Martin Scorsese is the latest person to be honored by the Museum of Modern Art’s Film Benefit, a film series and gala dinner that will celebrate the director’s films.
MoMA will honor the Oscar-winning director on Nov. 19 in a dinner presented by Chanel, and the museum will present a series focusing on Scorsese’s New York films, running Oct. 30 through Nov. 7 at the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters in New York.
“From his unextinguishable [sic] drive to innovate as a filmmaker to his passion for film history and his personal advocacy for film literacy, Martin Scorsese is cinema’s greatest hero,” Rajendra Roy, the Celeste Bartos chief curator of film at MoMA said in a statement. “He is a universe unto himself, and all of us who are privileged to work in his orbit are nurtured by his considerable force. He is a loyal and dear part of The Museum of Modern Art family, and we are happy to welcome him home once again.”
MoMA’s film collection includes 20 of Scorsese’s films, from “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” through “The Departed.” His films have been the subject of four different exhibitions at the museum since the mid-’90s thanks to his work within film preservation.
Scorsese’s next film, “The Irishman,” is about the killing of Jimmy Hoffa, and will star Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. The film will be released on Netflix in 2019. And he’s also set to direct a comedy special on SCTV for Netflix.
Previous honorees of MoMA’s Film Benefit include Julianne Moore, Tom Hanks, Cate Blanchett, Alfonso Cuarón, Tilda Swinton, Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodóvar, Kathryn Bigelow, Tim Burton, and Baz Luhrmann.