(Berlin) Martin Scorsese left the press conference room, two meters away from me, and I realized how touched I had been by his words. However, it wasn't the first time I'd seen the filmmaker of Mean Streets and The Wolf of Wall Street. Yet Scorsese speaks about cinema with such passion and eloquence that I left the Hyatt Hotel on Potsdamer Platz touched and surprised.
Published yesterday at 7:45 p.m.
Well, it's a fact that I consider Martin Scorsese to be the greatest living filmmaker and I've seen all of his films, even his student shorts. I own a t-shirt with his name in the same font as the German pop metal band Scorpions. I assure you, I didn't wear it (it was too tight). I liked the picture that says “Ozu,” one of his favorite filmmakers, in Ozzy’s font…
I'm not the only one who adores Scorsese. Journalists waited in line for two hours to secure a place at the press conference. There was no one else at the Berlinale who was so enthusiastic, and of course the audience was already convinced in advance.
PHOTO JOHN MACDOUGALL, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
American director Martin Scorsese receives the Honorary Golden Bear from Mariette Rissenbeek, managing director of the Berlinale
The most film-loving American filmmaker received an honorary Golden Bear for his entire career at the presentation of “Departed (2006)” at the Berlinale Palast on Tuesday evening. This Wednesday at the Berlinale he will present “Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger,” a documentary in which he appears as narrator about the work of the filmmakers of “Red Shoes” (1948), a brilliant avant-garde musical tragicomedy.
Scorsese spoke at a press conference not about his favorite film, but about his work in film preservation (for the World Cinema Project), inspired by the Young Turks group he founded in the early 1970s with his friends Brian De Palma and Steven Spielberg and Paul Schrader.
We were looking for high-quality copies of old films that were hard to find. There was a mystique associated with it. There is a magic in discovering something new in the art of cinema, be it a John Ford or a Satyajit Ray.
Martin Scorsese
His eyes sparkle as he talks about discovering “new voices” on his journey as a film fan – Shirley Clarke, John Cassavetes, René Clair, Marcel Carné – and how they opened his eyes to the world. As an example, he cites the film “The River” by Jean Renoir, which he saw in his youth. “Later I realized that the characters in Pather Panchali [de Satyajit Ray] were extras in European films shot in India. You see what I mean? »
Martin Scorsese grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in a modest, non-intellectual environment. There were no books in his parents' house, to which he dedicated a wonderful medium-length documentary, Italianamerican, in 1974 (his mother Catherine also had a small role in Goodfellas). It came about, he recalls, through the discovery of European cinema, particularly Italian neorealism (the subject of his equally wonderful 1999 documentary My Voyage to Italy).
PHOTO FABRIZIO BENSCH, Portal
German director Wim Wenders pays tribute to Martin Scorsese.
“Maybe young people elsewhere in the world will see films and be inspired like I was, even if they don't become filmmakers,” says Scorsese, who discovered international cinema, particularly Kurosawa and Mizoguchi, thanks to film versions dubbed into English and broadcast in America TV with commercial breaks.
” Time goes by ”
Among the recent films that have impressed him are “Past Lives” by the Canadian-Korean Céline Song (presented in competition in Berlin last year) and “Perfect Days” by Wim Wenders, which has just been released in Quebec. “I’m 81 years old and time flies,” he said. I no longer have the leisure to choose films at random. I try to watch new films as often as possible, but I don't have enough time. »
He is suspicious of fashion effects. “The films we remember 20 or 30 years later are the ones that say something about human nature. » To the recurring question about the predicted death of cinema, he answers that we shouldn't be afraid of technology. “Cinema is not dying, it is changing. What counts is your own voice. She can express herself on TikTok like a four-hour movie or a two-hour miniseries,” says the man who enjoys making videos on TikTok with his daughter Francesca.
PHOTO MARKUS SCHREIBER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Martin Scorsese (right) and his daughter Francesca on the red carpet
The questions weren't that specific. Scorsese was very patient with a young Bulgarian who insisted on delivering a line from Jack Nicholson in “Departed” in his Eastern European accent. I wondered if he wasn't some kind of Borat or Infoman's cousin in Sofia. “What were the best 30 seconds of your life?” » asked a journalist. “You mean in the cinema?” the octogenarian replied with a grin.
A Greek journalist pointed out to him that he used to talk about other people's cinema, about the one who inspired him, but rarely about his films and his own influence on other generations of filmmakers. “I don’t think about it that way,” he said. When I was young I had an ego and an ambition. I still have ambition, but I try to put ego aside. »
When he presented Raging Bull (1980) out of competition at the Berlinale, Scorsese was at the lowest point in his career. New York, New York (1977), a resounding critical and commercial failure, plunged the director into depression and cocaine use. Scorsese was hospitalized due to an intestinal hemorrhage. He weighed less than 110 pounds and almost died.
It was his old friend Robert De Niro who visited him in the hospital and convinced him to make a film about the life of boxer Jake La Motta.
I put everything into Raging Bull after doing Taxi Driver, New York, New York and The Last Waltz. When I made The King of Comedy, I realized I had the freedom to start over, reset the meters and find new ways to tell stories. This has happened to me several times in my life. Freeing yourself from constraints is great.
Martin Scorsese
Thanks to the excellent Killers of the Flower Moon, he will be up for the Oscar for Best Director for the tenth time on March 10th. An award he only received for The Departed, even though it was far from his best film. Scorsese will star in the next feature film by American Julian Schnabel (Before Night Falls) and is working on a screenplay project inspired by the life of Jesus, which he has spoken about a few times with none other than Pope Francis himself.
PHOTO FABRIZIO BENSCH, Portal
Martin Scorsese
“I’m trying to find new ways of thinking about the nature of Catholicism,” says the filmmaker of “The Last Temptation of Christ” and “Silence.” “I want it to be unique, different, thought-provoking and still entertaining. »
Regardless, he assures, Scorsese wants to continue the tradition of always incorporating the Rolling Stones' song “Gimme Shelter” into the soundtrack of his films. “Mick Jagger told me I couldn't believe Shine A Light [son documentaire sur la tournée A Bigger Bang des Stones] was my only film without Gimme Shelter. I recently received anesthesia for dental surgery and the dentist listened to Gimme Shelter. I can't escape this! »
It's funny, as well as fascinating and inspiring. “I know very well that we are all heading towards death, towards the sun, the moon, I don't know what. But in the meantime, let's communicate while we're at it. Let's communicate through art. » One day the king will no longer be there. Maybe that was what upset me so much when he left the room.
The accommodation costs were covered by the Berlinale and Telefilm Canada.