Martin Scorsese

LASHED to a slab, Tony Dogs refuses to squeal. The vice is turned, crushing his head tighter. His eye pops loose. Now Tony will never talk again.

The fate of Tony is not out of place in Casino, nor is it alien to the other films which comprise the work of Martin Scorsese. Violent, explosive and stylish, his movies set new standards and draw new boundaries.

His fifteenth full feature, Casino, continues the trend. A look at the people who ran Las Vegas it follows Ace Rothstein (Robert De Niro), a man who believes “Running a casino is like robbing a bank with no cops around.

“For guys like me, Las Vegas washes away your sins. It’s like a morality car wash. It does for us what Lourdes does for humpbacks and cripples.”

For Scorsese, his motivation to make the film was clear. “The story is the oldest in the world”, he explains. “People doing themselves in by their own pride, and losing paradise.” These themes are common to him. Think of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull or The King Of Comedy and pride, obsession and over-confidence always spell disaster.

“I think I’m attracted to the same subject matter sometimes, or similar subjects from different angles, there’s no doubt about that”, claims the director, in agreement.”I tried to change the superficial aspects of it – like in The Age Of Innocence, for example, where I change the world it is depicted in. But the obsessive behaviour was similar to subjects I have dealt with before. Here, what interested me was Vegas as the canvas of America.”

But some elements – the mob, money, vengeance and power – are almost too close to a previous Scorsese film, the majestic GoodFellas. “In certain scenes or situation we could not avoid that,” he says, having heard the comment before. “The only thing we could make different about it was they are on a much higher level. There is much more at stake.

“If it is like GoodFellas that’s because both films are about the same people so it’s visiting those people again, that way of life, but it is amplified. One has to assume those scenes are going to be similar, and that is why I cast similar people.”

This is De Niro’s eighth collaboration with the director, and he is supported by Sharon Stone as Ginger, the vegas hustler turned trophy wife.

This last piece of casting came as a shock, because Stone is not an automatic first choice. Hers is probably the most demanding and least glamorous role, and she excels, spending the last two hours in a drug-fuelled haze. “She did that with her whole body and with the clothes”, he decides.

She tried to make herself look as a bad or as wasted as possible, and I could have made many films about each of her personalities.”

Making a film like Casino presents many problems, not solely caused by the Vegas location (“Shooting there was a nightmare”). When dealing with the mafia and pending criminal action, kid gloves have to be donned. Or as he puts it, the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Each day, the director would receive notes from lawyers demanding script revisions. In one case the mobs home city couldn’t be named, so instead we see the words ‘Back Home’.

Yet realism is all important in a Scorsese picture. And sometimes it pays dividends, as he testifies: ” I remember [scriptwriter] Nick Pileggi talking to Henry Hill, the character in Goodfellas, and him saying his favourite film was Mean Streets. He and Pauly Vario (Paul Cicero in the film) said it was really the most accurate film based on the way they lived.”

Later, he heard that the key witness in a Palermo mafia trial thought the same way: “He said The Godfather was good, but Goodfellas was the only one that shows exactly what its like to live that life, especially in the scene between Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci where he says ‘you think I’m funny, why am I funny’.

“He said you have to be ready to live or die in a split second, to kill or be killed. That for me is a compliment, because if I’m being as accurate as possible to the people and their lifestyles, and if those real people think they know those people on the screen I think I have succeeded in some way.”

Not in terms of money (“My domestic grosses are pitiable – people send me flowers and sympathy”) but kudos. The title of Greatest Living Director has been given him, but he remains unsure whether this milestone or millstone.

“There’s no doubt the pressure to live up to that reputation is significant”, he nods. “But I don’t know how to do that. The only way you know you might be on the right track with each project is that you want to make that picture.

That’s all. Some vague feeling. I ask myself what can I do to make it interesting or different from what I’ve done before, and to give it a stronger punch.”In the case of Cape Fear [his most lucrative picture] it was try and give them something they can make money with so then you can get two or three more pictures. But this is a big gamble too. What if it doesn’t make money ?” So money is all important ? “No, it can’t be. You hope your next project is one they are going to allow you to make, and if you do it for the right price they might be able to make their money back immediately and you have the made the film you want. Everybody comes out good.”

Yet controversy is never far away. When he made The Last Temptation Of Christ in 1988, religious right-wing groups boycotted cinemas and issued death threats, incensed by scenes depicting Mary Magdalene nude. Bodyguards and bullet-proof jackets were given to the crew, but Universal Studios stuck with him, so he made Cape Fear for them in return.

Likewise, when John Hinkley shot Ronald Reagan, he partly blamed Taxi Driver, saying it was all to impress Jodie Foster.

Then of course comes the issue of violence. Tony Dogs demise is but one among many spectacular farewells in the directors canon. Of the action in Casino, he says: “The violence they engender in the film is a by-product of their activities. It almost like an aside.” For Scorsese it is all a means to an end, and there are deeper messages at work. In the end, he would have us think, the world is becoming like Vegas, and this is not a good thing.

“I really feel Casino reflected where we are going. I was really terrified when Nick and I started working on the script and saw a Time magazine cover with the MGM lion on it [an emblem of one of the major Vegas casinos].

“It had a serious article about what this lion represents, the way that, after the eighties, everything was falling apart. People wanted to go to casinos and with a lucky throw of the dice, all their problems are over, it’s like a miracle they do not have to work at. It’s the desperation of the American population. There’s a danger that if the theme park mentality can get to Vegas it can go everywhere. “To export values of a certain kind, one has to be very careful”, reflects Martin Scorsese, as he prepares to leave. “I think the values of Las Vegas are not necessarily the ones you should export.”

Peter Hill