After watching several of his maginificant movies I have noticed that quite often or always black characters are not featured that much or a virtualy non existant.

I think this is rather odd since most of his films deal wtih the gangster/drugs theme and that surely characters would inevitably come across black gangstes and dope dealers, especially the setting being in NYC. The only black character I saw from Scorses movies was Stax Edwards (Samuel L Jackson) who I think had a rather minor role in the film.
Also in Taxi Driver Deniro was visciously beating up a black man in a supermarket whilst the shop keeper was just casually watching the scene unfold and not giving a damn.

Did he really have something against them or he just thought that they weren't important enough to pay attention to?

I don't think he had a problem with black people at all. In Goodfellas & Casino, they're Mafia movies! They worked within their own. Sure some work with blacks, but in these movies, they worked within their own crime ring which I guess didn't not include too many blacks. I wouldn't go so far as to say that he is anti-black.

In Raging Bull he is also fights alot of blacks.

I don't think he is anti-black

by "he" i meen Jake LaMotta

He fights Sugar Ray Robinson, like in REAL life.

Scorsese isn't anti-black. He didn't write Taxi Driver. In fact, the script had Sport in a minor role and he was black and Scorsese changed it to avoid racist tones.

Scorsese is a good example that many great filmmakers follow..."Do what you know!"

Since "Marty" is a Queens-native, Italian-American descent, combined with his rabid obsession with movies, its not surprising he simply follows what he knows with stuff like MEAN STREETS and WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR? and later on in RAGING BULL and of course GOODFELLAS and CASINO.

Its like John Singleton, an African-American filmmaker that made BOYZ IN THE HOOD and BABY BOY, two black "gangster" films, and then seeing some of Spike Lee's films(like in MALCOLM X and especially DO THE RIGHT THING) some of the protagonist's opposing foes were white. Because of this, are they anti-white? Of course not.

Besides, imagined if some California sunshine 20sh guy had directed GOODFELLAS. The end result is that the movie would not have been as "realistically gritty" and honest, in a sub-consious leve at least.

Same with Oliver Stone doing all those Vietnam War-set films....he was a volunteer in the Vietnam War, so hes doing what he knows.

i dont think he is anti black just no need to use black charecters for mafia style films.mafia hoods stick with there own people

You've hit upon a reality of American life: the movie industry is white-dominated, most movie-goers are white, and therefore most films that expect to make big money stick with white casts and white themes. Another (unfortunate) part of movie culture is that scriptwriters and directors tend to go with stereotypes, rather than show nuances of character. So, if they need a racketeer, they go with an Italian character, a drug dealer is most often black or hispanic, a drunk is Irish, a landlord or storeowner is a Jew, etc. When I was a little kid, my mother (who was a grade-A movie fan) always told me that the only time you saw blacks in films was in prison movies. She was right.

As for Scorsese: as others have pointed out, he goes with what he knows. "Mean Streets" had a black character (a dancer that Charlie wanted to employ in a restaurant he hoped to take over). Scorsese collaborates with famous black director Spike Lee. You often see Scorsese's "stock company" in Lee's movies. Watch "Jungle Fever" and you'll see much of the cast of "Goodfellas," and not just Samuel L. Jackson either.

He's starring in "Shark Tale" with Will Smith.

Will Smith....jeez. The same guy that when Spike Lee called him and tried to be hired as the director of ALI, Smith didn't want Lee to make his "type of film" and instead wanted a movie that would have "broader appeal"...of course ALI tanked in theaters anyway, even with a personal favorite filmmaker of mine, Michael Mann.

But yes, Spike Lee was a student under Scorsese when "Marty" was a film professor at NYU. Ironically, Oliver Stone was also a student.

Another example of a filmmaker that does what he knows is Quentin Tarantino. I mean most of his movies set, or partially set, in Los Angeles where he was raised and lived for most of his life.

But yes Turnbull, you are absolutely correct, and most Hollywood movies have these cliches either because they were too lazy(director/screenwriters/producers that is) to do proper research or actually know these people, or they are really not cultured enough to know any better.

Some filmmakers that at least attempted to go for a difference was George Romero, who had the black lead in his horror classics NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAWN OF THE DEAD(Ken Foree For President!!!), and John Carpenter with Austin Stoker in ASSAULT ON PRECEINT 13.

Of course Tarantino is another man who tries, like look at his female black lead with Pam Grier in JACKIE BROWN, and of course letting Sam Jackson do his thing.

But again, the racial stereotypes...thats why many African-Americans were taken for the "blaxploitation" films of the 1970's, for they for once were the heroes and not the sidekick thats says "Damn!" all the time(like we see the norm in Hollywood movies now) nor were they the token characters. I mean Larry Cohen's BLACK CAESAR is basically the same story of SCARFACE but instead a black hood, with guts and intelligence and street smarts, takes command as a major mob boss over an Italian syndicate. Besides, look at the "Bad-Ass" heroes in movies like SHAFT, SUPERFLY, TRUCK TURNER, and so on.

If you watch that scene closely, the black man was robbing the store.

No I dont think Scorsese is anti-black. When you have a movie about Italians or Jews you tend to think of them as white. If I went to see a movie about Colin Powell, it would lose credibility if Edward Norton was playing the lead. It really depends on your characters, and the movies Scorsese has done just havent had a black centered storyline

Welcome to the site, Cybershmuck.

An actual thoughtful question to me, at first, which was why I entered. He's definitely not anti-black, but I too have noticed a trend in his films--the black thief in Taxi Driver, Stacks in Goodfellas, and the overall lacking of black actors altogether in his films.

And I have to say I admire him for it. Too many films these days have succumbed to Hollywood and put black actors in roles which only stereotypes them (wrongly). Scorsese avoids this by not even including them in films where (let's face it) they normally wouldn't be needed, such as Goodfellas, Casino, etc. In Gangs of New York he totally missed out the anti-black riots of that time.

There's something I noticed in the past, like I said, some social comment in there somewhere; it's not racist, though. In fact, I'm sure I read something about it in "Scorsese on Scorsese."

By the way, you clearly need to see Taxi Driver again. The black guy is holding up the shop at gunpoint, Travis shoots him, and the shopkeeper decides to beat the living (or dead?) daylights out of the corpse, while Travis drives off in his cab.

Mick