Mr. Scorsese – S01E05 – Method Director – Transcript

Mr. Scorsese
Season 1 – Episode 5
Episode title: Method Director
Original air date: October 17, 2025
The series had its world premiere at the 2025 New York Film Festival, followed by its global digital release on Apple TV+ on October 17, 2025.

Plot: As a partnership with Leonardo DiCaprio brings Scorsese’s career to new heights, he continues to reinvent himself as a filmmaker and a man.

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Mr. Scorsese – S01E05 – Method Director | Transcript

[“Ventilator Blues” by The Rolling Stones playing]

[interviewer] Hollywood measures success by box office and Academy Awards. How do you measure success?

All right, so you’re not box office and you’ve never…

I don’t know what to say.

Never got an Academy Award.

How do you measure success?

Um…

The value of the work.

[song continues]

[Scorsese on set] Action!

By the time 1998 came around, again, I was at a low ebb.

I was on the outside of the American film industry, so to speak.

The last film that had got any real recognition, and that made some money at least, was Casino.

[grunting]

Yeah, and give him a couple of kicks.

They weren’t considering me for anything and there were certain projects I wanted to make.

[song continues]

[Paul Schrader] Marty and I had just done Bringing Out The Dead. Marty, at that time, was looking to do bigger and bigger budget films.

He saw himself as, he said, a fresco painter, doing bigger and bigger canvases.

[Martin Scorsese] But I had to find some money.

And to get the financing to do that, I needed a lifesaver.

And that’s when Mike Ovitz came in.

And he had started his new company and he came to me and said, “We have this young actor in it, Leo DiCaprio. You should meet him,” and I knew him through Bob De Niro.

I said, “Watch this kid.

He’s… He’s interesting.”

Leonardo, right here, please!

Leonardo!

[interviewer] How do you feel about being a sex symbol, as it were?

Am I a sex symbol?

The nominees for Actor in a Supporting Role are Leonardo DiCaprio in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? [Rebecca Miller] When did you first see one of Marty’s films?

I had done This Boy’s Life with Robert De Niro, and I decided to watch Marty’s entire catalogue of movies.

Certainly, all the ones De Niro was in.

I was kicking back on my couch watching VHS tapes…

Believe me, Jerry, I’m very good.

I’m really good. I’m dynamite.

[Leonardo DiCaprio] These films affected me profoundly, at a young age.

And then after Titanic, I was no longer this indie, sort of, actor.

[girls screaming]

I then became somebody that could finance my own projects.

So it was, “Okay, what do you wanna do?”

I said, “I wanna work with Martin Scorsese. What does he have?”

[“House of the Ancestors” by Afro Celt Sound System playing] [Rick Yorn] We put Leo and Marty together.

I’d met Marty, but “Hi” and “Bye”, right?

But an official meeting.

He said he always wanted to do Gangs of New York, right?

I was like, “Tell him I’ll do it.

I don’t care what the script is.

Let’s do it.”

[Miller] First time you found the book?

[Scorsese] January 1st, 1970.

This was before you made Mean Streets. When I finished Raging Bull, I tried to get it financed and we almost did, but couldn’t get it financed. It was too expensive.

[Miller] He wanted to make the film for such a long time.

I mean, it’s the origin story, isn’t it?

[Scorsese] The history of the city was fascinating to me, and the stories of the gangs.

My father would talk about the 40 Thieves.

[traditional Irish music playing]

In effect, the society was being worked out in the streets.

Particularly, the Five Points, which was termed the worst slum in the world, at the time, in the 1850s.

I thought I wanted to create that world that nobody’s really ever seen before in film.

In my neighborhood, I’d heard stories about all of this, for years.

I always thought what a great film it would make, and then I found out more and more about it.

[Scorsese] It wasn’t really a city.

It was a warring state.

On my challenge… by the ancient laws of combat…

[Scorsese] I remember meeting with Daniel, and I had these images of the period.

And as I opened the book, there’s Bill the Butcher and it looks just like him.

I said, “Look at that.

How could you not do this?

All you need is the mustache, look, it’s a classic.”

The historical figure was regarded as a genuine hero in the community.

[Scorsese] Bill “The Butcher” Poole lived in the Five Points and had a running battle with every Irishman he could find.

…who holds sway over the Five Points.

Us natives, born rightwise to this fine land?

Or the foreign hordes defiling it?

[men yell, blades ring] It was so prophetic, in a way, the telling of that story, because this… this ludicrous notion of nativism.

You mother whoring Irish nigger, whose man are you?

We speak English in this country.

Whose man are you? You see this knife?

I’m going to teach you to speak English with this fucking knife.

[Scorsese] I come from an immigrant group.

I learned more and more about the… the welcome that the immigrants received…

[man] Go back to Ireland, you dumb mick.

…starting with the Irish, you know.

The Irish learned how to handle all this.

They dealt with it, but they had to fight back.

Fighting against the KnowNothings and the WideAwakes.

Which are names like now The Proud Boys.

[mob shouting]

[explosion] [Scorsese] The Irish had to fight for their place.

Archbishop Hughes, the firebrand, he said, “You burn one Catholic church, we’re gonna burn the Protestant churches.”

They had to fight back.

They fought along the brick wall between Mulberry and Mott.

Growing up, we were hanging out on their gravestones.

So, this was the ancient world to us.

[laughs]

It looks like New York. It’s great.

[Scorsese] It was like science fiction in reverse.

[man] This is Five Points.

This is it. The Five Points.

[Scorsese] Our vision was to create all of downtown New York at Cinecittà Studios, because of the Fellini films and Pasolini films that were made there.

That meant so much to me. And I remember George Lucas coming down to see me.

And he said, “No one will ever make a picture like this again.

This set will never be built like this again. These sets.”

[DiCaprio] You know, this was a multimilliondollar epic where they recreated turnofthecentury New York.

The sheer responsibility of that is like, “Oh my God.

Be careful what you wish for.

This is an intimidating experience.”

This is the liver.

The kidneys.

The heart.

[DiCaprio] Daniel and Marty had worked together beforehand.

I remember walking in the first day on set and they were discussing how to cut the meat.

And Daniel had a real butcher with him, and they spent quite a few hours while the whole set [laughs] was sitting there, talking about whether it would be chop or loin.

This is a kill.

