Robert De Niro feels very lucky to have been with Marty all these years, and Martin Scorsese returned the compliment when the actor and the director met after a screening of Witches Cauldronthe 1973 film that marked their first collaboration and Scorsese’s breakthrough. They made nine more films together.
The two grew up together in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, an Italian enclave populated by lower-level Mafiosi. De Niro’s “Johnny Boy” Civello in Witches Cauldrona ruthless but charming small-time gambler who is deeply in debt to loan sharks, is based on people they both knew, the pair said during a Q&A with rapper Nas after the packed screening at the Beacon Theater. The dramatic final scene, a car chase, shootout and crash, was inspired by a trauma that Scorsese says he narrowly escaped – he was able to get out of a car just minutes before the crash.
The film, which featured a great Harvey Keitel as Charlie Cappa, a young gangster with inner conflicts trying to look after his impetuous friend, was part of De Niro Con, a tribute to the Oscar-winning actor and co-founder of the Tribeca Festival.
De Niro and Scorsese met when they were 16 and were not very close during their childhood, but knew each other. At one point, De Niro vaguely heard that “Marty was at NYU.” Years later, they met at the house of Brian De Palma, who thought they would get along well. They didn’t recognize each other at first, but they started talking and were really good friends.
Then came Witches CauldronThen taxi driver (1976), New York, New York (1977), Wild Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), casino (1995), The Irishman (2019) and Killer of the Flower Moon (2023).
“There were different levels of trust,” Scorsese said. “On an artistic level, there is trust. At a certain point, he said, ‘I have this idea.’ And I said, ‘Don’t tell me, just do it.’ And without exception, I liked it.”
“And then we just had our own way of talking to each other, I guess. A lot of times we would just talk about personal things, and the AD would come over and say, ‘Hey, we need to shoot.’ We felt comfortable that way.”
Scorsese also said he learned a lot from De Niro, including how to act – like in a small taxi driver Role. The director played a rude passenger in Travis Bickle’s taxi and stood in for an actor who had an accident.
“At the beginning of the scene I tell him to put down his flag [how taxis used to signal they had a fare]. And he said, ‘Let me put the flag down.’ He’s not going to put the flag down if he doesn’t believe me to be playing this role… and what happened was he didn’t move his head. It was the back of his head. It was a pillar. Energy. Danger. I didn’t know if he was going to turn around and shoot me or scream at me, and it just made me get deeper and deeper into the role. It was really a great lesson in how to act as a human being in front of the camera.”
Music in Witches Cauldron like many Scorsese films, he was a character in his own right. There was a bit of everything, including two Rolling Stones songs (Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Tell Me). When Nas asked how they managed that at the time, since they weren’t big names, Scorsese cited producer Jonathan Taplin as a source. “We asked for three [songs]. We have two.”
“There was never air conditioning in the summer, so sometimes we’d sleep on the fire escape. And some guy would play big band music, or some other opera, or Tony Bennett down the street. It really became the soundtrack of our lives. We couldn’t imagine a quiet moment.”
LR: Nas with Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro