ITALIANAMERICAN

(director/writer: Martin Scorsese; screenwriters: Lawrence D. Cohen/Mardik Martin; cinematographer: Alec Hirshfeld; editor: B. Lovitt; cast: Charles Scorsese, Catherine Scorsese; Runtime: 45; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Saul Rubin/Elaine Attias; Janus; 1974)

“Warmhearted family portrait.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Martin Scorsese (“Kundun”/”Taxi Driver”/”The King of Comedy”) shot this warmhearted family portrait interview film in two days, as he interviews his Italian-American parents, married for 40 years, Catherine and Charles, in their Queens apartment, as they sit on a plastic-slip-covered living-room sofa. Dad talks about growing up in a family of nine on Delancey Street and of being the Sabbath goy (lighting the stove for the religious Jews on their holy rest day). The genial couple talk about tenement life, life in NYC in the 1920s and 1930s, making home wine and mom in the end credits reveals her family recipe for a pasta tomato sauce. It was fun to see a bearded Marty hassled by his mom to go to the dentist.

REVIEWED ON 4/2/2013 GRADE: B