This is a kill.

Main artery. This is a kill.

You try.

That actor/director intense collaboration, I had never seen to that degree before in my life.

[Daniel DayLewis] Martin is searching.

And if you want to go further, he will always encourage you to go further.

He’s just so full of glee, so full of encouragement, just to see how far you can take a thing.

[thud]

[audience gasps]

Whoopsie daisy!

[laughter] [Miller] And didn’t you… Isn’t that the time you broke your nose?

Yeah.

[roars]

[DayLewis] There was so much blood all over my face that you couldn’t really tell that most of it was mine. [chuckles] It was all my idea. It was my own fault.

[laughing] So I paid the price for it, I suppose.

What’ll it be then?

Rib or chop? Loin or shank?

[man] The liver!

[man 2] The spleen!

[cleaver whooshes]

[audience gasps and shouts]

[Scorsese] I had been so obsessed with that project for so many years, that I put everything into it.

And that meant going toetotoe with Harvey Weinstein.

[Jay Cocks] Harvey was a salesman and a thug. He’s not an artist.

But he wanted to be invited to the artists’ table, and this was his way in.

[Brian De Palma] But Marty, he is so committed to getting it done, he’s been able to work with these very difficult producers.

And that’s a great talent.

Because you can’t make these big movies unless you have that kind of financing.

[Scorsese] He loved cinema, and he wanted to make it spectacular in the style of the ’50s and ’60s in terms of David Lean or Metzger.

So did I, to a certain extent, but I do it my own way.

Yadada. And he goes out of frame.

[Scorsese] I wanted to make, uh, something that had as much authenticity as possible from what I could understand and what I had been studying over the years and researching.

He also needed to sell a picture.

And the worst thing for him were the hats.

He didn’t want anybody wearing hats.

I said, “Everybody wore hats.

Everybody wore hats.

What do you want from me?

Everybody wore hats.”

[man] Hey.

I just want to see your face, son.

No harm intended.

[Scorsese] But at the same time, he didn’t want to turn off the audience to something that looked alien. Um…

[Miller] Or not beautiful?

Yeah. Exactly.

You’ve got a beautiful man, you’ve got beautiful women in there.

You want people to see them.

[gasps]

You have to work with it.

You’re making a film together.

And also, they’re going to give you the money.

It’s bartering. It’s bartering.

Because it’s either that or not get the film made.

[DayLewis] When you go into this work, you give birth to yourself into a world of conflict and corruption.

There will always be that opposition between money, where the power is, and the creative people who are trying to tell stories with that money. [laughs] [Scorsese] I was shooting it a certain way, according to the way I made my drawings, so it took me a little longer.

So, Harvey got furious.

Said, “It’s costing too much.”

And the studio, they didn’t want to pay for some of it.

So I had to really focus on what I wanted to shoot, what I thought was important, in order to get control of what was remaining of the production.

The pressure was so strong.

[DayLewis] But Martin’s a cage fighter.

He’ll be the last one standing.

[blades swishing]

[men grunting] [Scorsese] I fought to get what I needed, but I had a weakness.

Which was I kept changing the script.

To this day, I don’t have the story down.

There was a lot of discussion of… about the screenplay.

It definitely continued to evolve.

In some cases, making it up as we went along.

In which case, that meant, you know…

People in charge would come in and say, “What are you doing?”

[DayLewis] There were a few writers drifting around.

One of them was a spy… for the Weinstein camp.

And he was sp

[laughs] He was spying.

Reporting back all our, sort of, misdemeanors and everything and…

But, anyhow, Martin lost it at one point, and threw his desk out of the window.

It was on the third floor, as I remember it.

I go in, I see these desks and there was the producer and I took the desk and tossed it over.

[laughing] And it was my…

The other associate with me, he said, “That’s not his desk.”

[Scorsese continues laughing]

It was just volatile.

You know, everybody was, um…

It was tough.

[fans screaming]

[reporter] Martin Scorsese’s longanticipated epic, Gangs of New York, opens all across the country.

[reporter] Hello.

Hello.

[Scorsese] The film went way over budget.

I did have everything on the line.

So, I really did everything I could to get the publicity out there.

[reporter 2] Now, of course, the real reason Marty’s here is to try and make some of that precious money back. Now, I don’t even know what really sells a film.

Apparently, being on television, talking about the picture, uh, seeing that you’re, you know, friendly. [laughs]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughs]

[laughing] Gangs of New York opens next Friday.

Please welcome Martin Scorsese.

[applause]

[Scorsese] Luckily, it did very well.

This was a big movie, in terms of box office.

And the critics, they loved it.

But Gangs was something…

It was an obsession.

And it was something that, uh, even if I got it done, it’s never done.

It just isn’t done. It still isn’t done.

So, as far as I’m concerned, you know what, let’s…

I got it out, as best I could under these circumstances.

Put it to rest, take a deep breath.

And that’s what I finally was able to do.

Because at that point in time, in my life, I found a kind of steadiness, and that was Helen.

Helen made contact with me, before we ever met.

She gave me this… sent me this book, this prayer book.

There’s a letter in it.

I didn’t know her. It was sort of a fan.

And I was… I said, “Isn’t that amazing?”

Because a year later, we met, you know?

And then a year after that, we met even more.

I met Helen working on a book about the great British director Michael Powell.

[Nicholas Pileggi] I knew Helen when she was an editor at Random House.

Helen was one of the great Random House editors.

…a young poet who lives in a society that’s been totally taken over by money and technology.

And Helen is, you know, worlds away from where Marty grew up.

Her great, great, great grandfather signed the Declaration of Independence.

She’s from that world.

So, it was a different world and it was sort of a fabulous union.

[woman] There you go, good girl.

Hitchcock angle.

[Scorsese] Out of that came Francesca on November 16th, 1999.

She was quite early.

Like, I think five weeks early.

[Miller] Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we almost lost both of them, um… at four in the morning.

[Francesca Scorsese] She had me at, like, 52.

It was a very difficult pregnancy.

And so I was, sort of like…

They called me their miracle baby.

[chuckles]

What a big girl.

What a big, grumpy girl.

[Scorsese] Everything changed.

[chuckles in home video]

[Francesca] My dad was just always, like, there for me.

I remember him reading all of these books to me when I was younger.

