How Martin Scorsese Directs a Movie | The Director's Chair

[Music] what I do is I'm able to express myself in visual images in narrative cinema that's what I do [Music] there are certain tools you use and those tools become part of a vocabulary tracking in or out handing left and right the use of a close-up as opposed to medium shot how do you use all these elements to make an emotional psychological point to nords to tell the story [Music] my enjoyment is really shooting in New York the sense of life in the city shooting in the streets for me is very special but it's also

part of who I am where I'm from sitting down there why why you drive me down there why you so far from me I grew up in a very sequestered area it's almost like a little Sicilian village on Elizabeth Street in New York me that was the world so it's something that I draw upon that's the best of stir the sauce how am i doing so far terrific the idea of the sauce was important because the nature of the italian-american or in case Sicilians and a Sunday afternoon you had family dinner and that all revolved

around the sauce itself yeah I was cooking dinner that night and I had to start braising the beef pork butt and veal shanks for the tomato sauce take a few spoonfuls of tomato throw them in here because your meatballs remain very soft people come and have something not just a dyke and all this money you've got no I bring this in I have so it was a constant flurry of people it's trying to harness these emotions talk the way you're talking to me now that's what I mean you're not like Chris I'm not putting on

any airs you wanna you wanna fight or something talk the way you talk to me with the energy of it and put on two stories narratives [Music] [Applause] yes there are certain worlds I know better than others but ultimately it's the people it's the characters that carry me through mining ever is interested in the villain or the hero he's interested in where most people are which is in too little [Music] he's always trying to grasp the humanity of these people the flawed nature of these characters you know people always say well interested in the antagonist

in my movies well the point is that they're also human negative parts of who they are is also maybe something in us and something not to be afraid of but to explore the number one thing with any direct or any good directors you've gotta make people feel that they they can try anything and Marty gets a certain spontaneity out of everybody we started doing the business with the gun which is it was scripted mechanic I got you enjoy you can be something got into a rhythm particularly are you talking to me you're talking to me

you're talking to me and I remember saying dead again again I'm talking to me and I really knew he had something when he said I know you're talking to me because I'm the only one here well I'm the only one here who the [ __ ] do you think you're talking to oh yeah okay the actor of course the actors have to be tapped into that emotion and the passion doesn't necessarily have to be explosive and that's very interesting passion that's held back that's restrained tension you got something you want to ask me so you

create the atmosphere and you make it as easy as possible for them to take that time if they're on to something maybe it's mammal of [ __ ] up maybe well I'm funny how I mean funny like I'm a clown may amuse you I make you laugh I'm here to [ __ ] amuse you what do you mean funny funny how how am i funny just you know how you tell the story what no no I don't know you said it how do I know you said I'm funny how the [ __ ] am i

funny what the [ __ ] is so funny about me tell me tell me what's funny kids the [ __ ] key factors to be authentic as much as possible to the characters and the world that they're in [Music] you know he's very careful to make sure that it's believable he was very obsessed about the collars that the Mafia wear where they're almost closed over the tie he tied my tie every day the way he wanted the knot was very specific and I guess from when he was growing up and every day he would tie

my tie and get the knot right I watched I said oh I just gave it an authenticity to detail there's something about the way he connects you as an audience member and envelops you completely into another world that you become entranced by it [Music] [Music] I'm fascinated by what happens to groups of people stuck in a situation oppressed politically economically and what form do they take a gang because really in a sense like a tribe my challenge fighting becomes part of the culture the violence itself is a matter of expression hence the way of life

and if it's the way of life for these people gotta be as truthful to that as possible [Music] the violence of my thumbs is not pleasant it's not pleasant [Music] where I came from although was good hard-working people trying to raise a family respectively there was a lot of organized crime and I saw a lot of violence where I grew up I just saw that that was part of me as mother has told me that if there was going to be a mafia killing on the street the mothers would all be told take your children

off the street at 3 o'clock and then they would all come in and then somebody would be shot and he would go back out to play again you reap what you sow and the stories I'm trying to tell and I don't know any other way to show it when we were writing there's that scene where Bob De Niro is standing at the bar with a cigarette and he's looking at Manny and he's gonna kill him and you know he's gonna kill him and as I'm typing that stuff he's on the typist he says put in

cream put in cream I said what cream it's just write that right down cream well it turns out while we're typing that scene he's already listening to the music so though you can't I can't interpret that I can't tell you where that it's all intuitive it all happens in Marty's head when lights close the time [Music] [Music] the music is always tied to camera shots to me [Music] marty has a genius for putting music to film he has carried around in his head for years pieces of music that he's wanted to use in a film

and then eventually finds just the right spot for us we got montage cities burning [Music] I've compiled music over the past 30 35 years and I may have 26 tapes from A to Z and 12 from the 1960s I have 15 from the 50s alone and adapt tape so that takes 44 songs in each each tape it's almost like dance like choreography it's the imagining of one shot being cut to the other and the emotional and psychological impact of that cut my director is a wonderful editing director he edited in several of his early throws

himself let's see the head and tail and so you see which has the most women and the casino particularly is a film that Marty had thought out very carefully all of his camera moves he had designed so they would cut together they were very specific in Vegas everybody's gotta watch everybody else when he has the montage where he shows how everybody's watching everybody he had already planned out how he was going to go from the box man to the dealer to the viewer to the pit-boss they were all swish pans and all I had to

do was cut off the end of it stick it together and it worked beautifully the shift bosses are watching the pit bosses the casino manager is watching his shift bosses I'm watching the casino manager and the eye in the sky watching soil I see things quickly and I've tried to formulate it into a style how you point the audience's eye to look where you want them to look and to get the point the emotional psychological point that you want to get across with them [Music] [Applause] this is no ordinary place it is a place where

many roads and many lives intersect to make movies from where I came from it's like saying you're going to the moon you know there was no such thing our fathers and mothers they were from a different world they couldn't afford to send us the school they don't have that kind of money as long as we ate and we were healthy that's all they that comput sure he was always tell him you know one thing goes wrong the other thing will open up get over it get going there's another way always have that hope so that

was something that I always still hear in my head one has to begin to reach younger people at an earlier age how to use this very powerful tool because we know film the image can be so strong young person wants to express themselves and take a video camera and go out they're gonna find that they have to frame the image they're gonna find that they have to interpret what they want to say to an audience they can have to make that decision [Music] that embracing about inspiration again that spirit it still inspires me to try

to continue working other pictures try to make pictures [Applause] what can i mine that is newer for me what can I find that is worth me doing I don't know yet because you never know what you're going to find [Applause] now that's enough for today Marty okay that's it because I have five sisters is these two taken this I'm ready you will get out of this house alive [Music] you [Music]