Martin Scorsese: 'Killers of the Flower Moon' & Using Music in Film | Apple Music

it's great to meet you Martin scores thank you for joining me here at Apple music and um I'm so excited to talk to you about this incredible film killers of the flower Moon talk about music talk about art talk about life [Music] uhoh you know this film as of the time of this conversation um is about to come out it hasn't actually being released to the general public yet do you have a ritual do you do anything small or large to celebrate a moment like that we used to we used to in New York we used to um go at that time to the Russian te- room and have uh a little cavar and champagne um at that time that's now 40 years ago after a while yeah you know there weren't openings like this though before I mean unless like I I was 13 years old my cousin took me up to see a big um uh Hollywood Premiere at the Roxy Theater in 1956 I think it was it was 55 uh and it was giant which is a film which influenced obviously influenced this film a great deal um and somehow he got a hold of a ticket and uh convinced one of the ushers that he lost his other ticket and could be let us in and we got into C giant I mean that those were Premier days of the old Hollywood premieres was it was it like you portrayed It On The Aviator was it like that was absolutely at people screaming as rock Hutson get out of the car people screaming you know um James Zena just died but they were screaming for him too um and uh we got in there and then suddenly this was this life transforming experience up on the giant screen at the Roxy Theater you know the Epic American film in a way um many different because he made three it's a Trilogy a Shane giant Place in the Sun Shane giant but in any event George Stevens in any event um that's a Premiere PR and we've had some premier like that over the years yeah um but now it's become something where I think um the quieter uh the quieter rumination so to speak um along with family and a few of the friends who made the film that that's where we go with that it's a nice thought to be able to um to reflect with the people you care about the most exactly exactly but also to have had a moment at a really formative time in your life where to experience a premere of that scale that's leaves an indelible footprint on your ambition on your drive your dream it really did I think that sense of the Epic came from that picture and I got to work with Boris Levan who designed did the production design too I got to work with New York New York The Last Waltz Color of Money even elements of Last Temptation Of Christ the King of comedy and so um it was like a dream come true you know it's there's that balance that I've made over the years between my embracing and and inspiration for for the Hollywood um produced grandly produced pictures sometimes spectacles yeah other times uh intense psycho dramas like Sunset Boulevard or you know the um bad and the Beautiful you know things like that these were key films I saw at the age of 10 11 12 13 and so um uh that and the this films of uh the Italian neorealism which I saw at five or six years old on television um small 16-inch black and white my TV you've done it all I mean you've weaved it all the way through I mean just yeah they came together and I knew they were both movies but I didn't know you know the Italian ones I hadn't seen in a theater they were on this little small screen but they were speaking the language that my grandparents were speaking that my parents were speaking um it was a direct link as to who we were are Etc the other films are coded codified in a way the Hollywood films you you you had feeling similar to the characters in the film you could really go with even in the ays for example which is based on the the novel or Nolla by Henry James at Washington Square through the GS husband and wife team of the GS who who did uh the play that I saw when I was about 10 years old my father and that stayed with me too the relationship between Montgomery Cliff moris and Katherine played by Olivia deavin did did he really love her and that became the basis a lot a great sense of a touchstone really the real Touchstone for Molly and nnest in um Killers the flower moon to have had the emotional maturity even without probably acknowledging it at 10 years old to absorb something as complex as that and for it to stay with you most people translate experiences like that into some kind of artistic experience because they experience it directly divorce trauma things that tend to get translated over the course of a life through the filter of that's interesting you're right because uh my parents I came from didn't get divorced yeah you know but there was there were arguments there were discussions there were tell me about differ my parents did get divorced and in Oakland New Zealand I felt like we were the second family to get divorced in the country I I understand small country probably not far off not far off I know well my my my parent family of course comes from the Sicilian yeah it's do it you know so it is a small almost medieval uh uh community that was there in lower Manhattan quite honestly in 1949 1950 to 1960 by 60 the old ones die started dying off so do you think that in part that that informed your the gravitational pull towards emotional um something emotionally resonant that you weren experiencing because of those parameters yes exactly and also because my father took me to see it and we were we were um experiencing these emotions up there in the screen together which he didn't talk about wow see but we experienced this you think he knew that at the time I think so I think so I think so it was a special bond somehow then at a certain point I was able to go see the films by myself yeah because it was you know dangerous neighborhood to walk up Second Avenue uh as a young teenager New York huh you know it was a little difficult but at a certain point you knew where to go what what side of the street to walk on which which route to take Etc but uh you know these exper is from rear window to uh Shane to um bad and the Beautiful to Sunset Boulevard to the arys to the red shoes to