Martin Scorsese interview on "The Age of Innocence" (1993)

welcome to our broadcast from the beginning on Elizabeth Street in Little Italy Martin France if he wanted to make movies he started before high school by drawing his stories scene-by-scene ten years after making films at NYU he had mean streets Alice doesn't live here anymore and taxi driver on his list of directing credits he had also introduced us to actors like Joe Pesci Harvey Keitel Jodie Foster and Robert DeNiro in 1980 DeNiro made Raging Bull a movie Minnie called the best of the decade from the King of Comedy to Goodfellas because they see continue to set the standard for American filmmaking his latest is a much anticipated adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel the age of innocent it stars Daniel day-lewis Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder and we're very pleased to have the director here with us for an hour of conversation about films and moviemaking and his own career welcome it's great to have you here I want to say one thing I want to make sure to hear it out of your mouth pronounce your last name for me Scorsese Jesse that's right and I said Stephen I wanted to be shot see I wanted I've heard different ways I wanted to hear from you rather than from other people swear we decided to say it the family it's pretty much that here is the question we begin with though this wonderful book written in 1921 a Pulitzer Prize the age of innocence about 1870s New York the Gilded Age all of that and it is about unrequited love and sacrifice and family and society and and it repressed emotion and passion on the other hand main streets you know where I'm going Main Street and Goodfellas and taxi driver and Raging Bull is about the expression of passion and emotion the release of it all by dramatic characters and some say I can see how mean streets and all of those films how it came natural to you and the characters you knew but this is so different why did you want to do it and why was it as some say a natural for you well it's really interesting because my old friend Jay Cox I used to write movie reviews Time magazine gave me the book back in 1980 we hadn't known each other since 68 and over the years we saw so many different films and over the years we really try to write work try to write scripts together and do all kinds of projects and really got involved with the wanting to do many different genres westerns costume pieces you can call in custom romantic films musicals etc and so my 1980 he gave me the book and said when you decide to do that romance piece he said this one is you meaning this has the qualities that you would like why did he say that he knew before me apparently everybody else knows before me I'm the last one to know because the only way I can approach it I can tell you this when I finally did read the book because when he gave me the book I was finishing raging ball and I was going in to King of Comedy and in a sense Raging Bull was a picture that is spinning I mean it has a it's like a vortex of emotion I was very much into that state of mind and so it took me a while to sit down and read the book but when I did I reacted immediately to the passion of the love story between Archer and Ellen and especially the young the fact that it's unconsummated yeah and especially therefore the tension the dramatic conflict the tension naturally maybe because I when I read it it was 1987 January and I got an older you in your life it said something but I reacted immediately to that and I must tell you that I've read other books and I write love the books of Thomas Hardy and other other types of other types of a classical literature and in 19th century English literature but this one I said I can make him to a film now what those reasons were at the time I couldn't articulate them and I had to do with the emotion of it had to do with wanting something that we're not gonna get yeah and then had to do with the sense of responsibility Legation sacrifice but those are themes that you have dealt with throughout your career yeah I mean in closed societies you dealt with right closed society consciously right I mean that was something that's I grew up and basically I understood that for my father and my mother telling me stories or giving me examples my father give me examples of how to behave in certain situations and close societies and very much come from a closed society so that's the other thing about the book the way she laid out the society the way the way she it was almost like Margaret Mead in Samoa you know this is amazing I said look at the the dinnerware that the the china the arrival the tribal she's the word tribal the number of times then we use it in the film and I am one of these people I happen to like anything well channel 13 that documentaries on tribes and in the Amazon Discovery Channel they have on all night watch it every watch everything wildlife adventures and stuff like that and I'm fascinated by by different cultures I'm fascinated by the sense of refinement of a culture where you know in the jungle they they eat off a leaf and each one has a young rules its own conduct its own sense of what's proper and what not and what's allowed and what's not right and and and of course the consequences of not doing that and then you take this ID you take this incredible passion but to them feel for each other and they can't consummate it you put it in the middle of a chessboard in the way and as the rules of the game yeah and they cannot they cannot do what they what they want to do and you imagine those tensions as some you may have said this you know the notion of just a touch of a hand yeah can bring as much satisfaction yes in another environment the most explosive lovemaking absolutely yeah that's that was the key I mean that for me automatically automatically I see where to place the camera when I when I feel that emotion that's what I had said that brush that hands together by accident it's almost as if they had consummated the relationship and I know then how to shoot it the intensity of it you would tell me about that well it's it's a matter of expressing a feeling of sometimes the physical feeling a chill or a sensation of pleasure or a sensation of a surge through your surge through your body and how its interpreted from an image yeah you know it's where the place that lens how because when you when you're making a picture as a director you're taking a lens and you're showing the audience what to look at start with you tilt down to here pen over here something comes the story bleeding that thought you're leading that thought process so that that is directing and when I when I feel that kind of emotion it makes it easier for me to