There was always an attraction to “the darker side”, Scorsese says, “particularly coming from where I came from. Because a lot of the people did horrendous things. I knew them when I was nine years old, and I still can’t put it together; I still have part of ‘Am I capable of it, if I went a certain way?’
“I saw things happen and I moved the other way, but the pull of embracing evil was always there. And there’s no doubt, somehow I made it through.”
‘I always wanted to learn how to love’
In a recent five-part AppleTV documentary, Mr Scorsese, which ranges exhaustively over his life and work, Scorsese talks of watching old Hollywood love stories and always wondering what happened after the boy and girl had finally got together. “There’s the beginning of the courtship, the love, the infatuation. What happens after? I always wanted to learn how to love – that was the thing.
“First of all,” he says now, “learning is one thing, being in love is another. To really understand [love] is a wonderful thing, I think, and that’s why we are existing. And maybe that comes through devotion to another person, or people, an extended family. It’s the old story, what’s the most important commandment? And Jesus turned around and said, ‘Love God and love your neighbour as yourself.’ And that involves a lot.”
Throughout his life, Scorsese says, he sacrificed personal relationships on the altar of his work. “I don’t know if I was really ready for it,” he says, perhaps alluding to commitment.
Scorsese has been married five times. He married his wife Helen Morris, a former publishing editor, in 1999. That same year, Helen gave birth to their daughter, Francesca (Scorsese also has two daughters from two earlier marriages). “With Helen, being older parents, it made us aware of love in another way.”
