How Marty Scorsese risked it all and lived to risk again in Hollywood.
AT 69, AN AGE WHEN MOST HOLLYWOOD DIRECTORS have been packed off after a hollow cavalcade of plaudits, roasts, and nostalgic fetes, Martin Scorsese is once again panicked about hitting a deadline. His new movie is Hugo, a 3-D children’s movie being released by Paramount Pictures this Thanksgiving weekend, and Scorsese has never before directed in 3-D, nor, God knows, made anything resembling a kid flick. But this is what life is like for Marty, as everyone calls him. The director has achieved the trifecta of a fulfilling, creative life: enough money to do only what truly interests him, enough freedom to attack those projects in a way that is satisfying, and enough appreciation from his peers to tame–just slightly, just ever so slightly–the neurotic beast of self-doubt.

After 22 movies, five commercials, 13 documentaries, a handful of music videos, three children, five wives, and 25 studios; after insolvency and misery, after box-office failures and years of going unappreciated; after the one Oscar and all the others he should have won, Marty Scorsese has earned the right that every creative person dreams of: the right never to be bored. And what all this adds up to in his case, what this really means to this particular man, is that he has earned the right to continue to fret every little detail in the world well into the next decade and for as long as he cares to make movies.

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The film industry has a good 2011 as it harnesses long weekends and festivals.

On Diwali day, start at Mannat, Shah Rukh Khan’s house in Bandra. Travel through the heart of the Indian film business in north Mumbai, right up to Film City. The chances are all you will hear is a deafening silence. It is the sound of an industry waiting with bated breath for the first word-of-mouth reports on Ra.One.

The Rs 160 crore magnum opus, produced by Khan, starring him and promoted ad nauseum by him, is one of the most expensive Indian films ever made. It is being released on Diwali in a film-crazy country that blows up a lot of money and has fun that week. The combination — SRK, festival and mood — is deadly. Ra.One is destined to do well. Given its budget, how much profit it makes may be a question mark. This however is not about Ra.One.

 

 

“Traditionally, a festival release gets 10 per cent more audiences,” says Sreedhar Pillai, a Chennai-based trade analyst. It is also the time that everyone is equal in the film business. “There is usually an unsaid understanding that no two big films will release on the same day. The only exception is a festival. No rules apply,” says Allu Sirish, marketing director, Geetha Arts, a Hyderabad-based production house. The company has produced, among other films, Ghajini.

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