aim that lens and that's fun because I know where the payoff is yeah and what's the final shot then I mean the payoff is the touching and a closer I think I think ultimately the face yeah the face is yeah yes the face of Si and the face is turning away let me just talk about this but a lot of blood of things here about you want it you caught up in the story you also caught up in the context of where this story can be played was any any other driving motivations for you because it what were they well you know naturally having an asthma when I was three years old I saw so many films because they didn't allow me to play sports and so I to this day know nothing really about sports and I just said you know basically I don't know no idea but my father and my mother took me to many films and I became aware of many different kinds of films when I started to make them as I said with Jay we talked about doing a Western we talked about doing different things and the 70s was revising the genre but now I'm not so sure now there's so much revisionist work in the Western that maybe it's better to do the mythological Western again I don't know but may event here when I became a film student was the early sixties and at that time you had the French new-wave the Italian New Wave British New Wave and you had the new American cinema in New York Jonas Mekas Shirley Clark John Cassavetes who was the clearest the most independent of them all in that way the underground cinema stand brackish so many different things going on with cinema and it all collided together and one of the one of the most remarkable filmmakers to come out well actually come out during the 40s but into the 50s sort of flower in the 60s was Visconti Luchino Visconti and Rocco and his brothers was a picture that that had a great influence on me of course we saw when it came out in America in the early 60s was a cut version but it doesn't matter is very powerful then the leopard which at first puzzled me because of its length I didn't understand it and know the I didn't understand the social history of Italy and Sicily I didn't understand what was happening but but after years of watching the film repeatedly I became wrapped up in his his approach to detail and I remember what what Burt Lancaster said when they asked him how could you play a count and he said well he said I very simple I just looked at Visconti because he was the discontent of Milan I just watched how he how he moved and as I said to a lot of other people at an age of innocence they certainly shouldn't have looked at me not a world I weren't handed yeah but when you know when you have people like Daniel day-lewis and Michelle or did all that work and Wynonna and then you have you surround with Alec McGowan and Mary Margolis but you did a lot more though I mean what the attention which is a hallmark of your work the attention to detail here is extraordinary you looked you had it you did an investigation into the book and found out who the character characters worth modelled after and then went to where their homes work and their apartments and what pains were in their apartment and how do you duplicate those paintings and you had 500 yeah yes recreations of paintings so you could write create authenticity right was that necessary well it's um it makes it it makes you feel comfortable makes as you're making the film makes you feel comfortable that you get to know the people most importantly the pictures that were hanging in their houses told you about the people it's character it's all character and then once you had that kind of painting in the house and and Shaun Phillips is is sitting there and she's mrs. Archer and as a painting of a cow on the wall you know it's not a painting of the Bouguereau it's not a Bouguereau painting it's a big difference and she behaves a certain way and it's it makes it it gives it a sense of a cushion in a way a sense of truth that we're looking for my researcher said this number of times my researcher worked on this two and a half years in advance to make sure you yeah the detail right also that helps the budget it's a budget way up well no not necessarily the budget on this picture was less than Cape Fear there the budget is said to be around 40 million well initially basically the actual forty million maybe with prints advertising and that sort of thing but but it was 32 because you had been out and done your homework early on exactly so when you came to the action yeah you prepared knew what we were at one point you know I had it all in the script which a cocksman wrote it in dolly into the centerpiece of the vandalizes table now what the centerpiece look like I wasn't sure so then a year later my researcher one and one meeting with me just on centerpieces and we chose certain ones above others and plates how the oysters look kind of plate what kind of plate do I station what kind of gloves did they wear oh we've heard all of them yeah yeah the shot of the gloves that's very important I mean it very very often we don't explain what it is but it's enough to know the the fussiness of the ritual everything was a ritual you love ritual yeah yeah that's a good question I I I think it comes from a background the Catholic Church I think as a child I felt in good sense a sense of real warmth and security at the mass watching the mass and protected yeah yeah and things were done in a certain way and and there done it in this manner from 1 to 10 in order to be proper for you know for this for this mass to work and in the case it's followed through it I mean there are certain things my family even though it's a working-class family there were certain things in the holidays or certain rituals that were there were 10 and 2 certain rituals in the dinner and that sort of thing and it made it it gave it a sense of order a sense of order and a sense of propriety that was interesting speaking of the budget I wanna make this a couple things before we talk about casting it is said that that Daniel day-lewis Michelle Pfeiffer gave up summer in order for you to did they I don't know I don't know I have to ask my producer on that I forgot him I think they did but that's a credit to them and yes yeah order for you to be able to make this kind of film could you have to understand I think today the average American film costs about twenty seven million so for age of innocence to go in in a budget of 32 costumes costumes horse and carriages and that's it not too bad why did you cast Daniel day-lewis was he the obvious and only choice from your head I yeah you know was it was the only choice I saw him in my left foot now you can't say well - yeah it's a big there's a big difference but what I saw in my left foot was the dedication because