martin scorsese defends 'the wolf of wall street': 'the devil comes with a...

Source URL: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/martin-scorsese-defends-wolf-wall-667851

Martin Scorsese Defends 'The Wolf ofWall Street': 'The Devil Comes With aSmile' (Q&A)11:27 AM PST 12/31/2013 by Scott Feinberg

57315112

THR talks with the 71-year-old legend about hiscontroversial new movie, his affinity for crimecinema, voiceovers and Leonardo DiCaprio, withwhom he has made five films over 11 years.

[1]

AP ImagesMartin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street -- a rollicking three-hour black comedybased on the true story of debaucherous con man Jordan Belfort -- has become oneof the most controversial films in the director's 50-year career. The filmmaker, who hasnothing left to prove after directing 23 narrative features including such classics asMean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas, sees Belfort as part of a longtradition of the American "confidence man" who "takes your trust, takes yourconfidence and betrays you." While critics and moviegoers argue over whetherScorsese is celebrating Belfort or exposing him, the director himself says of Belfort'scrimes, "This is something that's not going to go away if you don't talk about it."

Martin Scorsese Defends 'The Wolf of Wall Street': 'The Devi... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/print/667851

1 of 7 21/02/14 10:10 AM

Despite -- or maybe even because of the controversy, which has attracted passionatedefenders to speak up in support of Scorsese and his film -- Wolf looks likely to landhim his eighth best director Oscar nomination. (He has won only once, for TheDeparted, seven years ago.) When he and I connected by phone for a half-hourinterview a few days ago, it became clear to me that he has no intention of everslowing down. "There's not much time left," he said matter-of-factly. "Now, each onehas to count."

PHOTOS: Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio Spill Candid Stories on theMaking of 'The Wolf of Wall Street' [5]

Over the course of our conversation, we covered a wide variety of topics: what makesgreat movies great; how he picks his projects; why he is so drawn to films about crime(historically of the street variety, but now, with Wolf, white-collar, too); his affinity forvoiceovers, which he has employed in a number of films, including Wolf; his fabledcollaborations with the actors Robert De Niro (eight films over 22 years) andLeonardo DiCaprio (five films over 11 years); and how he and his career-long filmeditor Thelma Schoonmaker are approaching the changing landscape of filmmaking.

* * *

What, in your view, are the ingredients of a great movie? Do all great moviesshare anything in common?

The first thing that comes to mind, I guess, is if it means something to people over along period of time -- people are still interested in experiencing it, not necessarilywatching it, but living with it. If it still has something to say, like a great play, or a greatnovel, or a great painting or a great piece of music. You know, there are instanceswhere people love certain films for 20 years or so and then they've seen enough ofthem, or they've read a novel two or three times but switch on to some other author. Sodoes it have a universal appeal? And will it stand the test of time? There's no way Iknow that about my films; there's no way we'll know, you see? We can tell sometimeswith films made about 50 years ago, 60 years ago -- some are still art and evenyounger audiences respond on a basic human level. I'm not talking about humanistic;I'm talking about something else, deeper and stronger.

VIDEO: 'Wolf of Wall Street' Stars, Creative Team on Production Challenges,Bloopers, Cut Scenes [6]

How do you pick your projects? And do you only want to make films that arebuilt to say something that will stand the test of time?

Years ago, I was able to have time to experiment with making certain kinds of films, butit always started out -- Mean Streets and Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and particularly,for me, Taxi Driver were pictures that I had to make. The Last Temptation, Gangs ofNew York, Departed were pictures I really, really felt I had to make. And I think that'sthe test of whether I find whatever limited truth is there -- limited because of who I am,limited in my knowledge of life, my personality, my intelligence or lack thereof, thesources I look to for inspiration, whether it's literature or cinema or music. Sometimes itdepends on how deep the water is you're fishing in for sources, you know, forinspiration? [laughs] So you're limited -- I'm limited, I should say -- and all I can do istrust my interest in the subject, trust my passion for being there and going through thisprocess, which, as you get older, is, for me -- I can't speak for everyone -- very, very–Well, how should I put it? "Difficult" is not the word; it's a more arduous process on alllevels. When you're younger, it's a bit different; you can try one film or another. Now,


2 of 7 21/02/14 10:10 AM

each one has to count. They all count, but -- how should I put it? Now there's not muchtime left, so you have to really feel strongly about the subject matter. That's the onlyway I can gauge it. I have no idea anymore if anybody will remember anything.

You said in another interview that it has sometimes taken you years to decide topursue a project, including The Wolf of Wall Street. Why is that?

