Martin Scorsese on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1996)

Hello, we're back everyone gentlemen, my first guest to

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is one of the greatest filmmakers of our time. His films include Mean Streets Cabbie, Raging Bull Goodfellas and, most recently, Casino. It is my pleasure to welcome a man who I believe 20 minutes ago he found. about the Greek thing, he's in shock Martin Scorsese Oh, thanks for coming Martin, thank you, it's a pleasure to have you here, thank you and I'm sorry I had to inform you just 20 minutes ago that this was happening to

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, okay. It was a shame for the writers. Did you see what happened in one?

Hang it up. I noticed one that actually imprisoned him on the hood of the car. It was a really nice touch. It was very good filming. It was really good when I told you the horse. It was great, oh, great, when I told you backstage that we were going to do this tonight, you said, oh, I hope there's some Trojan horse. I had no idea, no I didn't. I'm glad you approved of everything I love. Thank you very much, listen. I've been waiting to have you on the show for quite some time. I'm a big fan of the films you've made and the first thing I wanted to ask you is that we live in this time, films are rigorously tested and it's very difficult to make your own vision, and the films you've made are pretty much 201, actually movies like Raging Bull Taxi Driver.

My first question is how do you make movies like that? getting them done at that time, there wasn't much interference? Oh yes, with the taxi driver, we had a lot of problems, but we had a good base. What we did there was basically a very low budget, about a million dollars total, and it was 1975 and De Niro had just won the Academy Award for The Godfather 2 and they had just seen my movie Mean Streets mmm-hmm and which one was Geneva too. They imagine they sold us both together in Suez as packages for a taxi. driver and we filmed it 40 days actually 40 days and nights listening to you a million dollars to make a movie yeah because that's what this episode cost tonight did you know these togas cost six hundred thousand dollars please I think I'm a Ancient world? buff actually great, so you're here on a good night, at the perfect time, okay, a million dollars, but, specifically, didn't you have people on the phone saying with Raging Bull that you're saying, okay, what wanna?

What I do is make a movie about a boxer that few people remember. I want to shoot it in black and white. I want you to really focus on the misery of his life, the misery of the people around him, didn't they say wait a minute? In the end, sweets make a lot of money and I was told to wait a minute several times, but we had a very good producer to produce. Bob Irwin Winkler made it, I was protected from that in the '70s, you know, it was a different thing in the '70s.

It's kind of the Golden Age of American cinema along with the '50s, '40s and '30s, because there were so many real personal films, original voices that made films. Robert Altman mm-hmm Bogdanovich Jimmy knows a lot of Coppola spielberg that started with Lucas. all that kind of stuff and palm and at that time it was the director's time until we're repainting Raging Bull Raging Bull was in the same studio as Heaven's Gate, which Jimmy knows is what Jimmy Doe did, which is actually a It's a pretty extraordinary movie, but what happened was a form of budget that, uh, the next thing you know, the sleeve it opened was closed in one night because of a bad review.

I understand that the movie was cut and we released it nine days early, so we lived with that, so they were doing some kind of interference for you in a funny way, they were doing some kind of interference because they had to deal with that movie, which is , I mean, some extraordinary things and then they sent an email and no. It hasn't really had its due, but that ended a period of filmmaking in America, which is more personal, I think, and now it's a problem to make the films and now, apparently, when films like that are made , they are something like that.

What it comes down to this way is that you know that this is a weird little movie and that's almost how they promote themselves, because you know that it was made in a foreign country or that it existed as an art film exactly, it's almost like art It would have become a bad word. in a way, and it's funny to think that it was almost twenty years ago, I mean, taxi driver, now the 20th anniversary is playing, which was reissued, cleaned up the form of the film right now, in stereo and your story, because we mixed it for five days to mix. originally mm-hmm and now the remixes have been done with the stereo tracks and all that, but it's a lot harder to get the kind of image I do these days and it has to do with, you know, people like De Niro and Sharon Stone and the movie helps that kind of thing now, what about a movie like Taxi Driver?

You don't watch your movies. Know? I've had enough. It has been so long. Yes, and the taxi driver is a guy. classic you think you want to go back and watch I can't stand it we actually it's too much I can't it's too personal too embarrassing I like you you give me I know that feeling sure you think I'm watching this show tonight at home here to come home and watch this, yeah, oh yeah, I'm wearing a dress, but both, but the interesting thing for me is that you won't even see it, we're actually taxi drivers, a movie that we just wanted. show a clip of your work here tonight and we went and showed a clip of a taxi driver that was prohibitively high the cost we couldn't do it we wasted money on this shit and we couldn't show it so what we really did tonight is we we made a clip of our own taxi driver from our center, we did the best we could, we used our own resources, so here is our taxi driver clip, a classic, enjoy, check out how he dressed you.

Where did you turn to me? you're talking to me right, there's no one else here it's there unless I'm sadly mistaken there's no one else here oh, you made me hurt my neck, you ruffian, bullies, were you talking to me? Tony Ringel, the best, so this begs the question why you went. originally with Tony Randel I don't know, I kicked my I think about it, ruffian, thug, OD, listen, can you wait a second because we want to take a break, do your best, we'll have more with Martin Scorsese when we come back, we stay with Martin Scorsese and we were talking, we were cleaner, we were talking before the show and of course I mentioned when I brought you here all your great films.

