I love mean, gritty streets. Look out! This is frightening.

Perhaps there is no more legendary New York filmmaker than Martin Scorsese.  Using the city as a backdrop he has directed some of the greatest movies ever.  I was fortunate enough recently to have the opportunity to interview him.

MI: Good afternoon Mr. Scorsese.  I’m a fan.

MS: Of course you are.  Why wouldn’t you be?  Are you looking at my eyebrows?

MI: What?  No.

MS: Yes you were.  It’s okay.  I have bushy old man’s eyebrows.  The visual image is quite stunning.  I think I’ll make a movie about my eyebrows.  Marty:  Note to self.  Make a movie about your eyebrows.  I can smell an  Oscar, I tell you.

MI: Well that’s your call.  Mr. Scorsese you’re a lifelong New Yorker.

MS: Born and raised in Little Italy on Elizabeth Street.  You know New York City is so tough, so gritty.  The tough, gritty visual images give me so many ideas for my movies.

MI: That is so.  Speaking of which, you were recently quoted as bemoaning the changes that have happened to your old neighborhood.

MS: Yes.  The Bowery and the lower east side.  They’ve become yuppified.  Crime is down.  How can that inspire a film-maker?  I miss the old neighborhood.  The grittiness, the ambience, the vivid atmosphere.  The chaos.  The violence.  The brutality in the street.  The bloodshed.  The screams.  Now that was a neighborhood that inspired.  That was a neighborhood I’d live in.

MI: You – you enjoyed living in that kind of environment?

MS: Of course.  It was great for storytelling.  That’s why I enjoyed living in it.  I mean, I never actually lived in that environment.  It’s dangerous.  But it’s good for storytelling.

MI: So you don’t actually live in the gritty streets?

MS: Of course not.  I’m not stupid. 

MI: Then why do you object the the neighborhood being safer?

MS: How can safe neighborhoods inspire my bushy eyebrows?

MI: I don’t know.  I would suppose they’d inspire new and different stories.  And the people who live in those neighborhoods now certainly don’t seem to mind that violence is down, gangs are not roaming the streets and homeless aren’t defecating in doorways.

MS: Yuppies all of them. Soft, decadent yuppies who know nothing about the real New York.

MI: Really?

MS: They aren’t worthy to be called New Yorkers.  A true New York cherishes crime and decay and bloodshed and the smell of human feces deposited on the sidewalk.  Why every night when I’m eating caviar and sipping champagne from my highrise penthouse I look out on the streets below and I see order, calm and safety.  My bushy eyebrows do not like this.

MI:  I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.

MS: Note to self:  Marty send a note to the City’s planning board asking them to make the streets gritty and blood soaked.  That will inspire me and my eyebrows.

MI: If the violence returns innocent people might get hurt.

MS:  Real New Yorkers don’t mind getting shot.  I once had my eyebrows grazed by a bullet. Actually it was a blank.  On a movie set.   I wouldn’t be dumb enough to go near a neighborhood that had people shooting at each other.

MI:  I suppose –

MS: Marty take a note to yourself:  Make a movie about a genius director who gets shot in his eyebrows.  Call it Genius Director who Gets Shot in the Eyebrows by the Gangs of New York.  Got I love living in grit and grime.  The ideas roll off my tongue.

MI: But we’re not in grit and grime.  We’re in your limo.

MS: Out!  Get out!  I can’t have your negativity around my eyebrows!

MI: But I haven’t even finished my Peking duck yet!

MS: Marty.  Note to self.  Make a movie about a blogger. Kill him off in the first scene.  Get out!

It was at this point that Mr. Scorsese had his limo driver stop the vehicle.  I was thrown out onto the street.  Fortunately we were right by Lincoln Center so I bought tickets to the Metropolitan Opera.  I forget which opera I saw but it was tough and gritty.

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