I saw how difficult it was for him to do that and so much so that after about 10 minutes of the picture I had I had forgotten was an actor I thought it was or Mele suspension you know I just believed everything yeah it was happening but then at the same time I saw him an Unbearable Lightness of being and I like the sense of romance that he had right the way he moved into the frame he floated you know and he had a sense of stature yeah to him and I got to meet him the day before he won his Academy Award from my left foot in Los Angeles and like said I want you to do this he said yes I know not necessarily but he talked and we talked a little bit but by the end of it I believe he was he was he was convinced he wanted to do it but then I met him again in England and Stephen Frears worked on him Harvey Weinstein worked on everybody do the picture yeah so it turned out okay Michelle Pfeiffer now Michelle it's interesting because Michelle oddly enough I've said this before too in other places but I saw Jonathan Demi showed me married to the mob and I'm usually very particular about non Italian Americans playing Italian Americans in films especially if the films is has a sense of authenticity supposed to be authenticity about it however this was a farce it's different than Dean Stockwell doing a lot having a lot of fun with it all the people were have it was really enjoyable film and I must say I did not know his Michelle I just didn't know I'd forgotten I looked at the credits but I didn't really completely forgotten and then about a few months later I saw a dangerous liaison and I saw everybody would imagine would be the reason you chose her no I saw the range I saw the range right I saw she had she had an authority within a wide range and then Brian DePalma told me more she was in Scarface Salomon I didn't realize it goes way back and what it is that she seems to change with every part and she's really the quality of her face and so someone described as luminous in this particular film especially a Jim innocence and she had that on the set she had that she come on the set and she was Ellen and so was Daniel by the way he was Archer no question oh yeah we had and the magic was there because the hardest thing I would think just not knowing anything about film the hardest thing I think would be for the director is you have to convince me in the audience that these two people were so passionate for each other because you got to understand what drives them to each other in order to understand the sacrifice he's making for some other thing that's part of who he is right and very difficult especially the people are not allowed to express themselves yeah exactly and that was the hardest part of life unlike unbearable yeah I try bearable lightness of being where at least they can express himself I'm here here it's a look it's a glance away it's she touches her opera glasses yeah or the thumb you know close-ups of that okay close-ups of the fire but then those firewood it sort of pops close-ups of that you know those those those long discussions that they had where they remember every word of it yeah you know and then they'll remember when the fire made that noise you know the popping noise and and so so gingerly they had to be careful but how did they spoke to each other that's one of my favorite scenes I think is the scene in the Opera in the not on the Opera but in the in the theater when he goes up to the box and she talks about May being an Augustine and do you think her lover you think a level would send a yellow roses and what we did there in order to make that excruciating ly painful for every hey each other hanging on each other's words every word was we dropped all the sound out completely completely and we iris din on the two of them an old-fashioned silent movie iris did and just separated them from everybody sound and picture and they hang on every word and of course they you know they miss each other again yeah I don't know we've got a tape we've got at least a scene here this is from the age of Ennis and Daniel day-lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer take a look let me make a couple points here is that the notion for all that there is in this conflict you're saying that all those people who make a point about so many so much violence that there is here the violence here is emotional and psychological it's refinement and it's refined violence it's emotional and psychological violence just as powerful and just as deadly as as Joe Pesci getting shot in Goodfellas I really believe that I remember it and I've said this a number of times too when my father took me to see the heiress back around 1950 or 51 I was about nine years old and he must have taken me because they were must have been in Western in the bottom half of the double bill I liked westerns and in the heiress I remember watching the film I didn't really understand all of it was nine but one thing I did see and that was Olivia de Havilland and her father the relationship between the two and this wonderful scene where Ralph Richardson explains to her in the drawing room that Montgomery Clift can't be after her to marry her for her ability or beauty first of all because you're very plain he explains and also you're not very witty you know because he resents her for having lost his wife when she was born and he really hates her he said so therefore he must be marrying you for your money he wants to marry you a few money I'm not gonna allow it and I remembered despite the fact that he was so polite Ralph Richardson and she was so proper and the room had such wonderful things in it and they had such wonderful clothes on I remember how shocking that was to me for a father to tell his his child and then of course the powerful ending where she finally comes up towards the stairs with that lamp glowing on her face and Montgomery Clift is locked outside banging on the door and I had a sense of such such violence emotionally that had occurred to these people and yet the behavior was so proper yeah and I never gotten over that tension I'm seeing that seeing that in the film how did this movie in the making of this movie and the involvement in this did it have any impact on you and the way you live your life and some sense of well actually it did I mean it also could be because I'm a little older but but I really began to appreciate of course now when I say this we're dealing with a society in this particular film that's a lot of money right to live a certain way but I began to appreciate a slower way of living I really uh there was some merit there yes some aspects of their life yeah images weren't necessarily images didn't necessarily attack you where they do on a video screen now some of