‘The cinema had mice but it felt like being at the ringside’
Steve McQueen
Scorsese is so good at introduction scenes. I love the one in Mean Streets, where De Niro comes into the bar for the first time. Harvey Keitel is watching him, it’s all in slo-mo, Jumping Jack Flash on the soundtrack. It’s one of the most perfect introductions to a character I’ve ever seen: a beautiful piece of music and imagery and choreography.
I also love De Niro waiting for Joe Pesci in the desert in Casino. Is Pesci his friend, or his enemy? He doesn’t know yet. It’s absolutely incredible, so beautiful: the car passing through the sunglasses, the music – another introduction, another uncertainty about what will occur. There’s an anticipation; you’re in limbo.
And there’s the fights in Raging Bull. I remember seeing that the first time in the Scala cinema in London in the late 80s: there were mice running around, litter everywhere, and it felt like being at the ringside. I remember the sound of the hitting and the punching. It’s very heavy, very visceral.
There’s a dynamism and physicality in Scorsese films which has informed my work. As a visual artist, I make stuff – it’s not about the thinking, it’s actually about the doing. It happens in the moment: you can write something, you can think of something, but on the set you actually have to make it. When I’m shooting a film, I’m not thinking about Tarkovsky or Kieslowski or Bergman or whatever, I’m thinking about how do my best in the moment – and I can appreciate that in his films. Scorsese is a maker: a film-maker rather than a director.
‘Everything is wrong, yet it’s even romantic’
Lynne Ramsay
Scorsese is the master of memorable scenes and it’s difficult to choose a favourite. “You talking to me?”, “You think I’m funny?”, the dead-end phone call to Betsy in Taxi Driver and the track to an empty hall when she’s not interested. The Alka-Seltzer fizzing in the glass in the diner. The body cam in Mean Streets. Too many to mention – all brilliant and so cinematic.
There is something about misunderstanding the world or the situation Scorsese captures that’s so recognisable and so human. ‘‘Every man has to go through hell to reach his paradise,” says Max Cady, played by Robert De Niro in Cape Fear. In that film, teenage girl Danielle (Juliette Lewis) tests her burgeoning sexuality against Max’s menacing and manipulating adult force.
The scene between them in the gym is brilliantly realised, and nail-bitingly uncomfortable. Watching it, I felt transported back to this time, so unsure of the world and trying to navigate its rules. Everything is wrong, yet innocence and psychopathy somehow sit together in odd unison; it’s even romantic (in her eyes).
Max: You thought about me last night, didn’t you?
Danielle: Yes, I did.
Max: I think I might have found a companion for that long walk to the light.
The first take was used and Lewis knew De Niro might do something unexpected – but not about his thumb, which he uses to caress her cheek, before slipping it into her mouth. She brilliantly holds her own and captures this uncertain age stunningly.
A lamb and a wolf. Yet the lamb doesn’t realise she’s a lamb.
‘It is one of the most erotic moments in cinema ever’
Luca Guadagnino
For me, Scorsese’s work is paramount and a point of reference I go back to constantly, for the incredible power and intelligence he’s displayed throughout his career.
The first sequence I want to point to is the finale of The Last Temptation of Christ. It is the movie of Scorsese’s that I love the most. I’m not talking about the narrative of Jesus Christ being put on the cross and then being summoned to the life of a normal person, and the delirium he has with the devil. I am talking about the…
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