All language subtitles for 8 - Finding the Story

I don't think there's anything more inherently

cinematic about one way of life versus another

um if you're inclined towards cinema

then you see what is cinematic within that way of life

I mean everything is cinematic

all of life is cinematic

depends on how you perceive it

I can only talk about my own life

I'm in my own case

what I know

I grew up in a certain part of the world

and because I had particular place

and because I had asthma

from the age of 3 on

I observed a lot

I was allowed to participate in anything that was

over exciting in terms of physical activity

sports and that sort of thing

so I observed a lot

and I found I was absorbing it really

and then later you know

I found I was interpreting it

translating it

I think and trying to transmit or express it

find different ways to tell stories

about things that I observed or

was immersed in around me

whether it was outside the the

the apartment or

or in the family

and you know

what I observed and absorbed at home

out in the street

as I said in the church

these are things that form me

just as the very different worlds in which they

Michael Powell or Stanley Cobrick or Don Siegel grew up

formed them

so I can only speak from that world

filmmaking that I tried to do

particularly when I first started out

was stories that came from my own experience

or subject matters that interested me only or solely

I should say and um um

that slowly developed into other projects or stories

scripts even that um um

I was able to work with the uh

interest or concepts from other writers

but primarily I really

the story has to come from me

or at least be

I'm interested in this particular character idea

in some cases actors

and the case of Nick Pelegi

for example

he wrote that wonderful book Wise Guy

which became Good fellas

and you know

he has such a

the book itself spoke to me immediately um

and the structure of the book too

I found a way to

along with Nick

to be able to pull together

a representation of that world that um

was depicted in the book

but also in my own

from my own experience

because Nick has an extraordinary knowledge of

the world is chronicling

but beyond that

it's not just a very dry uh

haha it's not a very dry

uh actual one

put a systematic uh uh

a didactic way of talking about that world

or depicting that World War or uh

representing that world

he has a philosophical point of view

with a great sense of humor and irony about it

about that part of us or that part of human nature

which is imminently

for many people

corruptible

and the thinking that goes into that

and how one step leads to another

and eventually is a complete

complete chain of events

disastrous chain of events

and so he has this point of view about it

and a way of presenting it and so

we would have a great deal of enjoyment working on that

Taxi Driver really the script was very so strong

and it was a situation where Paul who

with whom I worked with many times since then

he has something else at the

besides his powerful sense of structure

this very strong understanding of loneliness

retribution

but really just the philosophy

and the theological point of view

that I certainly couldn't verbalize at that time

reading the script

but created

a an impulse to make the picture to to

and what I mean by make the picture

that film was not makeable

it was not doable even then

and so we tried for a number of years

and finally

through a series of circumstances and very

very low budget

we were able to pull it together

but it had became a passion project

when something happens like that

it's a script that you did not write

then it has to have point of view

it has to have more than a point of view

has to have

the theme itself

has to be something that's very close to you

my case okay

keep looking at questions of sin

with the concept of sin

good and evil

sin redemption

weakness and strength

from new angles and new perspectives if I can

and exploring it constantly

which is really part of you know

the human condition

the other way I could answer the question

is to say that the moral issues

for somebody like Harvey Cartel's character

Charlie and Main Streets

I mean you know

ultimately what is he doing this for

why is he committing himself to Johnny Boy

how far is he really prepared to go for his friend

am I my brother's keeper

are we our brother's keeper

am I really Charlie saying

am I really helping him at all

or is it more for me

is it more helping Charlie in a way

and these things come from

directly from my own life

and experiencing things like that mean you don't

in a sense um

in the case of Charlie

talks about a religious concept

Catholic concept penance

but you know

you don't get to choose the penance

that's the thing

he misunderstands

so when the opportunity arises it arises

I don't think when I've ever set out to say

I'm gonna make a film with this moral theme um

maybe I did

but not in those words

and I do think that often

I find that those themes are always there

and what I mean by that

is that they attract me to the story

if the story doesn't come from something that I've

thought myself

or thought of myself

some moral choices

certainly there

every day of our lives

and I mean it's

it's inherent

and everything we do

and every action that we see or observe

and as we get older

I think of course

our sense of moral conflict and choice

changes and deepen

I have been drawn to different stories

for different reasons

of course the key

the key element

of course again

is a passion for wanting to tell that story

like a Mean Streets or

taxi driver that portrayed a wrote or

elements of The Raging Bull or

age of innocence

that sort of thing

there was a desire and a need of gangs in New York

to really not rest until I was able to express this

these thoughts and these stories on film

and go through that process I mean

sometimes it's because I'm just intrigued by something

and would enjoy I think

the process of the filmmaking itself

in the case of like

the aviator

um was early aviation

which I'm fascinated by

and aviation

pioneering films that were being made in that

and the story

of course the aspect or one section of early

early part of how would use his life with the character

who was so powerful and had such genius

but at the same time

had the seeds of his own destruction

um and so this was fascinating to me

or like in gangs

of the recreation of New York

an early moment in history

like gangs of New York or the age of innocence

I always talk about the fact that growing up

down there at the age of 10

11 12 I could tell from the cobblestones in the street

that they had stories to tell

in the old Basilica of Saint Patrick's Cathedral

the church first Catholic cathedral in New York

the fact that they had to protect

and defend the cathedral in 1844

against the no nothings and the wide awakes

the nativists

who wanted the immigrants out of the country

so I knew things were

had happened there

and that there were generations that had died away

and had lived lives in that area

and struggled and fought

and so for me

I was always intrigued by this

in the case of Shutter Island

I was interested in working with the kind of material

that recalled certain kinds of films

I really love

great you know

film wars like out of the past or Laura or crossfire

I thought that the character played by Leo

Leo DiCaprio

I mean the way he perceived the world around him

would have been in his mental state at that time

visions in the key of those movies

of those pictures um

that sense of marish

postwar America

even the black and white photos um

in the tabloids

all of this sort of thing

would have been what was in his head

how he perceived that world around him

in Shutter island

uh twisted hallucinated as was

oh in the case of Last Temptation of Christ

I obviously very interested in that material

for my whole life

in this case

of an exploration of the dual nature of Christ

of being Christ

and what it means to the faithful

in the case of silence

obsessed with the questions of faith but won't go away