Martin Scorsese AMC Interview

TheThree member Peter Tulba had a great report that I begged him to publish here. A taste:

--He then moved into two of his more contemporary films, "Gangs of NY" and "The Aviator". He said Gangs shot for 157 days, and didn't offer any reasons why necessarily. A few interesting notes about it were.....

--Harvey Weinstein threw the wrap party 3 weeks before filming concluded ("What, Harvey? Are you trying to tell me something? Come on here!") and that he had invited "all of Rome" to the party which was on the set(!!) which he had to shoot on at 5:30 the next morning(!!!!).

--He acknowledged Dante Ferreti, who got the production an "amazing" deal to shoot of Cinecetta Studios since he had worked there for so many years with Fellini.

--Scorsese said he was so naive when he tried getting the film going back in the late 1970's, because he thought he was going to be able to shoot it all on the backlots in Hollywood. As he was shopping the idea around to studios he quickly realized that all of the sets he loved from the "golden age" were either sold off or in ruin.

--At one point George Lucas visited the set and was in complete awe of the detail and sheer size of the sets Scorsese had had built. He told Scorsese that he could do all of this on computers now, but Scorsese said he liked thinking how he made the last film of its kind. He wishes in retrospect that he had used more painted glass matting, to give it more of an old fashioned feel.

Read the whole thing...
Here's the full report...

My afternoon with Martin Scorsese
Well, alright, it wasn't my afternoon with Martin Scorsese so much as it was about 200 people's afternoons with him, but still. I was one of a lucky group who got to be the audience for a new AMC show called "Movies 101" hosted by an NYU prof. named Richard Brown and today's guest was his "old friend" (more like dude he's carried a torch for) Martin Scorsese. Scorsese was fairly candid, although he did laugh off a few war stories that I would have liked to have heard more about, and spoke for 2.5 hours on several of his films and his time at NYU. I'm obviously paraphrasing here, but the order I'm writing this is the order in which the topics were addressed.....

--He started talking about his childhood, growing up on the Lower East Side and the early days of NYU film. He grew up on Elizabeth Street and was severely asthmatic so spent a lot of time watching the action on the street from his bedroom window. Also seriously contemplated becoming a priest but struggled so much in Latin that he was kicked out of seminary school.

--His early days at "Washington Square College" when NYU offered one film class called "TMR" -- television, movies and radio -- and was part of the school of Ed. He spoke affectionally about a man named Hayden Mannicioni, as did Richard Brown who was a classmate of Scorsese's.

--They talked about the first time they met, when Richard Brown was wandering around the 8th floor of the "East building" (didn't figure out if this was the Tisch bulding or not) and walked into a screening room where a group of students were hanging out watching a film called "It's Not Just You Murray". Richard Brown loved the film and asked the projectionist after who made it. The projectionist replied that he had, and introduced himself as Martin Scorsese. The two later bonded over a Busby Berkeley screening at Symphony Space!

--This segued into his first studio effort, "Mean Streets", which he said was based largely on stuff he witnessed from spending so much time watching from his bedroom window as a kid. He was extremely passionate about this movie, about incorporating things from his neighborhood, and loved the experience.

--He next spoke at length about "Last Temptation of Christ", which apparently is his most personal and favorite of all his movies. He was extremely passionate about it, and was very disappointed about the controversy it sparked. He wanted it to open up more discussion and debate about religion, not be branded an obscenist. He defended the film and his vision throughout (he was not critical of himself at ALL btw). He also said that the original budget for the film was $19 million and that they had put in almost a year of pre-production on it at Paramount before a threat from United Artists theaters to not run the film forced the plug to be pulled. When the project was resurrected at Universal the budget was $6 million!!!

--This segued into "Raging Bull". He offered a little background on himself at the time, that he was completely devastated that "New York, New York" failed and for the few years between these two projects he suffered from depression and a serious recurrance of his asthma. He was actually in the hospital when Robert Deniro (Bob) visited him and told him about the Jake Lamotta story. He said "Deniro said 'this would be great for me... and for you too'" and laughed. He said after "Raging Bull", which renewed his passion in filmmaking, he was planning on moving to Italy and concentrate on documentaries, because he couldn't imagine a more involving and engaging process than making "Raging Bull". He said his passions were "Mean Streets", "New York, New York", and that "Taxi Driver" was Paul Schrader's passion and that Bull was Deniro's passion and he thrived off of this, but felt that he didn't have any more passion about fictional stories. Obviously Italy never happened, but he claims he wasn't "passionate" about any of his projects again (which would include "King of Comedy", "After Hours" and "The Color of Money") until "Last Temptation of Christ".

