Image: Santa Barbara International Film Festival
During the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s presentation of an American Riviera Award for ‘Hugo,’ director Martin Scorsese captivated the audience with stories from his 50 years in the film industry.
At the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara, director, screenwriter, producer and film historian Martin Scorsese reflected on how the times have changed over the course of his 50-year career in the film industry. He noted that the severity of the awards season today is “very arduous,” though added, it’s a “very high class problem to have.” He also mentioned how the process of opening a film is very different today from how it was in the early 1970s.
“When the film opened, there was really no red carpet unless it was ‘Cleopatra’ or ‘Ben-Hur.’ We’d go in on a Sunday to see if anyone was in line to see the movie, then we’d go get Chinese food or whatever and that was it.”
When discussing his 1973 ‘Mean Streets’ film, Scorsese said that much of it was filmed in Los Angeles, which comes as a surprise perhaps to many who know the film as a centerpiece of New York cinema. “When he shoots a gun at the Empire State Building it hits a window in Los Angeles,” he admits.
Known for directing some of the greatest movies of all time, such as ‘Taxi Driver,’ ‘Raging Bull’ and ‘Goodfellas,’ Scorsese said that ‘Hugo’ was meant to be something that his young daughter could watch. He also admitted that the movie was also about getting back to the child inside, an energized artist. “You get back to the original impulse. You have to have that spark,” he said.
The American Riviera Award was presented to Scorsese by Sir Ben Kingsley who said, “My dear Marty, we happy few hundred will never be in the same room with you again, all of us. This is a very special night. The very greatest of my peers owe some of their most indelible moments on screen to you.”
Source: Hit Fix
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