the river by Jean Raa to alcast of the islands by Carol Reid's version of the Joseph Conrad all these things I shared with him that was a way of communicating it's beautiful thing you you've again as I as I tried to put into words before you've taken all these Inspirations and this this idea of of how Grand it can be and how big it can feel and how out of this world Hollywood can make it into your life's work and you know you've you've walked all of the lines you've made the biggest films and then you've had great success making the films that probably shouldn't have even been made they shouldn't have been made no uh and playing for me it's always been playing with and I really became apparent with Italian-American a film I made of my mother and father in 1974 began to realize that I try to blend not blend but break this compartmentalization of documentary and fiction film uh just Smash It and stylistically at first where my parents were talking on camera and I had questions for them but the minute I the minute we put the slate in front of my mother they took over and uh they started saying things and then next thing you know I mean we had the questions but the questions were were just um touch little touchstones that began their own stories all and then they made them comfortable and then they started talking about that my father didn't like the way my tooth looked he didn't like my beard there things like this so that you know you you suddenly they playing a character in order to tell the truth in a weir way yeah yeah yeah yeah and they just started to go and then I said that that's it I saw that also in a little bit in Shirley Clark's portrait of Jason I had a sense of that where she had the guts to hold the camera on this guy let him talk um but in any event uh italian-americans are a little different than we went into of course the last Walts which kind of um complimented New York New York and into Raging Bull they compliment documentaries that kind of documentaries and they sort of compliment them American Boy New York New York uh oh like the Dylan films you had to almost approach it that way i' imagine because concert films were not theatrical they were not made on that scale I mean this was one of the first if not the first that I remember hearing about um after the fact obviously that kind of started the whole idea of this is a band Yes it's an important moment it's the end of a very important band they're going out on at the right time yeah at the which they really did don't you wish more had a little bit I think so I mean some do over stay and it's like when you could choose to go out yeah but when you could choose to go up and then you have a new album by The Rolling Stones and they're they're magnificent they're clear examples magnic yeah yeah for sure but when you talk about L Walts and um it it is interesting because when you talk about breaking that line between documentary and feature film it's it's like you direct that film like it's a feature film but it's not it's a live concert and it is a real life event and this why I can talk about it that way is that we didn't tend to do that in other words we were discovering as we went along first it was Jonathan taplan who produced Mean Streets introduced me to Robbie we love the band we love Dylan but we love the band the big pink and brown album and all on stage for I mean you know this music I I was saying the other night there was no sound like that no they were Outlaws in their own way I mean every single individual and then coming together as a band that were the most badass band out there unbelievable we don't know where that was coming from um and yet it was all the threads of American music British Scottish uh Mississippi Delta all together it was kind of protest music as well that's what I about it it was it was it was it was a strange line between celebrating that history but also picking it apart yeah exactly taking it apart is right uh but um they came to me and said would you want to do this and you know they told me of all the different um John told me about all the different contributors you know Marty Waters Joanie Mitchell Neil Young uh everybody Van van marrison so um I said okay um the idea was just to get it recorded and we started I think you may know this we started with the idea of maybe doing on a video the video was quite poor at the time and we saw some examples black and white videos and I said you know this is this is a something for the Smithsonian I said this is a this is the real creation of American music all the different threads coming together this is a tapestry of American music up to this point now yes there were other groups and bands but all the elements are there you know Chicago blues uh Mississippi Delta everything it's all there I said so this is got to have a special so then we thought maybe 16 mimer again and I had been an assistant director and one of the editors on Woodstock and I thought that um and having been on the stage for those four night forign days and nights and been there but I thought that it's the use of the 16mm camera and the split screen had been done and I also worked on Elvis on tour as an editor uh split screen again and so I said yeah it's been done to that then also they keep showing the audience I said I've had it with the audience I want to see the performers I want to I want to see I want to watch jazz on the summer's day but Bert Stern where he just holds the camera on on Jimmy jrey or Neo o day or you know uh Louis Armstrong and um uh the the great Jack T Garden I mean come on it's so true it was almost like a default apology for filming a performer on stage because you have to show someone half naked dancing around in the mud I mean wood Woodstock did that that's what Woodstock was I must say I get it but it does a lot of it yeah film that's what it was though in other words it it was an event not just a music event it was an a cultural event but here when you when you say you're doing a film on the band you have muddy water standing there you have you have Joanie playing you know um coyote I mean stay on her it's in between the lines watch what they do with their