- What is cinema?
Downloaded from YTS.MX
For me, there's only one answer.
Cinema is necessary.
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
(film projector beeping)
(viewers chattering)
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- Martin Scorsese is, I think, one of the best of the best.
He really is one of the quintessential American directors.
- He's somebody that all filmmakers look to
as a master of the art.
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- Scorsese has become almost this curator
of America's film archive.
There's almost no film that Scorsese
doesn't have a print of.
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(film reel whirring)
(lively jazz music)
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(film reel whirring) (lively jazz music)
- What's so interesting about Scorsese's mafia pictures
is that, you know, for us, the idea of the mafia
and the mafia life is very exotic.
But what we forget is that for Martin Scorsese,
he was growing up in Little Italy.
These movies are about his life and his experience.
And that's partially what has made them so good
because there's an authenticity there
that no one else could really recreate.
(solemn jazz music)
- [Narrator] It would've been an easy option
for the young Martin Scorsese to join the mob
and pursue the life of crime
that's so often depicted in his films.
However, severe asthma kept him away
from living a normal life.
- So he was just kind of staying at home a lot,
probably peering out the window,
like looking at these mafiosos
going around their business being like.
- Hey, Teroni, that big shot Follette
gonna shoot square with us?
- [Narrator] His family were surrounded by the mob.
These people were often friends, neighbors,
and sometimes even family.
They'd come for dinner one night and go missing the next.
But growing up, Scorsese and his parents
embraced a quieter, family-oriented lifestyle.
- My parents, you know, were working class people
who never had, we never had a book in the house.
No books.
Just the Daily News and the Daily Mirror in New York.
Newspapers, and, you know, I mean, he took me to movies,
my father, basically.
- That's how he was exposed to all of these greats
of the Golden Age of Cinema.
Directors like Willie Wyler, who I think he always admired
just because of the diversity of what he was making.
And you see that a little bit in Scorsese's career.
Like, he's a pretty like diverse guy.
I know we like to think of him as the "Goodfellas" man,
but he's dipped his toe in a lot of different genres.
So maybe his movies are a way
of imagining what his life could have been.
(children chattering)
(person chattering)
- Growing up in and around New York,
Scorsese not only went to film school.
He actually taught at film school.
He taught at NYU at the end of the 1960s.
But Scorsese, right from the very beginning,
was ambitious to make it in Hollywood.
He went to Los Angeles in the early 1970s.
He went as a film editor in the first instance.
Just keen to get a foot in the door, really.
And from there, he hooked up with a lot
of the New Hollywood movie brats.
They started hanging out with each other in various houses
and locations around Los Angeles
as they tried to plot their way into the industry.
And from there began touting round his script
for "Mean Streets," which he'd already written at NYU.
(soft jazz music)
- [Clarisse] "Mean Streets" was really I think the first
outing of the Scorsese that we know.
- It talked about, you know, rage of young men.
It painted New York as this dirty, gritty,
difficult place.
- "Mean Streets" has that archetype of the guy
who gets involved in the criminal world.
And he chases the high, and then there's a conflict.
And then that summons the downfall.
And obviously if you look at everything Scorsese made
afterwards, that theme just keeps coming up again and again.
And so I think a lot of the success of "Mean Streets"
and the doors that it opened for Scorsese just came to that,
that little recognition of, "Oh, okay.
"He sort of found himself in cinema."
(electric guitar music)
♪ One, two ♪
- So Scorsese wasn't actually the first one
to work with Robert De Niro.
It was Brian De Palma who actually discovered him
and worked with him on two films and sort of introduced him
to Scorsese and said, "Hey, look at this great actor."
You know, he's young and he's got this sort of like
very masculine anger and vulnerability to him,
which is so perfect for everything that Scorsese does.
And I think they,
there's something about it that just clicked.
- De Niro and myself, Bob,
we worked on so many films together that we were like,
we grew together creatively.
Like we grew up together in the same,
in the business in a way.
So we didn't think of each other as stars
and that sort of thing.
- Sometimes when directors find actors that really
just speak, speak their mind through their characters.
And I think the De Niro, that's so true.
He captures everything of that Scorsese rise
and downfall structure, like in one guy.
And that guy is Robert De Niro.