He read me the Bible.

Every night, we’d go up, and read more and more.

When he was younger, I think that he was just very impulsive.

He was just trying to find his way, and I think he found that with my mom, but it took him a minute. [chuckles] [Scorsese] After going through the purgatory of Gangs of New York, I said, “I want to make a movie now.”

I wanna do something and feel free and make something spectacular, in a way.

Start ’em up!

And that’s when the script of Aviator landed in my lap.

Leo had read this Howard Hughes book.

We had a really good script.

It was about filmmaking and the aviation, and a love story between Katharine Hepburn and him.

And I thought, “Wow, Hollywood of the ’20s and ’30s, my God.”

The airplane sequences, action filmmaking.

[straining] God damn it!

[Scorsese] The Aviator would be like, if I could be a director who just came in and did something, but it has all these elements that I like and that I could identify with.

Why the hell do they look so slow?

This isn’t what it was like.

They look like a bunch of goddamn models.

[Hughes sighs]

[projector whirring] [Cate Blanchett] You could feel an affinity that Marty had with the character of Howard Hughes.

[Hughes] Son of a bitch.

He deeply understood…

the scale of his ambition.

[Hughes] Don’t tell me it can’t be done.

The gyro forces are too much.

You send these planes into barrel rolls, they won’t make it.

It’s the goddamn climax of the picture, Frank. You make it work.

[young DiCaprio] When he opened the script and there’s the movie Hell’s Angels that Howard is directing, it says, “Year three.” I think he said, “Oh, wow, this is my kind of guy.”

He would not stop until he got everything perfect. [reporter] Howard Hughes is now editing some 25 miles of film. He’s as obsessive as Howard Hughes.

Marty is incredibly obsessive.

Very meticulous.

Not enough. Not enough.

These rivets have to be completely flush.

I want every screw and joint countersunk.

[DiCaprio] He has these storyboards in his mind.

Sometimes they’re insanely elaborate where there’s a certain scene that he is attached to shooting from every possible angle.

I remember on The Aviator, flying the Spruce Goose for the first time.

Hand on lever, face.

Then hand on lever, right eyeball.

Hand on lever, left eyeball.

[chuckles] Acute closeup on my eyeballs.

Above the head, wide shot.

And it’d just be “power coming up” for two days.

To the point where I almost felt like I was losing my mind.

[DiCaprio as Hughes] Oh, God. I’m going crazy. [Scorsese] Howard Hughes is a megalomaniac, and also a genius at what he did.

And he has this little flaw in him, which takes him down.

It was a lot to do with control.

Right there, Bob.

[Scorsese] And in controlling…

You missed it. Right there.

…how far do you go with control?

Can you control everything?

[Miller] Do you get a sense that you might make more movies with Leo yet?

[Scorsese] Yeah, because we went through a long journey on that one.

You learn how to work with each other.

[DiCaprio] On Gangs of New York, I just remember there was like, “Okay, this is our first time working together.”

At that age, I think I was really possibly annoying with my questioning.

I was asking about the ending, what my character’s motivation was.

Or we can kind just go bump instead of like a boom to the floor.

There was this point and this look in his eye where he’s like, “Uhhuh. Mmhmm. Mmhmm.

Oh, okay. Okay. I got it. I got it.”

Then it took me a while after Gangs to realize he’s letting you find these things for yourself.

[Hughes] I…

I like the desert.

[DiCaprio] I remember one specific scene.

My character, who has OCD, is locked away in his screening room.

[Scorsese] People want to get him out of the screening room and they send Katharine Hepburn to talk to him.

Howard, unlock this door immediately.

[breathing shakily]

[DiCaprio] But he can’t see her, he can’t let her in, because of these imaginary germs that exist.

I can’t, sweetie.

[DiCaprio] I remember I’d done ten, twenty, maybe thirty takes.

[Scorsese] Something was dreadfully wrong.

I don’t know what it was.

[DiCaprio] He just had this look on his face.

He didn’t want to tell me what to do, but it was…

He basically said, “Something’s wrong here, and this is not working.”

[Scorsese] He kept playing on, “Oh, please, I need you.

Oh, please, I’m suffering so much.”

“Do you want her to come in?” “No.”

I said, “Then don’t

Then…” you know?

I can hear you, Katie.

I could always hear you, even in the cockpit with the engines on.

[laughs softly] Well, that’s because I’m so goddamn loud.

[DiCaprio] And I realized, “Oh.

Right, this is about becoming a man.”

[Hughes] I’m glad for you. Kate.

Go away now. Would you do that?

[DiCaprio] “I do care about you, I do love you, but just not right now, sweetheart.”

Go away, just for now. I’ll see you soon.

[DiCaprio] I was like, “Wow, that had never occurred to me.”

But it wasn’t something that he told me to do.

It was something that he knew instinctively was wrong.

But he didn’t want to tell me how to play it.

He wanted me to find it for myself.

[Scorsese] It was a good shoot and people really liked it.

It was nominated for these… for the Oscars.

We got 11 Academy Award nominations.

[Jay Leno] Yeah, it doesn’t beat that.

It’s amazing.

[applause] [Yorn] We got a gaudy number of nominations.

And there was a light shined on the fact that Marty never won.

[TV host] Martin Scorsese is an American master who has never won an Oscar for Best Director.

Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, the list goes on and on, and no Oscar.

I noticed that, yeah.

[laughter] [Scorsese] Mean Streets, it was completely ignored by Hollywood.

Taxi Driver was even worse.

It was very, very nasty.

Schrader wasn’t nominated, nor was I.

Raging Bull was different.

[Yorn] Everyone thought Marty was going to win for Raging Bull, so that’s why they had King Vidor come out to give it to him, because they knew he was like a mentor to Marty.

And the winner is Robert Redford…

[applause] [Winkler] He should have had a bundle of Best Director awards.

He got quite a few nominations.

Barry Levinson for Rain Man.

[applause]

Kevin Costner for Dances With Wolves.

[applause] Gangs was wonderful because we had 11 nominations. We lost all of them.

[Harrison Ford] …to Roman Polanski.

[applause] [Scorsese] With Aviator, I thought, “Maybe this time, they’ll give me an Oscar.”

[reporter] Are you looking forward to the Oscars?

Uh, I… You know, looking forward to it, with trepidation.