I didn't mention a movie of yours that isn't mentioned that much, what I really loved was just a comedy, oh I love that movie and I was curious about it at first. I always had this kind of, you know, Rupert Pupkin is just a very original character, this guy who just forced his way onto television with little to no experience, yeah, I identify with him. I'm Rupert Pupkin in some ways, I think I'm doing as good as him, I think so, but what fascinated me about the movie in the first place was Jerry Lewis' performance in the movie kisses great she was really great as that person who was asking me if he brought a lot if he knew who that character was he got it he got it completely he felt like Jerry Langford felt like he was drinking because of who he was Basically he wasn't playing Johnny Carson, he was playing a person from Johnny Carson's Statutes, Thatcher and a person that Jerry Jerry Lewis is a guy who has directed movies in an extraordinary way, he has sung, he has done

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night talk shows, he has done it well. a completely angry plan, so he's partying with showbiz, he covers a lot of aspects and he gets a little bit involved like in the scenes where he's walking down the street, people are shouting, hey Jerry, yeah, I said no, Let's line up some people. so it won't be necessary, so what do you mean, he said, look at Rashad on Walking Street with a hidden camera and people really, yeah, it was real, that's real, yeah, uh-huh, people are yelling at them. construction workers. with the camera he was right if they couldn't walk a block, half a block, you know, Jerry, we love you, Jerry, all that kind of stuff, it's an incredible movie and, you know, I was, we're thinking today about so many of your movies.

There are scenes from your movies that have somehow entered into pop culture, you know, consciousness, you know, people talk about the scene we just did with Tony Randall, you know, are you talking to me? It seems right, I know, but they've really become, they've come into this and they've become somehow immortal and these scenes from Goodfellas where Joe Pesci says, am I a clown to you? Are you aware when you are making the film that this is the scene you are going to experience? or sometimes you're surprised that they think it's going to help. It seems interesting that the book came from the actors, that it was about the last two or three days of filming the taxi driver and it was a sequence in the script in which he is preparing. in front of the mirror and he's doing things with guns and whatever and I said we have to say something, you have to talk to yourself in the mirror and I said we have to be careful because Brando did a wonderful job talking to himself in the mirror in a photo call highlights and golden eyes it can't be like that it can't be like that I have to be very careful so I just got there I was on 89th Street on Columbus Avenue where we were filming I understood um there was no video assistance at the time so I I sat on his right, right below Bob, he was standing in front of his camera, we were filming and he started saying: are you talking to me? and I said, you know, keep doing it again. and over and over again and he just got into the rhythm and he got into the rhythm and it was extraordinary and I knew something special was happening, especially because you had an idea that he had it, that it was coming from him being the paranoia that was coming from him and him.

It was just so miraculous what he did and the poor ad was knocking on the door trying to come back to life because the picture had no schedule. We had to listen, we are very glad there is no schedule. The poor guy he responds to in a minute. we played and we were filming we filmed it for like an hour and a half a little bit that a little bit then and then you're talking and now you think I'm funny mm-hmm that I definitely knew when Joe Pesci told me that I could really pass Joe Pesci in real life , yeah, and it's a terrifying moment, yeah, so he really experienced that moment here, yeah, and when he described the story to me I said I had to include it, it's just that the movie was loosely structured and I mean, that's how we did it. and that day we were filming the Hawaii Kai that's on Broadway, he was a Polynesian risk right near where they have that cat thing.

I understand something about the best theater production in cinema history, we'll call it sailing. I know and I just slip I don't know I don't know what happened to me, but it's a shame, cat, whatever it is, yeah, look at the cat. I am deathly allergic to cats, what can I get? They do this. it's great coming out McCutcheon, don't go, don't go to the hearing again, they come out, you just said, you didn't say anything bad about it and then we make you say they come out to the hearing and touch you, don't go. don't go it's a wonderful show and he's definitely allergic to cats so he'll come out again take it if you think I'm funny yeah yeah oh Joe was doing that actually the studio people came that day. like a party the laughter the laughter on the dance floor is really from us behind the camera I mean it was extraordinary well I knew it when I was doing it I knew there would be something special because it really happened to him and he had that all no The truth is that it you know well.

I know where I'm getting the signal that we're

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. I wanted to mention it, although I was surprised that you grew up in Little Italy, which I knew, but I didn't know that I didn't leave Little Italy for quite a while, you never left Little Italy, that was really the first time I went to the west side. I grew up on Elizabeth Street on Houston Street, right off the Bowery and the first time I went to I walked down the West Side when I went to my orientation day at New York University's New York universe and it's the first time I you left Little Italy, well, not Little Italy, but from the west side to Greenwich Village, okay, we never went there.

Okay, we didn't need it, we had everything we wanted, we had the pork shop, huh, we have, you know, the cheese shop, are you sure you didn't need anything? No, they're all on the same block, you should know what, quickly, real Quick before we have to run, you should know that you should know the best restaurant in Little Italy, tell us everything you've never been to restaurants because, what? how are you walking? A good restaurant, your mother cooks the best restaurant they killed you for, yeah, and your mother was famous for Okay, get a restaurant, forget it, well, I hear you.

First I want to congratulate you on being honored by the American Museum of the Moving Image and, of course, Casino, which is a great movie, is now in theaters. It's a real pleasure. having you here on the show Martin Scorsese thank you Richard Belzer back with you