- I mean, they've been making films together for decades.
They have a shorthand, and they have a sensibility
that's the same in terms of what they want from a character.
They both want to get really deep inside a character
and on why they behave the way they do.
And De Niro is extremely good at that.
I don't think De Niro is better directed
by anybody but Scorsese.
- [Narrator] Three years after the success
of "Mean Streets," Scorsese and De Niro
joined forces again with "Taxi Driver,"
a film that is often highlighted
as their best collaboration.
De Niro plays Travis Bickle,
a disturbed and lonely Vietnam veteran
who works as a taxi driver in New York.
De Niro's character is drawn to the worst,
sleaziest and most dangerous areas of town,
where his clientele includes pimps and prostitutes.
Everywhere he goes, he sees violence, degradation, insanity,
and filth, which fuels the madness in Bickle's mind.
Scorsese himself cameos in the film
in one of the darkest moments as a passenger
who plans to murder his cheating wife.
- And I'm gonna kill her.
There's nothing, there's nothing else.
I'm just, I'm gonna kill her.
Well, what do you think of that?
- The appeal of "Taxi Driver" is to me so interesting
because it's such a, it's such an unpleasant movie.
And there's this sort of like restrict, like gross,
like sheen to it.
And it's like the pure ugliness
of New York City exposed onscreen.
And yet at the same time
because Scorsese is such a soulful filmmaker,
we get put in this really strange position
where we're repulsed by him,
but also we empathize with him a little bit.
And we're constantly being like tussled
between these two extremes of the actions
that he perpetuates are so immoral,
and yet what he represents,
the sort of the loneliness and the sense of bitterness
and feeling forgotten in your own life,
like that is something that everyone can associate with.
- You talking to me?
You talking to me?
- "Mean Streets" and "Taxi Driver" were incredibly visceral
and immersive movies that quickly attained that cult status
because they seemed very much in line with the way
in which the new Hollywood ethos was working.
Violent, quite jarring, anti-heroic characters,
people on the margins of society.
Filming really a post-Vietnam society
that American audiences coming through into the theaters
were beginning to see themselves outside,
but they weren't seeing it on screen
up until Scorsese's films, I think.
They were very, very kind of important and templates
in a way of that alternative scene that Scorsese
had really helped build up since the turn of the '70s.
(smooth jazz music) (pedestrians chattering)
- A lot of these, like the movie brat filmmakers,
felt so indebted to the studio age,
to the films of the 1940s,
because that's, that's what they grew up on,
and that's what inspired their love of movies.
So I think a lot of these directors like Scorsese
have a really great love of musicals.
And so his attempt to make "New York, New York"
was very earnest to me.
(smooth jazz music)
But the reason that it didn't do well
I think is really down to "Star Wars."
(bus engine humming)
- So "Star Wars" changed the whole shape
of the industry after 1977.
Hollywood had been looking for a way back in
in commercial terms of how to make big blockbuster movies
that were family orientated,
that people were gonna see not just once,
but actually come out and see again and again.
- With "Star Wars," overnight,
like the appetite of the audience changed.
And they're like, "We only want these sort
"of like sci-fi fantasies, overblown spectacles."
And there almost wasn't really a place
for something like "New York, New York" anymore.
(smooth jazz music)
I think it surprised a lot of the people
in that filmmaking group because even George Lucas's wife,
Marcia, at the time said, "Hey, George, 'New York, New York'
"is a grownup person movie.
"Like, you have made a little like child's movie
"with 'Star Wars.'
"I don't think that's gonna work.
"Like 'New York, New York,' that's a movie."
And then obviously the opposite happens and everyone goes,
"Oh, I guess the movies have changed."
- [Journalist] What do you think sets this film aside
from all the other science fiction films there are?
- Publicity.
- Publicity, exactly, yes.
Publicity, it's the thing to do to go and see "Star Wars."
So we're all here doing the thing to do.
- Books, records, comics, figurines all followed.
And before "Star Wars" knew it,
it had become a multimillion dollar industry
of its own right.
(computer clicking) (smooth jazz music)
(tense music rises)
- Scorsese I think was already struggling a little bit
even during the making of "New York, New York."
He was pretty deep into a cocaine addiction.
