10 Screenwriting Tips from Martin Scorsese - Interview on The Wolf of Wall Street and Taxi Driver

other people didn't take me that seriously and um i went to shameless i went to every party in l.a i promoted myself shamelessly i'm mad all the time i can tell you just you know angry angry angry pain in the neck that's why i use humor a lot because it deflates myself i don't want to take it seriously because i really do you know people always say well interested in the antagonist in my movies well the point is that they're also human these are also parts of the negative parts of who they are make your own industry recreate movies don't pay attention to industry do your own thing goodfellas was very special i was looking for something that i could find another way of dealing with genre and i think really that's what started to get me really interested in the characters in the world that it depicted in a genre that i've kind of felt most comfortable with over the years there's something about the underworld has more to do with the kind of a working class or a lower working class existence from where i come from and so it's natural for me that world is something that deals with very basic conflicts basic dilemmas moral dilemmas that i grew up with and so i feel comfortable with it there's something about de niro who understands the humanity of all kinds of people and could really uh express that we had some similar interests he knew where i came from i knew where he came from he understood the area i grew up in and i just think that they reflect those dilemmas those conflicts it's kind of comfortable at times to to do stuff that you feel you intrinsically know what i mean is no at least in terms of body language dialogue no dialogue to you that's and did you want to be famous did you want to be oh yeah yeah absolutely yes and did all that generation of people that you met then yes spielberg and trader and we all did i mean um when i was at nyu i know i was a director i was making a living editing somewhat other people's films and and documentaries and things like that i was making a living also doing a little bit of writing but basically the only thing i really can't do is i mean really can't do on my own i tried i have no knowledge of any kind of lighting or camera work how a camera works i've tried that i've done 16 millimeter and things like that but i'm not where i came from it was always dark so do you leave it all almost to your deal dark and lower yeah well pretty much no i designed with him i designed the shots i designed the movement of the shots and the size of the frame i have a real problem sometimes dealing with the light i don't know where the light sometimes coming from my eye for me like it's new york look at us right now but no no i felt i was a director and i i knew i was but other people didn't take me that seriously and i went to shameless i went to every party in l.a i promoted myself shamelessly we were writing there's that scene where bob de niro is standing at the bar with a cigarette and he's looking at manny and he's going to kill him and you know he's going to kill him and marty has this shot and he gets closer and closer and closer and bob's eyes get more wolf-like it was just the most terrifying picture and as i'm typing that stuff because i'm the typist he says put in cream put in cream i said what cream says just write that write down cream i said what's what cream who are you talking about just put it just put it put it do me a favor just put it so i've typed in cream well it turns out while we're typing that scene he's already listening to the music he has a deep sense of how music should go with the film and by that i don't mean that that that it should go easily sometimes it's a shocking choice but it works like crazy i kind of see everything with music especially the juxtaposition of the type of music you're listening to to the images that you see out the window and that sort of thing and i said that's the way music should be in a movie what is it about this thing of filmmaking that turned you on the most what is it about this process um that you know is it the editing is it [Music] creating the scene for me for me if first of all you need you need the story you need the script to be there you need the script to be there you need it to be on the page in terms of the emotion and in terms of uh something with which the audience can empathize in terms of characters you need the audience to care about somebody okay that's one thing so we've been taking over the years we've been pushing we're pushing the envelope on that though over the years with mean streets taxi driver raging bull and particularly raging bull and even uh goodfellas and uh casinos so you're pushing the edge there how much can you care for a person if he's this bad or she's that bad you know can you still care there's some out there i know can still care so that's pretty good okay now let's see if we can push a little more i have to like the people in the film i have to love them the characters are the actors both actually yeah both first i start with the characters and um if you have actors who are who are our soul mates too that's great we also have the same philosophy too uh de niro has a certain philosophy kaitel and it's the same place that you have it's a shared philosophy yeah it is which is well dealing with the subject matter that we see it a certain way and there's a certain truth that we try to get to uh joe pesci too has that about the about a raging bull or about about a good fellas or