Martin Scorsese: A Life In Pictures

unlike in Fortitude director producer writer editor actor film historian do you recall the first time that you saw a film and were conscious of the oppression it was making on you well I think it was probably in the 46 or 47 as it's been noted before I guess and I've been had serious asthma since the age of two and a half or three and some lung damage prior to that they were very my parents are very protective and they were working-class worked in the garment district of New York and so the idea was to make sure that I didn't run or laugh wealthy laughs you can't catch a breath and then you know so it was its own actually made me aware laughing Ronnie guy and sure enough there was a problem so the only thing probably pretty much they could do for me was to we'll keep an eye on me school and primarily the movie theaters part of that for me as a child of course as a child a child's experience it was the the use of color and um and those days color was used for musicals or westerns or very very seldom for other types of pictures but it was a trailer Roy Rogers and no trigger trigger jumping over a log you know the horse in the Palomino Palomino for those of you may not know is it's like a blonde horse with white hair right yeah white white mane and tail and core gorgeous I mean if you want a horse that's I mean I think this is English different thank you but what I mean for the American West and Roy Rogers is wearing turquoise or whatever and fringe looks fantastic and then the next thing I remember is the vivid um trauma of seeing duel in the Sun on its first release condemned by the church in America lambaste I guess by the critics and there it was up it was like a scandalous film apparently and I remember was being traumatized by the picture and particularly the music and the the use of color the yellow of the Sun particularly in the credit I mean I enjoyed it I liked it but it was a very disturbing I remember being frightened by the the shootout at the end between Jennifer Jones and Gregory Peck but I guess that explains most of what I do and most of my life something so then going to NYU you will presumably at that point exposed to films from all over me more than most be at the local film house or on television right around that time I was seeing foreign films farm films on television to buting the beasts Cocteau lays on fun to parody who gets ooh the first Japanese film myself but I did find that I couldn't resist seeing things in pictures and drawing pictures and trying to make films on paper and actually borrowing the friend of Mines 8-millimeter camera I'm trying to make a film my friends was absurd and ridiculous but we we did it and so and why you were Washington Square College that division of my you it one could pay the tuition you know my father had some savings for that he was able to do it with some student loans there was one professor there Haig Manoogian who was a Armenian American and he he had a lot of energy and he was highly inspirational I think the thing is the idea is if you can latch onto a mentor if they really feel that you had that passion to do it when the mentor feels that mentor professor teacher whatever to give you the help to express yourself to make you believe in yourself to do it it doesn't mean you can do right wrong whatever but it's encouraging that that fire and I was very lucky to find this particular person now main street's originally I gather the idea was was not to set it in an italian-american oh no no always was uh it was originally originally this black-and-white film that I tried to make all eventually was called who's that knocking at my door with Harvey Keitel Xena Beth you and that took about three or four years to put together and my professor and everybody helped us Haig Manoogian Thelma we met at NYU film school Megan in my editor and and so we were all putting this thing together and but many of the things that I really wanted to do and I couldn't I shall I started to formulate another script another aspect of it of that life in that lifestyle downtown people I knew myself my friend and that became mean streets and and I was urged to do that by John Cassavetes who loved who's that knocking which I have very very mixed feelings about but he liked the film alot he was very encouraging and when he saw box car I showed it to him right away breast Cobra he told me you spent a year your life you know making a piece of [ __ ] he said so first interesting about encouragement verses said premier embraced I didn't kiss me you know and that he said now for me by the shoulders you just been a year you life doing something nicer he said I know it looks good the girl you like the girl and it my god the actors a nice which in vivid them but you know make that kind of film you good you've got a good things like knocking you know you got something you want to do I said yeah but working on for a few years well get get an actor in it and try to work up to that to get a name actor and the same old story you have to you know and that was it do you mean Michaels with my back all night he's bothering me why don't you make you pay me last Thursday really I made my family loser when talking about you pay the last week I paid him last week why what do you say son Pam it's