And the failure of this movie that he had put a lot of heart
and soul into just made everything so much worse.
It pushed him deeper into the spiral.
(static buzzing)
(jarring electronic music)
Eventually, he was hospitalized at age 35
because of his addiction and also his asthma
and several other prescription drugs had all just collided
into this one sort of terrible incident.
(monitor beeping)
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Scorsese was kept in the hospital
for 10 days and nights.
As he lay on his bed, he was able to reflect
on both his place in life and in the new era of cinema.
- Obviously, Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas, you know,
they were all kind of part of the same group.
They all came up through the ranks together, but there was
I guess this definite split that happened
where Spielberg and Lucas had the ability to adapt to this
changing landscape and also create the changing landscape.
But that was just not something
that Scorsese could ever adapt to.
I think he was very upfront with saying,
"Look, I appreciate what these guys are doing.
"I'm not filming things in front of a blue screen.
"That's not my vibe.
"That's not how I wanna make movies."
And you know, I think you can look at "Raging Bull" and go,
there's so much darkness here.
There's so much complexity.
There's so much ugliness that
that was never gonna be the kind of film
that America was flocking to see.
- Because I thought it was the end of my career, that film.
Yeah.
I didn't think, I didn't think so, quite honestly.
I knew for De Niro it was gonna be fine
because Bob would get his award.
I knew he was such a wonderful actor,
and he'd get his Academy Award.
But I thought I was gonna go off to Italy
and do films on saints.
- Scorsese really wasn't interested in making "Raging Bull."
It was a project that De Niro had brought to him
and De Niro was very interested in.
And Scorsese had gone,
"Mm, I'm not, I'm not really into this boxing thing.
"I don't get the character."
But while he was on his hospital bed,
De Niro came to visit him and re-pitched the idea and said,
"Are you gonna be one of these directors that just makes
"like two good movies and then that's it,
"or are you gonna be here forever?"
And I think that was the little pep talk that got Scorsese
to the place he needed to be to make "Raging Bull."
And also I think to see himself
in Jake LaMotta a little bit more.
- I know, don't forget, this man's job basically is to go
to work in the morning and go into a ring
and get beaten up and beat up other people, then come home.
(chuckles) I mean, in a sense,
he's a metaphor for all of us and the psychological
and emotional pummeling that we take in our lives.
(static buzzing)
And he eventually, he eventually...
He eventually is so,
he becomes so negative a character that he cuts off everyone
around him, including himself from his own soul,
until finally at the end he goes through his own sort
of redemption and is able to get at least a couple of,
at least one moment in his life where he's at peace
with himself at the end when he's in front of the mirror.
- You don't understand.
I could have had class.
I could have been a contender.
I could have been somebody instead of a bum,
which is what I am.
- With films like "New York, New York," "Raging Bull,"
you could tell they were sort of his films.
But here he was dealing in, you know, jazz music, history,
boxing, you know, these were very different
kind of scene in many ways
from the things that he'd first started on.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] As Scorsese had predicted,
De Niro went on to win the Best Actor Academy Award
for his performance in "Raging Bull."
Galvanized by the way the film was received critically,
Scorsese decided against retiring to Italy
and began work on his next project, "The King of Comedy."
Once again, he cast De Niro in the main role.
And this time, alongside comedian Jerry Lewis.
- "King of Comedy" out of all Scorsese's films
is maybe the one that really felt unappreciated in its time
because, again, it was a film I'm not sure Scorsese
really wanted to make that much,
but De Niro was very excited about the prospect.
Scorsese was more interested in going off
to make "The Last Temptation of Christ."
And he wanted De Niro to do it.
And De Niro was like, "Hmm, I'm not really into this.
"Here's a script for a comedy
"that I'd actually really love to do."
And again, managed to convince Scorsese to make it.
(somber music)
And there was something about, I think, again,
the harshness of "King of Comedy."
The awkwardness of the humor as such.
It's such an uncomfortable movie to watch.
- And so, no, the film was completely ignored.
It actually had gotten some fairly decent reviews,
good reviews in major papers here,
but the film was completely reviled, reviled.
It was appreciated, I think, it opened the Cannes Festival
and was appreciated there.
But other than that, the film was just put away for years.
