Speaker 1: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information.
Speaker 2: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This episode tells
Speaker 2: the story of a long standing Hollywood myth, one that
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese eventually acknowledged in an interview with Stephen Spielberg
Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen. Now, Spielberg and director Brian de Palma
Speaker 2: have both recounted this story on the record in other
Speaker 2: places as well, Spielberg most notably in the excellent Peter
Speaker 2: Biskin book Easy Riders in Raging Bulls. I of course
Speaker 2: have no idea what specific words were spoken during the
Speaker 2: faithful night in question. However, just as the directors in
Speaker 2: this story who are the main characters in this story,
Speaker 2: Steven Spielberg, Brian de Palma, John Millius, Paul Schrader, and
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese, just as they have done in the numerous
Speaker 2: films they've directed depicting real life events, films like Schindler's List,
Speaker 2: The Untouchables, Dillinger, Raging Bull and The Irishman, to name
Speaker 2: a few, I followed their lead and relied not only
Speaker 2: on research of the event in question, but also on
Speaker 2: research are the characters in this story to inform the
Speaker 2: dialogue here.
Speaker 1: In Metal Job.
Speaker 2: This is a story of one of the greatest movies
Speaker 2: of all time, a movie that was fictional, with real
Speaker 2: life murder coursing through the filmmaking. And this is a
Speaker 2: story about one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
Speaker 2: Actually it's a story about a couple of the greatest
Speaker 2: filmmakers of all time. And it's about life and death
Speaker 2: and art and all the things that make us suckers
Speaker 2: for great drama. It's a story about one night in particular,
Speaker 2: one time in Hollywood in particular, and revenge. It's a
Speaker 2: story about Martin Scorset in his film Taxi Driver, a
Speaker 2: film whose composer died only hours after completing the movie's
Speaker 2: intense score. Great music, Unlike that music. I played a
Speaker 2: few at the top of the show that wasn't great music.
Speaker 2: That was a preset loop from my melotron called Firing
Speaker 2: Squad Audition MK two. I played you that loop because
Speaker 2: I can't afford the rights to Fifty Ways to Leave
Speaker 2: Your Lover by Paul Simon. And why would I play
Speaker 2: you that specific slice of internal rhyme cheese? Could I
Speaker 2: afford it because that was the number one song in
Speaker 2: America on February eighth, nineteen seventy six, and that was
Speaker 2: the day Taxi Driver hit theaters, marking the continuation of
Speaker 2: one of the greatest careers in filmmaking. On this episode Life, Death,
Speaker 2: Art Revenge, seventies Hollywood in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, I'm
Speaker 2: Jake Brennan and this this disgrace Land. People think making
Speaker 2: a movie is a lot like making anything else.
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 2: It's not like making a record, it's not like writing
Speaker 2: a book.
Speaker 1: It's not even like.
Speaker 2: Staging a play. It's infinitely more difficult than all of
Speaker 2: those things. People who make records and write books and
Speaker 2: stage plays, for the most part, cannot make movies. And
Speaker 2: there's a reason they don't, because it's this savage endeavor
Speaker 2: that will quite literally kill you and destroy your soul
Speaker 2: if you're not careful and or lucky or both. Some
Speaker 2: have compared making a movie to going to war. I've
Speaker 2: never been to war, so I'm not gonna go that far.
Speaker 1: But I think a better.
Speaker 2: Analogy, though also imperfect, would be to say making a
Speaker 2: movie is a lot like giving birth every day for
Speaker 2: two years straight. I was there in the room for
Speaker 2: the birth of both of my sons. I saw the
Speaker 2: excruciating pain my wife went through as both of those
Speaker 2: big headed Brennans passed through her birth canal. And before
Speaker 2: you guys send me your hate mail, I ran this
Speaker 2: analogy by my wife, who sanctioned in the pain of
Speaker 2: birth is unimaginable to me, but I know that that
Speaker 2: pain is concentrated. At the most we're talking twenty four hours,
Speaker 2: but usually less. Imagine that pain over and over again
Speaker 2: every single day for two years, and now we're getting
Speaker 2: close the pain involved with making a movie. Every day
Speaker 2: a new fight, a new hassle, a new raging fire
Speaker 2: to put out, another existential artistic challenge, to navigate another
Speaker 2: chip off your soul. I've made records, I've written and
Speaker 2: published a book, and yes, I even tried getting a
Speaker 2: big budget Hollywood movie made with an A list celebrity involved.
Speaker 2: And I can tell you trying to make a movie
Speaker 2: is a brutal, soul sucking endeavor that is not for
Speaker 2: the faint of heart. Hollywood is sodom disguised as paradise.
Speaker 1: It's lot's wife bent.
Speaker 2: Brutally over the back of a casting coach. It's pimps
Speaker 2: bobbing through fresh chum for their ten percent. It's shameless ambition,
Speaker 2: wafting like beastly pheromones on the back of the Santa Anas. Well,
Speaker 2: once you make it over the moat, patrolled by an
Speaker 2: army of lizard skinned assistance, and into the hallowed grounds
Speaker 2: of the studio system, that's when quote all the animals
Speaker 2: come out, the horrors, skunk pussies, queens, fairies, doper's, junkies,
Speaker 2: sick venyl unquote. Hollywood is relentless. It never lets you
Speaker 2: off the hook, no matter how successful you are, no
Speaker 2: matter how psychotic you are. So listen, you fuckers, you screwheads.
