Martin Scorsese interview
Posted:
26 Feb 2010
The prolific director talks to Dave Calhoun about philosophy, scary caterpillars and his lifelong love of cinema.
Martin Scorsese’s new film, Shutter Island, is a 1950s-set thriller with a Hitchcockian B-movie flavour, whose gloomy mystery unfolds in a mental asylum on an island in Boston harbour. Scorsese talks fast, darting back and forth over his career, mapping out his life in films and finishing sentences with a flash of a smile and a roaring laugh. He sits deep in the sofa, his trademark thick-rimmed glasses on his nose, a small embroidered ‘MS’ on the belly of his shirt. He’s a model of polite efficiency but there’s also a hint of turmoil in his talk, as if the dark themes of Shutter Island have rubbed off on him, or vice versa.
Shutter Island looks like it was fun to make…
I thought it would be a fun picture to make. But it turned out to be rather disturbing. Because of the subject matter. And the nature of the different levels we have to go through. But that’s the nature of filmmaking. You never know. Something that you think is going to be absolutely horrible to make actually turns out to bring you a great deal of enjoyment.
I’m going to quote something back to you that you said in 1976 during an interview with Roger Ebert about Taxi Driver…
Good lord!
You dismissed the idea of realism on film, saying, “Every film should look the way I feel.”
Oh, hey, I still agree with that.
How did that apply to Shutter Island?
I’m not feeling so great! [Loud laugh] I’m not. I’m feeling… well, you know. My personal life and my family is good, thank God, everything’s moving along. But, no, Shutter Island reflects how I feel.
Even back to the choice to film Dennis Lehane’s dark novel?
No. But once I read it, I had to do it. It was like a moth to the flame. It’s a chance to go deeper with a character, to walk a tightrope stylistically and to deal with parts of myself, parts of being human that other projects didn’t allow me. I may not want to go there but I’ve simply got to go there.
The film has a major twist at the end. Up until then, it’s something of a shaggy-dog story, keeping us hanging to the end.
But that’s life, isn’t it? [Another loud laugh] It may very well be life, for all we know. I don’t mean to be sitting here being so glibly ‘philosophical’, but as you get older… What is? And who is? And who are you? It’s Alice in Wonderland. Who… are… you? That’s the caterpillar, remember? Why is it so disturbing when the caterpillar asks her that? I remember showing it to my daughter when she was five, six years old. She did not like that caterpillar saying, “Who… are… you?” [Laughs loudly again]. But it’s interesting with this film because all the clues are there through the entire picture and I think, without giving away too much, if you see it and you don’t know anything, and you do at least find it satisfying by the end, you might then want to go back and see it a second time or a third time.
It recalls several of Hitchcock’s films – The 39 Steps, North by Northwest.
The 39 Steps maybe. But I showed my colleagues his The Wrong Man, which is slightly different. The main character in that is innocent but he feels guilt for who he is. In his core, he is guilty. This interests me. I was raised Catholic and I’m interested in that aspect of ourselves. It has to do with guilt or a concept of original sin, if it exists. All these aspects always come to mind. It’s who I am and what I do. I try to be hipper but I can’t.
You’re hip enough.
No, I’m not! [Laughs]
Does being hip concern you?
I think that listening to other people’s opinions and being open-minded to other ways of thinking concerns me.
You fear being conservative?
Yeah – because as you get older you may not want that many changes, but one has to be open-minded about so many things. Particularly when you have younger children. You’re almost excited to know what other people think. And if by reading or by somehow coming into contact with other ways of thinking, whether it’s philosophical or historical, you can enrich your life, that’s interesting.
And cinema must have played a huge part in that for you.
It has, but it’s played more of a part in keeping my curiosity alive about life and about humanity and who we are. In other words, it covers everything from being open to music, literature, philosophy of any kind that my little mind, what’s left of it, can understand.
Where do you watch movies?
A screening room, part of the editing facilities I have. I do have a very state-of-the-art DVD screening room at home. A very big screen. It’s very difficult for me to go to theatres these days. Also, when I did go a few years ago, the nature of the audience, the noise – it’s not taken seriously. And it hurts. I mean comedies too. There’s an attitude, there are phones going off, people talking. It’s crazy.
Shutter Island opens Thu 11.
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