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Recent Headlines
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Domino is
a "disarmingly
straight-forward"
work that "pushes
us to reexamine our
relationship to images
and their consumption,
not only ethically
but metaphysically"
-Collin Brinkman

De Palma on Domino
"It was not recut.
I was not involved
in the ADR, the
musical recording
sessions, the final
mix or the color
timing of the
final print."

Listen to
Donaggio's full score
for Domino online

De Palma/Lehman
rapport at work
in Snakes

De Palma/Lehman
next novel is Terry

De Palma developing
Catch And Kill,
"a horror movie
based on real things
that have happened
in the news"

Supercut video
of De Palma's films
edited by Carl Rodrigue

Washington Post
review of Keesey book

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Exclusive Passion
Interviews:

Brian De Palma
Karoline Herfurth
Leila Rozario

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AV Club Review
of Dumas book

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De Palma interviewed
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Wednesday, October 4, 2023
SCORSESE, NOW & THEN, ON TAXI DRIVER, MEAN STREETS
DE PALMA HELPED TO EDIT MEAN STREETS, WHICH IS TURNING 50 THIS YEAR
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/itreallygoesback45.jpg

In a GQ video posted to YouTube, Martin Scorsese begins at the beginning in talking about how he got involved with Taxi Driver:
Taxi Driver – it really goes back to Brian De Palma, his independent cinema – and Hollywood started saying, "Hey, maybe these indie films, these kids could work in the industry." And so we were all out in L.A., and he introduced me to Paul Schrader. Schrader wrote Taxi Driver. Travis comes from his vision, but more psyche. I connected with it through Dostoyevsky’s Notes From Underground. It was, like, enlightening, you know? And so, for me, when I read the script, Brian gave it to me. He said, You know, I don’t want to do it – I can’t do it, but maybe you should do it. But I didn’t have enough cache, as they say, at that time, to make the picture. But then they saw the rough cut of Mean Streets, and they changed their mind—especially when they saw De Niro in it. And so they said, For the two of you, we could probably get this film made.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, American Film Institute put a spotlight on Scorsese's Mean Streets for that film's 50th anniversary:

Scorsese told a group of AFI Fellows during a Conservatory seminar in 1975 that he encouraged his actors to improvise during rehearsals, which he transcribed from audio tapes to include in the script. As one example, the scene in which Johnny Boy delivers a long monologue to Charlie about why he cannot make that week’s payment to Michael was originally entirely improvised by De Niro and Keitel, according to Scorsese. The sequence was the last to be filmed, after Scorsese pleaded with his producers for another day to be added to the shooting schedule. He mentioned in the seminar that he edited the picture but did not receive onscreen credit due to DGA regulations. Also participating in post-production were filmmaker Brian De Palma and Sandra Weintraub, who Scorsese was romantically involved with at the time. Scorsese told AFI fellows in 1975 that he was working with Mardik Martin on a sequel to MEAN STREETS.

More details regarding the editing of Mean Streets can be found in Les Keyser's 1995 book, Martin Scorsese:
Scorsese admits that he had trouble editing the last sequence of Mean Streets and got some advice from Sid Levin, who receives credit on screen for shaping the whole film. Scorsese maintains, however, that the rest of the film is his work as an editor: "Sid didn't cut it; I cut it. Sid came in and showed me and made an initial cut in the last section where they're singing 'O Marienello' at the end, which is the traditional song that ends all the Italian festivals. . . . At that point, I couldn't cut it. It was five months editing and I was really freaked. The rest of it I cut. Brian De Palma came in and Sandy Weintraub.

Posted by Geoff at 11:05 PM CDT
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Sunday, March 20, 2022
VIDEO - 1978 SCORSESE DOC - 'MOVIES ARE MY LIFE'
FILMED IN 1977, FEATURING DE PALMA, DE NIRO, JAY COCKS, JOHN CASSAVETES, JODIE FOSTER, LIZA MINNELLI, MORE
https://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/moviesaremylife0.jpg

I think that every director worth anything - I mean, a man that makes films, vs. a man that takes a job to make a film, you know, who directs - I don't think Marty is a director. He really is a person that generates the energy behind everything that is accomplished in a film. And I would think that a director of his stature only makes one film. So that Who's That Knocking, Mean Streets, and Taxi Driver, and Alice, are all part and parcel of one film, of the way one man feels. - John Cassavetes

Well, I think all of his films are very musical, all of them. Film is like operas. - Liza Minnelli, talking about Martin Scorsese


Last July, Peter Hayden's rare 60-minute documentary from 1978, Movies Are My Life: A Profile on Martin Scorsese, was posted at rarefilmm, along with this description:
The very first full-length documentary on Scorsese offers an invaluable look at how he was perceived by his colleagues, and himself, in 1977. Catching Scorsese while while he was in post-production on New York, New York and editing The Last Waltz, British filmmaker Peter Hayden gets the manically hyper Scorsese to comment on his youth, his relation to his lead characters, and most importantly, his approach to direction. The doc doesn’t quite move at the pace of Scorsese’s revved-up speed-talking, but it does offer some real insight into his productivity in the 1970s, thanks to an impressive array of talking heads. Included are Scorsese’s collaborators Jay Cocks, Mardik Martin, Brian De Palma, Steven Prince (who co-produced this doc), and his mentor John Cassavetes. Also the performers, who discuss his working methods in detail — Jodie Foster, Liza Minnelli, and, of course, Robert De Niro.

Director: Peter Hayden.
Writers: Peter Hayden, Chris Ranger


The documentary includes montages of Scorsese on sets of his films, and a section showing him filming the opening prologue of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. A version of the documentary was also posted to YouYube (below), although for YouTube, "a couple of segments had to be cut out due to copyright," according to the description:

 


Posted by Geoff at 12:01 AM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, March 23, 2022 6:57 PM CDT
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