Speaker 2: Here is a man who would not take it anymore,
Speaker 2: a man who stood up against the scum, the cunts,
Speaker 2: the dogs, the filth, the shit.
Speaker 1: Here is a man who stood up.
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese twitched in the cutting room. It had been
Speaker 2: days since he'd slept insomnia, just like the lead character,
Speaker 2: Travis Bickle, the revenge minded, lonesome cavey motoring Scorsese's first
Speaker 2: studio film, Taxi Driver. Things have been easier on the
Speaker 2: director's last film, Mean Streets. There was no studio, Thus
Speaker 2: little oversight. Taxi Driver was a different East Columbia Pictures
Speaker 2: ponied up nearly two million dollars. It might have been
Speaker 2: the director's vision, but it was their money, and they
Speaker 2: wanted to return on that money, and they weren't fucking around.
Speaker 2: And that's why Scorsese couldn't sleep. He needed this final
Speaker 2: scene of the film to be perfect. The normally kinetic,
Speaker 2: fast talking East Coast director sat Stone still quietly observing.
Speaker 1: The action on the projected picture.
Speaker 2: A young Robert de Niro mohawked and shaved for battle,
Speaker 2: Creeping through the crime and grime of seventies New York
Speaker 2: City into the climactic scene as the taxi driver character,
Speaker 2: Travis Bickle. Travis walked with purpose from the taxi cab
Speaker 2: to the front stoop. That purpose had been missing from
Speaker 2: his gait in the earlier scenes. This was the climax,
Speaker 2: This was the moment the character was building toward all along.
Speaker 2: Finally something for him to do, something big. He was
Speaker 2: going to rescue the little girl and kill anyone who
Speaker 2: got in his way, even if it meant dying himself.
Speaker 2: Dying would be a bonus. Actually, what did this life
Speaker 2: given him? Anyway, nothing but loneliness and rage, rejection at
Speaker 2: every turn, an extreme inability to relate to anyone or
Speaker 2: anything except for the needs of a helpless little twelve
Speaker 2: and a half year old girl turned into a prostitute
Speaker 2: by this scum of the earth. Pimp Matthew aka Sport.
Speaker 2: Sport got it first.
Speaker 1: At close range.
Speaker 2: Travis shot him on the street outside the brothel with
Speaker 2: his stub nosed thirty eight. Travis then stormed inside and
Speaker 2: confronted the pimps bagman, who collected the cash from the
Speaker 2: Johns outside the disgusting smelling room where Iris supplied her trade.
Speaker 2: Travis took aim and fired, this time with the heavy artillery,
Speaker 2: with the forty four magnum the Elephant Killer. But the
Speaker 2: man was no elephant. The bagman raised his hand in defense,
Speaker 2: the bullet blasted off four of his five fingers. Blood
Speaker 2: splattered everywhere all over the brothels hallway, all over Travis's face.
Speaker 2: Just then another gunshot, this one from behind Travis from Sport,
Speaker 2: who somehow survived the close range bullet from the thirty
Speaker 2: eight and made his way into the brothel after Travis.
Speaker 2: The bullet grazed Travis's neck.
Speaker 1: The motelod.
Speaker 2: Travis took game with his forty four blasted Sport away
Speaker 2: and then stumbled in a daze toward Iris. In that room,
Speaker 2: Iris was the only thing that mattered, saving her, delivering
Speaker 2: her from this hellscape of a city, avenging the sins
Speaker 2: that had been carried out against her, the defiling of
Speaker 2: this innocent young girl by predators. She was powerless against
Speaker 2: that dynamic resonated with Travis. He too was powerless. His innocence, too,
Speaker 2: had been stripped away by forces he couldn't control. Iris
Speaker 2: Iris Iris.
Speaker 1: Travis put two more bullets into Sport for.
Speaker 2: Insurance, and another into the bagman before making his way
Speaker 2: to Iris's room. Then the John emerged into the hallway
Speaker 2: and caught Travis off guard, firing a bullet into his arm.
Speaker 2: Tavisong loaded a full round into the John, at least
Speaker 2: three bullets in the face, more to the torso blood
Speaker 2: spewed red and hot from the John's cheeks and his chest.
Speaker 2: The John fell backward into Iris's room, and there she was.
Speaker 2: She screamed in horror at the dead man, who had
Speaker 2: just collapsed on the floor. Travis moved toward her, but
Speaker 2: now the bagman was on his feet and on top
Speaker 2: of Travis, on his back, actually screaming, ignoring him. Travis
Speaker 2: continued to march toward Iris. Iris was all that mattered.
Speaker 2: Iris was all there was, and the bagman managed to
Speaker 2: tackle Travis to the ground. In the tussle, Travis stabbed
Speaker 2: him through his hand. Screams filled the whorehouse. Travis grabbed
Speaker 2: the dead John's gun lying on the floor, and shot
Speaker 2: the screaming bagman through his face, exiting his brains to
Speaker 2: the wall next to Iris, who was by this point hysterical.
Speaker 2: Travis's job was done. He'd freed Iris, avenged her stolen innocence,
Speaker 2: and by extension, his too. He put the gun to
Speaker 2: the bottom of his chin and pulled the trigger. The
Speaker 2: chamber was empty. The scene was perfect. It was as
Speaker 2: violent a scene as a Hollywood studio had ever produced,
Speaker 2: except the movie hadn't yet been fully produced. It was
Speaker 2: still being edited, and the studio had yet to approve
Speaker 2: the final cut. Three characters were killed in this fictional scene,
Speaker 2: and this scene was about to result in.