[young Scorsese] Let’s face it, this is a big picture. It’s the kind of picture that the Academy hopefully will recognize. There’s no doubt about that. If it were to come now, um, that would be really something very special.

[Christopher Donnelly] It was the first Academy Awards I’d ever gone to, and I was sitting right behind him.

I remember it was, like…

Cate Blanchett wins.

Cate Blanchett in The Aviator.

[cheering and applause] [Donnelly] Thelma Schoonmaker wins.

This is really… as much yours as it is mine, Marty.

[Donnelly] Costume wins, right?

Everything’s winning, winning, winning.

And the Oscar goes to…

Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby.

[applause] [interviewer] How badly do you want to get an Oscar for director? Me, personally…

The time has gone, I think.

[Thelma Schoonmaker] I think it’s partially because of violence, but also because he’s very much…

against hitting anything on the nose.

He doesn’t want to tell you what to think, which a lot of movies do.

A lot of movies tell you what to think.

He doesn’t want to do that.

He wants you to feel it.

[Jodie Foster] Lack of moral closure is his signature as a filmmaker.

He’s not really interested in…

…telling you the moral of the story.

[Steven Spielberg] His movies are about the stuff, without analysis, that we will never understand about ourselves, but he puts it out there.

He just says, “This is how I feel.

This is what I’m feeling right now.”

And he puts these characters out there, and we get to sort it out.

We get to make sense of it.

[Scorsese] It’s like, I remember with New York, New York when I was doing the ending, I had them walk away from each other.

George Lucas said, “There’s another $10 million at the box office if they’re together.”

He’s right.

He’s dead right.

But I can’t… say that, “I’ll give you a happy ending.” I don’t know.

And so, you know, Hollywood, I don’t belong there.

I don’t have that mindset.

As much as I admire it, there’s so much a part of me that wanted to be that, but I don’t come from that sort of thing.

I don’t know what the hell I… you know.

I do what I do.

[Scorsese on set] Yeah, go ahead, anytime.

[crew] Ready and action. [Scorsese on set] That’s good, kids.

That’s very good, kids. Okay.

[explosion]

[kids shouting] That’s good, that’s good.

All right, good, okay.

[Scorsese] I got this script, and it really got me.

It was this crazy gangster thing, The Departed. And it’s about, um… It’s about informers based in the world of Boston police and Boston underworld.

Jack Nicholson plays the head gangster.

[Jonas Mekas] Mmhmm.

And it’s, uh… I guess it’s like the other movies I’ve made. [laughs] And Jack, I knew him over the years, but we never worked together.

When I gave him the script, uh, he called me back, he said…

First thing he said was, “Give me something to play.”

And I realized, of course, the character, the way it was written was pretty much, “I’m the boss.”

First thing it would say, “Oh, he’d be elegantly dressed.”

Well, not. Let’s not go there.

Let’s make him bearish.

A man could look at anything and make somethin’ out of it.

[Scorsese] Departed has a lot to do with moral conflicts, and sense of trust and who you can trust.

Because by that point, we had gone to war on the basis of trumped up charges.

The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax…

[Scorsese] I call it a moral ground zero.

…and nuclear weapons.

And Departed reflects that.

Everybody’s informing on each other.

He is giving information to the FBI.

Of course I talked to the FBI. [laughs] Do they know who I am?

Casino, I think they have enough morality to know they’re immoral.

In Departed… it’s even beyond amoral.

[Yorn] We had the test screening in Chicago.

It couldn’t have gone better.

It was like a rock concert.

Laughing in the right places, screaming in the right places.

[heavy thud, splatter]

It was one of the great experiences of my life, that one night.

But then the studio came in.

They didn’t like it.

They really wanted one of them to live.

Yeah.

They felt that Billy, Leo’s character, should live.

Marty was adamant that could not happen.

I said, “Why would they want one to live?”

He said, “They have a franchise.”

That didn’t go well. That didn’t go well.

Marty just said…

…”You don’t want them to die at the end.

Well, you know, when I read this script, that’s what I really loved most about it.

They all die. I thought that was great.

And I thought, ‘I want to make this movie.’ Me, Marty, Marty Scorsese.

Are you sure that you want Marty Scorsese to make this movie?”

Everybody was laughing by that time.

Point won, and he got his ending.

Just fucking kill me.

[Scorsese] It isn’t like, “Oh, we won. We beat you.”

It wasn’t that. I was just sad.

I am killing you.

[Scorsese] The studio just didn’t like the picture at all.

They wanted the franchise.

I get it. I get it. I get it.

And I couldn’t give it to them, and I wouldn’t give it to them and they really were mad at me, and I felt terrible about all that.

I realized, “Look, there’s no way I can make films with studios anymore.”

But we were nominated for the Oscars.

I was surprised because it’s a tough, crazy, nasty movie.

The three of us are here because we know what a great feeling it is to win an Academy Award for directing.

[Yorn] Oscar night of The Departed, you know…

You have Francis and Steven and George Lucas, who he grew up with in the business, presenting the award.

I’m like, “What’s going on?”

And the Oscar goes to…

Martin Scorsese.

[cheering and applause]

[whistling and cheering]

[whistling and cheering continues]

Thank you!

[cheering] Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

[applause continues] Thank you. Please. Please.

Thank you. Thank you.

Could you doublecheck the envelope?

[audience laughs] [laughs] Thank you, soI mean, I’m overwhelmed, um, with this honor with the Academy…

[Scorsese] I was totally surprised by the acceptance of that particular film.

But the problem was I kept showing up.

And… Where’s the wood around here?

They kept looking around saying, “He’s here again. What the?”

So many people over the years have been wishing this for me.

Strangers, you know, I go walking in the street, people say something.

I go in a doctor’s office, whatever, elevators, people saying, “You should win.”

I go for an Xray, “You should win one.”

[audience laughs]

And, um… I’m saying thank you.

[Scorsese] I don’t know what happened, quite honestly. I really don’t know.

Uh, but it happened.

[reporter] When your name was called, was… is the word “finally” what popped into your mind?

It’s a good question.

In a funny way, I thank God I hadn’t received it earlier because I think my own weakness of hubris would’ve come into

kicked in.

I don’t know if I was strong enough if I had gotten it before, quite honestly.

You know, and I’m glad that it went this way.