- Maybe just something about the era it was released in
or the feeling of the time.
People just were not ready for it.
And it's only now that you can have a movie
like "Joker" come in and essentially just, you know,
replicate the whole thing and audiences laugh it up,
and it makes a billion dollars at the box office.
I find that, I find that really interesting.
(upbeat jazz band music)
(audience cheering)
(lips smacking) - Good to see you.
Gerald, good seeing you.
Jerry, don't get up. (lips smacking)
Ah, boy, I'll tell you.
Well, that was quite an entrance.
(audience laughing)
(hand slapping)
Ah, Jerry, I love this guy.
Always coming up with these great lines.
I love him, I love him.
He's wonderful, you're wonderful.
I tell you, I don't know what I'd do without you.
Well, that makes one of us.
(audience laughing)
(soft jazz music)
- So there's a point after "King of Comedy"
where it again felt like Martin Scorsese
was ready to make "The Last Temptation of Christ."
It was a book that he'd actually been given all the way back
when he was making "Boxcar Bertha" by Barbara Hershey,
who said, "I'm gonna give you this book.
"I think one day you should make it into a movie,
"but just promise me that you will cast me in it."
And Scorsese said, "Okay." (chuckles)
And he fell in love with this book, and it was sort of
simmering underneath every project he made since.
You know, just this, "Oh, one day I am gonna
"make 'The Last Temptation of Christ'."
And after "King of Comedy,"
it really seemed like it was gonna happen.
Everyone was ready to go, ready to start filming.
And the studio phoned him up on Thanksgiving Day and said,
"Marty, we're pulling the movie."
(film reel buzzing)
So Scorsese was devastated, obviously.
And I think he retreated a little bit
into making "After Hours," which was a very sort of
low budget, almost off the cuff, very raw movie.
That was moderately successful.
And then it finally came time
to make "The Last Temptation of Christ."
And the only way he could pull it off
was by promising the studio that he would
make them a second very commercial picture,
which was "Cape Fear."
But even then, you know, it was problem after problem.
And it's sort of a miracle that the movie got made.
- Yeah, movie hell, everything that could possibly go wrong,
you know, goes wrong. - Like what?
- Well, hailstones, roads being washed out.
Arabic extras that for a long period of time
don't understand what you're trying to tell them
because you don't speak the language.
And of course, you know,
naturally you have Arabic second ADs too,
assistant directors,
but it does take a little while to get going.
It takes a little while to get going.
- But it's very clear that throughout his whole life
he's really been I think
trying to answer a question about his own faith.
- For me, it's never been just another film.
For me, it was the most important film
I've ever had to make.
And it's very important for me, this movie.
I mean, because of my religious background.
Because of the fact I wanted to be a priest.
Because of the fact that in a sense the church
has never left me and I've never left it.
In that sense, even though I'm a lapsed Catholic,
I'm not a Catholic who's a practicing Catholic,
but I still, I still think about it.
I still think about my relationship to God
and the idea of the sacrament of the mass,
the Catholic attitude towards Jesus and God,
the divinity of Jesus, and being fully human
and fully divine and one entity,
and all these incredible heresies of the past 2000 years.
And all of this just part of my life, you see.
- You wanna know who my God is?
Fear.
You look inside me and that's all you'll find.
- But the more devils that we have inside of us,
the more of a chance we have to repent.
- Lucifer is inside me.
- [Journalist] People have talked a lot
about the controversy about this film,
and we've touched on it here.
Is it valid the people, the, you know,
fundamentalists that are saying,
"It's wrong, it's wrong, don't go see it."
- Well, I think in terms of fundamentalists you have
to understand that people who are called fundamentalists
are people who believe in the word of the gospel.
And you can't detract one iota from those words.
Anything else, anything other than the facts
that are written in the gospel would be,
to say the least, inappropriate, you know,
if not sinful, if not blasphemous.
And so I understand from their point of view
that it would be a problem for them
to participate in viewing of this film.
What I'm saying is that don't give the wrong impression
to other people, the other people like myself who,
like myself and other people
who were raised very strict Catholics, let's say,
and other Christians who were raised
on the truth of the gospels.