eyes and their their mouths and their how they move their heads how they get into a line don't cut away to the guitarist don't cut away to the the the keyboard right away you know the way you see just hold as much as you can yeah as much as you can and so with 16 mm with thought of that but something happened I got to know Robbie a bit and maybe it was that um we um it was you know the two of us together were crazy that maybe separately we were crazy in a different way so you made your crazy okay no we were crazy okay anyway but I think I I don't really speak for him that much but but but together we really weren't crazy meaning say I so I had come up with the idea let's do it in 35 millimeter and that hadn't been done that hadn't been done before that kind of concert now you know there was the Sanders Brothers I believe they did the Elvis film this is Elvis I think in 35 in Vegas but it's quite controlled this would be different however the one advantage we had was that we knew who was going to be on stage where where they're going to be standing and if they're going to be moving around I mean it's not a group where they were dancing around on stage the band didn't do that you know there wasn't always one lead singer you know uh one song you have four voices that's interesting the same character by the way we somehow Jonathan they got the somehow they got the money together and you a backed us Eric PCO Mike medavoy they had done New York New York uh we're finishing up Apocalypse Now they were beginning the beginnings of of Heaven's Gate and Raging Bull they already gave a green light to Raging Bull so and this was a little later Raging Bull was a little later but that was the studio that was allowing these RIS were being taken already I mean this is what I have to thank you for and I have to thank the person who green lit that and and Robbie and the band for for encouraging you to take part in it you set up a chain of event It ultimately gave birth to this new idea of what music could be it wasn't just a ticket in your hand to go and see something or it wasn't to your point being marginalized with split screens and this you know that'll do oh that was wonderful though when we in Woodstock great it was really and especially I mean some of that some of the performances there were extraordinary but there's a different time you gave it a moment where it felt like music could stand alongside the big and and it introduced you to Robbie which is you know will now go down in history as one of the great collaborative relationships as well as friendships but I can only speak to the collaboration of Cinema and music history you know like absolutely amazing he just got mad at me when I liked the punk movement but he was the most punk guy out there yeah he said that he really really you know we were living together in my house up in a small house up in M driver and he would just come in sometimes say lower it lower it it's too loud I said no but it's it's The Clash he goes I don't care he I don't care they have no musicianship none they can't play the guitar they can't play I said it doesn't matter yeah they have great matter they got great taste you know and then he did he did concede with Elvis Costello though he conceded when I showed the album we went into the Old Tower Records myself and J Cox who was who was beginning to he was a movie critic but he was beginning to write Rock criticism Time Magazine and we looked we saw all this English punk music and we looked around said grab that one the jam grab that one The Clash that's got to be something and we and then we saw this Elvis Costello he said take this one because with that name he better be good and you know what I think if anybody knew that it was Elvis Costello he was the Angels wanted the Angels want to steal my red shoes come on that whole album was extraordinary stunning plus his other albums later on yeah so he gave yeah Elvis okay because Elvis was writing that stuff and he would play it and you know but when it came to the Clash he didn't hate them it's just that it was not it would hurt his ears it didn't like the sound of the way they were expressing themselves with the instruments I mean they were learning in the instruments yeah yeah it BRS it brings me to a question about um this incredible film killers of the flower Moon which um congratulations and I say that W with a heavy heart because it's such a heavy film and so sad but I say congratulations because you have created the most beautiful against Smithsonian description retelling of that story um very important to everybody involved in it Robbie Robertson of course being um First Nations of of IND indigenous descent and and the OS people and everyone who's invested time and resources and money to tell the story and yourself who charged yourself for the opportunity to do that with all that being said and with all due respect to your filmography is this the most important film that you've ever made well you define the word important that there is a historical retelling here that if you don't get the detail and the nuances correct that it's more than a bad review well the point is does art have to be important for the moment how should I put it art should be important all the time you follow yeah and then it'll fall out of importance and then it might come back into importance you know you could talk about literature you could talk about the fact that Herman Melville he stopped writing stuff you know uh I comparing myself to I'm just just saying that in you know you could talk about that van go only uh sold one painting uh you can go on and on like this so does it h we have to think in terms of importance I'm very very very um satisfied in a way that this picture has been through um the nature of events and through time and through the pandemic and and this is how the film finally found its way to the public at this point in time we didn't plan this but it seems fortuitous it seems and I'm very happy because um I do think as we were uh to to address your idea of importance again in the story as we were I was very very cognizant that's one of the reasons I I pulled back at first from