Speaker 1: A very real death.
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese sat pensively in his Mohome apartment high above Hollywood.
Speaker 2: The location had been prescribed by doctor's orders. Scorsese's asthma
Speaker 2: was so bad that his physician required him to live
Speaker 2: above the LA's smog line. Hollywood the only city in
Speaker 2: the world where this New York director could gain access
Speaker 2: to the resources needed to direct the kind of personal
Speaker 2: pictures he wanted to direct, on the same scale as
Speaker 2: the greats he admired who came before him, Howard Hawks,
Speaker 2: john Ford, Vincent Minelli. This city was literally choking him
Speaker 2: to death. And if it wasn't the city itself, it
Speaker 2: was the studio. Scorsese had just returned from screening his
Speaker 2: final cut of Taxi Driver for Columbia Studio executive Stanley Jaffey.
Speaker 1: Jaffey hated it too.
Speaker 2: Violent, and there was no way, in his estimation, the
Speaker 2: Taxi Driver would be granted an R rating from the
Speaker 2: Motion Picture Association of America. With the way Scorsese had
Speaker 2: constructed the final scene, an X rating was almost certain,
Speaker 2: and an X rating meant a major reduction in revenue,
Speaker 2: So from the studio executive's perspective, there was only one option.
Speaker 2: He demanded Martin Scorsese re edit the end of Taxi
Speaker 2: Driver to make it less violent in order to garner
Speaker 2: a more favorable rating from the MPAA. In the meeting,
Speaker 2: Scorsese said nothing. The rage inside him shocked him silent.
Speaker 2: Who was this guy to tell him how to cut
Speaker 2: his movie. His criticism wasn't reserved only for the end either.
Speaker 2: The executive Jaffey, wanted Scorsese to lose the so called
Speaker 2: artsy shots of Travis and of New York City from
Speaker 2: earlier in the film as well, claiming they were disrupting
Speaker 2: the momentum and that audiences weren't going to flock to
Speaker 2: the theaters on mass to see a student art film.
Speaker 2: They wanted action, They wanted Charles Bronson blasting away bad guys,
Speaker 2: and as many scenes as possible and death wish but
Speaker 2: you know, not as violent as the ending of Taxi
Speaker 2: Driver that Scorsese was suggesting.
Speaker 1: Audiences, according to the executive.
Speaker 2: Wanted action. They didn't want Gadar and Antonioni. Scorsese realized
Speaker 2: he was now taking orders from a philistine. It wasn't
Speaker 2: worth the argument. So now Eerie sat in his apartment
Speaker 2: pondering what to do. His rising headache made it nearly
Speaker 2: impossible to concentrate on finding a solution. He scanned the room.
Speaker 2: The script pages were scattered across the coffee table. The
Speaker 2: typewriter housed a sheet of paper covered with the filmmaker's
Speaker 2: manic ramblings, all caps, no spaces, and there were empty
Speaker 2: pill bottles half full open bottles of wine. A television
Speaker 2: on in the corner in a circle of John's.
Speaker 1: Keeping watch over the apartment.
Speaker 2: On the TV John Ford's The Searcher showed John Wayne's
Speaker 2: Ethan Edwards character seeking revenge on the wall, a movie
Speaker 2: poster John Houston's classic Tale of Vengeance Moby Dick. Then
Speaker 2: on the TV table Scorsese's forty four Magnum, an exact
Speaker 2: replica weapon of choice of his revenge fueled character Travis Bickle.
Speaker 2: Scorsese picked up the gun and then picked up the phone.
Speaker 2: H Scorsese's friend, the young director Stephen Spielberg, fresh off
Speaker 2: the release of his Perfect Studio produced box office smash Jaws,
Speaker 2: ignored the phone and focused on the book he was reading,
Speaker 2: Jacques Valais, The Invisible College. What a group of scientists
Speaker 2: has discovered about UFO influence on the human race. Another
Speaker 2: of Scorsese's friends, another director, Brian de Palma, the man
Speaker 2: responsible for introducing Scorsese to Robert de Niro, He too
Speaker 2: ignored the ringing telephone on his nightstand, surrounded by notes
Speaker 2: with angry messages from a nerdy horror author up in Maine.
Speaker 2: De Palma ignored those messages just as he ignored his phone. Instead,
Speaker 2: he rolled over to focus on the naked beach blanket
Speaker 2: hippie blonde in his bed. The phone director John Millius's
Speaker 2: place went unanswered as well. John had other things to do,
Speaker 2: like pack for his trip to the Philippines, where the
Speaker 2: film he'd written, Apocalypse Now for friend Francis fort Coppola
Speaker 2: was in production. Word it was, it was a disaster.
Speaker 1: And over at Paul Schrader's place, as Paul.
Speaker 2: Cleaned his own gun, he too ignored his phone, except
Speaker 2: Paul knew it was his friend Marty calling with more
Speaker 2: bad news about the taxi driver's script that Paul himself
Speaker 2: had written, which Scorsese was having a hard time finishing.
Speaker 2: Paul Schrader was as pissed off as John Millius was
Speaker 2: in a rush, as Brian to Palmer was indifferent, as
Speaker 2: Steven Spielberg was distracted. But Martin Scorsese was determined, so
Speaker 2: he kept calling, and the phones kept ringing until one
Speaker 2: and then all of his friends heard the distraught states
Speaker 2: Scorsese was in. On the other end of the line.