Yes. Well, [with Wolf] I had to ask myself what could I bring to it? What could I bring toit that I hadn't brought to other pictures that I'd made? Stylistically, it's similar to otherfilms I made, yet I wanted to expand the style and it was a challenge. Can I extend thatstyle? Can I go further with it? Can I stay interested in it, in terms of the making of thefilm? That's what I meant. Is there a passion for making the picture? Because there'snothing worse than being someplace you don't want to be, or being with people whodon't want to be there -- or yourself being with people who want to be there but youdon't want to be there. I hate to say it, I'm sorry to say, but not the greatest amount ofmoney in the world -- unless there's problems in health or whatever, and maybe, youknow, financial problems, but even that-- It's very, very hard to be in a place where youjust don't want to be, you know? There's just too much to take on. And other projectstake 20 years sometimes because I have to come around to them. Yes, I've alwaysbeen interested, tried to find ways to do it, wasn't satisfied, and finally-- In the case ofThe [Last] Temptation of Christ or in the case of trying to make this film Silence that'scoming up, it's taken many years; Silence needed 20 years just to even think about.

VIDEO: Directors Roundtable: 6 Filmmakers on a Quest for Vision and Hatred forFiring Actors [7]

This next question obviously doesn't apply to all of your movies -- Hugo andothers certainly being notable exceptions -- but, particularly during the earlyyears of your career, a lot of people harped on the fact that crime was a recurringtheme in your films. With Wolf, you're focused on a different sort of crime --white collar rather than street -- but it's crime nonetheless. So I wonder, if youwere to psychoanalyze yourself, in a way, why is crime a subject that you findyourself coming back to?

Well, I don't know. I would have loved to have been a director in the studio system herein Hollywood in the '30s, '40s and '50s [when many directors were assigned to a widearray of projects]. I know that I come from mid-20th century America, urban, specificallydowntown New York, specifically an Italian-American area, Roman Catholic -- that'swho I am. And a part of what I know is there's a decency to people who tried to make aliving in the kind of world that was around us and also the Skid Row area of theBowery; it impressed me. I also know that there were a lot of good people whom I sawdo some not very good things because they had no choice. You can say, "Well, theyhave a choice. They can have an education--" They couldn't. Simple. It's easy for us totalk, easy for people these days to look back and say, "This could happen--" "Maybechange that person's circumstances--," "Do the social circumstances or the raising ofthe person contribute to the crime or is the person wired that way?" You know, thatquestion is still being discussed. But, ultimately, it's about the values of where I camefrom, which were family values -- it's true -- and religious values. It's a complicatedsubject. People were not part of the American lifestyle, you know? And so it's not aneasy one to answer. I'm interested in that world because I grew up in it. I'm alsointerested in style. When I eventually became interested in some theater, style onstage -- I can't do it, but I like watching it; I'm interested in style with cinema; all kinds ofmusic; literature. And I try the best I can. But, the subject matter that I keep going backto is about who we are as human beings. I knew some really nice people and I sawthem suffer. So it's easy to classify. People want to classify and say, "OK, this is a


3 of 7 21/02/14 10:10 AM

gangster film." "This is a Western." "This is a --" You know? It's easy to classify and itmakes people feel comfortable, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't really matter. Thepictures are made and that's what happened. As far as crime is concerned, there aredifferent phases of it. Why should we be browbeaten by the establishment, in a way,and made to feel the inferiority of where we came from and who we are? In manycases -- not all -- the pursuit of reinventing yourself in America is just something that "aconfidence man" [like Wolf's Jordan Belfort] embraces. A confidence man takes yourtrust, takes your confidence and betrays you. And this is on all levels, whether it'slow-level street crime, a white-collar crime and even a crime in religious organizations.This is something that's not going to go away if you don't talk about it. Your children arenot going to stay clear of it. And God forbid that your kids do! Look, it's out there. It'sabout human nature. Certain social structures facilitate it and some don't. Now lookingat this unrestrained let me make this picture, you know? It's different from, I don't know,Boardwalk Empire; when you're dealing with the people in Boardwalk Empire, youknow what you're into, you know? That's that situation. But I think of the youngerpeople. I think of the fact that yes, it's funny -- but the devil comes with a smile, youknow? That's the idea, you know? The confidence man's got the charm! [laughs]

Some of your finest films, from Goodfellas to Wolf, have employed voiceoversvery effectively. And yet, as a storytelling device, voiceovers are discouraged bya lot of people who claim to be able to teach others how to write goodscreenplays …

