Scorsese And Ebert In Speak In Ohio

Scorsese offered much advice to the aspiring filmmakers. He emphasized planning -- knowing your shots and storyboarding. On improvising, he said "In certain films you can improvise a lot, but you have to know the structure of the scene. Where it's going." Ebert quickly added that most improvising doesn't occur when the camera is rolling, but shortly before. On planning "The Last Temptation Of Christ", Scorsese simply said "You get into the middle of the desert, you better know what the hell you're going to do."

Ebert brought up his and Scorsese's age, pointing out that most people in the audience weren't even born when "Mean Streets" came out. The two talked about getting older, and Scorsese spoke eloquently about two rare filmmakers who worked until very near their death, Buñuel and Huston.

Toward the end of the talk, one student described how he had so many ideas, and wasn't sure which to do, asking if it ever happens to Scorsese? The filmmaker replied with a simple warning about delay. "You gotta watch out, because if you give yourself too many excuses, you'll never get it done."

On Friday, February 28, Scorsese received the Wexner Prize at a noon luncheon. In attendence were longtime Scorsese-producer Barbara De Fina, Roger Ebert and "Age Of Innocence" screenwriter and Time film critic Jay Cocks.

That evening, Scorsese and Ebert repeated their on-stage chat to a loud, fawning audience of 2500 at Mershon Auditorium on the OSU campus. 35mm clips from "Mean Streets", "Taxi Driver", "The Last Waltz", "Raging Bull", "The Last Temptation Of Christ" and "Goodfellas" unspooled as Scorsese went into exacting detail on the challenges of each shoot. With refreshing candor, he criticized the final crane shot of "Taxi Driver" as too long, admitting that he had been caught up in the excitement of having a crane on set.

Scorsese critiqued "Last Temptation" as still too long, the editing process having ended prematurely in order to release the film early in the face of mounting controversy. He described the immense challenge of the "Last Temptation" shoot. The cruxifiction scene, 70 camera set ups, was shot in 2 days. The longest set-up took 40 minutes, for the shot in which the camera goes dutch as Willem Dafoe's Christ looks skyward and shouts "Father, why have you forsaken me?" DP Michael Ballhaus had to hand-hold the 35mm camera to pull off the dutch tilt, making it impossible to look through the viewfinder.

Scorsese described the famous steadicam shot from "Goodfellas", as the camera follows Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco into the Copacabana Club, through the kitchen and out to the front of the club's floor. The shot took six hours to rough-in the lighting and bit-player action. By the fifteenth take, Scorsese joked, he noticed the extras in the restaurant were exhausted. He didn't understand, since all they had to do was sit. The A.D. informed him that these same extras were acting as the crowd outside the Copacabana. During each take, while the camera wound through the kitchen, the extras would race inside the club to remove coats, take their seats, light cigarettes and look relaxed by the time the camera reached the floor.

With an easy rapport, Scorsese and Ebert bantered and showed clips for nearly three hours, running over the scheduled time. When it ended, the crowd didn't quite raise cigarette lighters, but stood and applauded loudly. Scorsese and Ebert took bemused bows, then disappeared backstage. Afterwards, the young audience filed out, buzzing with energy and a sense of real possibility.

[Steven Bognar makes independent films in the Midwest. His last film, "Personal Belongings", screened in 1996 at Sundance, South by Southwest, the Gen Art Film Festival, among others. The film recently won Best Documentary at CINEQUEST/San Jose Film Festival, and is currently touring with Alex Rivera's "Papa Papa".]