THE GOOD FELLA
Martin Scorsese doesn’t just Make great films — he inspires others to Make great films too. three top British directors Share with Empire the impact he has had on their careers and lives
JOANNA HOGG ARCHIPELAGO, THE SOUVENIR
IN 1979 I was a photographer, thinking of becoming a filmmaker, when I saw my first Martin Scorsese film, New York, New York.
One of the key things at that time was my love of musicals. There was something about how Martin takes the classic Hollywood musical but turns it into something contemporary, alive and obviously personal to him at that time. I just found the character De Niro played and his sparring with Liza Minnelli captivating — very funny at times but also very tragic. I love how the ‘Happy Endings’ musical number becomes its own entity but also acts as the film in microcosm — so much that it has inspired something I’ve done in The Souvenir: Part II.
Later I loved The King Of Comedy, the pitch-black humour of it. I know how it feels to be a fan of someone famous and there’s that risk you take when you ask for their autograph. I adored
Goodfellas and fell in love with Ray Liotta. I saw him in the Groucho Club and bravely went over to say how much I loved him in the film. He was in the middle of a business meeting and dealt with it relatively nicely, but it was humiliating. The King Of Comedy perfectly captured that kind of encounter: embarrassing and very funny.
Many people associate Martin with his bravura use of the camera, but it’s the humanity of the stories he tells: giving such profound insight into different worlds. The way he brings his characters to life — with all their insecurities and hang-ups. This is what I respond and relate to, and he does it with so much compassion and humour. On first viewing I’m not thinking about what the camera is doing. I’m just there with the characters. I am actually in that scene with Johnny Boy, Alice Hyatt, Rupert Pupkin or Henry Hill.
I came to his attention while he was making Hugo at Shepperton Studios. He wanted to see what British films were being made and someone gave him my second feature film,
Archipelago. I later learned that after five minutes he turned it off because it didn’t grab him. But fortunately after thinking about it, there was something that resonated with him and he revisited it.
I first met Martin in 2012 at a reception at Claridge’s when he was collecting a BAFTA Fellowship. He knows everything about movies but is also a font of knowledge about life. He’s tapped into what’s going on around him, which is why I believe his films never date — the man behind the films stays in touch.
While I was making Exhibition I felt comfortable enough to show him what I was working on. He rang me while I was on Tresco, Isles of Scilly, where I shot Archipelago. I was staying in a cottage and there was hardly any signal. I remember going up to the top floor and leaning out of the window to hear what he was saying. I was interested in every word, but it was the worst time, the worst place to have a conversation with him.
After Exhibition there was a point where I wondered what to make next. He was pivotal in helping me decide — it was between a ghost story and the film that became The Souvenir — and it felt completely natural to ask him to executive produce The Souvenir.
It’s a film about a filmmaker, about cinema. He has been incredibly helpful in lots of different ways, from giving feedback on music, on casting, to helping me decide on shooting formats.
The piece of advice he gave me that really stuck was not to be afraid of thinking on a grander scale. I like to keep my films intimate and small and not to let the budget get too big. His advice is not to be afraid of that: he reassures me things won’t change as much as I think. I do have one big idea in particular. I’m incredibly excited about it.
Jon S. Baird Stan & Ollie, Filth
As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a film director. And Martin scorsese was a huge part of that. The first movie I saw of his in the cinema was Goodfellas, and then I worked backwards and started to catch up. Pretty much everything I’ve made, including my first short film, It’s A Casual Life, has been influenced by a movie of his. for It’s A Casual Life, it was around the time of Gangs Of New York and I looked at the opening fight scene of that movie frame by frame. for my first feature film, Cass, a true story of a Jamaican orphan who got caught up in a violent life and had to redeem himself, Raging Bull and Mean Streets were two films I dipped in and out of a lot. Those films were raw and masculine, but with a redemptive edge. for Filth, the movie that really influenced the dark comedic tone was The King Of Comedy. but Goodfellas is a film that has influenced so many filmmakers. I opened Stan & Ollie with an elaborate tracking shot, and at the film’s premiere in LA I bumped into Paul Thomas Anderson, who had of course done that incredible tracking shot in Boogie Nights.