But also were able to interpret the gospels and discuss
and use parables in the gospels or stories
or incidents in Jesus' life that are given us
in the gospels as starting off points for a discussion
and to make up stories and to argue.
And so you can learn a little more, that's all.
Question, you might get an answer.
Maybe, you know, maybe an answer.
- People started getting mad even before the film came out.
The script had leaked and the rumors started to spread
that the film was going to include a sequence where Jesus
gets down off the cross and goes to live a human life
with Mary Magdalene.
Has kids, has sex, lives a full life, and dies,
and then it turns out to be the devil's temptation.
And something about seeing just that human aspect of Jesus
infuriated a sector of the Catholic Church.
- I would dismiss it artistically.
It contains some of the most bizarre
and crude imaginings that I have seen.
We have black cobras with female seductive voices.
We have, for heaven's sake, a talking lion who's supposed
to represent part of the temptations of Christ.
You have Christ taking out his heart
and holding it up before his followers.
It's an imagination that has created this film,
which is very violent, very crude,
and I would have imagined somewhat sick.
- So that's a lot to fight against. (laughs)
And there were protests outside of the studio.
There were protests at film festivals.
Scorsese had to have a bodyguard.
There was an arson attack on a cinema in Paris
where 13 people were injured.
Again, it's just incredible that this movie
was made and distributed.
But I think really looking back on it now,
anyone who watches it,
whether you are of faith or not,
you see that this was a very religious experience
for Scorsese.
This was a very pure, this was about his own faith.
And he was very upfront about that.
You know, at the time saying, you know,
"I made this as a Catholic man.
"Like I, this is not blasphemy for me.
"This is me coming to better understand Jesus."
- That's what I say to them,
to please be more tolerant and understand.
They say that, they can say,
"Listen, you can't do that with our God."
But it's my God too.
- [CNN] Mr. Scorsese, CNN.
- Hi.
- [CNN] Mark Shooter.
- Hi. - To discuss the movie.
- Undeniably, "The Last Temptation of Christ"
was a controversial film.
And I think Scorsese knew
that it would probably be controversial.
It was a very personal film for him.
You know, his own religious upbringing
and his own kind of devotion to the church,
which features a lot in his films in various ways,
clearly made this a very, very personal project for him.
But he moved on very swiftly from that controversy
to "Goodfellas" at the turn of the 1990s.
And then further on to "Age of Innocence"
in the early 1990s.
Two films that really kind of cemented both his reputation
as one of America's great filmmakers,
but also perhaps two of his best films of his whole career.
- Big cops.
- Really funny, really funny.
(mafiosos laughing)
- What do you mean I'm funny?
(mafiosos laughing)
- It's funny, you know, it's a good story.
It's funny, you're a funny guy.
- What do you mean, you mean the way I talk, what?
- It's just-- - "Goodfellas" strikes that
kind of perfect balance between what's real
and what's fantastical because there is such an authenticity
to it and a feeling of texture and detail,
and you're so absorbed in the lives of these gangsters.
All things that could only come out of the fact
that Scorsese knew this life firsthand.
- Basically, that was the idea to make the picture
'cause it wouldn't be any sense me making another film.
'Cause there's been so many great ones made
about the rise and fall of the American gangster,
whether it's from an Italian American or Irish American,
in the case of "Public Enemy" with Jimmy Cagney,
many other films, but, or in the case of "The Godfather,"
that very, very strong, almost Greek tragedy
of the Italian American family that he controls
and that, in those films.
And in this case, for me, the main reason for making it
was to show a day-to-day lifestyle,
to do it as accurately as possible.
- The confidence and energy that he brought
to the filmmaking, and that it feels,
just that it feels like you are being
shot out of a gun, and you are the bullet,
and you are like traveling through Henry Hill's life.
And before you know it...
- Now it's all over.
- I feel like it's been two minutes
and this whole movie has happened in front of me.
I think it was that, just something about that combination
meant it felt so different from "The Godfather,"
which was this very sort of,
I guess, poetic and almost sort of noble representation
of the gangster life.
Scorsese came in and just like,
like ripped it to shreds.
- The idea was, again, to show literally what every aspect
of this lifestyle is like, and the attraction to it,
the glamorization of it when you're a child and you see it,
and you wanna be, you wanna aspire to that.