And when I saw that smile on his face, Steven’s face, I said, “Oh, you know…

[laughs] Something’s up.”

You know, but I’m glad, I’m glad it’s taken this long. It’s been worth it.

[people shouting]

[Cocks] Formally, with The Departed, the movie business, in a sense, came to him.

He’s making these movies that keep him going, and Leo has… this lucky confluence of talent and commercial viability that gave Marty a commercial foothold that he’d never really had.

[indistinct chatter]

[Cocks] It’s a rare thing, to have somebody who’s this popular and this good.

[laughs]

You could possibly say…

[indistinct dialogue]

He wasn’t afraid. He just kept going into these areas, you know?

And he had no limit that way.

The emotional nature of what developed in Departed, that was a key.

And having done that, we decided we wanted to do one more picture together.

[DiCaprio] It was a tough screenplay to crack because it was existential and it had to do with dreams.

[woman] It’s okay.

[DiCaprio] And one’s own nightmares entering the mind of somebody that was clinically insane, but the audience didn’t know it.

It was this insane collage of different things that were happening and different characters coming in and out.

Tell me how they got you here.

[voice echoing] They knew!

[quietly] Don’t you get it?

Everything you were up to, your whole plan.

This is a game. All of this… is for you.

You’re not investigating anything.

You’re a fucking rat in a maze.

[Scorsese] It was a very disturbing movie to make.

We didn’t know whether we were telling… the truth of the story, or was it imagination?

Was it a fantasy?

Was it an illusion of his?

We didn’t know anymore.

As the actors went through their dialogue and we realized, “Wait a minute, this line can mean three different things.”

It just made me…

I had a… [laughs] I had a kind of… um, prolonged panic attack.

[heavy clanking]

Come on.

[Scorsese] I could not take a shirt off a hanger to put it on.

I’d start to feel as if I was gonna get a heart attack.

And then I sat down and you feel you’re gonnaYou can’t breathe and you can’tAnd it would happen… um… oh, many times during the day, and you weren’t able to work.

It was like a semibreakdown of some kind because of the world it put me in.

I wanted to get out of there.

[DiCaprio] I do remember his mood shifting dramatically.

It was almost like one of those Peanuts characters where they have a rain cloud over them.

I understand it very well. It’s a very isolating experience making a movie.

You’re in your own head, thinking about, you know, one single project, day in and day out.

[Schoonmaker] That’s why he’s such a good director. Because he’s living it.

He’s feeling the pain, and, um… very intensely.

[Josh Safdie] You can tell that he gets so wrapped up in these movies.

You know, you can see he’s almost like a method director in that regard.

I’ve seen pictures of him on the set of Goodfellas or Casino where he’s dressed up like a gangster.

You know, I’ve seen pictures of him on the set of Alice, and he’s dressed in, like, a cowboy shirt.

You see that in almost every movie.

He’s aligning himself with the work, and it’s dangerous to do that.

It’s totally dangerous.

[Scorsese] When we did Shutter, that one went deeper for some reason.

I don’t know if it’s a good or bad movie.

I’m just saying it went deeper.

And maybe… things in my personal life were working a certain way, too.

Uh…

You know, people are sick.

Your child is growing.

You’re getting older.

There’s responsibilities now of a certain kind that you hadn’t thought about.

Um, all of this coming together at thatYou know…

A fear takes over and grabs at you.

And so that really did something.

Finally, got out of it.

I finally got out of it.

[Miller] How did you get out of it?

We finished it.

[DiCaprio] Working with him on a number of different films, I don’t take any of it personally.

But yeah, he was in, uh…

He was in the worst mood doing that movie, and then the best mood doing Wolf of Wall Street. [all] One, two…

…three.

[narrating] My name is Jordan Belfort. Not him. Me. That’s right. [DiCaprio] For the first time, we were given the opportunity to do a largescale film about debauchery and excess.

This time period, the late eighties, early nineties, Wall Street, it was like a Roman Empire gone awry.

It was almost like a modernday Caligula.

It’s about these types of people that are completely focused on capitalism and making more money.

[Belfort] Money doesn’t just buy you a better life, better food, better cars, better pussy. It also makes you a better person. [Scorsese] And it was real, a real person.

He’s showing you his house and he comes out, he has a glass of orange juice or whatever.

I take Quaaludes 10 to 15 times a day for my “back pain”.

[Scorsese] He asked, “What do I do with the orange juice?”

I said, “Toss it away.”

[Miller laughs] “You don’t care about the orange juice.”

[Yorn] We pitched it to every studio.

No one could agree on the version that Leo and Marty wanted to make.

They were passing on it, for whatever reason.

I think it had something to do with the… you know, some of the content, but, uh, everyone looked at us like we were crazy.

[Scorsese] But Leo was able to get it financed independently.

And so we were unencumbered… by major studio issues, uh, executives that just don’t like what you’re doing, from the very beginning.

[DiCaprio] I said, “They’re giving us this opportunity to do whatever we want.

Let’s go for it.”

He’s like, “Absolutely, kid. Let’s do it.

Let’s roll the dice.”

[Miller] Can you give one example?

I mean…

Yeah, I mean, the opening sequence.

It’s, uh, you know…

It’s a woman’s buttocks and…

I have cocaine and I’m…

Oh, yeah. You like it?

Yeah.

We wanted to push the boundaries almost to the point of being absurd at times.

[Margot Robbie] You would come into work and there would be a monkey on roller skates or there would be a naked marching band, just insanity all around you.

It was crazy and chaotic and fun and debaucherous.

[highpitched bark]

Oh, God.

[woman] Fuck off, Rocky.

Definitely amongst the cast, the feeling of, like, everyone was trying to oneup each other.

You know, someone would be like, “I heard Jonah just ate a goldfish in his scene.”

[men groaning and gagging]

[Robbie] Then you’d see someone be like, “He did?”

You could see their brain ticking over.

“I’m gonna do something crazier.”

[men chanting] Scalp! Scalp! Scalp!

It was that sense of anything goes.

Once, Leo comes in and he tells Marty, “Hey, remember one time Jordan Belfort told me a prostitute stuck a candle up his ass.”

And I’m like, “Oh, that’s funny.

Very funny. Wow. Yeah.”

And then I realize he’s actually proposing to do this.

