Martin Scorsese Pays Tribute in Upcoming DVD, A LETTER TO ELIA

For Martin Scorsese, growing up in Little Italy, seeing On the Waterfront and East of Eden as a young man was a life-changing experience. Scorsese appears on and off camera throughout A Letter to Elia, taking us through Kazan’s life and through his own as well, and through his growing realization that there was an artist behind the camera, someone “who knew me, maybe better than I knew myself.” The film is about being exposed to the right movies at the right moment in your adolescent life, when you’re wide open and ready to connect, to be spurred on by the work up there on the screen, and then, maybe, to chart a course toward making your own movies.

Composed of clips, stills, readings from Kazan’s autobiography and his speech on directing (read by Elias Koteas), a videotaped interview done late in Kazan’s life, and Scorsese’s commentary on and offscreen, A Letter to Elia takes a close look at the life of art and its creation – the work, the distractions, the inspirations, the complications, the intersections between art and experience.


A Letter to Elia, written and directed by Scorsese and his longtime collaborator Kent Jones, is a deeply personal film, a frank portrait and self-portrait, and an equally frank acknowledgement of the closeness and the distance between artists and their art.

Martin Scorsese cites the works of Elia Kazan as being highly influential on his life and career.  Of making the film, Scorsese says, “It took many years. I asked my old friend and collaborator Kent Jones to work with me, and we spent quite a long time looking at the films, talking about them, looking at the life, the fame, the infamy, and finding the tone, the balance that felt right for this picture.  I feel that the finished film speaks to the power of art, in this case the art of Elia Kazan.”

With respect to the Elia Kazan Film Collection, Scorsese added,  “I’m very excited that Fox is making our film available as part of a box set of Kazan’s work – I’m especially pleased by the inclusion of five pictures that have never been released on DVD, Wild River and America, America in particular. Getting the movies seen – that’s what we’re all aiming for.”   

On November 9^th, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release the Elia Kazan Film Collection, an 18-disc DVD gift set including A Letter to Elia and 15 of Kazan’s most acclaimed and noteworthy films.  The full collection, in addition to the documentary, includes:   A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Boomerang! (1947), Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), Pinky (1949), Panic in the Streets (1950), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Viva Zapata! (1952), Man on a Tightrope (1953), On the Waterfront (1954), East of Eden (1955), Baby Doll (1956), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Wild River (1960), Splendor in the Grass (1961), and America, America (1963).  Of the collection, 5 films have never before been released on DVD:  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Viva Zapata!, Man on a Tightrope, Wild River, and America, America.

For more details, check out www.lettertoelia.com