For our fortieth anniversary, the editors of Rolling Stone have interviewed twenty artists and leaders who helped shape our time. Over the next four weeks, every day, we’ll be debuting exclusive audio clips from the Q&As, giving you unparalleled access to some of the most important personalities in history.

Today we present Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese. Besides owning the copyright on intelligently made mob films, Scorsese is the king of New York filmmaking, as evidenced by Raging Bull and the atmospheric After Hours. But his cinematic adventures don’t always revolve around mean streets: He also directed The Band’s Last Waltz, made the most comprehensive Bob Dylan documentary and is currently working on a project with the Rolling Stones.

For our fortieth anniversary issue, our resident film guru Peter Travers recently sat down with Scorsese to discuss finally winning an Oscar, chilling with Spielberg and Coppola in the ’70s, and why he’s segueing from working with Jack Nicholson to Mick Jagger. To check out the entire profile, pick up your copy of our anniversary issue, on stands now. In the meantime, check out these exclusive audio excerpts:

• Scorsese talks about starting out with his friends George [Lucas], Steven [Spielberg] and Francis [Ford Coppola]: “We knew the old Hollywood system was gone, so we thought we could get in the cracks somehow. Francis was already at it – he was the big brother…”
• Scorsese, who somehow turns violence into art, talks about why films have been getting more obscene: “When I did Casino, at one point a man puts his key in the ignition and his car blows up. Acquisition. Taking more and more and more, until finally there’s never enough, until it just explodes, the whole society explodes. I look at things that way, fueled by anger…”

Check back tomorrow for the next installment of our twenty-part audio interviews, featuring some of the most iconic and influential pop culture figures of the last 40 years. Want a hint at tomorrow’s interviewee? Which famed journalist told us this:

I’ve taken what I think of as the ‘man from Mars approach’: I’ve just arrived from Mars, I have no idea what you’re doing, and I’m very interested.