There’s Leo and I’m lining up a shot of Leo’s butt with a candle. [laughs] Owie, owie, ah!

All you’d hear is this… [cackles loudly] …off camera, all day long.

[Scorsese cackles]

Wait, where are you eating sushi?

[Robbie] He was 70 when we did Wolf of Wall Street, and we were doing sometimes, like, 20hour days.

He just goes and goes and goes, and he’s laughing, and he’s so free.

If you’re passionate about a way to play a scene or a different direction in which the movie should go.

I’m like, “Let’s change this entire scene.”

He’s like, “Okay, let’s give it a try.”

[Robbie] He and Leo are just incredible collaborators, but I never felt excluded from it.

I remember this big sequence, we, like, rewrote it the night before.

Leo, Marty and me went into a room and, um… you know, like, “Oh, we’re shooting that scene tomorrow where my character comes in and asks for a divorce and, like… it feels a bit… It doesn’t feel right now, that she just comes in, asks for a divorce and then disappears from the movie.”

We pulled the books out and all that kind of stuff. And…

“Okay, what if this happened?”

We did that till 3:00 in the morning.

What happened in the script originally, I think, I came in, put down divorce papers and said, “I want a divorce.”

And then that was kind of it.

And what it ended up being is that, uh, we…

Oh, God. Ohohoh, God.

Oh, God. [exhales vocally] [Robbie] Jordan and Naomi are on the bed.

They end up having this, like, really strange sex.

[laughs] Oh, baby.

[laughing] That was so fucking great.

Oh, God.

[Robbie] They finish, and she’s just, like, hating him.

That was the last time.

What do you mean, baby?

I mean, that was the last time we ever have sex. I’m…

She’s like, “I want a divorce.”

And he’s like, “What?”

And they get into a massive fight.

I got news for you.

You’re not fucking taking my children…

Yes, I am, Jordan.

…you vicious fucking cunt.

Fuck you, you fucking bitch!

We were not afraid to do certain things in that film, including domestic violence.

Which everyone said, “Don’t do it.”

No, we’re gonna go all the way with this guy.

It’s what happens.

She gets in the way, he punches her.

Don’t you fucking touch me!

[door bangs]

Sweetheart, you’re coming on a trip with Daddy, all right?

[Robbie] He’s now in a coke rage.

He runs out, goes to grab our daughter.

Grabs her, I’m chasing after.

[Naomi] Get the fuck[Robbie] I’m banging down the door… and then he starts the car.

I get a crowbar, smash that.

[engine revving loudly]

[handbrake grinds]

[tires screech] [woman] Oh, my.

[Belfort] Oh!

Oh, my. Help. Get the baby.

Skylar!

[Robbie] And so, yeah, slightly different [laughing] than what it was originally gonna be.

And that was the night before.

[laughs] It’s just… Yeah, it was crazy.

[woman] Is she all right?

Is she all right?

[DiCaprio] The way he was able to portray these characters and be so honest about the dark side of the human condition.

Marty thinks that there’s those parts to all of us.

And I don’t think he judges them.

And he has no fear when it comes to exploring that dark side.

It’s meant to be provocative. I’m sorry, it just is. It’s meant to be provocative.

Because all we care about is getting fucking rich.

[Scorsese] Because that’s who we are.

That is who we really could be.

We have to accept that part of human nature is to take what the other person has instead of sharing.

Name of the game, move the money from your client’s pocket into your pocket.

Right. But if you can make the clients money at the same time, it’s advantageous to everyone. Correct?

No.

[Scorsese] The problem is the glamour of being able to do anything you want because you know how to screw people over for money.

[howls]

[Scorsese] But it’s not about money.

It’s not about sex.

And it isn’t about what the woman wants.

It’s what the man wants and his power.

It’s about power. It’s always about power.

[Mark Harris] The Wolf of Wall Street controversy happened in the social media era.

It was argued out minute by minute online.

But by the time the movie came out and played its run, a lot of people went.

[“Stoned and Starving” by Parquet Courts playing] There’s such an indecency about the way they behaved about money and what they’ve done to people.

The film should be that way.

It should reflect that state of mind.

We wanted to make…

Leo! Leo!

…make a portrait of, uh…

Leo! Leo!

…you know, our culture today.

[Miller] But Wolf of Wall Street was a huge hit.

[Scorsese] Yes, it was. Yeah.

Somehow we understood how screwed up everything was.

We were just watching this unfold.

A lot of these people who decimated our economy ultimately got bonuses, you know.

Into the fucking stratosphere!

[Yorn] Shortly after it came out, Leo and I had to go to Paris.

These young kids are walking by him doing the McConaughey.

We were so blown away.

That movie did so well in France.

It was Leo’s biggest movie ever in France.

So think about that. Bigger than Titanic and bigger than Inception, which were massive commercial movies.

To this day, box officewise, it’s Marty’s most successful movie.

[Francesca] Wolf of Wall Street is something…

like, people in my generation will literally have no idea who he is, but if you’re, like, “He directed Wolf of Wall Street.” “Oh, he’s the director of Wolf of Wall Street.” Like, that sort of thing.

Then was when it got a bit crazier.

[Jon Stewart] Please welcome Martin Scorsese. [audience cheering, whistling] [cheering continues]

Wow.

[Stewart] Enjoy yourself.

[cheering continues]

[inaudible dialogue] [Francesca] He doesn’t like to get noticed, usually.

Like, we stopped going out to dinners ’cause people would just come up to us in the middle of dinner.

But there was one time when he came out with me and we just walked across the street and got pizza and I’ve never forgotten it, and it was the highlight of my life.

And I will always remember just sitting there.

Eating our pizza. Nobody bothered us.

And I took a picture of him with his little hat and it was great.

But yeah, there was really no privacy, and so, I think sort of like home or the office or work.

[Cathy Scorsese] He’s always doing something.

He’s never not doing something.

Even when he says he’s doing nothing, that’s not true.

We have to talk later.

I need three minutes with you to just…

So this is the first draft of the boards, very rough.

Get any revisions, and then we’ll polish it and then turn them around.

[Donnelly] He’s producing an enormous amount of things.

Filmmakers that he’s found and likes and wants to help, friends of his.

We’ve got anywhere from 20 to 40 projects that Marty is also producing, exec producing.