Speaker 2: He was like nothing they'd ever heard before. Even for
Speaker 2: the notoriously high strung Scorsese, this state he was in
Speaker 2: was serious. Marty was as sleep deprived as Travis Bickle
Speaker 2: and on twice as many pills. His anger was as
Speaker 2: palpable as the La smog on a scorching summer day.
Speaker 2: He was rambling like a madman, talking twice as fast
Speaker 2: as normal, something about the cocksuck studio, fuck with the
Speaker 2: ricotta cheese for brains, How the Solas automaton didn't want violence, Well,
Speaker 2: then how would he deal with this kind of violence,
Speaker 2: the kind that drove a young promising director to blasting
Speaker 2: his own brains all over the walls of his apartment.
Speaker 2: They all moved with sudden urgency into their cars, racing
Speaker 2: through the streets of Hollywood up into the dead man
Speaker 2: curves of Mahall, nearly killing themselves in the process. One
Speaker 2: by one, all four directors wheeled into Scorsese's driveway at
Speaker 2: the same time, exited their cars, raced to the locked
Speaker 2: front door, tried pushing it open, banged on it, profusely
Speaker 2: rang the doorbell, readied themselves to batter ram it down
Speaker 2: with all of their combined force.
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 2: The massive shotgun blast rang. In the New Year, January first,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy two, three years earlier, the shotgun was a
Speaker 2: substitute for fireworks. John Millius stood on the porsch of
Speaker 2: Margo Kitders Nicholas Beach a frame and fired his gun
Speaker 2: out over the Pacific Ocean. None of Margot's guests were shocked,
Speaker 2: especially not Margot's boyfriend Brian de Palma. Guns were always around,
Speaker 2: and why wouldn't they be John Millius, who had written
Speaker 2: the script for Apocalypse Now, and to Palma, who had
Speaker 2: written the excellent Hitchcock style thriller Sisters starring kidder In
Speaker 2: her housemate Jennifer Salt, and Steven Spielberg, who was also
Speaker 2: milling about the New Year's Day party he'd just released
Speaker 2: the excellent thriller Duel for television. And Paul Schrader, at
Speaker 2: the time a subversive film critic, but who was working
Speaker 2: on a script about a lonesome, homicidal cab driver.
Speaker 1: All of these filmmakers.
Speaker 2: Were revolutionaries, so yeah, guns were up in the mix.
Speaker 2: Guns were necessary. If not literally then figuratively, what these
Speaker 2: filmmakers were endeavoring to do creatively was high stakes by
Speaker 2: any means.
Speaker 1: Necessary type stuff.
Speaker 2: Their goal, both collectively and individually, was as audacious as
Speaker 2: it was dangerous, to make extremely personal movies with the
Speaker 2: backing of the major Hollywood studios, so that they could
Speaker 2: reach as wide an audience as possible. It's not like
Speaker 2: the Hollywood studios hadn't made big budget films that reached
Speaker 2: massive audiences before. Of course they had, but the studios
Speaker 2: had never turned control of those pictures over to a
Speaker 2: band of young outsiders who didn't come up as directors
Speaker 2: through the studios, who came instead from film schools, and
Speaker 2: who wanted to make movies that expressed their own personal
Speaker 2: experiences and that spoke to the tumultuous time times they
Speaker 2: were living through and spoke directly to the young people
Speaker 2: living through those times at that moment. This was before
Speaker 2: Spielberg's Jaws and before any real success for any of
Speaker 2: these so called Hollywood brats. This was the early nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: This was a moment in time in Hollywood that had
Speaker 2: never existed before and would never exist again, a time
Speaker 2: when the town was still on a contact tie from
Speaker 2: the success of nineteen sixty nine's Easy Rider, an adult
Speaker 2: movie written not just about young people, but four young people.
Speaker 2: The film changed the industry. Studio executives were forced to
Speaker 2: reckon with the fact that they were losing money because
Speaker 2: the films.
Speaker 1: They were creating were out of touch.
Speaker 2: Therefore, they needed fresh creative perspective from young directors who
Speaker 2: came from outside the studio system, and for the first
Speaker 2: time in Hollywood's history, came from, like I said, film school.
Speaker 1: That's where this group.
Speaker 2: Of young filmmakers came from, and that's why the mood
Speaker 2: was so jubilant. They knew that not only were they revolutionaries,
Speaker 2: some of them literally toting guns, they knew that they
Speaker 2: had Hollywood by the balls, and it was only a
Speaker 2: matter of time before one or all of them broke through.
Speaker 1: In a big way.
Speaker 2: The confidence did not, however, extend to Martin Scorsese, who
Speaker 2: was at that moment, sulking on the beach, fully assembled
Speaker 2: and perfectly pressed pants, buttoned up, big collared starch shirt
Speaker 2: and shine shoes, looking as East coast as one could
Speaker 2: on a West Coast beach, watching Margo Kidder and her
Speaker 2: equally sexy housemate Jennifer Salt sunbathe in their bikinis. Scorsese's
Speaker 2: own girlfriend, Sandy Wintrop, daughter of Warner Brothers studio executive
Speaker 2: Fred Winetrop, didn't seem to mind. She also didn't mind
Speaker 2: being referred to in mean streets as the wine trot
Speaker 2: brought by de Niro's Johnny Boy character. But I digress.