doing it I was very cognizant because I understood that there's much more to uh the story of just one U one horrific series of event one one horrific series of events let's say in in with the oage nation that that if I can make that to reflect history to reflect who we are as human beings to reflect you know basically the European Americans coming in and taking you know um and they said well it you know you can go through you can go to the samarians and you could see the Assyrians did this and the imites did that and you know all of that well yeah yeah yeah and they're still doing it you know it's still because the land is there and um that's that's what you know the land has the water the land has the grazing area that sort of thing so in a way can this reflect um the the macrocosm of who we are as human beings in greed and I think that's where I forc myself to go with the story and Leo went with me on that Leo just went uh Eric Ro a couple of friends of mine Bo it took a while and a lot of the time I was doing it by myself because of the pandemic I was working on the script so that um we just said you know this is this is the story and basically no matter how many good people there were trying to um treat the indigenous with some respect and dignity they were overwhelmed by those who just wanted what they had there's two very prevailing sort of themes as a as as someone who really loved the film but was very deeply moved by the film um it's it's just absolute vulnerability and Absol absolute vulgarity yeah yeah yeah and those two things I don't often seen on screen fighting each other to that degree because like Lily Gladstone what an incredible performance to take those moments where Leo DiCaprio is is frustrated and lost and and lashing out not even believing his own words right he's not not even believing his own words and and then you have and then you have you know Robert's character William hail who is just doing it the exactly the same thing but in a far more of a sort of convincing conniving kind of way and she's just absorbing it all yeah yeah because because and this is what we found out the first thing I did when I saw the you know the title of the book and I read I started reading I said anything to do with indigenous I know from Robbie too you know and from an experience I had back in the 74 I was on the Pine Ridge reservation for a couple of days and it was I was traumatized by I didn't understand that that's the way people were forced to live I didn't know that I was too young and so over the years it stayed with me and so I said we go in we got to make sure we do it right not geography of the noble uh Native American that sort of that was done in the 20s you know and I found out from meeting the oage and from number of the um of the U family the descendants of the burkards the descendants of the rone Henry Ron hry the Ron horse family that I was told don't forget he told one guy told me said don't forget uh Bill Bill hail and Henry Ro were best friends this is what I couldn't get my head around at the end of the film great about I mean great meaning horribly it's horrible but what it is is like if we can get into that if we could tap into what makes Bill really like Henry and Henry Hees the letter he wrote at the end he's not trying to cover his tracks he genuinely by the way that letter is real and there's more to it we had to cut it down that L us real we just changed one name we said how is old and he as a mentions a an oage name there and the name that he actually wrote in the letter when Larry fanton had to say it you couldn't follow what he said so we we we put a name in that we got okayed for from the oage that it would sound what like what it was which was the name of an oage um Native um but you know the couple of number of o s were at his funeral so complex so then you take the love yeah love is a weapon love is a weapon and Molly and Ernest are in love and that's what I learned from the oage from Margie burkart who's the great granddaughter of Ernest she said don't forget because she they were a little cautious of me because the film I'm known for a lot of the violence in my films that you know the underworld this that good Fellas meain streets Etc taxi even it's not underworld there but there is violence in it they were a little concerned but she got up and spoke at a big dinner we had and she said she had seen silence and she understood that there something that I was trying for um that went beyond just uh what um somehow my more popular films are and but she pointed out don't forget though that Ernest and Molly were in love and I that stayed with me and then we try to we try to work that into the script somehow but the Bureau of Investigation uh scenes were taking over and that became more like a police procedural and then finally like as it is in the book which is which is excellent it's it's it's a whole of the film in itself yeah exactly you can make that book you can do it again the thing about it is uh Leo finally came to me after about a year and a half of trying this Balancing Act of the love story and the FBI and all the bureau I should say um and he said where's the heart of the picture yeah yeah and the Heart of the picture I said well it's Molly and Ernest heartbreaking I mean he said what if I play Ernest yeah because he was gonna play Tom white oh because it was going to be an FBI film so it was gonna right right wow what a pivot yeah yeah unbelievable yeah yeah we took the script turn inside out and I I got a whole new crew except the only person who remained on my crew there new production designer new every you actually have that FBI film if you want to make it later on I mean you do have it yeah no I I was interested in making an FBI film it was just interesting that these goes out these guys go in go down to Oklahoma they have to because by the time that house blows up the way it does somebody's got to do something well it's also a great case to launch this thing with right this whole concept of the FBI it's like all right we got a house blown up down in Oklahoma we can go down and make a thing here well that also that's one of the reasons why Hoover