That’s interesting.

[Donnelly] And then there’s the Film Foundation.

There was never a time that Marty wasn’t advocating for film.

He will always be thinking about what films need to be restored and it’s not like work for him.

It’s just, you know, a second nature.

Marty saved Powell Pressburger films from extinction.

Dedicated himself to it.

He’s still doing it today.

[Scorsese] Film Foundation has been a part of at least 900 films so far.

There’s also the World Cinema Project which is a similar thing, only for films made in countries around the world that don’t have access or have the ability to restore, preserve, and that sort of thing.

[DiCaprio] It’s like imagining lost paintings that just disappear that nobody kept.

Nobody put up on the wall.

They just disappear for all time.

And his life’s work, as well as making movies, is about making the next generation truly understand what an important art form cinema is.

Um, we also need to coordinate with George Lucas’ office.

[Lisa Frechette] We’ve got the Film Foundation.

There’s feature films, there’s documentaries.

We’re now working on commercials.

There’s travel.

Ah! And that dentist.

You love the dentist.

I know. I like him. He’s a nice man.

It’s the only place I get some rest.

Give me a root canal, will you please?

[laughs] Seriously, you can’t do anything.

Root canal, you’re in a chair and they…

Well, they numb it and everything.

That’s a pain in the neck. But…

[sighs] You’re just, for an hour and a half, it’s like…

That’s it. I’m out of here.

[laughs] [Margaret Bodde] When I first started working for Marty as his assistant, I mean, he had a temper, right?

I mean, he would get really frustrated.

[interviewer] You used to get so angry in the making of a movie

that you would smash telephones.

It’s kind of satisfying.

What do you do?

Just smash them and break them?

Years ago, I used to do it a lot, becauseBut then it was ridiculous because I needed to use the phone.

[interviewer laughs]

Quite honestly.

[Bodde] It was not a happy place sometimes, especially mornings, when the car didn’t show up and he was late, and…

You know, I mean, it was kind of…

It could be very tense.

But the evolution was when we were working on Living in the Material World. People always say I’m the Beatle who changed the most.

But really that’s what I see life is about.

The point is… unless you’re Godconscious, then you have to change, because…

[Scorsese] I learned about meditation when we were doing the George Harrison film.

Pulling back and quieting the anger.

Quieting it.

The anger is still gonna be there, but keep the shouting down in the back of your head.

Say, “Okay, okay. We’re going to do this.”

You know?

And of course, through love, that’s the key.

[guffaws]

Look at this little chicken.

It’s definitely a gecko.

[Domenica CameronScorsese]

Cathy, Francesca and I, we each had a different dad.

Just based in terms of where he was in his life.

When I was little, he had this beard.

The big scary beard, and the intenAnd he would roll his eyebrows, sort of the angry, like, “Here I am.”

And he’s still got that.

You know, anger feeds the work.

But now there’s more…

…he’s more here.

Get those hearts away from my head.

[laughs] So I’ve only…

[man laughs] Yeah.

There you go. You’re good.

[Francesca] You know he tries, like, during family dinner, he tries to just, like, be more present and, you know, family dinner for us is really important.

[all laughing]

Mom! We have to hide you, quick.

No, no don’t hide her, give it to her.

Get in the closet.

[Francesca] And then we’d go in our family room.

Like, for a couple of hours after that, maybe watch a movie or just talk and spend time together.

[Francesca] Yeah. Would you wanna be a vampire? [man, on recording] It may be that I am doomed to be one of them.

You hear that?

[indistinct chatter]

[chuckles] Ow!

[indistinct dialogue]

[laughter] The anger could consume you, and it had, over the years. It has.

It has. I just

Some miracle I came out of it. You can’t live with yourself.

So the thing is, you’re gonna to have to live with yourself if you want to live.

[Francesca] He’s gotten a lot calmer…

[chuckles] as he’s gotten older.

But… he worries a lot about me, and I think that he also is just prone to worrying a bit because of my mom.

I’m gonna go to bed. Night, hon.

[Francesca] Not many people know that my mom is sick.

She did get Parkinson’s when she was 30, I think.

[swallows] So she had early onset Parkinson’s.

That was before she met my dad.

You would be around that office, right?

And then at one point you, I think, told me that you had sent… sort of a…

I won’t say a fan letter…

But, come on. It’s obviously what it is.

[slowly] You were… chasing me around your office.

I was not chasing you around, damn it.

No, no. It’s true.

You were, like, in the way, man.

I was trying to make a film.

[laughs] We’re making films here.

People see…

I mean, they look at him and they see, like, his films and they see awards and whatever, but… my mom’s a big part of his life.

One more.

[Francesca] When I was younger, it wasn’t really progressed.

And then as I got older, it just got a lot worse, and like, you know, she couldn’t really walk.

I mean, there’s been moments where he was on set and, like… [sighs] she’d fall and he would have to stop shooting and go to the hospital.

He would get so hopeless.

They’re so close.

[Helen] Mmm.

What do you need?

I wanted the…

What is that?

Mmm.

The

The… caThe calendar?

[enunciating slowly] The catalogue.

[enunciating slowly] The catalogue.

Oh, the catalogue.

Yeah.

But… [chuckles] do you have it here in this room?

[Cocks] That goddamn disease is so hard, you know?

But… he doesn’t act like it’s hard.

He seems to take it in stride.

I think it would be fair to say that if Marty hadn’t gone through all that, back in the day, he wouldn’t be able to be present in this way and so fully.

And he learned… that an artist can be selfish about his art, but doesn’t have to be selfish necessarily in his life.

[Scorsese] After Last Temptation of Christ, I had to go deeper.

I read Silence in September of ’89, I said, “I’ve got to make this.”

Questions the whole idea of what is the essence of this revolutionary, uh… thinking, of Christianity.

It’s a true story about the 17th century in southern Japan.

[speaks Japanese] [Scorsese] Where there was a great conflict between Catholic missionaries and the Japanese government.

Resulting in maybe 35,000 martyrs, people killed, ultimately.

What happens with, uh, Rodrigues, a missionary, is something else.

And I was interested in the way that some of the main missionaries that went there originally apostatized.

Which meant that they gave up their religion.

If you don’t apostatize, the prisoners will be hung over the pit until you do.

