Scorsese to Get AFI Life Award

Martin Scorsese, the unique, passionate and influential director of such modern-day classics as “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “GoodFellas,” was announced Wednesday as the 1997 recipient of the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award.

Scorsese, 53, is the 25th recipient of the highly coveted award, following such honorees as Clint Eastwood (1996), Steven Spielberg (1995), Jack Nicholson (1994), Elizabeth Taylor (1993) and Sidney Poitier (1992). Other legendary directors who have received the Life Achievement Award include Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, John Huston, Frank Capra and John Ford.

Reached in Morocco, where he is shooting “Kundun,” his film about the Dalai Lama, Scorsese said: “I am really delighted. Really pleased, very pleased. The AFI Life Achievement Award has been such an important award over the years because the people that it honored . . . I would say were so many of the giants of the old Hollywood studio system, the people I liked so much.”

The AFI Board of Trustees made the selection at a meeting last week at Walt Disney World.

“He is the most influential filmmaker working today, influential on other filmmakers and where film is going,” AFI Board Chairman Tom Pollock said Wednesday. “He’s a consummate filmmaker.”

While Pollock was studio chief at Universal, he worked with Scorsese on several films, including “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “Cape Fear” and “Casino.”

Scorsese will be honored at a gala tribute on Feb. 20 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. The tribute will be broadcast on CBS later in the spring and shown later on cable’s Arts & Entertainment Network.

In a career that has spanned 28 years, Scorsese has been nominated for an Oscar for best director for 1980’s “Raging Bull,” 1988’s “The Last Temptation of Christ” and 1990’s “GoodFellas.” He also has been nominated twice for screenplay for “GoodFellas” and 1993’s “The Age of Innocence.”

He has directed several performers to Oscars: the 1974 best actress Ellen Burstyn in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” 1980 best actor Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull,” 1986 best actor Paul Newman in “The Color of Money” and 1990 best supporting actor Joe Pesci in “GoodFellas.”

Besides producing and directing, Scorsese also has acted in films including “Quiz Show,” “Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams” and “ ‘Round Midnight.”

A native of New York’s Little Italy, Scorsese fell in love with the cinema as a youngster. A graduate of New York University, he made his directorial debut with the 1968 film “Who’s That Knocking at My Door?” starring Harvey Keitel as a streetwise Italian American. It was his landmark 1973 gangster film, “Mean Streets,” starring Robert De Niro and Keitel, that put Scorsese on the map.

Scorsese has also been a champion of film preservation and was involved in the restoration and reissue of such epics as “Lawrence of Arabia” and “El Cid.” He lobbied Eastman Kodak for the development of a new low-fade film stock and organized a group of directors in 1990 to create the Film Foundation, a group that funds film preservation.

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MARTIN’S MOVIES

The films of Martin Scorsese: “What’s a Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?” (short, 1963); “It’s Not Just You, Murray” (short, 1964); “The Big Shave” (short, 1967); “Who’s That Knocking at My Door?” a.k.a. “J.R.” (1968); “Street Scenes” (documentary, 1970); “Boxcar Bertha” (1972); “Mean Streets” (1973); “Italianamerican” (documentary, 1974); “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” (1974); “Taxi Driver” (1976); “New York, New York” (1977); “The Last Waltz” (1978); “American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince” (1978); “Raging Bull” (1980); “The King of Comedy” (1983); “After Hours” (1985); “The Color of Money” (1986); “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988); “New York Stories” (“Life Lessons” sequence, 1989); “GoodFellas” (1990); “Cape Fear” (1991); “The Age of Innocence” (1993); “Casino” (1995); “A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies” (documentary, 1996).