The Brutal Truth About SUCCESS No One Wants to Hear | Martin Scorsese

I'm mad all the time. Mike can tell you. Just, you know, angry, angry, angry. Pain in the neck. But in the morning, I would get up maybe 45 minutes earlier to do meditation before I was able to face that set.

Recreate movies. Don't pay attention to industry. Do your own thing.

Thinking in the morning, we're gonna do this. Then about 2 hours in, said, "We're doomed. We're never finishing this film.

We're gonna be in movie hell for the rest of our lives." He's an American director, producer, screenwriter, and actor whose career spans more than 50 years. Part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking, he's considered one of the most influential and greatest filmmakers of all time. With 8 Best Director nominations, he's the most nominated living director. He's Martin Scorsese, and here is my take on his top 10 rules for success. Rule number 7 is my personal favorite, and make sure to stick around all the way to the end for some special bonus clips. Also, as you watch and listen to Martin in these clips, if there's something that he says that really resonates with you, Add it to the comments below with quotation marks so we can keep track.

I'm wondering, when you're trying to make a film and you come up against obstacles and barriers, what do you attribute your strong dedication to getting that film made?

Um, really, I— hysteria, usually. Hysteria and obsession. And anger, I think, mainly anger. I'm mad all the time, Mike can tell you. Just, you know, angry, angry, angry, pain in the neck. That's why I use humor a lot, because it deflates myself. I don't want to take it seriously, because if I really do, I would have been gone much longer, 25 years ago, I wouldn't have survived. But the anger is enormous, about everything, about everything. And so that also fuels me to make a picture, I think. But keeping the sense of humor is the key thing, the irony. The irony when you get there in the morning and you get a note that one actor has had a nervous breakdown and he can't go on with the film.

It happened.

It happened. They don't want to come out of the trailer. Yeah, they don't want to come out of the trailer.

Go ahead.

Right here, the black sweater.

What are you going to do, get a heart attack otherwise? Or you kill someone. You know, it's not good.

Without meaning to be presumptuous, what sacrifices do you think you've made in order to create the work, to make the films, to make the career that you've done? What do you think in your life you've sacrificed?

I think, you know, as an old friend, old priest told me, he said, you pay a price, you know, and you pay a price. Is that just quite honestly, you know, a personal life really, and relationships go by the board. I mean, it was as if, um, the Frank Capra quote, it's like like a drug or something that you have to continue. And now, as I say, some people call that drive, some call it obsession, some call it just being selfish and being not a very nice person. But the reality is that I just had to continue that process. What do you do when you change how the world thinks of cinema? What's next? I mean— Do you keep making the same kind of film? Or if you're a person like Rossellini, uh, uh, if you are, uh, you try something experimental. You push further. It's not just experimental for experiment's sake, but you push the boundaries further.

Talk to me, talk to the group about why the subjects and the difficulties in getting films made. Why can you ever do anything It's easy.

I mean, but I guess any film is not really easy. I mean, I would think, but, uh, I think you're driven by something, uh, that's like an obsession, I would think. And before you realize that you have your eye through the eyepiece and you say, we're crazy, how the hell are we ever think we're going to do this? This is madness. But you keep going, you keep going. And I never really thought otherwise. I actually thought people wanted to see that kind of film. And the industry changed. I started making— Mean Streets was '73, so Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and New York, New York, particularly, and Last Waltz. And Last Waltz was somewhat of a different story. But I actually had no— I really was surprised that there would be resistance to Taxi Driver, for example. It was very difficult to get made. And certainly Last Temptation of Christ, I understood there would have been some controversy, but usually from certain areas, not necessarily what happened at the time. So we just go ahead, and then eventually there's some studio people. And in the case of Taxi Driver, it was a combination of De Niro and myself. He had just done Godfather II, Mean Streets. When I did Mean Streets, I brought the answer print of the scene to show Francis, Coppola in San Francisco when he hired De Niro for "Godfather II" based on that. That led to "Taxi Driver," and then "Raging Bull" was a project of De Niro's, really. I remember doing a film called "Yugo," which was a film we shot in 3 dimensions, and it'd take about an hour to get there to the studio. But in the morning, I would get up maybe 45 minutes earlier to do meditation before I was able to face that set with children actors that can only work for like a minute. A dog that wasn't listening, Sacha Baron Cohen was improvising everything, and everything in 3D, and overscheduled and over budget. So, you know, god, there's only one thing you can do is calm it down and get into it and deal with the realities. If there is something on my mind, if there is something I'm really worried about in terms of a character development or particularly a thematic issue, Or just trying to get a shot done. Literally, we can't do that, we don't have the hallway. It's got to be a track down a hallway. We have no hall. Now what? Well, what is it about? It's about his face.

All right.

And so you just forget it and you go into meditation. That's it. And somehow something came out. I said, damn it, that's me. I did my first short film at the summer workshop in '63. That's where I met Thelma Schoonmaker. Yeah, she was a history major, I believe, at Columbia.

