The life of Martin Scorsese

Brut India

His admiration for Satyajit Ray was well known. He has reunited with Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio for the film Killers of the Flower Moon, presented at the Cannes Film Festival this year. This is his story.

Transcript

00:00Parents, you know, were working-class people who never had a book in the house.

00:16Whenever I need to be energized or re-inspired, I go back to his film.

00:30I mean, he took me to movies, my father, basically. And that was it.

00:34I learned visual things. I started reading when I was about 16.

00:45The strongest impression I ever got, I received, was going into a church.

00:49I was around seven years old when I went into my first church.

00:52It was the old Catholic cathedral in New York called St. Patrick's Cathedral.

01:00It was a church.

01:22There were a lot of actors that came to audition for the part.

01:24And I was shocked because there was no money. Nobody was getting paid.

01:28Marty was great. We became fast, fast friends.

01:39I went to him and I asked him, I said,

01:43Why don't you play this part? There's nobody, no actor on the planet that will play this part the way you can.

01:49And he did it.

01:59You talking to me? You talking to me?

02:02Who the hell else are you talking to? You talking to me?

02:05Back in 1976, they gave the Palme d'Or to Taxi Driver.

02:08And that was like a major thing for me because in America, the film did well.

02:13It was nominated for a few Academy Awards, but Paul Schrader and myself were not nominated.

02:29I thought it was the end of my career, that film.

02:36I didn't think so. Quite honestly, I knew for De Niro it was going to be fine because Bob would get his award.

02:41I knew he was such a wonderful actor and he'd get his Academy Award.

02:44But I thought I was going to go off to Italy and do films on Saints.

02:48Forever.

02:4916mm, yeah.

02:58We dared to touch the morality of the person of Our Lord.

03:08And that is something that is completely unacceptable for a Catholic soul.

03:12Have you seen the film?

03:13I haven't seen the film and I don't want to see it. I will never see it.

03:23I'm so happy to see him.

03:25Look, go inside, make yourself comfortable.

03:27No, no, go to sleep.

03:36We can't have a future of our art form without knowing its past.

03:41And I'll just keep saying it because it's true.

03:44Working alongside him, I've experienced some of my proudest acting moments ever.

03:59When I first met him, he told me how much he liked my film.

04:02His energy in liking my films has sort of given me a new energy in making movies.

04:07I hope that lasts a while, you know, and see what happens.

04:14I haven't worked with De Niro in a long time, but we seem to have grown together in similar ways.

04:42We always seem to be interested in the same material.

04:45Take chances. I'm not afraid of taking chances.

04:49Leo DiCaprio is somebody who also, even though he's 30 years younger, has a similar sensibility.

04:56These two men really are like my fathers in the world of cinema.

05:01To have scenes with Bob and being directed by Marty, you know,

05:05it was a small slice of heaven for me as an actor.

05:12It was a small slice of heaven for me as an actor.

05:43So you can imagine when I explained to my mother and father that I thought maybe I would make movies,

05:48they might as well have said become president or become an astronaut or something.

Category

Transcript

Recommended