Martin Scorsese is an Italian-American guy and the stories that probably seem most Scorsese-like to audiences are like Goodfellas and, you know, those kind of stories that involve the Italian-American story in America.

But I love how Martin Scorsese makes every movie he does seem personal to him, whether it’s Shutter Island or Gangs Of New York, or Aviator.

What does a kid from little Italy and New York have in common with Howard Hughes?

Maybe you wouldn’t think at first that there’s a lot there, but in fact when I watch that movie I think it’s told from a very personal point of view.

I think out of all the people that I’ve worked with, Scorsese has the most deliberate control of the elements of filmmaking.

It’s like watching someone who knows like a painter, ‘If I put blue in this painting right here it’s going to make the viewer feel this particular way.’

It’s so deliberate, he’s such a fanatical student of film that he understands the vocabulary of the movement of the camera, the shot composition, all of it, you know, references to other films, it’s so complete.

I found myself writing down little notes and titles of films he’d rattle off when we’d be talking about stuff.