it is very good some of the imagery on video on television but between the commercials and a lot of the music spots and promos the images are so they're violent and I don't mean the images themselves but the speed pace is cutting the pace and the cut is so frightening and it's desensitizing everyone and I always wondered do we really need I like it when I when I'm able to get and the Concord works it's great you get it wouldn't work sometimes you have to go back right but when it works you get into England and three hours and ten minutes we get to France in two three hours 20 minutes but it really is that necessary yeah is it necessary you don't like him TV uh I don't can't say it doesn't speak to me anymore and when I first came on I enjoyed it I enjoyed it but I began to question the validity of groups that became famous as musical groups because of the video right right and then where's the music yeah and where the lyrics and what are they saying what's make BAM oh you make the video for me bad for me bad my and Michael Jackson and what I was interested there was a you know dancing of course camerawoman is choreography is dancing yeah I mean a Raging Bull the fight scenes were envisioned and drawn on paper by me as if there were bars of music in other words 5 let's say 5 or 6 punches became 2 bars of music and I covered that those 5 or 6 punches in one shot in other words we didn't shoot seven cameras and cut it do it later in the editing right it was shot one which cover the first 5 6 punches 2 shot 2 which covers the reaction to one of those punches track around this way and you cut the two shots together and you have the flow there was like dancing you see that's why I figured we can really I mean Michael chances and Jack's is incredible let's have let's do it you know especially in a subway you know a sort of like West Side Story and write the design Robert wises film with Boris Levin when he did the that incredible the the scene of them dancing in the in the subway and I really like musical I like I like musicals I like dancing and I did one for my friend Robbie Robertson to call somewhere down the crazy river that was just a did Fred Astaire when they shot the dance great movie and you know was shot a wide shots and and just like you just said ah yes I remember yeah yeah he had it in his contract that he had to be seen head to toe yeah so it would not be it would not be a cinematic technique that made him so good it would in fact be yeah but however in in bed yeah we do cuts and we move in tighter and emphasize certain certain moves with camera movement I'm interested in the camera movement being as much of a dancer as he is if possible you know you know in the red shoes for example you have another way of looking at dancing altogether which is extraordinary but I think the purest a real dancer a real ballet dancer or may may not like the idea but what Powell Pressburger did in the sequence of the red shoes ballet was by cutting and by camera movement and by use of color and slowing up the speed of the film and and speeding it up they were able to create not necessarily the actual physical movements of the dancers you don't really see that that clearly what you get is the spirit of the dance you get the spirit the exhilaration of the soul of the dance and that's why I always keep going back to that sequence it's amazing it's really a filmmaking that he also took from the silent films because Michael Powell used to work in silent films and it's just diction and his wife now yes--the um Erskine is your editor yes yeah talk to me about editing because you believe what editing is the magic of filmmaking why well I think Stanley Kubrick said that the only original contribution to film different from all the other arts because it comprises only it combines all the other arts really but the only thing that's originally film is editing is the editing process a unique thing a film is aren't exactly the Edit yeah is really editing because you can stretch it they think they call it plasticity right film is a plastic yeah you could stretch it you could you can straighten stretch up time you can you can it's I always get amazed when I'm in the cutting room I work very closely with them and you know when you still I still get a thrill when you cut one shot next to the next to the other and there's a movement but not a movement of I must say it's not a movement necessarily the movement at SunShot a going to shot be and the movement of shot be coming from Shaddai its what the movement that is conjured up in your head by the cut it's like a spiritual move in a way and I've studied older films and try to figure out how I got that impression when I saw that particular film the third man or something like that let me see it was on that cut wasn't it and I look and I see that there was many more between the two shots I imagine movement you know any movies do you have in your head oh I have a lot yeah well they took me there's nothing else they could do with me it took me the movies I loved animals I couldn't go near animals so I could give it as naturally it was really I couldn't breathe remember in the late 40s it was really there was really tough and we I would look at these westerns with palominos you know on this old true color the Republic true color where they where the sky was blue green yeah it was so magical and the Cowboys wore like fringe on it jackets it was great yeah how what kind of debt do you owe to your father yeah this particular film in Genesis is dedicated to him but in the sense that it's 20 years since I made Main streets even though I had made a feature right before that boxcar Bertha Mean Streets is really in a sense a the film which is sort of formed me in a way it's so radically different on the surface at least from Mean Streets to 20 years and the exposure to all these different types of films and I think the way we communicated was through films in other words he took me to see him very often he wouldn't talk it would just go and see these movies you wouldn't talk about him after no no he would just take you it's an obligation of a father whose son who was asthmatic him but he loved movies too apparent into the 30s he would see a lot of pictures and he really liked films a lot every now and then I caught him talking about a few he like dated Stood Still a bunch of others but he I don't know if he really preferred musicals he would be complain when I had to come a night when I told take me to see him you know Gene Kelly and so and so but but he would like them went when I got him there but he also took me to see I guess because these westerns I got to see the eros I got to see the bad beautiful I got to see Sunset Boulevard you know pictures