a [ __ ] lie you where is he depends yeah I paid last week yeah last Tuesday yeah so you don't know what we did we're out front he's here yeah so what I want you let me go get him we'll straighten this thing out all right they waiting away McCauley but well you're right I'm right yeah was it one less Tuesday yeah that's the Tuesday there was last week that's before the one it's about to come up my mistake I'm sorry forgive me it was last week the week before it I was thinking of yeah oh yeah where's that on this one that's a dialog developed in rehearsal because it wasn't written in the script why Keitel's character charlie would support or help or be responsible for this character basically who doesn't care about anybody or anything at that point and his life is anarchy in a way with no no way to break out you know just to behave badly and it goes more it's deeper than that but in any event come didn't ever ask me you said - is there any place where we could put something and that shows how the power he has over Charlie with a power the way he speaks the way they say I live in this area right after and so we worked on that and I was shot the last day we squeezed it in the last day of shooting we had to beg for another half day of shooting and also the use of music the high speed all of that being influenced I guess by how I saw that life when I was living it because I was as was going to Washington Square College I was also living that and balance between the two is 1959 to 1965 all of those those years very very key years Sumida and music of course it's a the decline of the 50s rock and roll and the beginnings of the girl groups and that sort of thing the Ronettes Phil Spector which is the beginning of the film here using the beginning of the film and then the British Invasion quorum quote and 63 is the assassination of Kennedy Vietnam everything starting so though that period was very interesting was still like the 50s until Kennedy got killed see in a way and things kind of change but in any event this is the way I saw it I saw it in red I saw it high-speed I saw it that way and I heard the music in my head when I saw or experienced things but there was in my apartment my parents my brother or my aunts and uncles there were many of them life on the street just looking at from the third-floor window of the tenement we lived in which is still there and the influence of French and Italian films in Russian the next thing you can see is that your decrement er II about your parents from 1974 Italian America now they obviously were very supportive of your filter your mother actually appears well I know she appears in immediately to the genitive well they had no choice I mean no they don't know what to do with me I mean way to go I mean I wasn't afraid he's gonna be a priest he was gonna get married he's not gonna get married he's gonna go get he's gonna do this now he is married now he's not what is he doing he's with these other people and but they seem like nice people they like his movies they thought I was completely mad they really did are speaking one night but they were happy with the idea that you would come and make a documentary in our no it's my sons frame you want to come and take some pictures okay that's they mind so this is where this is a long story as to why the film was made but I learned a lot from it particularly from the very very beginning of it we should be later on today okay where are you sitting down there why why are you fighting down there you can do what he wants I'm doing that fashion why are you so far from me okay okay well sir no you come here that's it that's more like it lovey dovey sort of you know they say as you get older your love grow stronger so for some reason it is getting a little stronger you know my daddy he's bashful yeah I know oh I wanted to start one of the you're gonna tell us about the sauce you can show us how to do the sauce well what should I say well you can you're gonna you're gonna get up and show it to us but I wanted to know who you know how did you learn it well what are you read about the sauce uh-huh how did you learn how to mix it so I'm suppose we're talking to you you talk to me I could talk to them it doesn't matter I'll be over here I'll be over here shall I mention your name doesn't matter yeah you betcha Minnie you want what should I say you want me to know you want me to tell you how Idaho how I learn how to make still in a college or guys why don't you ask me the question don't you hear that then no I mean if you would ask me a question I would say okay I'm gonna say that all right I want to know how you learned how to make sauce who taught you who taught it to you how long am i how many years how many years you've been doing it and I want to see you do it well you know when you first get married you really not much of a cook I watched my mother make sauce I watched my mother law I got a lot from my mother Lorelei from a family she got more than my mother till my mother than my mother hey there he goes putting his mother in again all right let's go inside Michiko now if you want me to Rick I'll show you I'll come and show you how I make the top okay that's pretty much was like on set it's where I do you know what I do with the actors and work with them just fine I mean different kinds of technique actors certain actors of difficulty you have to work around that but I over the years I found that that's pretty much it I mean pretty much like her or if a guy trying to ask a question and this was done as a public service film or something for a series of a nation of immigrants is something like storm of strangers was called I think series of documentaries to be made for public television with no budgets very very little and one for the Chinese Americans Jewish American Italian a neck sort of thing Irish and so they asked me to do the Italian one based on Main streets I think and I said I'd do it if I could find a different way rather than showing people arriving at Ellis Island and talking about the great nature of the would be the strong heart of the peasants who came here and that's a basically is true but like no I said what if we just have like a afternoon dinner my mother's and my mother's and father's apartment on Elizabeth Street which was a newer apartment that furniture that just got in that furniture and it just had the plastic CK's on because the old furniture came from the 1940s and 50s it was a different across the street than they moved across the street after 25 years but in any event I said yeah I mean just my friends and I came up with a couple of questions and asking the first the idea of the sauce was important because the nature of the Italian American or in case Sicilians was that usually on a Sunday afternoon you had a family dinner and that all revolved around the sauce itself from what's in the sauce was what supports the ingredients are that week the type of pasta you would have sauce sauce boats probably start the day before and it'll be a lot of discussion during the week about what the menu would be that day and who would be coming around also if you're in a tenement if you're in a tenement particularly in the summertime there was never any air-conditioning or stuff like that in America now it's all but the doors will open so people would come by from the other apartments if you wouldn't speaking terms some of them you weren't with speaking terms but you're not speaking to but in any event that people come in have something not other people I just a dyke and all them what do you got listen I have so it was a constant flurry of people sometimes it's enjoyable for the most part was pretty pretty impressive but it was pretty interesting so it's also no metaphor so the source had to start the film but ultimately the end of the pill my end of the film I just put the recipe up and the credits we're going to push on to taxi driver and Paul Schrader obviously your ink certain counter with Paul Schrader now this is a case of us seeing I mean he's very much opposed to be at now film isn't it it's a film about a man trying to put things right in the way that the lone gun used to in America but the lone gunman sort of failed to do in Vietnam is that right yes but I think it's more obviously I think it's much more than that Vietnam happens to be the place he was in to be Afghanistan now could be Cromwell and Ireland it could be you know I'm saying it's really it's the nature of what you are and what that thinking in that life and also the zealousness to of believing a certain thing and having it smash completely and you come back you're left alone thought for a while making the film a black-and-white video because we just couldn't get the money for it and then finally when I think Tamara was able to slip we were slipped it in we figured well it's a labor of love nobody really is going to respond to it I guess but it has to be made because we all had a very strong attachment that we didn't verbalize we never verbalized myself and DeNiro but we really felt that it was it was something that we all are living through [Music] good afternoon are you coming shitheel I'm standing here you make a move you make the move your move I'll try you talking to me you talking to me talking to me well who the hell are you talking to talking to me well I'm the only one here literally I'm sitting at his feet as a mirror behind me in the camera too and there's a window and that's it and it was again the last week of shooting and we went an hour and a half too long in our ad it was a great and very famous one at the time Pete's Co but was banging on the door let come on we've got to go I know but I think this is really good just give us another five minutes all right all right but they're gonna kill us okay so I mean it was always under that incredible pressures any kind of he said though you're talking to me and we started doing the business with the gun which is it was scripted we think I've got you whatever he's doing over the station he said they got into a rhythm particularly are you talking to me and I remember saying to again again and I'm not saying that I told him to say it again but I kept on asking what we often do is I just have to repeat it repeat it we do it now where you know take one has six times seven times in it or five times so you create the atmosphere and you can make it as easy as possible for them to take that time if they're on to something take the time even if you have to get out of there in 15 minutes that's the thing if the actor or he or she is moving in there on a level that you feel