00:12I don't think there's anything more inherently cinematic about one way of life versus another.
00:18If you're inclined towards cinema, then you see what is cinematic within that way of life.
00:23I mean, everything is cinematic. All of life is cinematic. It depends on how you perceive it.
00:27I can only talk about my own life. I mean, my own case and what I know.
00:30I grew up in a certain part of the world, and because I had a very particular place,
00:36and because I had asthma from the age of three on, I observed a lot.
00:41I wasn't allowed to participate in anything that was overexciting in terms of physical activity, sports and that sort of
00:51thing.
00:51So I observed a lot, and I found I was absorbing it, really.
00:55And then later, you know, I found I was interpreting it and translating it, I think,
01:01and trying to transmit or express it and find different ways to tell stories about things that I observed
01:08or was immersed in around me, whether it was outside the apartment or in the family.
01:18And, you know, what I observed and absorbed at home, out in the street, as I said, in the church,
01:23these are things that form me just as the very different worlds in which, say, Michael Powell or Stanley Kubrick
01:30or Don Siegel grew up, formed them.
01:33So I can only speak from that world.
01:41The filmmaking that I tried to do, particularly when I first started out,
01:46was stories that came from my own experience or subject matters that interested me only,
01:52or solely, I should say.
01:54And that slowly developed into other projects or stories, scripts even,
02:02that I was able to work with interests or concepts from other writers.
02:09But primarily, really, the story has to come from me,
02:14or at least I'm interested in this particular character idea, in some cases, actors.
02:19In the case of Nick Pelleggi, for example, he wrote that wonderful book, Wise Guy,
02:25which became Goodfellas.
02:26And, you know, he has such a...
02:29The book itself spoke to me immediately, and the structure of the book, too.
02:35I found a way to, along with Nick, to be able to pull together a representation of that world
02:42that was depicted in the book, but also from my own experience.
02:48Because Nick has an extraordinary knowledge of the world he's chronicling.
02:53But beyond that, it's not just a very dry...
02:57It's not a very dry, how should one put it,
03:00a systematic, didactic way of talking about that world,
03:05or depicting that world, or representing that world.
03:10He has a philosophical point of view with a great sense of humor and irony about it,
03:18about that part of us, or that part of human nature,
03:23which is imminently, for many people, corruptible,
03:26and the thinking that goes into that,
03:29and how one step leads to another,
03:32and eventually is a complete chain of events,
03:38a disastrous chain of events.
03:39And so he has this point of view about it,
03:43and a way of presenting it.
03:45And so we would have a great deal of enjoyment working on that.
03:54Taxi Driver, really, the script was very so strong,
03:58and it was a situation where Paul,
04:03with whom I've worked with many times since then,
04:06he has something else, besides his powerful sense of structure,
04:11this very strong understanding of loneliness, retribution,
04:14but really just the philosophy and a theological point of view
04:19that I certainly couldn't verbalize at that time,
04:24reading the script, but created an impulse to make the picture.
04:30And what I mean by make the picture,
04:32that film was not makeable.
04:35It was not doable, even then.
04:38And so we tried for a number of years,
04:41and finally, through a series of circumstances,
04:44and very, very low budget,
04:46we were able to pull it together,
04:47but it became a passion project.
04:49When something happens like that,
04:51and it's a script that you did not write,
04:53then it has to have a point of view,
04:56it has to have more than a point of view,
04:57it has to have the theme itself.
05:00It has to be something that's very close to you.
05:01In my case, I keep looking at questions of sin,
05:06or the concept of sin, good and evil,
05:08sin and redemption, weakness and strength,
05:12from new angles and new perspectives,
05:14if I can, and exploring it constantly,
05:17which is really part of the human condition.
05:19The other way I could answer it,
05:21the question is to say that the moral issues
05:24for somebody like Harvey Keitel's character,
05:27Charlie in Mean Streets,
05:28I mean, ultimately, what is he doing this for?
05:31Why is he committing himself to Johnny Boy?
05:33How far is he really prepared to go for his friend?