Well, yeah, they're right. If you're gonna use a voiceover to tell people what's missing,that's cheating in a way, right? But if you use it for other reasons -- if you use it forcommenting [as in Wolf], "Brad died at the same age as Mozart. I don't know why thatcame to mind. It doesn't matter." -- I mean, that's interesting. It's about character. It'sabout speaking. It takes you into the story. Homer was a narrator; he narrated his storyThe Iliad and The Odyssey. That was narration. Why can't we narrate, you know? Iguess it's a way of exposition. That's kinda the key, in a way. Look, I've done it, youknow? We've done it at times. And sometimes, by the way, you can do the expositionand just get away with it; it's extraordinary just being able to do it, flat, straight out,move on, because there are more important things than specific exposition. And thenthere are some kinds of exposition that you get stuck in -- trying to explain thebeginning of the Civil War. You know, in the old days we would see a crawl come up atthe beginning of a film: "It was 1758--" And then you know you're lost already. [laughs]We're so simpleminded that it's a disaster, you know? So maybe it's better to avoid itcompletely and just try to find other ways. But the voiceover work that I like is voiceoverabout character. He could be listing everything he owns and cares about, but it's moreabout him -- him or her, you know? It's not about what an IPO is, for God's sakes. [InWolf the character of Belfort starts to explain what an IPO is and then acknowledgesthat the audience isn't following what he's saying.]

I have read that Robert De Niro introduced you to -- or first made you aware of --Leonardo DiCaprio. What was it that clicked so much for you with De Niro, andthen with DiCaprio, that resulted in many of your best films coming incollaboration with them?

Well, it's complicated to explain briefly. I don't know if you can explain it. As I said, Iwasn't a trained director. I never took any acting courses or directorial courses. TheNYU Film School was a very, very different place at the time. You didn't go there tostudy film. You went there to be able to be in a creative atmosphere -- in 1963, '65, '66,for me, anyway -- to be around people to say, "Let's do something. Let's try something."I already worked on the basis of friendship and became good friends with HarveyKeitel, became good friends with Brian De Palma, who then introduced me to Robert


4 of 7 21/02/14 10:10 AM

De Niro, whom I actually knew even earlier because he used to, to quote the oldphrase, "hang out" downtown on the Lower East Side. I'd forgotten that. He was about15 or 16. We weren't in the same group, but-- So he already knows where I come from,who I am, what I do, basically. He's the only one, the only one who really knows whereI come from, and then the development of me all through those years. But it wasalways based on friendship. He is a generous, good man who did not take advantageof his power with me. He always gave me the trust and I had the trust in him. If therewere disagreements, we worked it out. But it was, finally, what I wanted to say in a film,as long as I gave the guidance and the love. It became like family. It was like a familything, and that's something very special. But there's no process. It's really friendsworking together in good ways and in difficult ways. Like any major collaboration, it'stricky at times and it's all about trust and confidence in each other. And I didn'texperience that again until-- I hadn't had the experience of working with one actoragain for a number of times until Leo. I worked with Daniel Day[-Lewis] twice. It was aterrific experience. He's wonderful -- wonderful sounds facile, but I really enjoyedworking with him. It really was just DiCaprio. You know, I'm 30 years older but I find inhim the same instincts, the same range, in a way, the same desire to risk, to takechances and to go to places that other people are not interested in going to, or areafraid to go to -- or are not afraid, but they just don't do it; it isn't what they do, so don'texpect them to do something that they didn't sign on to do, so to speak, or that doesn'trepresent who they are or who they want to be in the public eye. And so Leo has givenme a few projects, I've given him a few projects and, again, with Leo, there's that trust.And, by the way, this stroke of trust is not something where you say, "Okay, I trust you,"and you go. It's every day -- we work at that every day. If something goes over orsomething happens you think, "Well, you know, let the test begin! Do you want to gothis way or that way?" And so it's a constant testing of it. I feel very good about theresults, whether they're good or bad films, or films that are considered good or bad orthe work is considered mediocre as opposed to others. I don't know that. I really don'tknow anymore. I just know that I got through the process and I feel content with it.

