In Conversation with Rolex Testimonee Martin Scorsese
But as well as inspiring you, he also transferred his vast film knowledge, yes?
I remember going to his class, once a week, for about three or four hours because he’d show a film. I had to hang on to every word because he went very quickly. He would get on this little stage and start going through the history, mentioning names, films, showing clips of the life of an American fireman and intolerance and that sort of thing. And so you learn about parallel editing, you learn about the development of sound, you learn about German expressionism. Whether or not he intended it, he did provoke you. But by arguing with you and by being very clear in his opinions, it made you able to find a way to discuss, defend and support your argument.
What satisfaction do you get from being a mentor?
As a mentor, you’re experiencing the art through the student.
And somehow that comes back to you. And there’s an incredible satisfaction, the fact that you’re able to make someone else flower, in a sense. I always get excited by all the young people coming up to me and suggesting they want to make a certain kind of film and I guide them as best I can. When I see whatever they do, it means something to me [knowing] I had a little to do with that. It keeps me alive creatively.
If they go further off than where I thought they were going to go, that’s fascinating. I may not like all of it, but I had the ability at that time to help shape something. The beauty of it is maybe five years later, you see something they did that you had nothing to do with, but you were possibly involved because you had helped them in their first films. It re-inspires you to make your own work. Or, if not the inspiration of how to do something, because that’s very subjective, more the inspiration of the work itself. A person going through this process and delivering something to many people so that they could find out more, or at least be immersed in what it means to be a human being. That’s really what it’s about. Now some may be more successful than others, but some of the less successful ones still have value. It’s about the value of the work. AM