did that because he wanted to make it special he wanted a law enforcement agency that he could control that's why I love the the radio play at the end it's such a very clever way it's a beautiful way of saying you know hey this for everybody this meant something different and for the FBI there may have been another reason why this happened you know this is brought to you by the but it's exactly well the thing is that they went down not knowing if he could do it and that's what's so great about the book he tells Hoover tells Tom white he said none of this Gunplay stuff you're going down and you're going to send me Britain reports and he wanted it a certain way uh but he knew he had to send an Old Timer an old Texas Ranger in there to figure it out problem for me was the minute the guys come into town I know who did it and I always say this when I when we talk about the film I know who did it it's a matter of not who did it who didn't do it and it's a matter of all of us complicit yeah that's right that's right we are I'm sorry not that we want to be in many cases but I think we are yes there is no natural Arc P Hollywood template here there's no there's no surprise ending that you know what's going to happen you you even know who the bad guy is from date if you really yourself to know you know from the start I actually my wife and I watch it we were trying to reject that reality cuz we were like it cannot be this we put you with them yeah so you're sharing bread with them you're hanging out with them you're going to somebody's office and you're it's all them and then suddenly realize wait a minute these guys are really into some bad stuff yeah yeah and yes yes the Native Americans the oage they had their troubles they had uh some difficulties as one point where Henry Ron says you know he says I'm ashamed to be a no Sage yeah yeah that's hot breaking I'm ashamed man get me get me some bootleg or get me a give me a gun you know uh and then they say oh well look at them they don't know how to handle it well yeah look how you're treating them yeah the dignity and um uh and also the interesting thing was I thought why you know when the Undertaker gets up and tells Leo uh you know get the money it's easy for you to get the money it is it's not he say it's not your money it's his wife's money get some more he said' what's matter what's the big deal he said you know the thing is the Lord says you sew and you reap and you sew and you reap then and if what he's saying basically is you get rewarded by God for your effort and work you contribute you you get rewarded that's how we think now why should these people anything not do anything and they get oil in the ground you can apply that in any way you want I know you can any way you want but that's who settle the country yeah yeah what incredible achiev you know us Europeans and you know we Europeans I should say and Scandinavians I don't that necessarily think there was too just interesting for me in history that um it was too uh unsettled for the Mediterranean countries to come over the only time I think the really the heavy from what I've read in the history of Sicily let's say um the the the main uh immigration began after the Civil War when the South needed workers uh to um replace U because slavery was abolished and uh the Italian apparently I guess it was the Italian government I may be wrong sent a couple hundred thousand Sicilians to New Orleans um and there's a story there too because they turned out to do very well and they became very very close with the black community and they were doing very well and then it all EXP exped in 1909 I think where one of the the chief of police got killed Etc they blamed on the Sicilians blah blah blah and and they said you're bringing them in they're bringing in their crime syndicates and things like that but they were doing very well together with the African-American Community you know it's it's funny you know the psychology is one thing right sometimes I feel like you know you can keep your psychology but don't don't get in between me and my money and it's just it's the money it's the money it's always the money the money you know it really is always the money and you know look it's great to have money to take care of your family you know you know I don't mean that too people keep complain they used to say just throw money at them you know that's not going to solve it because the more you throw at them the more they're going to want which is a big theme in this film I mean they not not the want the the more that you want but the more I mean the ending was set in stone the second the ground opened up absolutely we know it's it's there it's inevitable now let's see how it works yes and it works through in a terrible way it works a lot through love I mean the last thing I don't want to give it away but one of the last things dairo says to Leo in the jail he says I love you son oh it's just that's his last so conf his last weapon to get Leo back I love you son Love's going to get you yeah yeah um I love this quote music and film are almost one and the same you probably said it a long time ago but you've stayed true to it you have consistently worked with music in a way that is caring to the music and great for your film not in a reductive way everything is additive and I love that about the way you've worked with film throughout your life you clearly love music I really do yeah yeah I mean it started with U I was born in 42 so 1945 I contracted asthma wasn't allowed to go do Sports wasn't allowed to run around wasn't allowed to you had to be careful to kids get into laughing fits they get spasms you couldn't do that either CU you start you can't breathe and so my parents working-class people and they didn't have uh they read but they didn't have books in the house and so it was um radio and photograph records and the radio I would listen to shows like Gang Busters that we we uh referred to by the end of our movie and by the way um show at the end of our movie is based on the real shows that they we have the scripts of the oage murder shows presented to you by the FBI um and as I pointed out number times ours is