Who it is for: anyone curious about Scorsese and about migration. Who it is not for: the structure is loose, the information scattered, and the film has the air of a home video.