We chatted about our passion for Martin scorsese. for me, that all came from Goodfellas.
I first met Marty when we were doing Vinyl
together as I was lucky enough to be one of the directors. They said, “Mr scorsese will meet you now,” and I had to walk up a long corridor with one of the writers. It was like going to meet the Wizard of Oz. I said, “What’s he like?” They said, “He’s like someone doing an impression of Martin scorsese.” And that’s exactly what he’s like, with that rapid-fire way he talks so passionately about movies. He’s also extremely generous and an encyclopaedia of film. I told him, “You made a movie that made me want to expand as a filmmaker, and to try different tonal shifts.” You could see the look in his eyes. He clearly gets that a lot, and I’m sure was expecting me to say Taxi Driver or Raging Bull. but I said The King Of Comedy, which is actually my favourite scorsese movie, and I think that’s what got us off to a brilliant start. We ended up speaking for an hour about The King Of Comedy and how he and De Niro picked rupert Pupkin’s suit off a mannequin in a dodgy shop on broadway. I joked with him that I felt like rupert Pupkin to his Jerry Lewis.
After that, I got very close to Mr s and since then he’s given me incredible advice on Stan & Ollie, he’s introduced screenings for Oscar voters, and I flew over last month to ask for his thoughts on a new project I’m doing. He really is a guiding light, not only with the films he’s done, but as a person. And I’ve got his number on speed-dial. I’m very, very blessed to have that.
BEN WHEATLEY FREE FIRE, HIGH RISE
SCORSESE WAS THE first director I recognised as a director. The entry point was Taxi Driver, which I came to through De Niro. I didn’t know who Scorsese was. I thought it had something to do with Danny Devito and Taxi, the TV show. But when I saw it, the floor opened up for me. It felt like it attacked me through the screen. It was a gritty ’70s film, but at the same time an arthouse movie. It was a vigilante movie, but a French New Wave movie. It was a major moment. I started to realise what a cineaste filmmaker was — someone who loves cinema, and made films which were a reaction to it, rather than just mashing other people’s ideas together. He was in conversation with the American cinema of the ’40s and ’50s, and the arthouse European cinema, Japanese cinema, Italian cinema. It was a filter for all those things. Through the focus of his taste my own taste got formed to a degree.
A few years ago, someone came up to me at an Empire Awards party and said, there’s an interview in The Telegraph and Scorsese mentioned Kill List as a film he’d enjoyed. I said, a) that’s crazy and b) if that’s true I’m over the moon. And he had mentioned Kill List, and Archipelago, and Andrea Arnold’s Red Road. That’s when he was making Hugo over here, and had asked to see what up-and-coming British filmmakers were up to. I went to my American agents, who represented Scorsese, and said, “If there’s any chance of meeting him, can it be arranged?” They said yes. And so I finally met him during the press tour for Sightseers. I chatted to him for a couple of hours, which was basically the highlight of my film career. It’s a bizarre thing to meet someone you have coffee-table books about. I’ve never really been starstruck, but it felt very heightened with him. We talked about films and general stuff. I came out of it on a high.
After that, we stayed in touch. He gave us a lovely quote on A Field In England and then we got chatting to Emma Tillinger [Koskoff ], who is his producer. They were looking for films to executive produce, so we sent over the script for Free Fire over and they said, “Let’s do it.” Working with him was very easy. He never came down to Brighton, down the old Argus building round the back of Marks & Spencer. He let us make the film without interference. When it was done, I took the film to New York and sat in the screening room at Sikalia, his production company, and showed it to him. He had notes on clarity and making sure things were clear, and the use of music. He was very encouraging and it’s a style of exec producing I’ve tried to use. It’s about help, and not giving tons of notes.
When you meet guys like that, you realise that they are in the epicentre of cinema. They’re the bridging generation who met the founders of cinema. When he was 25, 30, he met people who’d been in Hollywood since near the beginning. As a film fan, this is it, this is the whole thing embodied in one human. For me, he’s probably the greatest living filmmaker.