bad but this was worse really bad any anyway but that's 1933 34 okay um the records were something the records were primarily the ones that came to mind I was four five six years old listening to these things playing them um was the swing music of Benny Goodman Benny Goodman yeah the Benny Goodman quartet you know Avalon most of you know King Porto Stomp all that stuff but but primarily it was D Jango Reinhardt and the hot club of France they were five 78s and both sides I played them over and over again and I didn't know as a child I didn't know that it was a series group a group of instruments that was creating the sound I thought it was one sound yeah it must be the closest thing to Magic at that moment yes it really was so I would imagine things in my mind I'd imagine almost like abstract films or movement a lot of movement and so from that point that was my first touch with um creativity was the combination yeah was what that sound particularly their music the the hot club of France what that sound did in my head um and in my body and then it started to combined with Motion Pictures with pictures I could draw on the edge of a uh the Persistence of vision that I saw a movie called The Magic Box in 1950 my father took me to see it was about the invention of Cinema Robert donat British film it's a very sweet film um and they showed the Persistence of vision where you could draw a little uh stick figure on a the margins of a book and then you move it a little bit move and you flip the book and it flips and you see the move and so that with the music still do that today by the way isn't it amazing the most simple introduction I did yeah I remember my daughter going to when when she was about 9 years old in school came back and said look Dad look at this camera and it was a pinhole camera I said through all this you no but look what you could do with it my life is nothing I've done nothing Little P yes the pinhole camera is great we even tried doing pinhole photography for this film yeah yeah we we reject it because it got to be too difference feat like the black and white stuff in the beginning yeah yeah well we we have I have a camera that's from 1916 and and you have to do the uh it was hand cranked those scenes uh based on the actual 16mm footage the O took by the way they were so rich they had cameras wow one of the things I love about the way you've used film is is that you you have this inability to create a contrast between how I heard the songs and how I see them now um be my baby being an example that that song is supposed to be a song which ultimately it makes you feel some kind of way there's a a yearning of unrequited love a desire to be with somebody it's supposed to be innocent and pure you use it in a way even down to the fact that you clearly had to put it in your film off a turntable cuz you can hear at the RPM slowing and right and and speeding up and you can even hear the the scratches if it it's it adds a sense of it's an unsettling experience almost that sound was unsettling yeah that wall of sound that he created it was so weird looking back they were the pop songs of the time but they were weird they really were spooky songs yeah that they sounded like they were coming from some sort of strange dungeon somewhere boom yeah boom like you'll never forget those those opening beats and when Harvey puts his head on the pillow cut cut cut Bang desperation exhaustion uncertainty all to the soundtrack of a song that was supposed to make people dance yes I know I you seem to love that that seems to be something that you really appreciate that's what we felt living with that music when I say living with it it was yeah in your apartment tenements downtown on Elizabeth Street my parents I had to live with them until I got out and got married in 1965 I think it was but you know we also um on the weekends we had our after hour places and and private club bars so to speak that you just sort of pay off the cops a little bit and they let you have your you know some scotch and Ry Etc and there was a juke box and the sound of that jukebox in those places at night that's what it was and there was always a sense of danger yeah there were it just was and and that that's how it developed and the music uh particularly in the summer was played uh you could the druke boox sometimes was taken out of the uh back and placed right on the sidewalk and you'd have you know the Spectre sound you'd have the Marvelettes you'd have Motown with life going on all life going on all around you the butcher delivery meat being delivered to the Butcher and fish store going and the pork store down the block I mean the funeral PA or funeral you have to P you have to I mean all this going on it was like film school this Bo yeah well this was also it was like Hogarth yeah or it was like Bosch or it was like it was like brle you know and um but I was scared by it at first because the first years of my life were spent in Corona Queens uh and it was a a different kind of place it was uh my parents got married in 33 they were born in those buildings on Elizabeth Street 241 and 232 which is still there um and uh when they got married coming from families of uh eight or eight or nine brothers and sisters you know all living together so they wanted to get away from that neighborhood it was it was wasn't a great neighborhood and uh to move to like the country and Corona Queens or or Jamaica Queens was like the country and so in 34 35 I guess they did I was born in 42 uh but in 49 my father had some problem with the landlord and it had to be settled and we lost and so we moved back they moved back to Elizabeth Street and it was my first time so you've gone from the country yeah back I'm thrown in with the dead end kids wow you know playing with the garbage pail covers like Shields like you know chasing rats you know chasing the rats out of the out of out of the butcher shop was always a festive experience no everybody run out the rats are bad man you got yeah in a neighborhood like that it was bad because that that's you got to think Elizabeth Street I'm talking 1950 1900 Elizabeth Street was listed as the leading um leading uh uh