Martin Scorsese at the time of "GoodFellas"

My friend Brian Koppelman has a piece up at Grantland as part of its "Oscar Travesties" mini-series, called "The Boning of Goodfellas." It treats, of course, what a sham of a mockery of a sham it was that Kevin Costner's more do-gooderish Dances With Wolves swept the Oscars for 1990. While I feel Brian's pain, I can't share his indignation, for a number of reasons. But reading his feisty, funny, and for all that entirely evenhanded piece, I couldn't help recall the very first time I met Martin Scorsese, which was in late 1989, when he was in the very final stages of editing what was then called Good Fellas. 

At the time I was an editor at Video Review magazine, self-advertised on its covers as "The World Authority On Home Entertainment." The book was about to celebrate its tenth anniversary, and I, having worked my way up from editing the magazine's very tech-wonky equipment test reports (I swear I've forgotten more about this technology than most people have ever known), was one of several staffers deputized to fetch prognosticating soundbites and in some cases full essays from luminaries literary, cinematic, and otherwise. (J.G. Ballard: "I look forward to the day when specialty video producers—the equivalent of Sun Records and the like in the music business 20, 30 years ago, and the equivalent of small publishers in the book trade—really can begin to reach out to the public." Paula Abdul: "The big movie musical will return to prominence in this decade, as recording artists take the video music concept one step further.") I had already fielded essays by Paul Slansky and Dave Barry and of course the idea of approaching Martin Scorsese to do one was a no-brainer. I contacted his office and laid out our idea and terms (which were pretty good) and got a guardedly enthusiastic response from Scorsese's then-assistant. Two issues were of concern: Scorsese's schedule, which was tied up in finishing his latest film, and Scorsese's comfort level with respect to sitting down and writing something. Not a problem: I could come up to Scorsese's office with a legal pad and a tape recorder and go over the topics we wanted to cover, I'd draft an essay out of it, he'd dictate changes where necessary, then approve, and there we were. Deal, Scorsese's assistant said. 

It was right before the Christmas holiday when I went up to Scorsese's office, which was then in the Brill Building. The man immediately struck me as, sure, intense, but also warm, friendly, considerate. Not at all intimidating. We talked about the work in progress, and he invoked the old television series The Untouchables, in terms of both the pace and the brutality. The last thing on his mind was Oscars; there was a sense, almost palpable, of his delight that he was trying something really new for him, and also a slight sense of trepidation, as in "what are they gonna make of this?" And of course the work was consuming. "I ran into Paul Schrader in the hall the other day, he's finishing his movie. I said to him, 'It figures I see you here, we're the only two guys who are gonna work through Christmas'," Scorsese said, laughing the slightly nervous laugh he had back then.

We settled in to his private office and got started. He mostly stood and paced, and sometimes took a hit off of his inhaler—his asthma was acting up a little—and I'd just suggest a specific topic and off he would go. It did not take all that much more than an hour, and when we were through, I asked him to sign my copy of the then-new interview book Scorsese on Scorsese, published by Faber. I'm sitting here looking at it now; he inscribed it "To Glenn Kenny/Thanks & appreciation/Martin Scorsese/1989."

The piece came out well, I think. I was more interested in preserving Scorsese's voice than in making it work as an essay, and it shows, but I don't think that's necessarily bad. In subsequent years I would commission and edit other essays by him for Premiere, including his double obit for James Stewart and Robert Mitchum called "The Men Who Knew Too Much;" by this time, his comfort level with respect to prose writing had increased, so our interaction was a more simple matter of request and acknowledgement. 

In any case, the piece called "The Second Screen" has always held a special place for me, and even though it is now an extremely anachronistic look at the technology that has, indeed, transformed cinema and cinephilia, I think it still bears reading. So, without permission, I've inputted it into document form from my old and increasingly raggedy copy of the April 1990 edition of Video Review magazine, and am reproducing it here below the jump. Enjoy. 

The Second Screen

An Acclaimed Director Tells How Home Video Has Changed The Way We Watch Movies—and the Way He Makes Them

 By Martin Scorsese

            I first heard about home video around 1978 or ‘’79, and I recall my friend Jay Cocks (who writes for Time and is just as much a film enthusiast as I am) and I thinking that it was some sort of blessing. The idea that we could go into a store and pick up a paperback-sized cassette of a favorite movie, take it home and put it on the shelf like a book—well, it was a childhood dream of ours, the idea that you could have a whole wall of your favorite films.

