From Mean Streets to Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese recounts his ten films with De Niro (part 1)

In half a century, this legendary duo has left an indelible mark on modern cinema.

They met as teenagers, at the end of the 1960s. They lost sight of each other, then they found each other again, never to leave each other again. The collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro is one of the most iconic in the history of cinema (it even has its Wikipedia page!), producing ten feature films in half a century, including a large handful of classics.

50 years exactly after their first film, the uppercut Mean StreetsBob and Marty do it again with Killers of the Flower Moon, currently in cinemas. The opportunity to return to their shared filmography through quotes from the filmmaker. The first part of our retrospective looks at the intense beginnings of the duo, who made 5 films in barely 10 years between 1973 and 1982.

Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese’s impressive funeral song

Mean Streets (1973)

A year before being cast in The Godfather II, Robert de Niro burst the screen in Mean Streets, Martin Scorsese’s first success, which follows the suicidal trajectory of Johnny Boy, a little thug from Little Italy, and his friend Charlie Cappa, played by Harvey Keitel. Barely 30 years old, the actor already dazzles the filmmaker with his talent. The future great is already here:

“I saw him on the set of Mean Streets, especially when he insisted on improvising a scene between him and Harvey Keitel, which we shot on the last day. He begins an improvisation to explain why he couldn’t give Michael back the money he owed him. The way he behaved, and how he made all these references out of nowhere, based on a lot of people we both knew. He even used their nicknames.

What connected us initially was that we knew each other a little from when we were 16, then we lost touch. And in 1970, 1971 we meet again. He played for Brian De Palma. I just did my best on Who’s That Knocking At My Door. I then planned to do Mean Streets, and it fit perfectly with the tone, the flavor of the film. He knew how to carry himself, what hat to wear. He knew everything, sort of, and he did it with complete confidence.”

Taxi Driver (1976)

After winning the Oscar for best actor in Vito Corleone, Robert DeNiro returns in front of the camera Scorsese with a new status, but still crazy involvement, even obtaining a license to become a Taxi in New York for a few weeks! The film conquered the Cannes Film Festival, with a Palme d’Or to boot. And enters posterity with the legendary mirror scene, and De Niro’s famous improv.

“I was convinced he had to talk to himself during that mirror scene. I didn’t know what to make him say, but I remembered a scene from Reflections in a golden eye, where Brando produced something superb in front of a mirror. So Bob started acting out the scene. (…) He began to improvise by imagining that people were coming to talk to him. If their words displeased him, he would turn around and say ‘You’re talking to me ?‘ (…). I wanted at all costs to fit the scene into the schedule. Between each take, Pete Scoppa – the great assistant director of the time – would pound on the door. ‘Hurry up, we have a schedule to respect.’ So I answered him: “Give us two more minutes, just two minutes. It’s really super.’ There was a huge noise. I had to ask De Niro to reshoot the scene two or three times – that’s all. He had found his own rhythm. Then he released this fabulous line where he admits to being all alone in the room, and therefore he must be talking to himself. And it was in the box. »

New York, New York (1977)

Shunned by the public and critics upon its release, New York, New York is a chaotic film, marked by the cocaine addiction of Martin Scorsese. A scathing failure, but nevertheless cult, notably thanks to the performances of Lizza Minelli and Robert De Niro, and the eponymous song returned to posterity thanks to the cover by Frank Sinatra. Here again, Bob does the job and keeps the project afloat with his unfailing involvement.

“The window broken by Robert De Niro during the marriage proposal was the result of an improvisation. We were off to such a good start that the next day we even accentuated the farce side of the scene. Bobby, who was furious, had the idea of ​​throwing himself on his knees in front of Liza, then lying down behind the wheels of the taxi, threatening to let himself be crushed. None of this was in the script. This is the result of three good days of continuous rehearsal. For the scene where Bobby tries to hold back the train as it starts, it was the same. During rehearsals, Bobby was having fun stopping him from leaving, and I immediately decided to build the whole scene around this gag. As you see it, New York, New York is a rather unique case: we rehearsed as we filmed, and we filmed as we rehearsed!”

Raging Bull (1980)

It takes more than a flop to call into question the Scorsese/De Niro duo. And it’s the second who puts his friend back in the spotlight by presenting him with this project based on the autobiography of Italian-American boxer Jake LaMotta, who would give birth to a huge black and white classic, the blueprint of the modern biopic: “I read Raging Bull while I was doing 1900 with Bertolucci, I called Marty and said, ‘This book is not great literature, but it has a lot of heart.‘.“

Bob gives his all for Marty, gaining 60 pounds in four months to play the fighter in the second part of his life. “I healed by doing Raging Bull”, confides Scorsese, even if the reception of the film at the time did not live up to his expectations.

“Through Bob, I was able to find a truth about myself – the difference between the genre director and the person trying to be a filmmaker. It’s a problem that Bob and I have silently, tacitly resolved. We never addressed the subject head-on. We talked a lot about emotions, the feeling of helplessness, and the fact that some things never change. We also talked about trust, and what happens when that trust is betrayed. Beyond a certain point in life, we would be ready to kill anyone. In reality, we destroy ourselves. This is what I ended up understanding with this film.“

The Waltz of the Puppets (The King of Comedy1982)

After Raging Bull, The Waltz of the Puppets is again a film that De Niro proposed to Scorsese. The actor had the director read this satirical comedy on celebrity culture (written by Paul D. Zimmerman) in the mid-1970s. Initially indifferent, Scorsese ended up changing his mind:

“After presenting Alice is no longer here, Taxi Driver, New York, New York And Raging Bull around the world at different festivals, I took a look at the script again. My outlook had changed. I began to understand how it could affect Bob: that’s exactly what he experienced after Mean Streets and following the Godfather II most of all – the adulation of crowds, strangers who love you, who feel the need to be with you and talk to you.”

To create the character of Rupert Pupkin (the failed comedian who kidnaps a TV star to get his fifteen minutes of fame, a sort of mustachioed Travis Bickle versed in stand-up), De Niro took inspiration from admirers who keep circling around him and ruining his life. Scorsese says: “Bobby had finally developed a technique: reversing the roles, he began to follow the autograph hunters, to hunt them down, to terrify them by asking them lots of questions.” Like De Niro’s method, the film is as zany as it is frightening.

Sources: Martin Scorsese, interviews with Michael Henry Wilson (Pompidou Center / Cahiers du cinéma), Conversations with Martin Scorsese by Richard Schickel (Sonatine), Telerama No. 3848, First, Deadline