Director Martin Scorsese adds an Emmy to his Trophy Shelf

Director Martin Scorsese had to wait until 2007 before snagging an Oscar for his film The Departed after a career stretching back to the 1960s, but television has been quicker to show its appreciation, awarding the groundbreaking director an Emmy for directing the pilot show of the acclaimed series Boardwalk Empire at the 63rd Prime Time Emmy Awards.

An Emmy win is a double reward for Martin Scorsese who has expressed his happiness with the way television gives him a format for developing characters and stories, telling the Los Angeles Times, “...he was intrigued by Boardwalk because it allowed

him the opportunity to develop characters over a longer period of time. It was almost like the way Victorian novels were written. They were serialized. Dickens wrote that way,” he explained. “We had always hoped in the 60s when films started to be made for television that long-form films were going to be created for the medium, and it didn’t really work out that way. I think you really have an opportunity here now, and I can see it even more so than what is possible in independent cinema.”

Boardwalk Empire was also nominated for outstanding dramatic series losing to perennial powerhouse Mad Men. Boardwalk Empire fuels the current trend for shows set in New Jersey though it is the only one with creative story lines and not a blurry “reality” show featuring “real” people behaving badly or a loveable baker with a big heart and a colorful family. To quote Film-News-UK. “Martin was eager to be part of Boardwalk Empire. The HBO series is a 1920s drama set in Atlantic City and stars Steve Buscemi,” saying “Well, I was extremely nervous. It was something I’d never dreamed of,” Martin told Deadline Hollywood. “But I’m just as excited [as I’d been winning the Oscar], it’s quite extraordinary.”