a casino uh that we just sense when something isn't quite right we know that that gesture is wrong you know you can't direct it they have to they have to be it people who are flawed people like ourselves uh and to see if anybody else cares about them there was no tradition of reading in the house no books um of course i read in school etc books in school and that sort of thing but it was more of a visual tradition more uh if i was taken to movie theaters a lot also being a sickly child with a very severe asthma i couldn't play sports so again the movie theater the movie theater in the church the church in the movie theater and so along with the films uh there was also the advent of television 1948-49 and the heyday of really the best some of the best programming in american television in the history of uh american television up to this point with the 50s 1950s and so i saw a lot of television shows but also films on television uh being working class family too they didn't have enough money to go to theater so theater wasn't an option um live stage shows so it was mainly mainly visual literacy what was what was happening at at that time to me i did not understand that that was happening what it made me realize was that there was an intelligence another kind of intelligence that was trying to tell a story through where the director the writer and the cinematographer where they were focusing your eyes you know whether it was the camera may be in an extremely low angle looking up at you the use of the lens the size of the lens i began to understand certain lenses did interpreted the story differently a longer lens crushed everything together and made it flat a wider lens stretched everything and some don't distort it especially if camera movement i learned looking at certain pictures particularly wells films and and william weiler too a wide angle lens the while i used his wide-angle lens in a very strong steady image but wells used that wide-angle lens 18 millimeter it turns out um very often to move along the walls move along and you really felt i felt as if the camera was flying as if the story was flying by you know um i didn't know why until i kept seeing the films again and again as i began to know a little more about what filmmaking was like and what cameras did and that's i still didn't know who made the pictures you know but i was beginning to understand that there are certain certain tools you use and those tools become part of a vocabulary that's just as valid as that vocabulary that is used in literature in our language i love to watch my son direct i just love to sit there and watch him direct the picture what about that what do you like what are you liking like in like in a regime regional is one of the greatest tell me what i don't like i don't like when he puts me in a picture and then he takes me out well that's not fair she went so hard she was cut out of taxi driver she was travis's first passenger that's right with shopping bags you know shopping bags again they couldn't get in the car and getting they were so heavy i said what do you got mom you have to go that's it then you think you took me out i took you out what else did i take you out no raging bully took me out of two yeah well you were only an extra day yeah you did a big scene in king of comedy you did the whole conversation with that girl all the whole scene in kingdom comedy with the de niro down in the basement and his mother arguing with them is all improvised between the two very good i thought of that all myself all by myself and i tell you he gave me two words and he says continue yeah right she wrote wrote down her own dialogue yeah and i says to myself i'm gonna be i'm gonna be smarter than him okay what about the early days like when marty was doing murray when he was wait a minute when he when he started when he started with these films and he used to tell me you have to get in the picture i i used to tell him but i'm not an actress he seems to say to me but you don't have to be an actress i said but i don't know how to act he says mother you either get in the picture or you pay money i didn't have so i had to get in the picture pay for what for the actress for the actors we had no money so i had to get in the picture tell me how to use me how much you got for your pot main streets they gave me twenty eight dollars and i couldn't say nothing twenty eight dollars i made suits i had a big fight with you on the set remember yeah yeah main streets big fight the mean streets the part at the end when the lady when the they're in the hallway and bobby de niro's having the fight with with harvey and she gets a fit i was so tired i have to i had when i used to go to work at the time and it was 1 30 in the morning and he was sleeping he didn't want to come he was sleeping and i said to marty marty please it's late everybody wants to go home he says we're going to do this a few more times well he did it a few times but then i had i went over to him and i said marty i have to go to work in the morning he says to me go in that corner and don't come out till i call you that's him she said don't you dare talk to me that way he said don't try i said don't you talk to me like that i'm your mother he's go in the corner but the problem was that the people in the building you see mean streets was mainly shot in los angeles but actually actually you told me you got from so many angles she said you got it from a wide angle you got a medium shot let's go home let's go home that's right i have to watch it now we do it this way now