So you had to build your own New York City.

We had to build it, yeah.

When you first thought of doing this all that time ago, you weren't in a position to build New York City.

No.

So did you imagine a smaller version?

No, bigger. Even bigger, even bigger. But also the fact that I had to tell so much of the story of the old New York, you know? Really, I didn't know where to stop it.

So you really never thought about camouflaging existing buildings, the existing city?

There's no way. I think it would not be financially feasible to camouflage New York the way it is now.

So years go by, you build New York in Rome.

Yeah.

Apparently, you've reshot some of the film and changed the music?

No, no, we're just really completing the music. I do a lot with source music, you know.

Did you reshoot the ending?

Not really. I shot some close-ups, which is what I did on "Cape Fear" and "Casino." "Casino," we reshot one scene and shot another scene to compress time. Usually in the editing, I find that at a certain point I'll be able to tell if I need some connective tissue, so to speak, and one more little plot device to carry through.

On "After Hours," I wound up shooting four days, to combine a lot of story points. Well, the original cut was two-and-a-half hours. And the whole idea was just like a Chinese box, you know, you open it up and you just keep opening, there's another box, there's another box, another box. And eventually, we decided we had to maybe compress about 10 or 12 of those boxes by shooting a new scene, and shooting some other elements. And combined it all. And so we reshot four days, and also a different ending, actually, on that.

All you need to know about the Oscars, I think, is that you lost to Kevin Costner [in the 1990 best director category, when Scorsese was nominated for "Goodfellas"].

For directing "Dances With Wolves," yeah. Well, the picture I can understand, because, the thing is that, you know, the Academy is an institution. As one of the key figures at one point told me, "We vote for the film that should win." Meaning at times, they may not necessarily look at the art or the craft, but at the ... This has happened over the years. With "Mrs. Miniver" [in 1942] -- William Wyler's a great director, but I prefer some of his other pictures. Or "How Green Was My Valley" [in 1941]. John Ford's a great director, but over "Citizen Kane," no.

Well, Orson Welles didn't have Miramax campaigning for him.

I guess not, I guess not. Oh, Harvey and the guys there, they're going out there beating the drums, I guess. But the thing about it, too, is that what I realized, you have to sort of get philosophical about it. I got to make these pictures, and the pictures were pretty tough. I mean, "Taxi Driver" was a labor of love. I didn't even think anybody was going to go see it. And it turned out that it became very popular.

[To audience.] Has anyone seen Travis Bickle's Mohawk in the exhibit upstairs? Honestly, if you go upstairs, the Mohawk wig is under glass.

[Robert DeNiro] couldn't cut his hair because we were shooting so fast and he had to go on to do "The Last Tycoon." So we had to make a wig. "Goodfellas" was also an edgy film. They were kind of nasty, in a way, the pictures. I think it was amazing I got away [with] making them, under the system at the studio, under the MPAA, all of that. So we sort of took what we could get and ran -- and that was to make the movies.

"Raging Bull" was another one ... when I made that, I thought: This was it. I kind of put everything I knew into pictures, and then I was going to start on something new. I thought I was going to go off and do documentaries in Rome for [the British independent network] ITV. Really, I was looking forward to it. The church, religious stories, and that sort of thing. Well, because RAI [Italian state television] at the time -- Rossellini had done films, but also Olmi was doing a lot and Bertolucci had done a few. I thought that was the way to go -- for me, anyway.

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