And Thelma Schoonmaker is Marty's editor. And this is, without overstating it, one of the truly great collaborations in motion pictures. So for somebody who has a vision like Marty to get other people— because you've got to get other people to do it with you who are on the same frequency, who understand what you're looking for, who share the vision and then can make it happen— that's priceless.

Yeah, that really is. And that, that's the struggle too. 'Cause it is collaborative. If I could shoot it and if I could edit it myself and if I could write it, if I could act in it, fine. But I can't. So you need people who are like-minded in a way or exploring certain areas that you want to go to possibly at certain points in your life. But with Thelma and myself, you know, we edit films just like I would say we're getting to be like two older people in a cottage making a three-piece suit, you know, sort of stitching it by hand, you know, they're banging on the door of the studio, they want the picture, I'll be right with you, just gotta put cuffs on the pants, you know, that's it. But it's that sort of thing. There's a lot of care that goes into it and a lot of time that's spent in the actual editing, really, in the films.

Make your own industry. Recreate movies. Don't pay attention to industry.

Do your own thing.

I mean, put it this way. You want the work to be seen.

But it doesn't have to be at the Odeon.

You know? No more. That's all different.

That's all gone.

It's another ancient world. That type of film, or not even that type of film. The communal experience is always important. You can make a film on a camera the size of that doorknob and still show it to 1,600 people in an audience. It's still a great communal experience. It doesn't necessarily mean it has to cost over £100 million.

Have you ever done a movie where everything pretty much fell into place and there were no monumental battles, no anxiety, no angst, no near nervous breakdowns? Which seems to be actually kind of what your life is about.

That's pretty much it.

Has there ever been a movie where it just started and, what do we have, 45 days shooting?

Did it like that? No, never, never. I mean, I'm shooting at 2:00 in the morning last night, and you find yourself on the edge of the seat like this, frozen. The actors are moving a certain way. What is it? Maybe I think it should be more to the left. What do you think, Michael Ballhaus? Yeah, move him more to his— I have a problem with left and right, so whenever I say left, I go— Left. No, right. That's it, right. And the guys are looking at me. Marty, no, no, definitely to the left. But it's that kind of thing. You can't— the minute you become— also, as you get older, sometimes it would be with the heat on the set, and this week was very hard. You do, from time to time, to get that energy midday, you need like 15 minutes, close your eyes, just think. But you have to keep— there's no such thing— oh, you love shooting. Well, for me, shooting is an extraordinarily stressful situation because there's not one moment moment to relax, you know, because you need to push. You need to, first of all, not only get something wonderful from the actors and cinematographer and everybody, but you have to do it on a schedule. Yeah. And you have to prove that you're responsible. You have a certain responsibility. $96 million, $100 million, you have a responsibility to do what you can with that money. Yeah. And to present a picture, you have to make the day.

Make the day means you get to the end, you've done the setups and the pages. That's the way they judge it.

Yeah. These And then you usually feel sometimes, well, not shooting a schedule, for God's sakes, making a film. But then you realize, well, you know, at a certain point, if we could— sometimes you slip behind. We've been able— like, for example, on Aviator, that picture came in on schedule, 90 days on schedule with all that stuff with the airplanes and everything. I don't know how we did it, but there wasn't one day that we didn't suffer kind of the ups and downs of it, thinking in the morning, we're going to do this. Then about 2 hours in, we're doomed. We're never finishing this film. We're going to be in movie hell. Movie hell for the rest of our lives. The planes, how would you— I don't know what's going on. Where are we? And then 2 hours later, hey, you know, and by the end of the day, you realize, my God, we made it, you know. Or you slipped over to the next day and cut down another scene, and somehow it all came together. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? We looked, but by the time the dust had settled, we looked around, it was 90 days. We did it, you know. In Gangs, it was a different thing. It was a much bigger epic. It was like, we're looking around, we never did, you know. We just never got there, you know. But that's the last of that kind that could be done. What's the hallmark of a great script? How do you know you want to choose that one over the thousands or hundreds of others that you look at? What jumps out at you? A personal, a personal, usually I don't read other people's scripts. I usually develop something or I have something in mind and I work with a friend usually. In some cases Nick Pileggi, in other cases Jay Cox, or hire Paul Schrader for Bringing Out the Dead. But when, for example, when Taxi Driver was given to me, gave it to me to read by Brian De Palma. I hadn't done Mean Streets yet, and so, but he said, "You'd be great for this." And automatically, I mean, there had to be an emotional connection to the material and to the characters. The obsessiveness of Travis Bickle, the sense of being the outsider and not being the dispossessed. That's how I, you know, we felt that way. I mean, myself, and I can speak for De Niro to a certain extent because we didn't articulate it that way. Can't really say, oh, you know, we're outsiders here. We were trying to get in. We were trying to stay in Hollywood. This thing is—

Two of the films came from scripts. I mean, you really— you really— they— a lot of— most of Marty's works come from ideas and books, and he then develops scripts. In the early years, there were some screenplays, but as you progressed on, you—

yeah, Alice was a screenplay, and then, uh, but certainly Taxi Driver. When you got that, I said, this, this one has to be made, and we just knew it. And, uh, but after that, um, No, after that the role developed the way Mike said. I think, yes, yes, I think so. New York Stories, for example, Life Lessons with Nick Nolte, that was based on, I'd always wanted to do something of Dostoevsky. Because actually, the first Dostoevsky I read was Notes from Underground. That was Taxi Driver, really. So, you know, I say, I feel like that, that's me, that sort of thing. So you really identify with it.

