| Martin Scorsese |
| Written by Brad Balfour, Foreword by; Joey Franco |
 For years, Mr. Scorsese has been considered Filmmaking royalty, not only as a filmmaker, but as a film historian. His contributions to the preservation of classic cinema is notable. But for years, the little gold statuette seemed to baffle the Queens native. It was disappointment after disappointment on Academy Award night for Marty!
The came The Departed, and Mr. Oscar met Mr. Scorsese for the very first time. Former Editor-in-Chief of TimesSquare.com; Brad Balfour talks to Martin Scorsese about The Departed in this Classic TimesSquare.com Interview. TimesSquare.com: Martin, doing cops seem new for you. What are the similarities between gangsters and cops? Martin Scorsese: I think no doubt there's similarities--the old cliche of catch a thief, set a thief. To catch someone in the underworld, to play against it, to try to get them, and make apprehensions--I think Bill's depiction of that world made me try again to work within a genre that dealt with Bill's depiction of gangsters. I felt comfortable certainly with the guys in the street, guys in bars and that sort of thing, and even more comfortable with the doctor scenes. But with the police scenes, I did feel a little uncomfortable. I did sometimes get a little nervous-- it had an feel that I was guilty for something and I was worried that there were cops all around me and they were gonna take me in. So I was nervous a couple of times, but they made me feel comfortable. Duffy was great to hang around. TS: What's up with violence in your films? MS: I really don't know what to say. I've said many times I can't defend it. I don't know if I approach it differently. I approach it the way I thought I experienced, anyway--what I know, what I saw. Some people are more impressionable than others. I was very affected by it. I can tell you more than the physical violence, I was affected by the emotional violence around me. It's part of who and what I am and somehow it channels itself into the films, but I don't see it. I see it almost as absurd. In this film, the violence is almost absurdity. There seems to be a lot of violence in films that are like video games. if you want to experience violence, you should experience violence powerfully and real. TS: Why have your films become more Irish in recent years? Will you return to Italian-centric cinema? MS: It's an interesting question. I've always felt a close affinity with the Irish, particularly coming out of the same area of New York City--although by the time the Italians moved in, by the 1920's, 1930's, most of the Irish had moved out of that neighborhood. It goes back to "Gangs of New York," stories about the way Irish helped create New York, the city itself, and America. Irish literature is very important to me and the poetry of the Irish is extraordinary. Yes, there were some differences when they first moved into the same neighborhood. The Irish sense of Catholicism is a very interesting contrast to the Italian sense of Catholicism. Don't forget I do have a very strong love for Hollywood cinema, and some of the greatest filmmakers to come out of Hollywood were Irishmen: John Ford, Raoul Walsh and others. "How Green Was My Valley" was about Welsh miners, but it was directed by an Irishman. It had that warmth, the family structure, and felt very close to the culture of the Irish--and the Italians felt that. Besides, the script is written by William Monahan. [Someone] talks about crime as being a left-handed form of human endeavor. When you start to go that way in your mind and you live by that in the street, it doesn't matter whether it's Boston, Chicago, New York, or anywhere--it filters down to survival of the streets. In the film you're talking about a society within a society within a society. There's a war in the streets, and these guys know what's going on from the beginning and if they make one mistake, they get killed, they're dead. There's no place to run or hide. None. So you take that as a philosophy of the situation and then your philosophy becomes survival. I think as a human being, the differences between different ethnic groups as quote gangsters, that's purely technical.
TS: Martin, what would Roger Corman think of you now, career-wise? MS: I did a couple films with Roger and was an editor in some of his films. Don't forget the real guys who started out with him are people like Jack Nicholson, Peter Bogdanovich, Monty Helm, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. They created the beginning of the New Hollywood in the late '60s, we came in late a little after them. Roger always said "I made 100 films and not one film has been lost or died. I made money on every one of them." He had a whole different way of making pictures. It was like a workshop, and it was called an exploitation film and therefore it had to make money. It was interesting to make a film like that-- to go in and shoot in 24 days, it had to be out in a certain period of time and it only went to a certain circuit. There are certain films now that have replaced that. It's interesting because we appreciate Roger as an artist, especially his Poe films that he made in the early '60s. But I think he'd like to think of himself as a successful businessman in film. So it's maybe hard for me to say what he would think. TS: What do you think of the younger Martin Scorsese? MS: My younger Marty, I don't know, he's still there, I guess. It's almost like a dream. I don't know what's really happened. I'm trying to find a way to still be interested to be on a set and work with great people like this. It's not easy to keep the energy going, to keep the curiosity going, to continue to make films, but they have to mean something to me. That's always been a struggle for me. Now [it's] the nature of how film is made, independent cinema and that sort of thing, I'm still |