And then being caught and wrapped up in it and having,
in many cases, rewards for being in it.
Like being able to get a ringside table at a nightclub
and people not waiting on line to buy bread
at the neighborhood bread store.
You know, I think that's basically
what the film is really about.
About people who want to aspire not to wait on line.
And finally you have to start paying for it though.
They have to start paying for it.
(gunshots blasting)
(blood spurting) (body thudding)
(crowd cheering)
- Obviously, by 1990, he had a pretty incredible
body of work already.
But there was something about the confidence of "Goodfellas"
and like the feeling of energy it brought
that excited people.
And I think both got studios on his side,
critics on his side, audiences on his side.
I think everyone was a little bit more ready
and like willing to accept what came next.
And perhaps that's why Scorsese could then go make things
like the "Age of Innocence" and kind of like
go wherever he wanted to go.
(somber instrumental music)
- One of my favorite Scorsese films
is "The Age of Innocence,"
his adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel.
And in a way that's a probably a slightly contrary view
because people wouldn't necessarily,
if they thought of Scorsese,
go to the kind of films where he's taken a sort
of left field shift away from the traditional subject matter
that people would associate him with.
But I think "The Age of Innocence"
is just a spectacular film in many ways.
(film reel clicking)
It captures the period in time,
the late 19th century setting.
He captures the manners.
He captures the sense of, I think,
not only sense of social framing and a social milieu
for East Coast patrician America
and the way in which those various constructs of society
play out around each other.
- Well, my old friend Jay Cox,
who was a Time magazine movie critic at the time
in the late '60s, we became friends, and he gave me,
he gave me the book in 1980, and he kind of knew,
he kind of knew me very well and the kind of films
that we liked.
We liked a lot, very much the same film.
And I would introduce him to certain films.
He would introduce me to others.
And knew that I would wanted to make a love story
at one point in my career and knew that I also liked films
of this genre, which loosely called costume pieces,
but actually this isn't.
It's more of a story about people,
but they're wearing different costumes, okay.
And he said, "This one is you.
"When you get that time to read the book,
"this one will be the one to make for you, I know it."
And he meant the spirit of it.
- When I first sat down to watch the adaptation,
I sort of couldn't believe that Martin Scorsese had made it.
I was like, why is the "Taxi Driver" guy making this movie
of this beautiful tender romance set in the Gilded Age?
And then you watch it, and you hear Martin Scorsese
talk about it.
And he's always called it his most violent film.
And I agree with it 100% because the violence
that's in "The Age of Innocence"
is not about blood or bullets.
It's about the cruelty with which people treat each other.
And you know, it's about two people who have such a desire
for each other and such a love for each other,
but they are torn apart just, just because.
Just because society said.
(people shouting)
- Everybody to your left. - Everybody to your left.
- [Narrator] By 2003, with 17 movies behind him,
Scorsese was now seen as one
of the greatest directors in the world.
And whilst he hadn't yet been rewarded
with an Oscar for his work, in 2003,
he finally got a place on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- [Photographer] Joey, turn this way please, sir.
- [Narrator] The name Martin Scorsese was now
cemented in cinematic history.
- [Journalist] I was there when you got your star
on the Walk of Fame yesterday.
Does that mean you've made it?
- (laughs) No, no.
I guess, I don't know if you're always
in the process of making it.
I mean, it's more about what you,
it's really how you feel about yourself
and how you feel about each film that you make.
- [Journalist] Uh-huh.
- I think that's what you gotta live with yourself.
If you feel it's the best I can do under the circumstances
or if I'm satisfied or not satisfied.
Sometimes you make a film you don't even know
what to think of it, you know?
And I think for me the star and I have the name there
is my parents would've loved it.
My mother and father would've really loved that.
And that's one of the reasons why it was kind of fun.
- [Journalist] I want to ask you about the movie.
What impressed you most about the piece of history
you're telling in "Gangs in New York"?
- It's really the formation of a new country in a way.
The experiment of a country that's dealing
with multi-cultures and different religions,
different ethnic groups,
all trying to live together in the same city.
Which is quite unique I think in history.
And it's the formation of that, and it's an honesty.
We tried to be as honest as possible with the nature
of the way people behaved at that time, what they felt.