Speaker 2: It was the early seventies, liberation was in the air.
Speaker 2: Scorsese pondered his dilemma. How in the hell was he
Speaker 2: or empty, fast talking Italian kid from New York with
Speaker 2: no money gonna make the types of movies he wanted
Speaker 2: to make movies that reflected the violence, spiritual confusion, and
Speaker 2: sexual frustration he'd experienced back in New York City's Little
Speaker 2: Italy neighborhood where he grew up amid real life gangsters
Speaker 2: and godlike priests. How is that possible in the town
Speaker 2: like this, where the sun and the smog and the
Speaker 2: smiles and the shit talk comed along an incessant contradiction.
Speaker 2: How had he ended up here? Him Martin Scorsese, a
Speaker 2: tailor's son on a god forsaken beach with a studio
Speaker 2: boss's daughter, as a girlfriend and ambition as big as
Speaker 2: the Pacific Ocean staring back at him, threatening to swallow
Speaker 2: him whole. He did not have an answer, but at
Speaker 2: least he had friends. Steven Spielberg stopped by SCORSESEI on
Speaker 2: the beach on his way into the water and asked
Speaker 2: him if.
Speaker 1: He wanted to join him for a dip. Come on,
Speaker 1: let's go in the ocean.
Speaker 2: Spielberg directed, no, no, no, it's very it's evil. There's
Speaker 2: things out there you don't even want to know about.
Speaker 2: Scorsese replied, are you afraid of jellyfish? There's no jellyfish
Speaker 2: out there? Spielberg responded, no, no.
Speaker 1: No, things with teeth.
Speaker 2: Spielberg gave up and moved toward the water. His imagination
Speaker 2: burned like the hot sand beneath his feet. Interior, Martin
Speaker 2: Scorsese's apartment night. We fast forward into nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 2: to the night of Back, to the moment before our hero,
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese loses it and decides to call on his
Speaker 2: friends to come save him. The camera shows a close,
Speaker 2: full body profile shot of our hero sitting in a
Speaker 2: comfortable chair just a few feet from a small television
Speaker 2: on a small television stand. His leg extends out with
Speaker 2: his cowboy boot perched on the television. He carefully extends
Speaker 2: pressure from his foot to slowly rock the TV back
Speaker 2: and forth on its stand. We see that he is
Speaker 2: stowing and holding a massive black forty four magnum pistol
Speaker 2: in his hand. Resting in his lap is a half
Speaker 2: empty jar of peanut butter that our hero eats out
Speaker 2: of for a spoon. The television plays an old black
Speaker 2: and white film, Stanley Kubrick's The Killing from nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 2: Our hero stares at the action on the screen, still
Speaker 2: carefully pressing his foot against the television, causing it to
Speaker 2: teeter ever so slightly, before returning upright, daring it to
Speaker 2: tip over on the television. Character actor Timothy Carey, one
Speaker 2: of Hollywood's great bad guys, leaves his hideout with his
Speaker 2: rifle concealed in a guitar case, and then speeds away
Speaker 2: off to the racetrack to pull a job. He posts
Speaker 2: up away from the track with a clear sight line
Speaker 2: to his mark, the thoroughbred racehorse that he must keep
Speaker 2: from winning, that he must kill. It occurs to our
Speaker 2: hero Martin Scorsese in that moment that the studios are
Speaker 2: like the great Thoroughbreds in Kubrick's film, racing down the Stretch,
Speaker 2: these big bohemus lumbering through our culture, winning and losing
Speaker 2: an equal measure with the highest of stakes being ridden
Speaker 2: hard by their studio executives, stampeding over the souls of
Speaker 2: some of our greatest creative minds. Scorsese feels a tinge
Speaker 2: of rage. He presses harder against the television with his foot,
Speaker 2: causing it to wobble, almost to the point of tipping over,
Speaker 2: and then returning once more on the screen. The thoroughbreds
Speaker 2: race around the track. Timothy Carrey takes aim with his rifle,
Speaker 2: and when the moment is just right, he fires without
Speaker 2: prejudice at the racing beast, stopping it dead in its tracks.
Speaker 2: We hear the action from the film in the background,
Speaker 2: but our attention is drawn to the hushed, manic mumbling
Speaker 2: from our hero, sitting opposite the TV, still pressing against
Speaker 2: it with his foot, still rocking it dangerously back and forth.
Speaker 2: As Scorsese watches the television action, he becomes disassociated. He's
Speaker 2: looking at the TV, but he's no longer seeing anything
Speaker 2: but visions of violence, his own violence. What was previously
Speaker 2: the sound of his mumbling morphs into the rambling of
Speaker 2: a madman as Martin Scorsese, he begins reciting his own
Speaker 2: taxi driver dialogue to bring to life the violent vision
Speaker 2: in his head.
Speaker 1: We're gonna sit you see him? Do you see him?
Speaker 1: You see him?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: I want you to see him because that's my movie.
Speaker 2: But that's not my film.
Speaker 1: It's not my film. You know whose film it is?
Speaker 4: Huh?
Speaker 2: No, you would know whose film it is.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, but you know whose fili it is?
Speaker 3: Huh?
Speaker 1: The studios film. How do you like that a studio.
Speaker 2: Executive owns my film?
Speaker 4: And I'm gonna I'm gonna kill him if.