is just taking it - it transcends transcendent moments trying to dental moments like I mean for the film I'm talking about but for the experience I'm having there I know that I could tell that and part of that energy is the panic of getting out of there and it was just going to take his time and he's going to raise that gun he's going to say I saw you coming you know and I really knew he had something when he said I I know you're talking me because I'm the only one here I said well and in effect in the film he is the only one he's realized he's the only one there he is talking to himself that says it's the last move which is the Oh which is the film you made about the band so well yes Kong is it now obviously music was already you know playing very important part in your annual films and your sensitivity to the way that you use music was clearly you're a fan of the band and so how did you want to shoot this concert in a different way first of all that in fig was going to be a film I thought would record it for posterity for all for the band itself and the guests they were going to have and the guests each guest was Robbie's idea I think each guest would represent different different influences of music from around the country that influenced the music of the band and Bob Dylan too and so I thought this was incredible and particularly if you have people from muddy waters to Joni Mitchell and Eric Clapton and Dylan and you know who's going to pay for it really you a wasn't involved a time you noticed they were not I said let's think about let's think about doing it in thirty five-millimeter and what we placed six cameras in position and a seventh camera was Dave Myers was great directive cinematographer who also worked on Woodstock and many other films and he was doing a bit of a hand held he got that great shot of levon Helm singing old fiddler from behind the drum with a light and the symbol they just I'm just helping he knows what to hold the shot he knows nothing about this way that's enough of that okay hold it take in the performance take in the eyes of the performance feel the energy of the lighting the atmosphere is they you know you can't teach a person I'm grown no bees Oh Todd why [Music] that mean - boy Ling I'm a full-grown man [Music] place started to shape with the music and then he reveals Butterfield again a Robertson with his guitar in his hand and the the backup man who's screaming yeah all the time that it really add to study or the performers in one frame and just the study even though it's a profile of Muddy Waters face it's a record of a performance and also it's the incantation it's a it's religious it goes back it's like incantation chanting it's Alexander the Great you know stirring his men up to battle it's all that comes from there are you humanity that in a sense the shaman the one who takes over the one who takes your soul over in a way he or she who couldn't fire up an audience for good or bad Robinson no type of them right on the nose across the ring left or right - there has been to a lot [Music] beyond the finish of the race the winning ways are integrity a lot of time again particularly that's seen the use of sound effects Frank Warner was a great sound effects editor and he creepy we just kept trying to figure out what to do with Franken during the mixing mixing took a long time because I hadn't really figured out the sound effects and Franklin coming was coming up with all these suggestions this one you hear one point particularly when there's a sort of savage blow by LaMotta towards the end of that second fight those are screams of elephant elephants tigers screeching backwards you know melons all kinds of things being hit that that frank worked on and i also stretched the ring we made the ring two or three times it's normal size because the footwork of Sugar Ray he was known first footwork as I can't get enough of it I said I would just build the ring twice or three times the size and nobody will know because you can be stretching it cutting it back and forth and so the ring is stretch that you can see in many many many of the shots and there are two technical things pretty interesting one where we changed the speed of the camera and Denis was lifting his trunks like this and he's looking while Sugar Ray's getting back up on the ground on the on the mat and that was done by you know changing the speed from 24 frames to maybe 48 or 40 but you also had to change the aperture and the f-stop now that was done before you had the buttons that you could do you know you press the button now and it it can it could go automatically so you had to have three three people on the camera as you were doing that plus DeNiro had to be into that mode because before be shoddy would have a punch in bed lowered and punch punch punch and then jump into the frame ready to shoot so this is before video assist before knee and that michael Chapman that is the cinematographer now but nine or ten minutes of film really ultimately winds up in the picture in terms of the fight scenes but it took ten weeks to shoot the fight scenes I mean for me there was no difference between the ring and the kitchen and the sidewalk and the street and a car and the bedroom it's all the same so and different different levels of intensity and so the