area of New York for infant mortality because of chera because of all those things that we we get a sense of it now with the pandemic but at that time was all the time small pox uh CER everything and so cleanliness was important you see a rat it had to go you know and the best way to get get the rat to go is get the butcher you know and so all of this going on it was it was traumatizing and then they just took me to the movies a lot and so I stayed in the street and as we got a little older the music really and by the way the music also right at that time right around the time right before the the crossover music Bill hay doing Shake R and roll uh but not hearing Big Joe Turner do it then you heard Big Joe Turner do it you know uh L Baker you heard and all this you know and then suddenly Elvis well you know so the music from 50 to 55 was you know Sinatra Bennett Tony Bennett um uh wonderful some really wonderful pop songs they're more than pop songs that come from the the American song book so I really had a great appreciation of Cole Porter and um Deets you know Rogerson Hammerstein Rogerson Hart you know uh you can go on well these songs were also looking for an environment to to to embellish the story that you heard yourself they were looking for a place where they could attach themselves to a story and you gave it to them and you sourced music in ways no one had ever done it before I'll never forget the moment I saw that scene in Mean Streets with Jumping Jack Flash ever ever ever um I knew the song obviously my parents have played it to me and I was excited to see the film um it was after it came out I watched on VHS and I remember my friend was like you got to see it we're discovering Martin score cesy now we're in our SC sizy ERA this is what we're going to do we're watching Mean Streets and there it is and I'm watching these Shore dudes walk through and but there's the psycho and the whole thing feels d i it just felt so dangerous it really was the music felt dangerous the stones all of a sudden just were even more dangerous I always felt that I always felt that and I felt that their music it had the same impact to me as you know Kurt vile B Berto bre three peny Opera yeah it there's a danger in that music yeah you know uh you know how how you keep a man alive he lives off others he likes to taste him first and eat them whole if he can forets that they're supposed to be his brothers I mean that's what was like in the streets that's a quote from one of the songs in how to how to keep a man alive I think in uh how does a man stay alive I forget the title in three peny Opera the karma capalbo version that was on the theater de Lee uh um off off Broadway and I got to see it there but um for me you see if I ever got to make a film I knew I didn't belong in Hollywood and so the impetus of John cetti Shirley Clark Jonas mikas the whole New York underground although I was not in you know Bohemian with the artists ET um I knew that I had to I didn't deserve a movie score in a way those are certain kinds of films and therefore the the um uh I had to create my own score and of course we got you know I was living to music things would happen but it was by necessity yes it was by necessity we got we got a push of course by Kenneth anger and Scorpio Rising yeah there's no doubt uh that's a short film however but he was bold enough to use all that music and brilliantly he was genius um and shockingly by the way but that was what that's that's what's so amazing watching these films and how you've used this music by necessity or otherwise is how shocking it must have been at the time and how shocking it still is I think about the ways that you use Give Me Shelter in all of your films and I've heard that song in so many different ways and yet every time you use it it adds a different feeling to me it's a funny thing I I keep forgetting I I remember only using it in uh uh that departed and when Mick Jagger Mick got up and we did shine a light in Berlin press conference and says I just want you to know this is the only film M School says he made that he didn't put Gimme Shelter in I felt like a jerk I'm just loving their film how they're giving you such a hard time it's almost like a game oh it was a game it was a game the only thing there was to try to get him on camera they did too you know it was so good you know I've got to and I know we're we're running out of time but my gosh there's so much I could talk to you about just in relation to the way you've worked with music in your film but um it would be really silly of me not to talk about Leila and not to talk about the chemistry that that moment has in Good Fellas at the end and the way that it works so beautifully throughout and I and I what the question I've always wanted to ask you because I know how it made me and millions of other people feel what does it feel like when you see it for the first time not in your head but when the chemistry of that music oh that's like nothing you've ever that's in a sense one of the I guess crazy things that that you you it makes you want to I don't know make a painting create a piece of music uh you know create literature it's something that happens it it um it they are I must say sometimes we use the word as a joke but it kind of transcends what you're doing yeah it really does you're off you're off into another universe and I played that music back on the set for those shots it was played out in the streets um and so the crew felt it too uh you know uh Lila was just something I love I didn't I also didn't know the history of Lila yeah I didn't know that I just took the last part of it but from that the drummer did and the whole thing and Eric Clapton all those guys were really nice at okay we don't usually send we don't usually give an okay for the song but they did for that um you know I did H I did have the opportunity to work with u some great composer though of course Elma Bernstein of course uh Bernard Herman Howard Shaw and uh Philip Glass you know so that that but it has been 27 films primarily I make up my own uh tracks I don't just that you combine your tracks in Casino in the desert you're putting two