Scorsese: 'Film what you feel'
Simon van Zuylen-Wood
Issue date: 4/21/08 Section: Campus News
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Scorsese, who has repeatedly directed actors Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Harvey Keitel in his films, emphasized the value of an actor's ability to improvise during filming. The director said, for example, that De Niro and Keitel fully improvised a scene of "Mean Streets," which, along with several other clips from films he directed, were screened for the audience.
Scorsese, who forgot to bring his notes to the set that day, said the two actors "just go off on jazz solos, the both of them," comparing Keitel's straight man and DeNiro's libertine to the comedy duo Abbott and Costello.
The Academy Award-winning director said his first documentary, "Italianamerican," was a chance to let a film "relinquish to the power of personalities." The picture featured his parents interacting in their own home as "directors" of their own lives, Scorsese said.
Documentaries "give me a sense of freedom, in terms of breaking away from narrative structure," Scorsese said, referring to the "conventional dramaturgy that seems to be the beginning, middle, end." Scorsese called his parents' interaction in the work a "constant duet, overlapping each other."
Scorsese said that music chosen for a film must closely resonate with it in order to be effective.
"Music I heard around me was the soundtrack for the film, and (the characters) had to tune into that music," he said.
A scene from "Goodfellas" set to Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" was cued: Robert De Niro's character, in a bar, glares in the direction of the camera, not long after pulling off what Scorsese called "the greatest heist in history."
"That look in his eye - I heard that guitar in my head. ... We synced it to that look in his eye and we just left it in completely."
Scorsese, who said his method was to "film what you feel," credited his actors for their commitments to connecting with the psyches of their characters.