--He then moved into two of his more contemporary films, "Gangs of NY" and "The Aviator". He said Gangs shot for 157 days, and didn't offer any reasons why necessarily. A few interesting notes about it were.....

--Harvey Weinstein threw the wrap party 3 weeks before filming concluded ("What, Harvey? Are you trying to tell me something? Come on here!") and that he had invited "all of Rome" to the party which was on the set(!!) which he had to shoot on at 5:30 the next morning(!!!!).

--He acknowledged Dante Ferreti, who got the production an "amazing" deal to shoot of Cinecetta studios since he had worked there for so many years with Fellini.

--Scorsese said he was so naive when he tried getting the film going back in the late 1970's, because he thought he was going to be able to shoot it all on the backlots in Hollywood. As he was shopping the idea around to studios he quickly realized that all of the sets he loved from the "golden age" were either sold off or in ruin. He told a story about how he asked to see the train station set from "The Band Wagon" (a Fred Astaire MGM musical from 1953) and remarked that it looked like "a real NY train station circa 1979".

--At one point George Lucas visited the set and was in complete awe of the detail and sheer size of the sets Scorsese had had built. He told scorsese that he could do all of this on computers now, but Scorsese said he liked thinking how he made the last film of its kind. He wishes in retrospect that he had used more painted glass matting, to give it more of an old fashioned feel.

--He only spoke for a little about "The Aviator" but said that the shoot was scheduled for 90 days and that they took exactly 90 and every day he couldn't believe how little time they had to get everything, but somehow it worked. He started to speak very fondly of Leonardo DiCaprio (Leo) and this segued into.....

--The Departed. He said he loves working with DiCaprio because he "will do everything I ask him too, even stuff I'd rather he not". He said about a scene in "The Departed" where DiCaprio's character has to jump through a glass window and fall some distance and that DiCaprio insisted on doing it himself. He really seemed to like DiCaprio, spoke extremely highly of him.

--He said "The Departed" is based of course on "Infernal Affairs" but that the writer, William Monahan, also incorporated some aspects of a celebrated real life case in boston history about a deep undercover police informant.

--He said that working with Jack Nicholson was great, although he didn't comment on the alleged "coke off a stripper's ass" scene and/or the black dildo he's been seen wearing on set.

--He then segued into "Goodfellas" which he said was a homage to "the lifestyle" that he grew up with. He said since he couldn't play sports as a kid he never really associated with ballplayers as heroes or role models, but instead was fascinated with the young guys who stood on street corners during the day "telling stories, then doing who knows what at night". He said he wanted to make a film about their stories, in which "the lifestyle" was the main character. He said he needed 70 days to shoot it, WB told him 55, but he took 70 anyway and "got in some trouble", but
didn't elaborate.

--He finished with an anecdote about "last temptation". He said that since he knew the scenes of Willem Dafoe on the cross were going to be the hardest, literally, he saved them for the end of the shoot. Since they were running over schedule (of course) they needed 75 setups in 2 days (!!!!!). Scorsese and Michael Ballhaus, his longtime DP, cut it down to 50, but that Ballhaus was on set with a stop watch to prevent Scorsese from shooting extra takes. He said that the final reaction shot of Jesus that he wanted was "accidentily exposed by some kid" but that no one realized it till the film was back in NY, where Thelma Schoonmaker was starting to edit it. She said she thought Marty was going to have a heart attack since there was no way he could get that shot back and the frame went all white and cloudy, but upon seeing it, Scorsese fell in love with the image. He said he can't take real credit for it, since it was an accident, but the decision to keep the shot in was his, over Thelma's protests.

Some other random thoughts/notes.....

--He spoke about two projects he wants to do one day. A "multi-generational tale" about immigrant families like his, charting the grandparents (Italian), parents (Italian American) and children (American). The other was a story of Portuguese priests who did missionary work in feudal Japan in the 16th century. He briefly commented that this could be his reunion with Robert Deniro.

--Being the film dork that he is, he referenced several old Hollywood movies, as well as countless Italian films and directors. The old Hollywood movies he referenced were "The Roaring Twenties", "The Informant", "How Green Was My Valley?", "The Bandwagon", "Gold Diggers of 1933", "My Darling Clementine", "The Third Man", "Citizen Kane", and "Brigadoon".

--He had two great quotes. One about the magic of the movies: "Of course it couldn't happen for real, that's why we're going to the movies!" And one about how he still can't figure out how to properly shoot a closeup in widescreen.

It was an awesome experience and definitely worth watching when it shows on AMC. We were told that the series would begin on September 30th and that this was the fifth of five taped shows.