You know who was on here the other day? Uh, the kid, Jonah Hill.

Oh, Jonah Hill, yeah.

And he was talking about a scene where he's got to take a punch from a thug, and it was a fake punch, and he was going to pretend to be hit. And you, you went over and said to him, we're really going to hit you.

Yes. No, at that point I had to do it. Yeah, it was getting on my nerves, and that was the end of it. Oh, Jonah could get you crazy. I said, he's not going to stop slapping. It's in the film.

But he was actually knocked unconscious.

Well, actually, well, he— no, he pretended that. For a moment there I thought he was. Oh, maybe he went too far.

Yeah, maybe he went too far. Are there, are there other actors you have hurt in your career?

Joe Pesci.

Joe Pesci.

What, what did you do to him? I didn't do it. It was, you know, all the, all the fight scenes and all the craziness in that film Raging Bull, all the physicality.

Yes.

The last 2 days of shooting or something, we did a scene with De Niro and Pesci in the boxing ring over at the— there was a gym on 14th Street which is gone now, and they had protective gear on. This is one of the strangest things where you see these action films. I don't know how people really don't get badly hurt because with the protective gear, there were a couple of, couple of punches thrown, and the last punch, just as I yelled cut, Bob just hit by accident, really, the protective gear on the chest of Joe, and we heard this "umph." And I said, "Bob, that was great." I said, "What was that?" That was a broken rib. And it took— he really broke it, cracked his rib. And it was just by accident with gear on, and that's in the film too. That sound is there. And then we had the opportunity to revisit it again on Casino.

Oh, the same, same, same rib?

No. Yes.

How did this happen?

Well, he was on the floor and it was a big guy holding him down, and every time I'd say cut, this big guy who was like 200 pounds would sort of use Joe as a hassick or something. And Joe said, don't do it, don't use me as a hassick. How many times I gotta tell you? And sure enough, crack the same rib.

You're lucky you're still in business.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed. I made this video because Leno Vätunen asked me to. So if there's a famous entrepreneur that you want me to profile next, leave it down in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know which of Martin's top 10 rules had the biggest impact on you and why. What made you reflect? What really touched your soul in some way? Leave in the comments and I will join the discussion. Also, if any of his quotes that that have been posted below that you see in quotation marks that you really enjoyed, make sure to give it a thumbs up to show your appreciation. Finally, I want to give a quick shout out to Nita Singh. Nita, thank you so much for buying 2 copies of my book. It really means a lot to me. For those of you watching, if you want your chance at a shout out in a future video, make sure to grab a copy of the book and also email in your receipt so we can keep track. Thank you guys so much for watching. Continue to believe, or whatever your one word is, and I'll see you soon.

This was Schrader's passion in a way, and then somehow we picked up on it, and it was De Niro, myself, and we all felt as powerfully attached to it as Schrader did. New York, New York came out, came from something that I wanted to do and explore genre, and I started fooling around mixing genre with what you might call improvisatory style, like Cassavetes or even Kazan to a certain extent. And blending the two. And that was a failure at the box office and in Hollywood. And it sort of set me off on a road feeling I never knew if I'd have the passion again to do something for myself.

Was it to make a movie again?

To make a movie. To ever make a movie again. To ever make a movie again that came from in here because I realized that I just couldn't go to work. Meaning go to work like, okay, here's the script, go there Monday morning, be there at 5:30, and tell this person, and that person's gonna be— that actor will have his own ideas or her own ideas, and you don't agree with them, but you're gonna have to get them to do— I don't know if I could do that. I don't know if I had the energy to do it or really wanted to do it. And so De Niro, during the period of making New York, New York, and a little earlier actually when I was doing Alice Doesn't Live Anymore, he gave me the book of Raging Bull, and he wanted to make this. And by that point in time, I wasn't— it seemed to be more generated from him. And as I said, sports films I didn't get, but it's not a sports sports film. I didn't realize that until I'd gone through my own 2 or 3 years of soul-searching and having some difficult times and finally winding up in the hospital. And I found that ultimately when I was in the hospital, it was kind of like a— kind of a strange miracle in a way. I couldn't go any— I couldn't reach any further down. I was on bottom. And when he came to see me, and he just wanted really to make that film. He wanted me to get out of that hospital bed too, but he wanted me to make the He really wanted to make the film. He said, come on, you can do this. You'd be so great at it. What are you doing with your life? Look at you. Come on, please. You could really do it. And then I said, OK. It suddenly hit me. I think I understood what it was. And somehow through him, we had this extraordinary collaboration, mostly in a sense very, very collaborative and almost to the point where we didn't necessarily have to talk, that we kind of felt similar ways about life and about people and the process, the artistic process, and just living, trying to live, being, and all these different emotions we felt we kind of shared. And so I thought that was the film.