songs over each other I've never seen that life app come up to me at one point and he said Hey listen don't forget delaro contempt I said you're right Lim PR yeah let's play limate PR why don't we take other themes from the movies and use them in our films and on top of that put them over Ginger Baker's live toad crazy crazy that is the ru break of all time in cinema no one I've never seen anyone do that before that's DJ work let's just Robbie Robbie just walked by and said yeah why don't you listen to that again you never never know because the May Prix is about yeah is also about about infidelity it's about selling out it's a you know it's it's a wonderful film that godod made contempt and that music is so sad so beautiful and comes Ginger Baker so crazy so oh my gosh I remember seeing that for the first time and just being like well someone's getting killed but that was theun they didn't that's the thing about you m say he is no one died in that scene I know nobody did no no no because the problem is you know it's coming it's coming but Ain ain't happening yet the thing about it too is like why not use in a way you're right you're talking about what they used to call sampling is that it yeah s basically you mes let's take Nicholas rut's music from King of Kings and put it in here let's do I why can't we use other other themes from other movies why not you know uh it is considered classical music I mean uh Wolf Gang corn gold is considered classical composer yeah you know Demitri tkin did some beautiful stuff he loved Dey yeah you know um so why not play with that oh wow I mean it changed everything and you've continued to do so this film is so wonderful I mean this as the greatest compliment I'm not sure how many times I can watch it because it's so intense and hurt and and and it's hard but it's so perfect thank and I will watch it several times but it it's something that you that will stay with you on one watch forever and it's incredible I have one more question for you if you have time it's it's um and again when this this goes out the film will have been seen I don't think I'm giving anything away by it'll be available um you carry the last scene oh yes yeah you carry the last scene and and you you're no stranger to being in your films either voice voice actor or on screen sometime of necessity like my mother and father too they I said you're in it that's it we have no we have no choice but we love it when you do it we love it when you do it necessity or otherwise we're here for it but I I wanted to finish by asking you it feels so poignant and personal that you have the last word in this film and I wonder just simply what prompted the decision to to do that scene yourself well uh the radio show idea or the epilog idea was something that Eric and I had for the original day one basically and U uh there were other issues but eventually I said no we're staying with this it's going to be this uh the entertainment value of the tragedy and the suffering we' just seen becomes a show um saying and don't forget light up with Lucky Strikes oh it helps us leave the theater yeah you actually give us a way to leave and and process otherwise I I would still be sitting in that theater we later no but the problem was that that yes you know and I don't know how to really phrase it but the problem is the responsibility we have too as entertainers so to speak um maybe taking advantage of the tragedy and the suffering of what we've just shown by making entertainment but if the entertainment could sustain and it could be something that has depth and maybe it's something that an audience could still resonate with an audience a year later or two years later maybe they could even find out something about themselves that might be okay but the film is in that way too uh so therefore the only person to come out and read the orbituary would be me I'd have to I'd have to take it and um one of the other reasons was it was the last we had shot the film and then we went back in New York and shot the last couple of days in um in that theater and um one of the other reasons was I I honestly didn't know at that point if I could direct anybody to read that obituary I just couldn't I said I didn't know what to tell them and so I said you know what why don't you try it and if it doesn't work it's it's a single medium shot basically you can get another actor going at least you will have cracked it and said okay what I couldn't do this is what I need from so and so from so and so so I did it and as I was doing it my wife was there my granddaughter one of my daughters some friends um I was in my old high school Cardinal Hayes they have a great theater there so we shot there and I'm looking around and um I had been to Molly uh Molly Bart's grave and saw all the graves lined up then I look down there and I see them and I said to myself you know there she was lying next to her mother her father sisters and then her daughter and it just hit me and I what happened too is that something happened with the people there too they said that was really interesting because we were were the the radio itself doing the sound effects and that was kind of enjoyable but this brought everything back down and so I said all let's go with it let's see if people like it you know or not like it but if they get affected by it and so I went that way and it's a way of you know you know having been there at Pine Ridge and over the years as a way taking on my own put it on my own shoulders too yeah you carried it thank you thank you

Channel: Apple Music

Views: 125,885

Keywords: apple, music, apple music, apple music youtube, youtube apple music, apple music 1, martin scorsese, martin, scorsese, martin scorsese interview, interview, killers of the flower moon, killers of the flower moon interview, martin scorsese killers of the flower moon, zane lowe, zane lowe interview, apple tv, apple original, killers of the flower moon apple tv, leonardo dicaprio, lily gladstone, leonardo dicaprio killers of the flower moon, lily gladstone killers of the flower moon

Id: W4WL11xKIBk

Length: 49min 36sec (2976 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 27 2023