            Prior to video, I used to screen pictures all the time, either in a screening room in 35mm or at my home in 16mm. And I still do that, because I feel that the best way to see a movie is as a film, on a screen. I remember doing a lot of screenings when I lived in Los Angeles in the mid-‘70s. Many of the directors from that time would come over, and we showed all kinds of movies. There was a really great exchange of ideas from doing that, and the whole thing was like one long salon—a film salon rather than a literary salon.

            With video, this kind of exchange is easier. For example, I’ll be talking with my daughter and I’ll bring up Karl Freund’s The Mummy. She hasn’t seen a lot of pictures from that era or genre, so if we want to look at it, video makes it possible for me to say, “Oh, great, I have the laser disc right here,” and we’ll throw that on and look at a scene or two or maybe at the whole movie. That might lead us into other great horror movies of that time, and also into other directors—from Freund we can cross-reference to James Whale, who made such great movies as The Bride of Frankenstein.

            So having instant access to movies, being able to pick something up and show it at the drop of a hat, is great. That’s the biggest thing. The improving quality is also very important. With the advent of bigger screens, better home sound and the growing popularity of laser discs, you can almost reproduce, in your home, the theater experience. I’m hopeful that this will change the way people watch movies on home video. If you’ve got a room in the house with a big-screen monitor and surround sound, maybe you’ll start watching movies like movies. In other words, you don’t talk to your friends, you don’t take phone calls, you don’t get up and go to the kitchen and come back. You watch it like you’re in a theater.

            Because that’s the biggest drawback of video. It encourages a shorter attention span. And there are certain films you have to be very careful about. Take Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. It’s an extraordinary film, and the Criterion laser disc of it is wonderful. I showed some of it to Powell, who was amazed by the quality of it and how beautiful it looks. But here is a movie that, unless you watch it straight through from beginning to end, you lose the emotion. Now for many years I’ve been following the progress of Colonel Blimp, and the many mutilated versions of it that have circulated, and it’s a miracle to me that this restored version is accessible to so many people now. But when you watch it on video, just please make sure you can sit through the whole two hours and 45 minutes in one sitting, with maybe one little break, because it has an overall emotional effect that’s so strong, it stays with you.

            The shorter attention span encouraged by television and video also affects, I think, how movies are made today. Your shots have to go faster. You realize sometimes as you’re making a film that today’s audience may not sit for a shot of a certain length. This may not change the way I’ll make a picture. Whatever the pace, if it’s right for the shot or scene, that’s the way it’s got to be—as in The Last Temptation of Christ, where a number of sequences take on the tone and mood of the desert. When I was in Morocco I got a real sense of timelessness, of everything moving at 120 frames per second—extreme slow-motion, almost like a trance. That’s part of the effect that I wanted from the movie, and it’s part of the reason the movie is two hours and 46 minutes long. I decided that certain elements of Temptation would be fast, fine. But in the desert, there’s a sense of mysticism you experience that often comes in a trancelike manner. With the combination of images and sound effects and Peter Gabriel’s music, I tried to re-create that mood in certain places. As for my new film, Good Fellas, even if it’s 2 ½ hours long, I’m hopeful it will be one of the fastest-paced pictures ever made, because it tells a story in a style heavily influenced by documentary TV reporting and these new tabloid shows.

            While I don’t let video change the way I pace my movies, I have always been aware that because of the subject matter of a lot of my pictures, they would more than likely find a bigger audience on cable or video than they would in theaters. A very intense movie like Taxi Driver would, of course, have to be cut to be put on network TV, because after all it’s going into people’s homes unsolicited. When we made it, we made it the best we could for the big screen, and if it ever showed up on television, they would have to do what they had to do to make it palatable. When cable came along, that meant people could see it in full. And I knew, making movies like After Hours or The King of Comedy, that they would probably be seen by more people on home video. (That’s also the case with The Last Temptation of Christ, although we never expected the kind of anger and resentment and violent reaction we got. We expected some difficulty at times, but not to that extent.) And that affected my compositions somewhat.

            This may change in the future. The public has to be continually re-educated about the importance of maintaining a movie’s original aspect ratio on home video. How do you do this? Well, I don’t think that academic arguments really convince people. To say that they’re missing “more information in the frame” isn’t enough. You have to say what this really means, which is they’re missing out on more entertainment. If the viewer’s not seeing the whole picture, he’s not getting the full enjoyment. That’s the thing. Take the letterboxed laser disc of Die Hard. It’s very different from the cropped or scanned versions on cable or videocassette. A great deal of the strength of pictures by directors like John McTiernan [Die Hard] and James Cameron [Aliens, The Abyss] is in their technical prowess, how they handle sound and editing, how one picture cuts to the next, how one sound cuts to the next. To fully enjoy those strengths, you’ve got to see the whole picture. Looking at a scanned version—well, if you cut from half a frame to half a frame, you’re going to lose the full effect of the movie.