ring is just it's that's an aside from what he does in this in his life you know that's like on oh yeah by the way I going to go fight Sugar Ray yeah I'll see you later that's it now he's going to go home is going to his brother's wife is his parents's it's a it's it's just the man struggle it's a man struggle and a man looking for some something ultimately by the end of the picture I think he finds at least a little comfort with himself leaving you cost what the cost these years and leaving it at a garage and wait plus listen Emily [Music] translation wait [Music] so if you no no it's good good every time I come here every time you know [Music] Oh [Music] Oh [Music] into the regular price range thank you I know you're right Oh [Music] [Music] Oh [Music] what what do you do I'm a construction good fellers once I read the review of the book and when I was doing color money and the ledges book wiseguy Herman Winkler and I were talking he said you like that book I said yeah when everyone buys it opens the producer of Raging Bull New York New York ultimately Goodfellas rocky all these movies and he bought it I got to meet Nick and I had a way of making the picture I just knew it and we worked on the script together for like a year and a half or so and there was a paragraph and I designed pretty much all the shots it was almost reading the movie is almost an afterthought except for the app except for the improvisation sometimes of the actors and particularly the section that Joe Pesci wanted to put in which is do you think I'm funny which actually had happened to Joe and so he we worked on that and wrote it up and added that scene but basically the idea of his taking it to the Copacabana this is like to the court of Versailles I mean he's like next to the king in a way and he's treated like the highest curtir courtier hidden he's like I don't know he's it's I had gone to the Copa a lot caught the Pope and when I was growing up in that in my area was considered you can't get me that's it that is Valhalla that's the you can't get he might as well kill a dog put it at your feet burn the whole place that's a Viking funeral you know let's go that's the gods are there Sinatra performs there what more do you want I don't understand you know when we were a lot and were old enough in my late teens to get in there especially for proms at the end of the school the school day in high school let's go in there for years a couple few times we've got a table arms in the front I thought this is great they're close to the front anybody could see something as amazing and just when the show was about to start the table would come in and these big guys would come and we never got to the front we're going to get you your book Dylan documentary direction oh okay I came from a very closed area the first time I heard Bob Dylan was uh like a rolling stone which was electric so I had to go back and hear the other because I didn't I wasn't around that and any event be 10 hour interview that Jeff Rossen did with Dylan which is a close about the space and when I saw the five or six selected hours or so of it I liked the face and I've always liked that because it kept changing the shape change here in a way and I liked the way he made statements that I don't know there might be true for that moment but maybe not 20 seconds later or ten seconds later or it's an aspect of the quote unquote and I could see his eyes moving that way back and forth I thought this is extraordinary I was also interested in the idea of Judas the idea of the betrayer you know that what happened to what he got three Bob you know get off the stage you know you're you've betrayed us you have to do we want you have to do what we want not what you want you speak for us no I don't he said conflict was the issue conflict was Judas so you don't really mean that to you yes you know what he do to be called Judas on stage waived that and be shot Gary you can't hear in the mix here but the when he's singing when he's singing they're on stage they're brewing console that's why he's putting his cup in his hand so the mics he can hit lyrics they just booing and booing and bullying and bleep [Applause] [Music] we were all protest songs now come on it's not British music America he will come on [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Wow [Music] [Applause] okay when I go to school on to most recently Shutter Island which is although taken from a Dennis Lehane novel it seems to me to be such a powerful study of the mind and and character obviously as well informs very much by film while sounds like out of the past well I think so but it's gotten very it's been misunderstood what I do is I'm able to express myself for better for worse in visual images in narrative cinema that's what I do I've done other things I wish I could play music and compose music I wish you could paint writing would be extraordinary I don't do it and when I do that or because I do that or that is what is around me I look at films and when I look at a film I've been very open to many people over the years so you must see this you must see that you must see this picture and I'm going to sit down with you it's besides the enthusiasm of enjoying younger people witnessing let's say Max Ophuls caught you know and aurorae some spectacle