Their lives bleeding away, drop by drop.

[Ari Aster] Silence, more than just about, like, any film wrestles with the question of what it…

…truly means to be Christian.

As long as you don’t apostatize they cannot be saved.

[Aster] Our main character, who’s very arrogant, insisted that he would never apostatize.

But he did it to save other people.

The only Christlike gesture that character makes in the entire film, is to apostatize.

[Scorsese] I think he realizes the depth of what Jesus is asking for.

Asking him to do… uh, to be, who he’s gonna be.

Here’s a story where a guy by the end of the story denies the Christianity he is preaching.

And in so doing, he finds the real Christianity.

So what is that?

[Miller] It’s also the loss of his pride, isn’t it?

Oh, the whole key is ultimately humility.

That’s

The learning of humility.

[Miller] Yes.

[Scorsese] That’s the beauty of that story.

[Aster] One thing that I think is really notable about the film is the epilogue.

The film ends as this, like, love story between the priest and Kichijiro, who’s this wretch.

[rowdy chatter]

[shouts in Japanese]

[crockery smashes] He does terrible things.

He’s a traitor, right? And, um, selfish.

[shouts in Japanese]

This guy keeps doing the same thing over and over again, you know.

Keeps, uh, wanting to be out there and to be a Christian and then rats on everybody, including the priest.

[Miller] And it’s also the Johnny Boy, kind of, character, right?

Yeah. Well, that’s Judas, too, the Johnny Boy.

You know, Kichijiro, Johnny Boy.

He’s the sinner.

Yeah.

I am sorry for being so weak.

[Aster] I think Marty identifies with Kichijiro more than with the other characters in the film.

Help me, Padre. Take away the sin.

[Scorsese] Jesus said, “Why should I be hanging out with the high priests and everybody? They’re all fine.

The ones who really need the help are the sinners.”

[Aster] You see it in Mean Streets. You see it in Raging Bull. You see it in Goodfellas. And I think it reaches a sort of apogee with Silence of extending that kind of sympathy on such a wretched person.

Kichijiro, he’s the one who teaches.

Because, uh, by the end… it’s almost as if, um, Jesus works through him to teach Rodrigues of what love really is and forgiveness and compassion.

[Miller] Do you still think of yourself as a Christian?

Yes, I think so.

I really believe so, yeah.

I had to reject it, find it, reject it again, try to find it, and then finally find some kind of comfort with it.

I think we will all have doubt, fear…

But by the time you understand your faith, you’ll be dead.

So really, it’s… it’s…

It’s moving around a room and touching and trying to find

In the dark.

The only thing is you keep making progress.

[Aster] More and more, his films feel really haunted to me.

I mean, especially The Irishman. I hadn’t worked with De Niro from Casino to The Irishman, it’s a long time.

But Casino was the last of that type of thing, ’cause Irishman is different.

Even if the milieu is similar.

[patrons scream]

[man] Fuck. Shit.

[Scorsese] It’s a different thing.

[Pileggi] Marty looks for material that allows him to bring all of himself to it, and you could see it with The Irishman as the… this outsider, retiring and about to die.

The most memorable stuff is Bob seeing his kids abandon him.

Peggy, Peggy. I just want to talk. Pe[Pileggi] I mean, the price you pay for that idiotic vainglorious life that he thought he was living.

[Schoonmaker] And there, you see the toll.

Bob De Niro all by himself, alone in an old age home.

Doesn’t even know when Christmas is. He’s alone.

And he’s paid for it.

His mercy endures forever.

His mercy endures forever.

All right, Frank.

I’m going to be back to visit. Okay?

Very soon, probably after the Christmas holiday.

Oh. Oh, okay.

Frank, God bless you.

You too. Thank you.

It’s Christmas?

Almost.

Oh, I ain’t going nowhere.

When Bob first gave me the book, he sort of broke down and cried.

People getting older.

That’s what the book had in it.

I said, you know…

[Scorsese] That all this, all they went through, ultimately we all have to face the same thing.

We have to face our extinction.

[intro to “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones playing] [DayLewis] The Irishman was working on me in sort of a parallel theme the whole time.

You see these wonderful people after all these years doing this work together.

[De Niro] The things we’ve done together, I’m so grateful that we happened to be…

When you think about it, we were two kids who kind of were aware of each other downtown.

And all of a sudden, this whole thing happened.

It’s kind of… amazing.

♪ Ooh, a storm is threatening ♪

♪ My very life today… ♪

I think Marty just has a real commitment to that… to what he’s doing.

It’s not going to change for him.

God bless him.

♪ War, children ♪

♪ It’s just a shot away

It’s just a shot away… ♪

[DiCaprio] There’s a lot of great filmmakers out there but I think he would do it for free, you know?

[chuckles] I think he would be a filmmaker no matter what.

Cinema consumed him at such an early age and it never left him.

♪ Burns like a red coal carpet ♪

♪ Mad bull lost your way ♪

♪ War, children ♪

♪ It’s just a shot away

It’s just a shot away… ♪

[Miller] Do you feel like, now, that each film has a different…

Um, you know, you can’t give all of yourself to every film, sort of… in the same way, or you would probably…

Well, that’s what my doctor told me.

…die.

Dr. Klein, yeah.

He told me that 20 years ago.

He said, “Marty, you can’t do that every time. You won’t survive it.”

We’re going to move it according to the drone, the whole unit.

[Scorsese] I found it very difficult to be without directing or without creating a movie for long periods of time.

Three, then… two, one, and then two, we got it all.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that was great.

[song continues]

[Scorsese on set] Where are we going?

From the same place?

Do you want to go from “Ernest Burkhart…”?

Sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

What’s happening?

You ready?

[crew] Cameras are set.

Okay, and action!

♪ Rape, murder ♪

♪ It’s just a shot away

It’s just a shot away ♪

♪ Rape, murder ♪

♪ It’s just a shot away

It’s just a shot away ♪

♪ Mmm, a flood is threatening ♪

♪ My very life today ♪

♪ Gimme, gimme shelter ♪

♪ Or I’m gonna fade away ♪

♪ War, children ♪

♪ It’s just a shot away ♪

♪ I tell you love, sister ♪

♪ It’s just a kiss away ♪

♪ It’s just a kiss away

Kiss away, kiss away ♪

[song fades]