Do you find that you relate with and interact with DiCaprio in the same way thatyou did with De Niro? You and De Niro might have been brothers, but Leo couldconceivably be a son …

That's the difference. (Laughs.) Yeah, I have little girls, so it's -- three girls, you know?You know, his father and I are the same age -- and his father's really amazing. He'staught him so much over the years -- just an extraordinary cultural influence on himand I think that's really the key here. You know, he'll be talking about AndreiTarkovsky or the Mills brothers -- you know, that's just two things that come up -- ormentioning somebody else. I'll say, "Well, I want you to take a look at this," or "Listen tothis piece of music" or "Read this book." And there's an enthusiasm -- really more thanenthusiasm, a curiosity. You've got to stay curious in life about everything. And he's gotit. We can talk. I mean, he's interesting. If a person's curious, it's interesting -- it's morethan interesting. It's their enthusiasm which inspires you to try things. How should I putit? Sometimes you want to be alone and your friends are knocking on the door saying,"Come on out! Let's go! We have something to show you!" "No, I don't want to go out!"(Laughs.) But they keep doing it and finally they drag you out, and you thank God theydid, you know? Meaning sometimes there's time for reflection and sometimes there'stime for action. Simple as that.

With Hugo, you looked back at where movies came from. As you look ahead -- asa guy with 23 feature-length narrative films under his belt, the most recent ofwhich people cannot believe was made by a 71-year-old man -- do you have anysense of where they are going? And is it a place you want to go to with them?


5 of 7 21/02/14 10:10 AM

Well, yeah, I think I do. You know, we can't keep thinking in a limited way about whatcinema is. We still don't know what cinema is. Maybe cinema could only really apply tothe past or the first 100 years, when people actually went to a theater to see a film, yousee? Now images are everywhere. The cinema itself changes. There are all kinds ofcinema. I prefer the American cinema of more modest means, you know? Some of thewonderful filmmakers working -- Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas, Alexander Payne,the Coen brothers, Benh Zeitlin, there are many young people,[Richard] Linklater,James Gray -- it'd be wonderful if they could get more support from the industry andnot be marginalized in any way, you know, as opposed to the bigger blockbuster films.It splits the sense of what cinema is. But maybe cinema's becoming many things now.And it's very exciting. Yes, I'm sad to see celluloid go, there's no doubt. But, you know,nitrate went, by the way, in 1971. If you ever saw a nitrate print of a silent film and thensaw an acetate print, you'd see a big difference, but nobody remembers anymore. Theacetate print is what we have. Maybe. Now it's digital. But maybe you couldapproximate that nitrate effect? So, what I'm saying, I guess, is what [George] Lucassaid years ago, which is that there's new technology, and what will happen will happenand we have to learn how to use the new technology. It's really an exciting time. Imean, look, I tried with 3D. I would like to do every picture in 3D. But, you know?

It's so interesting. Thelma [Schoonmaker, Scorsese's film editor for the last 50years], said the same thing. I recently had the opportunity to interview herbecause we did this thing in THR about women film editors, and I just find it sointeresting that both of you are so open to new things, when so many others areresistant to change.

I understand. I understand because it's a love of the experience. You're afraid theexperience is gonna be taken away. And yeah, to a certain extent, it will. But you knowwhat? It's gonna become a different experience, that's all. That's all. I mean, yes, whenI show a film to my daughter, I prefer 35 millimeter as much as possible these days --some DCP [films supplied to a theater as a digital file called a "digital cinema package]-- but in a small theater that is dark where there's nothing else to distract them, youknow? And so, they experience -- whether it's Peter Sellers in The Party, BlakeEdwards', or it's Rossellini's Open City. You know? And so that experience will bethere. But there will be other experiences. They're becoming different, don't you think? Imean, a big IMAX thing is a different experience.

I wonder what the old masters would've made of it, you know?

Oh, they would've used it! They would've used it -- a lot of them would have. I mean,crazy things could have happened! You have no idea. Maybe, I don't know, RobertBresson would have used a giant screen! Cecil B. DeMille would have used 3D! Whoknows what could have happened?

Twitter: @ScottFeinberg [8]

Links:[1] http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/martin-scorsese-defends-wolf-wall-667851&media=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/thumbnail_570x321/2013/12/martin_scorsese_horizontal_a_l.jpg&description=Martin Scorsese Defends'The Wolf of Wall Street': 'The Devil Comes With a Smile' (Q&A)[2] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/can-older-academy-members-handle-667586[3] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/video/leonardo-dicaprio-martin-scorsese-reveal-661947[4] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/wolf-wall-street-stars-creative-667821[5] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/gallery/martin-scorsese-leonardo-dicaprio-spill-661654[6] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/wolf-wall-street-stars-creative-667821?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thr%2Fnews+


6 of 7 21/02/14 10:10 AM

(The+Hollywood+Reporter+-+Top+Stories)[7] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/video/directors-roundtable-6-filmmakers-a-655807[8] http://twitter.com/scottfeinberg


7 of 7 21/02/14 10:10 AM

martin scorsese defends 'the wolf of wall street': 'the devil comes with a...

Documents