Speaker 2: There's nothing else, I'm just I'm gonna I'm gonna kill him.
Speaker 4: Now what do you think of that? Hm? I said,
Speaker 4: what do you think of that? Don't answer? You don't
Speaker 4: have to answer everything. I'm gonna kill him.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna kill him with a forty four magnum pistol.
Speaker 3: I have a forty four magnum pistol and I'm gonna
Speaker 3: kill him with that gun. Now, did you ever see
Speaker 3: did you ever see what a forty four magnive pistol
Speaker 3: could do to a studio executive's face.
Speaker 1: I mean, you need to fucking destroy it.
Speaker 3: Just blow it right apart.
Speaker 1: That's what it can do to a face.
Speaker 2: Now, did you ever see what it can do to
Speaker 2: a studio executive's fat fucking mouth? That?
Speaker 1: You should see that.
Speaker 2: You should see what a forty four Maggie is gonna
Speaker 2: do with a studio executive's fat fucking molt.
Speaker 3: You should see.
Speaker 2: Just then, Scarsese's foot pushes the television to touch too far,
Speaker 2: toppling it over onto its back, exploding its tubes and
Speaker 2: causing a small plume of smoke to shock our hero
Speaker 2: out of a seat. Scarsese then stumbles hurriedly toward it.
Speaker 2: Phone he dials, waits impatiently. On the other end, we
Speaker 2: hear Steven Spielberg, Hello, Stephen, I know what I'm going
Speaker 2: to do. I'm going to kill him.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this. We're We're We're.
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese's best friends in Hollywood. Steven Spielberg, Brian de Palmer,
Speaker 2: John Millius, and Paul Schrader all pulled into his driverway
Speaker 2: at the same time, ready to save their friend from
Speaker 2: doing something stupid that would change his life forever. When
Speaker 2: they entered his home, they were shocked to see the
Speaker 2: broken television, the forty four magnum, the empty wine bottles,
Speaker 2: and the pills and cocaine paraphernalia.
Speaker 1: All out in the open.
Speaker 2: But none of that was nearly as shocking as the
Speaker 2: state Martin Scorsese was in a manic, paranoid anger on
Speaker 2: the verge of tears. Scorsese paced nonsense, stop, his words
Speaker 2: coming out in a torrent. His friends tried to get
Speaker 2: him to slow down, but he would not. Eventually they
Speaker 2: took the hint, Sat and let Marty. Event the problem
Speaker 2: became evident immediately. Taxi Driver, the film was done as
Speaker 2: far as Scorsese was concerned. He'd shown it to the
Speaker 2: studio executive at Columbia responsible for the film, and before
Speaker 2: he got to his point, it was obvious to Spielberg
Speaker 2: and Di Pama and everyone else that Scorsese did not
Speaker 2: get the response he wanted from the studio. Taxi Driver
Speaker 2: had been years of work. It started a young, incredibly
Speaker 2: talented Robert de Niro, fresh off his Oscar win for
Speaker 2: Best Supporting Actor and Godfather Too, and it had been
Speaker 2: written by Paul Schrader, but it was Martin Scorsese's movie.
Speaker 1: The film was a perfect reflection.
Speaker 2: Of Scorsese as a person, all the anger, all the
Speaker 2: alienation he felt, first as a small weak boy growing
Speaker 2: up in a massive, violent city, and then as a vulnerable,
Speaker 2: creative young man trying to make it in a corrupt
Speaker 2: autumn like Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Taxi Driver.
Speaker 2: As it was, was as perfect as it could get
Speaker 2: from Martin Scorsese's perspective. He'd squeezed every penny out of
Speaker 2: his meager two million dollar budget. He'd milked every influence
Speaker 2: from every great director he'd studied growing up, which is
Speaker 2: to say all of them, Truffau and Bergmann, Powell and Presburger,
Speaker 2: and of course the Johns, Ford and Houston and too
Speaker 2: many others to mention. Every scene in the film was
Speaker 2: intentionally designed to move to Nero's Travis Bickle character toward
Speaker 2: his violent resolution, and every shot carefully calibrated to emotionally
Speaker 2: impact the viewer. There was no more editing left to do.
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese couldn't see how he could change anything in
Speaker 2: the film, even if he wanted to. By this point,
Speaker 2: he was creatively spent, like his character Travis Bickle Martin
Speaker 2: Scorsese hadn't slept in days. He felt the boundary between
Speaker 2: art and reality slipping away. He was sure he tripped
Speaker 2: some figurative wire and was now.
Speaker 1: Clinically in but that didn't matter.
Speaker 2: All that mattered was making sure that his film was
Speaker 2: shown on screens in the way that he intended.
Speaker 1: Audiences to see it.
Speaker 2: The studio executives, in particular Stanley Jaffy from Columbia Pictures,
Speaker 2: weren't going to allow that to happen, Scorsese explained to
Speaker 2: his friends in the room. Paul Schrader, the film screenwriter,
Speaker 2: wanted to know why. The reason, Scorsese explained had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with the writing. It was because of the
Speaker 2: final edit and the final scene. The action was too violent,
Speaker 2: too bloody. The studio was convinced that if they submitted
Speaker 2: the film as it was to the Motion Picture Association
Speaker 2: of America the MPAA, that it would most certainly receive
Speaker 2: an X rating, and an X rating would kill box
Speaker 2: office returns.
Speaker 1: Only a fraction of.