And not not deal with anything
being somewhat politically correct,
but trying to hit it pretty much on the head.
- [Journalist] Really quick, oh, sorry.
- It's basically, it's a film that also comes
out of the streets where I grew up too.
- You know how I stayed alive this long?
All these years?
Fear.
The spectacle of fearsome acts.
Somebody steals from me, I cut off his hands.
He offends me, I cut out his tongue.
- [Narrator] The release of "Gangs of New York"
coincided with his Walk of Fame honor.
The film was the start of Scorsese's professional
relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio,
who for the next 20 years would become a mainstay
in the director's movies in a way
that mirrored his previous relationship with De Niro.
For many, this was the start of a new era
for both DiCaprio and Scorsese.
- It's a coincidence they're coming out
at the same time. - I don't know.
I don't know, probably not, probably not.
My old friend Mike Ovitz stopped by one day in 1999
and said, "Why don't we do 'Gangs of New York'?
"I got, I'm forming a new management company.
"I have a young new actor, Leo DiCaprio."
And I said, "Well, that's fantastic
"because he's a great actor and maybe have the ability."
It turned out that Leo liked my films too,
so he promised to stay on board.
- [Narrator] Following "Gangs of New York,"
DiCaprio appeared in five Scorsese films,
including "The Departed" in 2007.
The film, which was a return to similar themes Scorsese
was well known for, crime, corruption, and mob violence,
finally won the 65-year-old director his first Oscar.
And on the night, it was his old movie brat colleagues
who presented him with the award.
- [Journalist] When your name was called,
is the word finally is what popped into your mind?
- It's a good question.
I, finally, it, I kept saying,
I told Leslie outside, I said, you know,
good thing I didn't get it before.
It's a good thing I waited and good thing I, you know, yeah.
Because maybe it would've changed the kinda movies
I made or something.
I couldn't trust myself.
I don't know if I was strong enough,
if I had gotten it before, quite honestly, you know?
And I'm glad that it went this way.
And when I saw that smile on his face, Steven's face,
I said, "Oh, you know, something's up."
You know, but I'm glad, I'm glad.
I'm glad it's taken this long.
It's been worth it.
It's very moving, very moving movement.
With Francis, George and Steven up there, great.
(journalists shouting)
- [Narrator] Scorsese's next big success
came in the form of "The Wolf of Wall Street" in 2013.
The story of Jordan Belfort,
a greedy Wall Street stockbroker,
struck a chord with people around the world.
Once again, Scorsese cast DiCaprio
in the lead role as Belfort,
continuing their strong working relationship.
(brokers applauding)
- Everybody have a good week? (brokers cheering)
- For me, the character represents or actually behaves
in a way which is fascinating to me because it's a mindset
that is ruthless and literally I think at a certain point,
and it's very early in his life, he is able to,
he's able to command millions of dollars
by one or two phone calls,
and this eliminates any aspect of morality.
The whole moral landscape is gone,
and there are no restrictions.
There were no restrictions.
Even legally, there were no restrictions.
And so he's able to run rampant.
- There's something about the story
that "The Wolf of Wall Street" is telling that, you know,
this book had come out exposing how the entirety
of America had been scammed, basically.
And there was an anger behind that.
And I think Scorsese being able to capture that anger
and channeling it into a movie that also brought
all the vitality and energy of the "Goodfellas"
into that arena, like created this perfect storm
of just like Americana.
Like it's one of the most American movies
I've ever seen in my life.
(upbeat marching band music) (hands clapping)
It's sort of surprisingly controversial
for Scorsese's filmography.
I love that it is the film with the most amount
of F-bombs.
In terms of like narrative feature films,
it's the one with the absolute most,
I think there's around like 500 instances.
(film reel beeps) - Fuck!
Fucking.
Fucking!
Mother fucking. - Fucking!
- Fucking 30,000 fucking dollars in one fucking month!
(film reel beeping)
- Well, that's the way they speak.
- [Narrator] Nearly 25 years after their last collaboration,
De Niro and Scorsese joined forces again in 2019
to tell the story of "The Irishman."
The four-hour epic was released on Netflix,
marking a new era for streaming and movies.