05:36Am I my brother's keeper?
05:38Are we our brother's keeper?
05:40Am I really Charlie saying,
05:43am I really helping him at all,
05:44or is it more for me?
05:46Is it more helping Charlie, in a way?
05:49And these things come directly from my own life
05:51and experiencing things like that.
05:53I mean, you don't, in a sense,
05:56in the case of Charlie,
05:57he talks about a religious concept,
05:58a Catholic concept of penance,
06:00but you don't get to choose the penance.
06:03That's the thing he misunderstands.
06:05So when the opportunity arises, it arises.
06:08I don't think I've ever set out to say,
06:10I'm going to make a film with this moral theme.
06:14Maybe I did, but not in those words.
06:17And I do think that often,
06:20I find that those themes are always there.
06:23And what I mean by that
06:24is that they attract me to the story,
06:26if the story doesn't come from something
06:28that I've thought myself or thought of myself.
06:31So moral choice is certainly there
06:34every day of our lives.
06:36I mean, it's inherent in everything we do
06:39and every action that we see or observe.
06:42And as we get older, I think, of course,
06:45our sense of moral conflict and choice
06:48changes and deepen.
06:55I have been drawn to different stories
06:57for different reasons.
06:58Of course, the key element, of course,
07:00again, is a passion for wanting to tell that story,
07:03like a Mean Streets or a taxi driver
07:06that Paul Schrader wrote
07:11or elements of Raging Bull
07:13or Age of Innocence, that sort of thing.
07:16And there was a desire and a need of Gangs of New York
07:19to really not rest until I was able to express
07:23these thoughts and these stories on film
07:26and go through that process.
07:27I mean, sometimes it's because I'm just intrigued
07:31by something and would enjoy, I think,
07:35the process of the filmmaking itself.
07:37In the case of, like, The Aviator,
07:40was early aviation, which I'm fascinated by,
07:43and aviation pioneering films that were being made in that.
07:46And the story, of course, the aspect or one section
07:50of early part of Howard Hughes' life
07:53with the character who was so powerful
07:57and had such genius,
07:59but at the same time had the seeds of his own destruction.
08:03And so this was fascinating to me.
08:05Or, like in Gangs of the Recreation of New York,
08:09at an earlier moment in history,
08:10like The Gangs of New York or The Age of Innocence,
08:12I always talk about the fact that growing up down there
08:15at the age of 10, 11, 12,
08:17I could tell from the cobblestones in the street
08:19that they had stories to tell
08:21in the old Basilica of St. Patrick's Cathedral,
08:25the church, the first Catholic cathedral in New York,
08:30the fact that they had to protect and defend the cathedral
08:34in 1844 against the know-nothings
08:36and the wide-awakes, the nativists
08:38who wanted the immigrants out of the country.
08:40So I knew things had happened there
08:43and that there were generations that had died away
08:46and had lived lives in that area
08:50and struggled and fought.
08:51And so for me, I was always intrigued by this.
08:56In the case of Shutter Island,
08:57I was interested in working with a kind of material
09:00that recalled certain kinds of films I really loved.
09:04You know, great film noirs like Out of the Past
09:08or Laura or Crossfire.
09:11I thought that the character played by Leo,
09:15Leo DiCaprio, I mean,
09:18the way he perceived the world around him
09:20would have been in his mental state at that time,
09:24visions in the key of those movies,
09:27of those pictures,
09:30that sense of noir-ish post-war America,
09:34even the black and white photos in the tabloids,
09:38all of this sort of thing
09:39would have been what was in his head,
09:41how he perceived that world around him in Shutter Island,
09:44twisted and hallucinated as it was.
09:46Oh, in the case of Last Temptation of Christ,
09:48I'm obviously very interested in that material
09:51for my whole life.
09:52In this case,
09:53an exploration of the dual nature of Christ,
09:56of being Christ,
09:57and what it means to the faithful.
09:59In the case of Silence,
10:02obsessed with the questions of faith,
10:04it won't go away.
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