Politics, Authorship and History: the Production, Reception and Marginalization of Street Scenes 1970

Street Scenes 1970 (New York Cinetracts Collective, 1970), a now forgotten documentary made by a group of New York University film students and professional filmmakers led by then NYU instructor Martin Scorsese, offers an intriguing case study to consider issues of politics, authorship and history. The author provides a reconstruction of this currently unavailable political documentary through the voices of many of its makers and offers an analysis of why the film has been marginalized within cinema history despite the presence of such an acclaimed auteur as Martin Scorsese.