that word normally for adults great yeah yeah you you always put him in the film you would put him and my mother yes and your mother in oh yeah did they want to be in well no no not not originally in fact you got understand me from where I came from for me to go to New York University first of all was a big thing because it was talking anywhere my family went to I was a working class didn't know books in the house they read and my you was in the early 60s was a different kind of thing and from other other people in the family maybe went to high school and that was it or or went to certain trade schools but I went to my you'd studying arts and then film and for somebody like me to be able to make films and get to this stage it's almost totally surreal my father before he died when I had to go over in Italy and he was sitting there saying my mother he said if anybody had told me that we'd be here now with I think we were visiting our money in Milan it was two years ago we're doing I was doing a documentary and we'd be going to Sicily to see my people in Sicily and we'd have a life that we had now I wouldn't ever believed it because it comes from it's like coming from Mars I mean really it's it's it's so so in a way well in the short films that I made and my you I had to draft them into it I needed them and since they were willing to pay the tuition they figured well I'd better go and sit in I'll be an extra and my mother you know I force her to come in and you got it mom you gotta get private o'clock in the morning make some spaghetti for the scene we have it and just keep it there's gonna get cold doesn't matter if it's called us a film don't worry about it they'll eat it and it goes like that sort of thing and finally finally on Main streets when we did mean streets it sort of brought it all back home and that's when they realized something was something was kind of special for them and and since then I was able to lucky to sort of have them around a lot and I kind of when I'm making a film I have them there on the set it kind of kind of it's like my roots it kind of reminded you yeah so you don't get you know you don't say you remind it reminds you and it kind of diffuses situations to where I'll be going into the shooting a very difficult scene and she'll be knitting out there my mother and as I go pass the trailer she goes hi how's everything going fine mom fine she got she got a little bit angry at you or was that anger may not be the right emotion when she found out that that the scene she set with you in Goodfellas you came by and you and and the body in the oh yeah yeah she didn't wasn't happy about that when she found out our shoot well she would never tell her there was a body in the trunk no no no no she you see there like natural actors I'm in the sense I learnings from Cassavetes or from a lot of these people where anybody really is everybody's an actor he's capable big scene yeah I was born to something they know something they know in the reality was something she knows she hasn't seen her son he lives in the house right yeah he comes home around 2:00 in the morning with some of his friends but she's delighted to see him and cook board and cook for them right but not if she knew there was a body image like the whole scene would be ruined so we were laughing Bob Joe Pesci giggly all the time and what she didn't know was she just did she was happy to see her son and she knows Joe for ten years she knows De Niro for like 25 years and Ray she got to know so it was very simple and we only had a couple of written lines but the rest was improvised yeah let me take a look at this is a scene which you haven't probably seen for a while from American masters the hour they did with you and this is Marty's parents here it is it came along with this picture he says I want you to tell me the stories you told me one more when I was a kid so how am I going to remember it i refresh your memory you had a brain as a kid he was 2 years old my wife took him for we took him for tonsils and you are going to go to the circus I said the nurse is gonna come and she's gonna take you she's gonna take you to the circus so he was through she took him she carried she took him away and of course he didn't see me anymore so the next morning I'm supposed to pick him up so I went back we brush back the next morning and there he was in the waiting room sitting on a little bench and he was bitter I said to Charlie what's wrong with him he's so mad so we picked him up and we brought him home and he didn't say anything do you know that a couple of years later no couple years about but somebody using about seven years four years ago he says to me mother you did something something needed to tell you you have something to say to you that I can't I can't hold it back any longer what is it he says you should have never did that to me when you took me for tonsils I said what did I do he said you lied to me you said to me that the nurse was bringing me to the circus and you lied I didn't do something he said don't ever do that you should always tell the children or what you're doing the truth he says because I believed you there you just he saw your dad yeah August 23rd yeah yeah and I think in May June or June I think he saw the film in a rough-cut and really appreciate it loved it and said the whole thing is the last last half-hour he's right because if you the whole thing is paced so that at all together than the last 20 minutes of the film and you know he said he really really thinks he thought it was gonna affect emotionally a lot of people and I turned out to be right I we had just anticipated doing a decent gross in the first opening for that type of film break but apparently people are going back three or four times and it has to be the emotion of it it has to be going through a certain emotion that I had when I read the book and I had when I was making the film I mean it would seem to me that you could say those people say well this is not the kind of film he does you could say this is about a love story everybody can make a love story if they're a talent didn't you filmmaker yeah because it's common to all of us to understand love and passion the emotions the emotions of human emotions you should be able to do it you know yeah but no I hadn't seen that clip I was always holding my ears it's because it's most of the films I make I can't look at they're too personal and when I want I could look at because of the humor of it as Goodfellas let me go back how about mean streets in trees I can't look at it's too personal too close it's it's it's what you knew yeah part partially maybe partially some cold close friends of mine who was luckily some of them are still around and it is