Not a book about Scorsese per se, but a passage from a chapter on him from Roger Ebert's 'Life Itself' that made laugh and I really identified with, thought I'd share:
In 1983, we had a long talk about his film The King of Comedy, a movie the studio was ready to give up on until some good reviews started coming in. For Scorsese, the making of the film coincided with a painful period in his life, a time when he fell in love with Isabella Rosselini, married her, and was divorced. Although it is easy to see The King of Comedy as the most barren and unemotional of Scorsese's films, that wasn't the way he saw it.
"The amount of rejection in this film is horrifying," he told me. "There are scenes I almost can't look at. There's a scene where Deniro is told I hate you! and he nods and responds Oh, I see, right, you don't want to seem me again. I made the movie during a very painful period in my life. I was going through the Poor Me routine. And I'm still very lonely. Another relationship has broken up."
"Since Isabella?"
"Since. I'm spending a lot of time by myself now. I go home and watch movies on video and stay up all night and sleep all day. If I didn't have to work I'd sleep all the time. I've never had such a long period when I've been alone."
Toward the end of our dinner I discovered by accident how deeply he was hurt. I mentioned a new film named Exposed by James Toback, starring Natassja Kinski. I said I thought Kinski possessed whatever rare magic Marilyn Monroe had; that whatever Kinski appeared in, good or bad, she commanded the screen.
"I can't bear to see Kinski in anything," Scorsese said. "She reminds me too much of Isabella. It tears me apart. I can't even go to see a film by the Taviani brothers, because Isabella and I had a little courtship on the set of one of their films. I can't even go back to island of Salina, where Visconti's The Leopard was shot, because we were there. In fact, I can hardly even watch a film by Visconti without growing depressed."
"By memories of Isabella?"
"By memories of a period when I thought I was happy. I'll put it that way. A period when I really thought I had the answers."
"Okay, then," I said, "I've got a new movie that can't possibly depress you or bring up any old associations. It's called Say Amen, Somebody, and it's this wonderful documentary about gospel music."
"Can't see it." Scorsese was grinning, but he was serious.
"Why not?"
"It's distributed by United Artists Classics."
"You mean you can't see a film that is distributed by a company that is connected to a movie you once loved?"
He smiled. "I'd see the United Artists logo and it would ruin the movie for me."
"Maybe you could come in after the logo had left the screen?"
"I'd know."
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My parents' one moviegoing experience they've relayed to me countless times was when they sat in the same row as Scorsese and Rossellini to watch a film at a Colorado festival. I'll always look back at that memory differently now.