For Scorsese, using Netflix allowed him the scope
to do exactly what he wanted with the film
with total creative control.
- I think Scorsese's relationship
with modern American cinema is an interesting one
on a lot of levels.
I mean, he's had success in the 2000s and the 2010s,
most obviously with "The Wolf of Wall Street."
But I guess with something like "The Irishman,"
he's making fairly traditional Scorsese fare,
in a way, you know.
And it's not just that he's pulling together the old team
of actors who've been in so many of his previous movies
and that it's okay, mild, perhaps more mildly,
but it's still a gangster film to one degree or other.
- Put him on the phone, let you talk to him, okay?
- Hello?
- Is that Frank? - Yes.
- Hiya, Frank, this is Jimmy Hoffa.
- Yeah, yeah, glad to meet ya.
- Well, glad to meet you too, even if it's over the phone.
- And I suppose that then begs the question,
you know, should somebody again, who's been...
(photographers chattering)
Should they be doing films.
- I don't do movies anymore.
(photographers chattering)
- Maybe, to some degree.
I mean, after all, the culture demands
that wherever you are, whatever journey in life
or whatever stage of your career,
you should be able to attract a wide scope and audience.
So I think on one, you know, on one level,
Scorsese's making movies for himself.
On another level, to find an audience making those kind
of films still after such a long career
is testimony to his ambition, still his ability,
and still his desire to do a great body of work.
And I think that's, you know, you can,
when most people are way past retirement,
you can ask for a little more, can you?
(photographers shouting)
- [Photographer] Martin, on to your left please.
- [Narrator] Martin Scorsese's pursuit to continue
telling important stories about American history
continued in 2023.
His film, "Killers of the Flower Moon,"
tells the devastating story of the Osage murders.
And for the first time, Scorsese cast both De Niro
and DiCaprio together in what
felt like a culmination of every film that's come before.
- It's supposed to be a suicide, you dumbbell!
You didn't tell him to leave the gun?
- I don't know why, I told him to leave the gun.
I told him exactly-- - Told him to leave the gun?
- Just like you told him.
I don't know why he didn't, I don't know why.
I told him just like you told him.
- [William] You told him to do it in the front of the head,
then why'd he do it in the back of the head?
- [Journalist] Is it important for you not to sit still,
to always push yourself? - Oh, no, no.
I always, I mean, the point is, it's so hard.
Look at what you're doing, it's very hard work.
You have to really want to do it, I think.
And so to be on a movie set or on a location
to be dealing with all the issues that,
well, that are involved in production,
I think it's something that you have
to really feel strongly about and that you want to say,
that you're sort of burning to say.
And so that keeps you going.
If we get the actors with you and a DP
and the rest of your crew that's on a mission with you,
that's good.
So I've been lucky.
(solemn music)
- There's definitely been a slowdown in the amount of movies
that Scorsese makes, which, you know, partially,
yeah, he's older, he's got a family.
He's got other stuff to be worrying about.
But at the same time, it is becoming increasingly harder
for Scorsese to make the kinds of movies
that Scorsese wants to make.
So I don't know if he's going to continue
to make movies at the same pace,
but I think maybe we'll consider him more
as a sort of caretaker of cinema.
- Now I, you know, I've been blessed to be,
I've been blessed to have been able
to make some interesting pictures over the years.
But it's true that I keep learning from the pictures I know.
(film reel clicking)
And at the same time,
I'm excited by many of the new pictures being made here.
(solemn music)
But I'm also concerned.
I'm almost very concerned
about the way that people are seeing movies.
(solemn music continues)
Now, look, I know the business has changed
and everything changes all the time.
Impermanence, that's what it's about.
It's wide open though now.
You can watch everything, anytime, anywhere,
and it puts a burden on you, on the viewer.
You know, not all changes are all for the good.
And I just feel that we might be tilting the scales away
from that creative viewing experience and away from,
away from movies as an art form.
(film reel clicking)
You know, all I can say is that while the art
of course can't survive without the business,
I have to say that, in the end,
the business certainly isn't gonna survive without the art,
which is made by people with something to say.
(solemn music continues)
We, you know, we can't have a future of our art form
without knowing its past.
(film reel whirring) (film reel clicking)
(solemn music continues)