Speaker 2: The audience the studio was counting on would show up
Speaker 2: to see the film. Scorsese didn't want an X rating either,
Speaker 2: but he wasn't convinced that his final scene, the one
Speaker 2: with Travis Bickle blasting the bag man's fingers off of
Speaker 2: his hand and blood splattering all over his own face
Speaker 2: before he blasts the brain the bag man out of
Speaker 2: the back of his head and.
Speaker 1: All over the brothel wall.
Speaker 2: Scorsese believed that even though this scene went for it
Speaker 2: in a way that other films hadn't, that audiences were
Speaker 2: ready for it, and the MPAA would not give it
Speaker 2: an X. It was nineteen seventy five Taxi Driver, he
Speaker 2: believed would receive an R rating, but again Scorsese explained,
Speaker 2: the studio disagreed.
Speaker 1: They were insisting that.
Speaker 2: Scorsese cut the entire ending and come up with a
Speaker 2: less violent way to conclude the film. What did they know,
Speaker 2: Millius asked, Scorsese thought about it.
Speaker 1: Big John was right.
Speaker 2: The studios didn't know shit. Scorsese looked at the broken
Speaker 2: TV on the floor and asked his friends if they
Speaker 2: knew what he'd been watching before they showed out. The
Speaker 2: Palma said looks like bad television, and the others laughed,
Speaker 2: because in nineteen seventy five there was only bad television,
Speaker 2: an old Kubrick picture. Scorsese said, the killing his friends,
Speaker 2: nodded and smiled in approval. Sterling Hayden. De Paumas said affectionately,
Speaker 2: Hayden was a cammy snitch. Schrader quipped, Hayden was a
Speaker 2: goddamn war hero. Millis protested, Timothy Carey is my favorite
Speaker 2: in that film, Spielberg offered. Scorsese lit, up, that's right,
Speaker 2: Timothy Carrey, great character actor. Do you know the story
Speaker 2: of Timothy Carey and Harry Cohne. The others gave him
Speaker 2: blank stares. Scorsese took it as his cue to go on.
Speaker 2: Timothy Carey was auditioning for Harry Cohne in the early fifties,
Speaker 2: back when Columbia stilled a lot of juice and Coan
Speaker 2: was the studio head. You know, I don't know for
Speaker 2: which picture Timothy Carey was auditioning for, but Coan was
Speaker 2: there and the audition, and you know, con was a
Speaker 2: real bastard when he wanted to be.
Speaker 1: You've heard the stories.
Speaker 2: Anyways, the audition isn't going well, and I don't know
Speaker 2: what gets said, but something gets said, maybe from Cone,
Speaker 2: maybe from the director.
Speaker 1: Who knows.
Speaker 2: The point is Timothy Carey is standing up there acting
Speaker 2: his guts out for these fucking animals who know nothing
Speaker 2: about art, who know only from dollars and cents, and
Speaker 2: Timothy Carey's losing it, you know. So in the middle
Speaker 2: of the audition, Timothy Carey reaches into his pocket and
Speaker 2: pulls out a pistol. Con in the others in the
Speaker 2: room get real stiff. Con looks around for his fixer,
Speaker 2: but his fixer isn't in the room. There's no muscle.
Speaker 2: It's just him and whoever this blind director is that
Speaker 2: he's got in the room with them. Timothy Carey then
Speaker 2: holds the gun up, points the gun at Cone in
Speaker 2: the middle of the audition and says, very calmly, but
Speaker 2: you know, he's kind of trembling. He's so emotional. He's
Speaker 2: pointing the gun at one of the biggest studio heads
Speaker 2: in Hollywood, and he says, this is so humiliating standing
Speaker 2: up here and acting for you people who know nothing
Speaker 2: about actors, nothing about my art. And then and then
Speaker 2: he fires the gun. The gun though fully loaded, yes,
Speaker 2: but fully loaded with blanks. Cone of course didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Con must have shitit his pants, but he had it coming.
Speaker 2: Timothy Carey was right to do it. These fucking executives.
Speaker 2: This guy, my guy Jaffi. He doesn't know anything about film,
Speaker 2: So I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do
Speaker 2: what Timothy Carey did, but I'm gonna do it for real. Hm,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna shoot him. I'm gonna kill him for killing
Speaker 2: my filmer.
Speaker 3: Sller Throller.
Speaker 4: Sllerller.
Speaker 2: Back in the mall halland apartment, Martin Scorsese sat on
Speaker 2: his sofa with his head between his knees, listening to
Speaker 2: his filmmaker friends talk about of murdering the studio executive
Speaker 2: who was ruining his film. Spielberg de Palma Emilius offered
Speaker 2: calm reasoning, but no solutions. Schrader offered nothing. He sat quietly,
Speaker 2: fingering his small thirty eight sumb nose that he took
Speaker 2: everywhere A real butte that gun. If he didn't know
Speaker 2: any better, you'd think Schrader, screenwriter of Taxi Driver, approved
Speaker 2: of Scorsese's plan to kill the Columbia executive. Scorsese picked
Speaker 2: his head up from between his knees, leaned back on
Speaker 2: the couch, stretched his arms, and surveyed his apartment that
Speaker 2: he destroyed earlier in anger. The voices of his friends
Speaker 2: were jumbled. It was as if he was disconnected from
Speaker 2: the reality he was situated in. He was there, but
Speaker 2: he wasn't. His sleep deprivation had pushed him into an
Speaker 2: ethereal realm of disassociation. The voices murmured in the background.
