By Arthur Bell / The Village Voice (Originally published on August 18, 1975)
Proofreading: Issac
The translation was first published in "Iris"
Wearing a travel jacket, open-neck silk shirt, jeans and expensive Italian loafers, Martin Scorsese ran down East 13th Street before sticking his head into a Cheek taxi and hitting the assistant director Gestures, the latter walked to a group of people behind a wooden blockade fence.
"Guys," he said, "please be quiet—we'll appreciate it. There will be gunshots later. Don't be afraid." A scruffy-looking woman nudged her companion. "They're making a movie about our slums," she said. At this point, the assistant director shouted, "Please be quiet!" and filming began.
Robert De Niro stepped out of the cab in a state of air and crossed the street to the door where a listless Harvey Keitel was standing. De Niro shoved Keitel. They yelled at each other.
De Niro then walked away, turned around, pulled a gun from his jacket, and started shooting. It sounded like the crash of the Hindenburg—so loud, in fact, that it didn't even sound like a gunshot.
After 30 minutes, the scene began to reshoot. This time, the gun didn't go off. After an hour, reshoot again. But De Niro was too close to Keitel to fire an empty bomb. On the sixth shot, Scorsese said, "Print it out." De Niro said, "Fuck." The assistant director yelled, "It's over."
This is Martin Scorsese's fifth feature film "Taxi Driver" (the first four are "Who's Knocking on My Door?", "The Human Torch", "Mean Streets" and "Once Upon a Difficulty"). It has been filming on the streets of Manhattan for nearly eight weeks.
In addition to the East Village, filming locations include Belmore Cafeteria (favored by taxi drivers); Columbus Circle, where a political rally for presidential candidates took place; and West 88th Street and Columbus of an abandoned apartment. A stranger to the set might think what he was seeing was a high-budget chaotic scene, but in reality, the event was highly orderly organized by Scorsese.
The film's plot is ostensibly similar to "Nashville," but it's unmistakably a New York story, and it's also clearly set in an urban setting. De Niro, the protagonist, is a Vietnam War veteran. Like most taxi drivers, he was seen as part of the car: people messing around in the back seat, dealing drugs; however, he was completely anonymous to his passengers.
In the course of his work, De Niro encounters an ambitious presidential campaign worker (Cybill Shepherd), a 14-year-old prostitute (Jodie Foster), and a pimp (Ha Wayne Keitel). At one point, he decided to assassinate the presidential candidate.
The result: instead, the victims were the drug dealers and pimps, who were also honored for heroic acts.
Martin Scorsese is a little concerned about how the film will be read. He worries that people will see similarities between Arthur Bremer's attempted assassination of George Wallace. But the fact that the target of the assassination was a presidential candidate doesn't really matter. The problem is psychological, not political.
The plot of the film is easy to summarize, but watching the homeless on East 13th Street makes you wonder how many would-be "taxi drivers" are roaming the city streets. Where did life begin and when did central casting companies stop working?
This was especially noticeable a few weeks ago when filming the breakfast scene at a pizzeria at the corner of 14th Street and Third Avenue. Prostitutes nearby were shoving staff, locals in Bowery were begging, and fighting broke out between homeless people.
Martin's parents, Kathryn Scorsese and Charlie Scorsese, sat outside the Variety Theater, proudly recounting their son's accomplishments to a good-natured street drug dealer.
Scorsese's mom was often on set, bringing humor and advice. She was a burly woman with silver hair, dressed in immaculate white clothes. Martin treats her like he treats Keitel: he pushes her and she bumps back without hesitation. Some say this quirky and friendly reciprocity is a lot like the relationship between Alice and her son on screen.
Between shoots, Martin chatted about the movie in his rest car. The films that influenced him the most were Kenneth Unger's Scorpio Rising, Duel in the Sun and John Ford's Westerns.
