Scorsese's Men: Melancholia and the Mob

Martin Scorsese is the most influential director of his generation and, with his work regularly included among the top 20 films of all time, his place in cinema history is assured. Scorsese’s films have defined the cinematic essence of each decade since the 1960s and have set the standard of New Hollywood cinema.

Mark Nicholls traces Martin Scorsese’s central theme of melancholia, nostalgia, and loss through five of the director’s finest films: The Age of Innocence, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and Cape Fear. Scorsese’s Men reflects on the heroes of these films and their "tribal groups": 19th-century New York Society, the Italian American Mob, and the Yuppified New South. Nicholls asserts that for all of this melancholic man’s perversions, he ultimately becomes a universally adored and culturally empowered Superman of loss.