or something it is about it's about it's very difficult to describe how inspiration hits you where it comes from and very often maybe I need to see three films in a row or years ago is that way which screen and screen and screen and something would hit not that was even looking for anything I think I mean that the issue is if Teddy is imagining or that is not even imagining teddy that's real this is all real because we're inside we're inside him and if a person has something here and they hear voices those voices are real that is real there are times as I've seen something go by and it wasn't there but I could swear it was real I mean because being tired starting to wear glasses you see things differently it's yeah so it's our perception of reality particularly an age and we have all this internet we have all this information coming at us and there is no more such thing as it as a true image everything's doctored everything could be doctor we can't trust anything so how we perceive reality what is real now let's take you through this man's life are you real No she's still here whoa Rachel she never left [Music] remember when we stayed in the cabin in the summer today happy she's here you can't leave [Music] not good to leave love you so much in a box teddy Oh all of these scenes were once we started doing doing them particularly had infinite amount of levels to them particularly actors so that if you look at the film if you're so inclined and if you like the picture you could look at it two or three times you'll see different films really what some was able to do with the editing back and forth myself we had watching we cut to dr. Cawley and when we cut to chuck the beginnings of the dreams the all of these things and I think that as a man a marshal a detective quote/unquote and came out of World War two who did go who was there at oh god Dachau at the liberation he sees the world a certain way also the issue of dreams how does one show a dream in a film going back to I think one of the great ones in muscle videos when well with the mother at night on the beds the children trying to reach this raw meat that she had because it was so hungry zero deconned wheat you know all of these films so how do you do it's got to be real but at the same time their ashes falling in the room and then she's turning to a cinder I mean Rob did all that Hey Rama God and our CGI effects but be to keep the CGI within a sense of reality then a dream like that cuts across time and space so quickly that they're going to know it's a dream there's no way there's no two ways I mean King of Comedy the fantasies for example with Rupert Pupkin the fantasies with Jerry particularly we've done straight completely they were you couldn't tell the difference between that and the rehab because they are real say they're very very real but here once you have ash falling and she's talking about she's here she never left the we decided to go pump the color in Kodachrome Rob Barbara tonight and and Rob we worked it out so that the colour and the dreams would be so vivid for that period Kodachrome is so bright and strong it's rather different when we think of more you know but that's what the color was like and I think italic can actually have I mean one would think of how impressed Burger Phil do you think it actually can have almost like it's in especially yeah I think whether it's a restrained use of color or something that is more expressive as in the red shoes or in likely that the Colonel blimp or certainly in black narcissus color is used it's palpable and it's erotic and it's it's shocking at times and it pushes it pushes it it has a narrative of its own it does I don't know I'm saying I can use it because I grew up in black-and-white films mainly but I really start to use call that's why I got into the whole color fading in the preservation thing at the time into late 70s because when you were when you could not make a film in black and white anymore and we had two big struggle to make Raging Bull and black and white that's when the film stock and and everything else was so cheaply done that it would fade within five or six years so all the design that you put into the color is gone sanded we changed all that and ultimately eastland codec is extraordinary and of course digital as other problems but they became aware that mainly because it became aware that they could we worked it out in 1991 to all the studios and talk to each studio head and it became aware that they could you know sell that their assets to the public that could show them the movies in new forms well it's been an absolute pleasure listening thank you sorry talking [Applause] [Music]

Channel: BAFTA Guru

Views: 68,802

Rating: 4.9708881 out of 5

Keywords: BAFTA, BAFTA Guru, British Academy Of Film And Television Arts (Award Presenting Organization), creative, career, film making, TV, gaming, actor, advice, movie, movies, movie making, martin scorsese, interview, life in pictures, bafta life in pictures, Mean Streets, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, hugo, the wolf of wall street, king of comedy, silence, roundtable, film interviews

Id: us10UFmiDNw

Length: 39min 7sec (2347 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2017

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