Speaker 2: His eyes took in the damage. Then he looked to
Speaker 2: the wall and the John Houston Moby Dick movie poster
Speaker 2: caught his eye. His brain snapped in a focus. That's it,
Speaker 2: of course, he blurted out into the room, Moby Dick.
Speaker 2: Everyone else stopped talking, looks of confusion on all of
Speaker 2: their faces, save for Paul Schraders, who gave a slight
Speaker 2: chuckle and nod of acknowledgment.
Speaker 1: As he continued to fiddle with his thirty eight. That's it,
Speaker 1: that's the solution.
Speaker 2: Scorsese said, as he pointed to the movie poster on
Speaker 2: the wall. Spielberg got it next. A big smile came
Speaker 2: over his face. That's right, the colorization.
Speaker 1: De Palma walked toward the poster, staring at it. You mean,
Speaker 1: desaturate the.
Speaker 2: Colors in your final scene like Houston did in the
Speaker 2: whole picture. Uh huh, Scorsese said. Milius chimed in desaturating
Speaker 2: the eastern color negative you shot on will do what
Speaker 2: How does that solve anything? You still get the bloody
Speaker 2: a scene a Hollywood studio has ever potentially produced. Strader, annoyed,
Speaker 2: answered for Scorsese, desaturating it makes the blood look less realistic.
Speaker 2: But Spielberg interrupted, Scorsese finished his friend's sentence. Desaturating it
Speaker 2: like Houston did in his picture, gives the scene an
Speaker 2: ethereal feel. And that works, you know, because in that
Speaker 2: climactic scene, Travis is in a trance and then we
Speaker 2: cut to the dan U man without the saturation.
Speaker 1: The desaturation will.
Speaker 2: Make the look of the film less realistic.
Speaker 1: Sure, but it'll actually make it.
Speaker 2: More shocking, Spielberg said, right. Scorsese agreed, more shocking.
Speaker 1: So I win. It's actually better. It's better.
Speaker 2: Scorsese fell out and laughter. Brian de Palma wanted to
Speaker 2: know if that put an end to Marty's revenge fantasy.
Speaker 2: Scorsese just kept on laughing. John Millius offered to see
Speaker 2: if his buddy Francis Ford Coppola had a line on
Speaker 2: any tanks from the upcoming Apocalypse Now Shoot. Big John
Speaker 2: would gladly storm the offices of Columbia and take Marty's
Speaker 2: guy out. Everyone but Paul Schrader laughed. Schrader seemed disappointed,
Speaker 2: Too bad, he said, staring wistfully at the thirty eight
Speaker 2: in his lap. Brian de Palmer walked over to him
Speaker 2: and gave Schrader his best Sonny corleone, you want to
Speaker 2: gun down a studio executive because he slapped Marty's film.
Speaker 1: Around a little bit.
Speaker 2: Huh, what do you think this is the army where you.
Speaker 1: Shoot him a mile away?
Speaker 2: No, you gotta get up close like this about a bing.
Speaker 1: You blow the.
Speaker 2: Brains all over your nice ivy league suit. Schrader smiled finally,
Speaker 2: and everyone else cracked up. Scorsese stopped laughing first and
Speaker 2: got real serious. You know, he said, it actually is
Speaker 2: a lot like Francis's film. It's a lot like The
Speaker 2: Godfather this year, except it's the opposite. When Hagen says
Speaker 2: it's not personal, Sonny, it's strictly business, the apartment went
Speaker 2: dead silent. Scorsese went on, except it is. It is
Speaker 2: personal making these pictures. It's personal for me, it's personal
Speaker 2: for you and you and you and you this one,
Speaker 2: I know it's personal for Bob, for everyone, involved except
Speaker 2: the business people while making movies. It's not business. It's
Speaker 2: strictly personal. Slow Zoom out high above the five filmmakers talking, hugging,
Speaker 2: and exchanging goodbyes. Taxi Driver was released with the edit
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese wanted and the desaturated film technique at the
Speaker 2: end of the movie shock moviegoers and thrilled critics. Taxi
Speaker 2: Driver won the prestigious pond Ur at the nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: six camp Film Festival, who was nominated for Best Picture,
Speaker 2: Best Actor for Robert de Niro, and Best Supporting Actress
Speaker 2: for Jodi Foster at the nineteen seventy six Academy Awards.
Speaker 2: The film generated nearly thirty million dollars at the box
Speaker 2: office on a two million dollar budget. Martin Scorsese's Taxi
Speaker 2: Driver was a business success because the director kept his
Speaker 2: creation personal. Any other way would have been a disgrace.
Speaker 2: I'm Jake Brennan in this this disgrace Land all right,
Speaker 2: thanks for hanging out with me in nineteen seventies Hollywood
Speaker 2: for this episode.
Speaker 1: I hope you dug it.
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Speaker 2: question of the week is who is your favorite filmmaker
Speaker 2: and why?
Speaker 1: Which director slash filmmaker.
Speaker 2: Makes the movies that resonate most with you and why?
Speaker 1: I want to know?
Speaker 2: Hit me up and your answers might get played on
Speaker 2: the after party episode coming to your feed right after
Speaker 2: this episode.
Speaker 1: You know the drill. I'm at six one seven nine
Speaker 1: oh six sixty six three eight.
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