Martin Scorsese’s Two Armenian Angels

By Jirair Tutunjian, Toronto, 28 January 2025

Talking about filmmakers who had influenced his work, celebrated director-producer Martin Scorsese more than once has said the guidance of Prof. Haig Manoogian (1916-1980) was the most precious gift he had ever received.

Scorsese was a callow teenager when he enrolled at the New York University to learn filmmaking. Talking about his first class, Scorsese said: “This gentleman got up and spoke with such passion and such energy about cinema. I became part of the cult. His name was Haig Manoogian.”

The director of Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Raging Bull and a dozen other classics, went on to say about Manoogian: “He really inspired us. He pushed us… he beat us down and he built us back again. He set a fire in our hearts…” The multi-award winning Scorsese added that his experiences with Manoogian led him to become a film director.

New York-born Manoogian not only taught filmmaking in the classroom, he was also an author (The Film-Maker’s Art) who advised Scorsese on how to improve his screenplays especially by adding new scenes. The Armenian teacher also acted as co-producer of Scorsese’s first film (Who’s That Knocking at My Door). When Scorsese made his much-acclaimed Raging Bull, he dedicated the film to Manoogian. But unfortunately, Manoogian had died a few months before the release of the movie.

Raging Bull had another Armenian link: it was co-written by Mardik Martin. Born in Iran (1934), Martin was a fellow student of Scorsese at the NYU. They soon became close friends and worked together on such Scorsese films as Not Just You. Mardik and Scorsese would often sit in Scorsese’s Plymouth in the middle of winter writing screenplays. After graduation, Martin co-wrote Scorsese’s Mean Streets; New York, New York; and Raging Bull. His name is included as screenwriter on the Writers Guild of America’s list of 101 Greatest Screenplay.

In 2014 Mardik spread his wings overseas and co-wrote the screenplay of The Cut, a German movie. The movie’s main male character was named Nazaret Manoogian. The first name was to recognize the Christianity of Armenians while the last name had two references: Haig Manoogian and Armenian philanthropist Alex Manoogian of Detroit.

Mardik was honored at several European film festivals and by Armenia’s Parajanov-Vartanev Institute “for the mastery of his pen on iconic American films.” He died a few days before his 85^th birthday.