KULTURA / CULTURE
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARTY The man who gave a movie face to New York Ever wondered how it’s possible for one director to see four such different worlds in the same city? M any directors shoot in New York, but few have shot New York itself. Martin Scors- ese, who turns 84
i kažnjava onoga ko ga prekrši: Čarli je zarobljen između crkve i ulice, Travis u sopstvenoj samoći, Pol u noći koja neće da se završi, Arčer u besprekornom bra- ku. U prva tri filma to je grad noći, neona i kiše, a u „Dobu nevinosti“ grad sveća i salona – ali svetlost je jednako hladna. Malu Italiju i Petu aveniju deli svega ne- koliko kilometara, a društveno su uda- ljene kao dva kontinenta; dečak koji je gornji Menhetn gledao kao zabranjeni svet ušao je u njegove salone i otkrio da u njima vladaju ista pravila kao kod kuće. Pola veka na vrhu Njujork se provlači i kroz ostatak karijere. Posle (danas kultnog) neuspe- ha mjuzikla „Njujork, Njujork“ (1977) i teške lične krize, De Niro ga je nagovo- rio da snimi „Razjarenog bika“ (1980), priču o bokseru iz Bronksa koji je bio senzacionalan u svakom smislu i vratio mu samouzdanje. Usledio je „Kralj ko- medije“ (1982) u kom je Menhetn op- sednut slavom, „Dobri momci“ (1990) prate mafiju od Bruklina do Aerodroma „Kenedi“, „Bande Njujorka“ (2002) vra- ćaju se u krvavi grad iz 1860-ih, a „Vuk sa Vol strita“ (2013) u finansijski Men- hetn, gde se krade odelom umesto pi- štoljem. Čak i kada je odlazio iz grada, u Las Vegas („Kazino“) ili u Oklahomu („Ubistva pod cvetnim mesecom“), no- sio je sa sobom isti kodeks kvarta. Iro- ničnim obrtom, „Oskara“ je posle mnogo godina čekanja dobio za film smešten u Bostonu, „Dvostruku igru“, 2007. Sa de- set nominacija za režiju danas je najno- minovaniji živi reditelj, a „Irac“ (2019) i „Ubistva pod cvetnim mesecom“ (2023) pokazali su da i posle sedamdesete sni- ma filmove sa istim ambicijama. Grad koji više ne postoji Njujork se od „Ulica zla“ promenio do neprepoznatljivosti. Mala Italija se svela na nekoliko blokova turističkih re- storana, Tajms skver je postao porodični zabavni park, Soho tržni centar, a salo- ne Pete avenije odavno su zamenili sta- kleni tornjevi. Grad iz Skorsezeovih fil- mova danas postoji još samo na filmu. Upravo zato je njegovo delo dragoceno. Skorseze Njujork nije samo snimao već ga je sačuvao, isto kao što restaurira tu- đe filmove. Dečak sa požarnih stepeni- ca i dalje gleda – a mi gledamo s njim. Srećan rođendan, Marti.
from the window—from a distance— became his way of observing. He him- self used to say that, in his neighbour- hood, he had to choose between the church and the gangsters. He chose the church, enrolling in a seminary school, though he soon left to attend New York University, where he earned his bach- elor’s degree in 1964 and his master’s degree in 1966. Catholic guilt, the code of the street and a love of film remained at the core of everything he would later shoot. After his debut student feature film entitled Who‘s That Knocking at My Door (1967) and the commissioned exploitation film Boxcar Bertha (1972), John Cassavetes advised him to stop wasting his time and shoot something personal. And that led to the birth of Mean Streets. Neighbourhood: Mean Streets (1973) Charlie (Harvey Keitel) wakes up in the dark, drops his head to the pillow, and then the drums of the song Be My Baby open the film’s credit sequence. This is followed by home-movie style shots, a procession, Little Italy. In just a few minutes, Scorsese had introduced new rules that American films still use today: rock and roll instead of a score, the street instead of a studio, an inner voice instead of a plot.
on 17 th November, gave the city a face that we can picture even if we’ve nev- er been there: wet asphalt under neon lights, steam spewing from shafts, the red glow of church candles, views from around the family table... However, the fascinating part isn’t how recognisable that city is, but how much it varies. In those same streets, Scorsese found the urban chaos of Lit- tle Italy, the nighttime hell of Manhat- tan in the ‘70s, a nightmarish adventure through the SoHo of the ‘80s and the closed world of the city’s upper-class of the late 19th century... The boy from Elizabeth Street Scorsese was born in Queens on 17 th November, 1942. The son of Charles and Catherine, both children of Sicilian im- migrants who worked in the textile in- dustry, the family moved back to Lit- tle Italy, to an apartment in Elizabeth Street, when he was eight years old. As an asthma sufferer, he was unable to run around with other children, so he watched life unfold on the street from windows and fire escapes, and got to know the world at the cinema. That view
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