Posted 11 March 2009 - 05:03 AM
Martin Scorsese's interview on Shutter island and his other projects -
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TB: Let's talk about the film you're shooting here now, "Ashecliffe." Does it stick close to its source, Dennis Lehane's "Shutter Island"?
Martin Scorsese: Very close, yes It has its roots in what could be termed early film noir but then it switches to New England gothic. And then it switches again. From "Laura" to "Out of the Past" to "Crossfire," which I've shown the actors in 35 millimeter. Actually "Out of the Past" we saw last week at the Brookline theater, at the Coolidge. It was amazing to see it on a big screen. It just blew the actors away, DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, who'd never seen it before.
TB: It's set in the 1950s?
MS: Early 1954, during the cold war paranoia. I was about 8 or 9, 10 years old, so I remember the mood of the country very well, particularly the Red scare and the fear of being bombed, the air raids in schools, that sort of thing. And particularly the films and television shows I saw, coming from a working class family. We saw mainly anti-Communist stuff. "I Led Three Lives," or "Time Limit," directed by Karl Malden. The actors are wonderful in that one and it's really beautifully directed. It's very simple but it really shows the fear of that time, the fear of brainwashing, which leads directly to "The Manchurian Candidate," which ultimately was the one. And a few months after that came out Kennedy was killed. It puts the cap on the whole period in a way.
TB: How's doing a period piece in Boston different from doing a modern-day film?
MS: Well, technically, it's contained. When we shot "The Departed" here, it was the first contemporary film I'd done in 20 years. So I just looked around and saw what people were wearing in the street and I went with that. It gave me a certain sense of freedom to be able to pan the camera and move where I wanted to, because it was as is.
This is very different. Men wear hats. It does take place on an island, like Peddock's island, an island outside in the harbor here, which is just abandoned buildings and a wharf. We've taken a ferry out a few times, might shoot something out there. In a sense it's an island like that. Dennis Lehane based it as if it was on Long Island [in Boston Harbor]. It's isolated. We're shooting in Medfield, in the old hospital there. It's literally our own world, and it's completely self-contained. It's like a backlot.
TB: Was there a pleasure in "The Departed" in coming to a new city and finding fresh locations?
MS: Absolutely, fresh locations and also a sense of the history of the city with that story. With the underground of the city, in a way.
TB: Have you run out of New York stories?
MS: Not at all! But it is kind of fortuitous that both pictures take place here.
TB: Are you interested in getting to the heart of what makes this city special, in terms of history, culture, geography? Or are you just focusing on a story?
MS: I'm really focusing on the story, but there's no doubt that when Bill Monahan set "The Departed" here, he really brought with it a history of the city and the nature of, from what I can tell -- what I learned as I was shooting the film -- the sociology and anthropology of the city. The different ethnic groups, the way they are, how everyone relates to each other, the university. I don't really know the geography of the city yet.
TB: I grew up here and I still can't find my way around.
MS: Thank you! I mean, downtown New York is bad, but this is crazy. The historic area is beautiful. That's what made us realize in "The Departed" that the rooftop at the end should be one of the old restored buildings rather than going to a modern building. We got up to the top of probably the highest building in Boston and looked around and saw sky. And of course at the end of the original "Infernal Affairs," you look around and you see the hills of Hong Kong all around you. We see nothing here. Nothing! So, all right, let's go retro. Let's go to the old Boston.
TB: You shot that down in East Boston?
MS: Yep. The seagulls were all over the place, all over the track. There were certain seagulls I really fell in love with. But that was interesting because these poor guys are playing out this tragedy on top of this roof, and there's 300, 400 years of history and class war, and them fighting this undeclared war where no one knows where they stand.
TB: A New York movie, everyone's putting all the demons out on the table. Here's it's about covering them up.
MS: This is what I began to discover on Departed. Just being in the streets and meeting with people. And of course it fed into "The Departed" beautifully. Nobody's saying where they stand. (laughs)
TB: Does that play a part in the new one?
MS: Definitely. You don't know who anybody is at a certain point.
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