            Now that laser discs are introducing letterboxing and, I hope, showing the public that the best possible way of looking at a film at home is in its original aspect ratio, I think from now on I’m going to start shooting in Panavision, and really use the frame in the way Sam Fuller and Nick Ray did—not to mention Max Ophuls in the best widescreen movie of them all, Lola Montes. That’s just the most remarkable use of widescreen. And of course there’s Anthony Mann. If I could ever go near what Mann did with his wide images in movies like El Cid or The Fall of the Roman Empire…And now I know that when I shoot in Panavision, there will be at least one video version that will be true to what I shot.

            I also like to use video as an education tool. It’s ideal for that. I did a lecture at NYU about a year ago, where I showed the storyboards I drew for the fight scenes in Raging Bull on a screen and compared them to how the actual movie came out. In some cases it was absolutely identical. I put the storyboards up on a screen and I showed the video and said, “That shot corresponds to this one, shot number one, and that cuts to this,” and it was exactly as storyboarded by me.

            In another case, the fight scene in which Sugar Ray Robinson gives Jake LaMotta that horrible beating in the final bout between them, during round 13—“the hard luck round,” as the fight announcer puts it—I showed how the final version differed from the storyboards. That ruthless beating, about 20 seconds of film, took 10 days to shoot. And during the editing, we put it together the normal way, shots one, two, three, four and so on—it was a total of 36 setups. We realized after we put it together that we had our structure, but we then discovered other values of movement, lighting, special effects, and started juggling the shots. And it was very interesting to show these film students, through the use of video and my original storyboards, exactly what was done.

            You could never show something like that before home video. When we were film students we were extremely lucky to get 16mm prints to show. I remember these essentially well-meaning kids who weren’t really crazy about film but took film courses anyway. They would get a hold of this beautiful 16mm print of Citizen Kane, put it through a Movieola and go back and forth over and over because they were doing a term paper on it and needed to see where all the dissolves were in the opening sequences. Of course the print got all scratched up. Those prints of Citizen Kane are now gone. And these kids all went on to be doctors or lawyers or whatever—they didn’t even go into film! Now you can get a tape or disc of it and study it that way, and nothing gets hurt.

            Finally, the way video gives a new life to some great films is very important. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is an excellent example. So is another Powell/Pressburger film, The Red Shoes, which, since its restoration and video release, is on its way to becoming a perennial favorite in the tradition of The Wizard of Oz and It’s a Wonderful Life.

            Video also can educate film students and enthusiasts about the neglected masters. I read an article in a magazine recently that lists all the Anthony Mann movies on video, and I think that’s great too. A lot of film students today have no reason to know who Anthony Mann was or what he did. So to have video making all these things so readily attainable, for people to learn from and enjoy, is all for the good in the end.

Comments

[Oliver_C]

I intend to spend Oscars night immersed in theyshootpictures.com's updated (2013) poll of polls for the 1000 greatest films. Hours without a single mention of 'Dances with Wolves' or red-carpet footage of Tom Hooper's face.

http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000.htm

[Mr. Wu]

Interesting to read Mr. Scorcese's comments on The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and see how this story continues from 1989 to today. Mr. Scorcese, along with his editor Thelma Schoonmaker (Michael Powell's widow), have championed the restoration and preservation of many important films, and particularly those of Powell and Pressburger. Ms. Schoonmaker brought the restored 35mm print of Colonel Blimp to the Seattle Art Museum about this time last year. What an exquisite, beautiful experience that was to see that picture--as Mr. Scorcese says in your essay--on film and projected on a screen. 2:45 in one sitting packs an emotional whollop; he is not kidding. Martin Scorcese's movies are great and will be long remembered -- but I also believe his efforts at ensuring these films are preserved, and most importantly available to be seen, is an equal part of his continuing legacy.

[David Ehrenstein]

Very nice Marty memory, Glenn. I first met him in 1963 when he was teaching graduate courses at NYU and trying to get his first feature "Who's That Knocking Ay My Door" into production. We ran with a prodigious group of film reaks that included Jim McBride and L.M. Kit Carson. This was the pre-video era, when you actually had to go to theaters to see movies -- and New York had a wealth of theaters to go to.
The "Times Square" theater on42nd street in the pre-Disney era was a particular fave in thagt we could see double features of John Ford, Budd Boetticher and Anthony Mann westerns for less than a dollar. Godard RULED, needles to say -- especially "Contempt" (whose great score is memorably sampled in "Casino")

http://www.amazon.com/The-Scorsese-Picture-Life-Martin/dp/1559721529

He has over the years become quite adept with the inhaler. I've seen him whip it out and take a hit so fast as to be virtually invisible. His laugh is infectious. His love for cinema is boundless. "Goodfellas" continues his exploation of Italian-American life that began with the quite innocent and non-gang-connected "Who's That Knocking." But I think his most personal film is "Hugo."

[Tom Russell]

On twitter the other evening the director Ti West was lamenting how making it easier for people to see movies was making them more disposable, "people used to have to dress up to go to the theater to see a movie or they might never get to see it", etc. I wish I had the above Scorsese-via-Kenny essay on hand at that time. Thanks for sharing this, Glenn.

[Petey]

"While I feel Brian's pain, I can't share his indignation, for a number of reasons."

How often does the 'correct' picture win the Oscar®?

I mean, go back 20 years, and you can only make even an ARGUABLE case for 2007 and 1997. That's not very good odds.

-----

I first saw Goodfellas opening night at Grauman's Chinese, and it remains a notably memorable viewing experience.

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

I'm curious---how do you think it's anachronistic? I mean, sure there's no laserdiscs nowadays, but otherwise his ideas– that a wall of movies would be both a collector's delight and a status object, that preserving attention span would be a challenge, that home conditions would get ever-closer to theater conditions, that obscure movies would become accessible again– seem pretty accurate.

[Glenn Kenny]

C'mon, the tenor of the aspect ratio discussion is a little out of time, too....but yes, there's also a strong element of not -illogical prescience here too...

[Pete Apruzzese]

What a blast from the past. I vividly remember that essay - especially the section about his daughter and The Mummy and the aspect ratio section.

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

Yeah, the aspect ratio discussion is a marvelous reminder of that particular battle. It still amazes me that letterboxing won---I remember seeing those "You're only getting half the picture!" signs in video stores and thinking the attempt to convince the hoi polloi that they should accept a smaller image because it was artistically correct was a noble but doomed struggle. Rarely have I been so glad to have underestimated the American public.

[Josh Z]

I seem to remember Scorsese being the pitch-man for a line of video projectors (of the CRT variety) back when those things were far out of the reach of all but the most hardcore of video enthusiasts.

[gabriel]

Interesting about his lower "comfort level with respect to prose writing" in those days, cause over the years he's certainly evolved into one exquisite critic as per his DirecTV/TCM columns for instance, some of the best and most underrated film writing today imo.

[David Ehrenstein]

Quite true. Had he not become a film director Marty would have made a first-rate film critic.

[Shawn Stone]

The aspect ratio problem is still around, just reversed: Now it's academy ratio films that get screwed up. Especially since whatever rep screenings still exist (especially out here in the provinces) are mostly DVD or Blu-ray.

A few weeks ago I went to a screening of A NIGHT AT THE OPERA at which the projectionist thought it a swell idea to squish the 1:37 to 1:85.

Never mind the home viewer adjusting the square image so it "looks right."

[gabriel]

David, I bought your Scorsese book at a Paris bookstore back in 1997/1998, at around the same time Glenn's name caught my eye in a piece about Kundun he did for Premiere. Still one of the best edited books on its subject, I remember it being the first place I heard about Scorsese's project to do Silence (on Endo's book, which I bought and read around a year later!)

[Tom Block]

20th Century-Fox put out a series of action movies--the one I remember for sure was "The Last of the Mohicans"--that really pushed the letterbox "complete pic" angle; when I saw a big display case of them in Blockbuster I knew we'd turned a corner. I too am amazed it caught on so easily; the battle over colorization hadn't been *that* far in the past at the time.

[David Ehrenstein]

Merci, Gabriel. Looks like Marty's FINALLY getting around to "Silence." It's a very strange, intense book, and a film version has no "commercial appeal" that I can see.

[Jean-Michel]

"The aspect ratio problem is still around, just reversed: Now it's academy ratio films that get screwed up."

And 2.39:1 films are so commonly cropped or opened up to 16:9 for TV broadcast that I eventually dropped my premium cable subscriptions. DVRs are a godsend for watching movies on TV, but I eventually got sick of checking out something I'd DVRed the week before and discovering it was yet another "reformatted" 'Scope film.

[bgn]

Scorsese will be giving the next Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities:

http://www.neh.gov/news/press-release/2013-02-19