There’s a moment in Martin Scorsese Directs, the 1990 American Masters episode on the filmmaker that played on PBS around the release of Goodfellas, where a gaggle of talking heads wax poetic about their friend and colleague’s encyclopedic knowledge of movies. After testimonials about his incredible recall of individual shots, complete filmographies, whoever helmed some obscure sci-fi B-picture — he always remembers the name of the director — someone off-camera mentions that it’s a recurring theme when people speak about him. You can see Scorsese noticeably bristle before replying: Yeah, sure, I know a lot about cinema history. So what? Don’t I have opinions about life, death, love, hate, sin, salvation? If I’m simply someone who can spit out facts and figures about the moving pict

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