we do it that way so i figured he's going from all angles i started to understand the angles so because you know you know from you know from the student films that were able to call us you know but i couldn't imagine the beginning what he was doing you know people always say well interested in the antagonist in my movies well the point is that they're also human these are also parts of the negative parts of who they are evil streak so to speak if you want to use that phrase there's also maybe something in us and something not to be afraid of but to explore a lot of his films and especially with goodfellas definitely deal in the underworld and that's been a recurring theme in a lot of his work and i think people are attracted to that but more so the fact that he's always trying to grasp the humanity of these people the flawed nature of these characters i think they just reflect aspects of who we are as human beings and some things we can't deny or pretend they don't exist that's the idea that's very dangerous because when it if you're teaching younger people when they suddenly shock to find out it does exist no it exists you know i just want to get you prepared i don't know how it's going to come at you but it's going to be there because that's part of who we are i'm wondering when you're trying to make a film and you come up against obstacles and barriers what do you attribute your strong dedication to getting that film made um really i hysteria usually hysteria and obsession and anger i think mainly anger i'm mad all the time i might tell you just you know angry angry angry pain in the neck that's why i use humor a lot because it deflates myself i don't want to take it seriously because i really do i you i would have been gone much longer 25 years ago i wouldn't have survived but the anger is enormous about everything about everything and so that also fueled me to make a picture i think but keeping the sense of humor is the key thing the irony the irony when you get there in the morning and you get a note that one actor has had a during this breakdown and he can't go on with the film it happened it happened yeah they don't want to come out of the trailer go ahead right here in the black sweater what are you gonna do you get a heart attack otherwise or you killed someone you know it's not good that's true yes make your own industry recreate movies pay attention to industry do your own thing i mean put it this way um you want the work to be seen but it doesn't have to be the odeon you know no more that's all different that's all god's another ancient world that type of film or not even that type of film the the the communal experience is always important you can make a film on a camera the size of that doorknob and still show it to 600 people in an audience it's still a great communal experience you know it doesn't necessarily mean it has to cost over 100 million pounds you know it's all new you just break it open break open the form don't just uh just you know have your tripod and a camera that's standing on it the cameras that are being made now and of course the fact that all area flex and other cameras have stopped being made and whether we like it or not we have to deal with a new new technology high definition or digital whatever it's called it's it changes cinematography the artichoke cinematography but but younger ones you make a new art take what's available push it you know because it's going to go there you could do anything these are the questions that you have to deal with if you're making a film to anyone who decides what you're leaving the frame and what you leave out and that that's the fundamental issue where do you put the camera which take do you use where do you where do you cut or not cut that's the basic question now we come full circle to the irishman you know working with the actors trying to capture again kind of a beauty of movement gesture speech a lot of the stuff i recall from my own life growing up um and that i could really explore further with you know incredible artists like pacino and de niro albertson and i worked was the first time we were together on this picture and bob and i returned to working together again after i think the last picture we worked on together was a casino 1995. so this took a long time to find the right project and to uh find the right space so to speak in which we could operate and also try to learn more about ourselves i guess i'm not sure i may be about making a movie you know and we're looking even more closely from this vantage point in our lives at the age of 75 76 we're looking at friendship betrayal power trust self-preservation and then maybe a possibility of a redemption i think i know at least in my case we all return to what obsesses us what haunts us to the questions that deepen and really become more mysterious as time goes by as we ask them you

Channel: Outstanding Screenplays

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Keywords: video essay, screenwriting, screenwriter, analysis, screenplay, scriptwriting, screenplays, screenplay tips, quick tips, how to write, cinema, scriptwriters, writing, film, lessons from the screenplay, studio binder, script, tips, story, oscars, review, how to, outstanding screenplays, filmmaking, motivational video, tips from screenwriters, directors chair, the irishman, martin scorsese, scorsese interviews, scorsese directing, scorsese writing advice, wolf of wall street, goodfellas

Id: bcwkEIO9OKU

Length: 16min 49sec (1009 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 25 2020