“When I was a kid, I used to go to the Academy of Music to watch Samuel Fuller movies. Adventures on South Street, Bamboo House and Forty Gun. I watch Park Avenue every night on Million Dollar Movie. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberg are great movies. I know that It may sound crazy, but my favorite is "The End of the Song". The movie was terrible in many ways, but I learned a lot about editing and camera movement from watching it over and over again. The doll dancing sequence It's so beautiful."
Born in Corona, Queens, Martin learned the basics of life on the streets of Little Italy, before partially training at a professional film school.
Would Martin consider himself a New York filmmaker—just as Paul Mazursky was a chronicler of the Southern California way of life? After all, Mean Streets not only captures the material soul of the city, but also touches the emotional pulse of its inhabitants. "I don't know," Martin replied, speaking at an alarming rate.
"New York has a full character in Mean Streets and Taxi Driver. I love the city and accept it as it is - good and bad. I love spraying water on summer nights and love the racial jokes the crew makes while filming here. You can't find them in LA."
Did "Once Upon a Distress" in Tucson take him out of New York, not New York out of his body? The film is the result of a joint effort by screenwriters Robert Getcher, Martin, and Ellen Burstyn, the latter of whom weaves many personal experiences into the film.
"If my film isn't autobiographical, then I'm sure I can empathize with some of the emotions in the characters. Otherwise, it would take too much energy to make a film, and if I'm not interested in the characters, I'm going to be in big trouble. "Even Barry Primus in Human Torch expressed my attitude and view of the world."
In all of his films, Martin's empathy -- even for the sleazy characters -- shines through. For example, in a scene from "Taxi Driver" filmed a few weeks ago, Jodie Foster told Harvey Keitel that she didn't want to be a prostitute anymore.
Instead of knocking Judy to the ground, Harvey picked her up and started dancing with her around the room. He told the little girl how much he needed her and how much he depended on her. What would have been a confrontation between a pimp and a prostitute suddenly turned into a love scene.
"It didn't really have much to do with the story structure, but it gave us a much deeper understanding of the two characters," Martin said. Couldn't Martin make a film that's cold and presumptuous, like one about a few years A pre-Houston massacre movie?
He pondered for a minute or two, frowned, and replied, "I'm afraid yes. For example, the murder scene in this film was shot in six days, and walking into the hallway where we were filming and seeing artificial blood was almost a day off. Worse one day. I'd be very upset."
An assistant interrupted us suddenly. "Martin," the assistant said, "do you want the cab to pull to the side of the road, or do you let it park side by side?" "That's crazy," Martin replied. "A little out into the street, front this way, back that way." Martin's body swayed from side to side. He seemed to want to find a drawing board to draw a schematic diagram of the taxi, just like he did every scene in the movie, but the assistant said "Got it" and left the rest car, at the same time, Michael Phillips came over And put down a couple of Taxi Driver's work t-shirts.
A few minutes later, Robert De Niro walked in and out like a pickpocket in the subway. De Niro is one of the greatest actors, but the public knows more about Garbo than he is. He avoided interviews, was a loner, and his private life was a mystery. why? Martin shrugged.
"He was always shy, even when he was 16 when we first met. When he was working, he would keep everyone and everything out. The same goes for Ellen Burstyn Yes. She doesn't talk to anyone. When we were filming 'Once Upon a Time', she was always alone trying to concentrate. I can understand that because I get distracted easily when I'm working. Bobby chose to stay In his rest car, that's it. I don't even bother him. I sometimes knock on his door. Ask him, 'Can I come in?' He might answer, 'Of course, of course.' He was left alone."
It was nearly midnight when we left the rest car, strolling down still-busy 13th Street. The old woman leaned her elbows on the pillow and looked out the window, looking out at the streetscape. Martin walked slowly to his mother. The two were talking playfully.
Ellen Burstyn stopped by the class after filming of "This Time Next Year" to see some of the reshoots. As time passed, the staff all became dizzy. There was black coffee everywhere, the footsteps were heavy, and the crowd started to thin. The smell of uncollected garbage fills the air. The horns of taxis also echoed in the air. One of the city's countless lost people is sitting in the gutter, gulping down the Rhinegold beer. He's just an extra. Movie time in New York.
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