kind of an eye heightened sense of the life when were leading at the time when out just about when I was about to go to university and so um because you know when I lived on Elizabeth Street between Houston and prints you know if you go down house and Street about eight blocks is the west side but we never did that why not well we didn't have to we had everything there in there did go beyond your neighborhood no no no we had our own our own sense of morality and codes and which were based on codes of behavior when I began to realize this in the late 80s early 90s when we went to Sicily to visit jimena the hometown of my mother's people and politi Generosa the hometown of my father's people and we began to see the structure what it was like it was really more or less the structure of a Sicilian village you know on Elizabeth Street and I'm Mott Street another village it gets it's very interesting 2:32 Elizabeth Street would be mainly people from chumina across the way at 2:41 was mainly people from politte seas so the buildings took on the the meat and all chrome all crammed together and you had very much a very provincial point of viewers I was I might as well have been coming out of a village in Sicily in 1960 and so somebody like me walks along and says how does that shape your filmmaking well it shapes it because I wanted to make pictures I when I was very young I want to be a painter but I didn't pursue it and also was definitely allergic to the to the the paint I mean you also want to be a priesthood priest yes and one of the priesthood but when I went to New York University and I became became a film student around the second year at third year I had a teacher there a Haig Manoogian Haig Manoogian who was wild Armenian American guy who would who was no nonsense about filmmaking and he drummed into us he battered us with this he said stay with what you know stay what you know he said the minute I see one of these kids coming with a student film picking up a gun starting to shoot somebody said I don't want it I don't want it he says make a film about a guy eating an apple three minutes very hard to do and he was amazing because he filled us with a lot of inspiration and forced us to dig deep in to people have it but then when they try to take it out how do you express it visually how do you express it with words and dialogue craft and that's you know that story you know your own story yeah and therefore at least I drew when writing a novel or writing yeah at least at least I know I know enough to explore it yeah I don't know if I can make if I can make judgments on it on the people around me sometimes you want to being hard on themselves I know what I said my age of innocence and where we began that was not your story but you knew you could make it because yeah because of the emotion yeah the human emotions and that feeling at some time in our lives we've had feelings like that or we've had situations similar let's say and maybe times build up to when you reach 51 that that's enough of those experiences and you could you sort of mellow to a certain to a certain extent and you were able to express it have you seen a taxi driver no no you don't see it no you can't watch it no why it's very personal I mean and yet you know it's written by Paul Schrader it's really his it's really Schrader's vision and it comes from the wonderful book just es keys notes notes from underground right and when I read that I was in high school when I read it I was amazed by it but I sensed it him there I didn't it's very difficult to see it in a way but then he also patented on some other things Arthur Bremen's diary and stuff like that which I never read the guys well um I never read that stuff I just reacted to the sense of rage and frustration and trying to this this fine line between sanity and insanity the acting out of the fantasies and I found that to be dangerous but something certainly worth exploring because I know DeNiro felt the same way about it the character and so did I and sort of Schrader and we did as a labor of love Michael and Julia Phillips produce we all felt the same way about it but it was a labor of love in the sense that it had to be done it was a terrible picture to make because of the pressure from the studio at the time and the type of subject matter it was was highly unpleasant you know to make we did the best we could with it to get we got through 40 days and 40 nights of shooting are you happy with it pretty much so I I'm happy with mean streets in with the Raging Bull I think yeah you see may you be happy with this too you better close your eyes because we have a clip from taxi driver here at Citi Robert DeNiro wow you were he was talking to you you was sitting with Lois Lane now literally that was on shot in a tenement in Columbus Avenue on the 89th Street or something and I was in front of him kneeling in front of him looking up and that's why I said you hear the drums outside hear the airplanes there's so much noise I kept saying do it again do it again he sort of got into his rhythm and began that are you talking to me business which was improvised really it's all Bob they're really improvised it right before we shot the scene I was one of the last scenes we shot I said listen I really think you need to speak to yourself in the mirror I don't know what why I don't know what to say well let's just let's just do it he started playing with the gun and playing around like that you began to see what he came up with him and I asked him a few times to repeat it a couple of times but basically then he got in his own role and when he improvised the rest of it and you mentioned to me as if first went into that scene change oh yeah little things but the first image you saw as a gun twirling in slow motion it's from Ellen and yeah it's from Alan Ladd after after he cleans out the bad guys and in a shain at the end of Shane little boy is looking through the the the saloon doors and he's below them and he sees the guns twirl and put it right back into the holster and it's amazing to the kid it's like magic but again that Salt's one Travis's mind in a way he's gonna clean up the bad guys yeah you see and then he steps over the line of Saturday to insanity Robert De Niro yeah main streets Raging Bull taxi driver Goodfellas what is it between you two well I always say that we never intended to to make a career at the collaboration like town of college yeah we didn't really I mean a Mean Streets I was introduced to him by Brian De Palma and J Cox and DiPalma had worked with him first in the wedding party and a film called hi mom and Brian's and you gotta meet this guy and it turns out that we knew each other as we were growing up in the Lower East Side he would although he didn't come from that area he would sort of quote hang out unquote in that area and so we know each other from a distance remember 15 or 16 and liked each other very nice that was all variously I'm gonna be an actor then no I didn't know we didn't really another group of people wouldn't known that well but it was always whenever we saw each other and dances or in bars and stuff it was always very nice and I remember times being a sweet guy and met him at Jay Cox's house for Christmas dinner in 1970 or so he was talking about a film I had made called who's that knocking with Harvey Keitel which is also about the neighborhood my old friends and myself and so when he went I did mean streets I want him to play Johnny you know and he knew the people who sort of half based on he remembered them and he knew the style and how they lived and so from Mean Streets which was kind of a guerrilla attack of making films 26 days shooting you know completely worked out on papers that was no chance of losing losing time for a you know losing a day but I think we really start to get to work with each other carefully on taxi driver in a way we found and we responded to the same material the same material well to a certain extent the darker side of characters the darker side and we weren't afraid to sort of push a little further to go into more dangerous areas with the character you know and - he's another guy he's interesting this guy because taxi driver and I mean streets Harvey - we do this but but a bobbin on taxi was interesting because he would say let me try something I need - it was really good here and sometimes people say that it's not very good so I was I was able to trust him right and I knew that I can push a little more he can push me a little bit and we go and we would we would have to do our best with you what do you think it was in you that attracted him that was it that he felt you protected in the felt there was a safety or you were willing to collaborate with him and give him an opportunity - I think I think what it was is that number one we attracted to the same subject matter I the same type of characters and number two I think I was able to because I respected his ability so much and we can work with other people I was able to create I think create a pretty good atmosphere for him to experiment and an atmosphere of what it's really all about it's about trusting if any doubt there's anybody better than he is in your mind nobody that's that no I'm trying to make it messy but is anybody better than he is he's the best but go ahead I think for me for me it's really has a he has a an ability to if you understand something meaning understands character plot situation of feelings of motion he could go right into him get the definitive truthfulness of that moment and that's very rare he has the same passion for detail you have yes yeah and we have a lot of fun with that Raging Bull we had a lot of fun actually Raging Bull was the one where we really had the best collaboration how so how did it work um everybody asked everybody always talks as you know they talk about the scenes and the authenticity yeah of the boxing scene they also talk about the transformation that he went through you know that was his idea to do Raging Bull because he wanted to do a character where he would be able to change his body actually the way he did with Jake LaMotta and it took me about three or four years to understand what I wanted to do with the picture and where I saw myself in the picture and I was able to make it with Bob finally in 1979 we release in 1980 and we poll traitor I've written the script first Mark Martin worked on it my old friend it did mean streets with me then Paul and then Paul we made one more draft but then we want to make more changes in Bob and I went to a resort somewhere and worked on the script and in that process of working on the script together and rewriting it we made the movie we made the movie and just felt totally comfortable with each other and what he wanted to say didn't to feel at most of the time was the same as I wanted to say and also if it wasn't it didn't to feel whatever what I wanted to say and it it became probably the best of our collaborations I had the most fun I think he solicited your advice on the Bronx Tale not necessarily normally very often I'd have him read something for me I read his script a while back back in 3 years ago in Bronx Tale and then and then very often friends you know ask you to see their rough cut yeah and that's a difficult process because but it's a good situation because when you look at their rough cut so you look at pretty much of a fine cut of a picture and the work prints in the work print form you at least have time to say listen be careful that area yeah be careful here so when they said come and see my movie it's all finished what good is it exact you know it's not either I'll enjoy it I can watch it I can go see it without you incident call and see your rough cuts it's getting a fewer and fewer people why there's a few friends well the guy used to call on all the time is Jay but on age of innocence he was the yeah so it was very difficult so um there are a number of friends about three or four people that we we grill and head do they change your mind about the the work product I'm gonna have they do they influence you to more or less what happens is that what happens is that what happens that very often these days they're almost too much trepidation about saying anything bad about it so you have to be very careful so I don't question thelma usually questions in the next day calls my wife and what she does is able to able they praised the film praised the film praised the film but she said but is there anything you found I said well there was one scene you pull it out she pulls out any two or three of them talk about one area and even if they say something totally different about that area we know there's a problem in that area we know something should be looked at it meant there's not a problem and we should just look at that area and that coincided with our previews and that sort of thing and we it really was a great guide but it's getting a little hard these days in not many people you can trust to see these things didn't it one more question at DeNiro Cape Fear he wanted to play oh yes oh man they came and got you yeah after he absolutely was a Spielberg who was it Stephen him together Caymans ganged up on yeah they really didn't you weren't enthusiastic about our you had to be convinced hated the idea why does it art even made or no no not that Robert Mitchum in the original Gregory Peck they were great yeah what I what I didn't like about it was when I was reading when they gave me the script what had happened was that Stephen worked on it for so long it was his script in other words I can't do a Spielberg picture yeah he could do that much better than I can obviously you know I mean he can have people running through the halls and then great stuff he does I mean you look at Jurassic Park it's classic American action-adventure film making but intellectually worked out right all those shots of the dinosaurs sequences shots one two and three like I talked about the boxing scene he does it the same way all those shots are drawn they worked out by him basic storyboarding basic storyboarding where it's shots one two and three I cut together and they produce shots four and five and five shot five produces shot eight and nine and it's very complex and it's it's really a genius of what he has and I think Jurassic is like one of the great examples of this and so um I can I approach that type of thing with two people in a ring or a dancing sequence it's very different but the dinosaur I'm not gonna be able to do it I can't you know I don't have the same empathy with it it's a different different kind of things so in the original Cape Fear script there was more more action-adventure more more like more like something that he naturally because he had been working on the script and Wesley strict for a long time so I said I don't wanna do that I want to do something looked at me some more he wants to change the script I said yeah change the script that's a good idea okay you see what was happening I was finishing up Goodfellas and I was busy and I kept - no I don't want it you know and then finally I'd finished Goodfellas and we had a meeting with DeNiro myself wesley strick and a bunch of other people they read the script and down at the restaurant afterwards steve was sitting next to me and I said I hate really I can't do that said you can do that they're singing by their the people they're happy the family's happy I said I can't deal with it I said changing then I realize the thing to do anyway it wasn't that he wanted you badly or DeNiro of both of I think both of them yeah nothing both of them because they saw things in it that I was not seeing things that the things that I eventually brought out of the picture the religious aspects well that sort of thing whatever but I really wasn't looking at it because I was so busy with the other film quite honestly and it was I was their project it was a different thing did Nero really want to do it because of the character he was intrigued by the character and he saw something interesting in the character for him yes and he also saw something which actually turned out to be truthful which actually the film was a big audience picture right and something to make it you know and we were just as far as I was concerned was very lucky that it would generate a big audience yeah some would say that you made this film age of innocence in part because you knew that it would bring the enormous attention not only of the critics but also it would be a film that Hollywood loved because they loved Howard Zinn and all that is any of that true for you know a chance to go to another place in terms of showing a group of people well I can do this to folks I I think to a certain extent I mean there are different kinds of pictures I'd like to make right I'm really trying ultimately I'm trying to really be like a professional but I mean I mean it it's a as a joke I mean it like a real old pro could do going in and Warner Brothers walks in the morning Braille Walsh picks up the script Oh war picture great let's do it you want a big it would be great if I could do that but I can't I'm stuck in I'm stuck in analyzing my own feelings my own emotions constantly I have to find my own way through these scripts and it's it's it's it's not as pure I think as where these real pros did it in the past and so for me I had to find my own way and I said I wanted to have my own way with what they would normally call a custom piece or romance film and I was going to do it right after Goodfellas but we slipped in Cape Fear you like Goodfellas I mean and you can what and obviously you like it yeah you can watch Goodfellas yes did you say you could watch them yeah most of it most of it cause what I just enjoy the exhilaration of the actors and the filmmaking in terms of like with Elmer and I was the most satisfying star the most satisfying it was very truthful yeah I thought it was very truthful and it was no-holds-barred as far as that lifestyle is concerned you don't like these people to bed don't look at it but this is what the people are this is what they are I don't want to I don't want to glamorize them you know I'm saying right you and pileggi are now talking about doing something about your own neighborhood your own your own childhood and yeah we're working on that a few years and we're almost there almost there now that right before my father passed away we had pretty much the final the final thing on it it's pretty much not my own childhood but their childhood their growing up in the Lower East Side parents yeah right the whole idea of families coming from Sicily right and becoming Sicilian Americans than becoming then the next generation American Sicilians and then American yeah and that whole changeover how how people have to try family members have to try to keep the family together in this new alien world you know where there's no sense of honor or code they have to they have to they have to sort of impose the code of Sicily the family code all of that to honoring the family and that's taking care of the family and their characters are trying to keep everybody together basically you know what do you dream now what are your dreams what do you want that you to do to where do what mountain do you want to climb it's a good question I keep thinking there's so many projects that I'd like to make I just first of all hope you have the time to make them you know but actually I'd like to be able to to explore different areas in filmmaking like Age of Innocence explored a certain style or certain that style but a certain type of type of film what opera some classics - I'm sort of a buff on the ancient world I read a lot of ancient ancient literature and history and I'm still fascinated by that very much very much involved also with films that have religious themes great to have you here thank you thank you very much pleasure age of innocence is the film it's gotten a lot of very very a lot of people have raved about it and it's been my honor to have you here morning pleasure

Channel: Manufacturing Intellect

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Id: oigqJ91YM24

Length: 50min 28sec (3028 seconds)

Published: Mon May 23 2016