All language subtitles for A.Letter.To.Elia.2010.1080p.BluRay.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX].eng

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(SHIP HORN BLARING)

(RETCHING)

(PEOPLE CHATTERING)

Would you like some tea?
Would you like some rum?

Madam prefers when you smile.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
What kind of a person

must a film director
train himself to be?

A white hunter,

leading a safari
into dangerous and
unknown territory.

It's not deserted.
They're there.

They know you're here.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
A psychoanalyst who keeps
a patient functioning

despite intolerable
tensions and stresses.

I was born here...

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
A hypnotist...

...brought me
to America 25 years ago
when we married.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
...who works with
the unconscious

to achieve his ends.

He has to have
the cunning of a traitor
in a Baghdad bazaar.

He must have the kindness
of an old-fashioned mother
who forgives all,

the sternness of her husband,
who forgives nothing.

Why did you push that ice down?

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
The elusiveness
of a jewel thief.

The blarney of a PR man.

...respect,
which people are...

Respect?

Did you ever hear of anyone
buying any product,

beer, hair rinse, tissue,
because they respect it?

You've got to be loved, man.

Loved!

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
Very thick skin,
very sensitive soul,

simultaneously.

MARTIN SCORSESE:
What kind of a person
must a film director be?

I wonder.

Maybe it was Elia Kazan
who started me asking
this question myself.

Actually, it was his pictures,

the ones I saw
for the first time
back in the 1950s,

the ones I grew up with,
and that grew up with me.

I remember going
to the Loew's Commodore.

It's now gone,
like most of
the old theaters are.

The Commodore
was where I saw
On the Waterfront

when it opened in 1954.

It was the faces, the bodies,
and the way they moved.

The voices and
the way they sounded.

They were like the people
I saw every day...

...and poorer now
than when I started.

SCORSESE:
...at the butcher's,

or sitting out
in the street at night
to cool off,

and church.

I saw the same mixture of
toughness and tenderness.

It was as if the world
that I came from,

the world that I knew, mattered.

As if the people
I knew mattered,

whatever their flaws were.

Hiya, kid.

I was just gonna feed them.

SCORSESE: The director's name
was interesting to me,

and I remember
I wasn't quite sure
how to pronounce it.

The very simple essence of it is

it's not fake,
it's not pretense.

If you can stir up
the real emotion,

whether of anger,
or love, or desire,

or any one of
the other powerful emotions
that make our drama,

if you can stir
it up and use it,

you'll have something
that's unique, or unusual.

And that's what drama is.

SCORSESE: Stir up emotions
in the actors and
in the audience.

There was another movie
made not long after that
by the same director.

In fact, about a year later.

Should have gone
right on in there
and talked to her.

SCORSESE: This time
it was in color.

It was a story of
a father and two sons,
two brothers.

It was called East of Eden,

and it certainly stirred up
real emotions in me,

emotions that I
wasn't really aware

that I had or
even what they were.

And I saw it many times.

In fact,
I followed the picture,
I stalked it,

all over the city,
from one theater to another.

He's not watching us.

I feel as if
he can still see us.

SCORSESE: And I
always saw it alone.

I love you, Aron.

Really, I do. Really.

(LAUGHING)

SCORSESE: And in a way,
what I'm telling you now

isn't really about film history,

I suppose it's about
giving and receiving.

When I began to make
my own pictures,

I would always ask myself
when I was doing a scene,

"Does this have the honesty,

"the eye for detail,

"the loving power
of what I experienced
in Elia Kazan's pictures?"

I guess every person
who starts to make movies

has the same experience.

The current will
carry us across.

Slowly.

SCORSESE: There's a moment
when you see work that
sparks something in you,

that stays with you

and becomes the standard
you set for yourself,
almost unconsciously.

What's that song?

Oh, it's just some old hymn.

SCORSESE: And that's what
Kazan's work meant to me.

And to a certain extent
it still does.

(SINGING) And he tells me
I am his own

And the joy we share
as we tarry there

None other has ever known

SCORSESE: But work like that
doesn't come out of thin air.

You have to have lived it.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
"Why are you mad?"

My wife asks me that,
seems like every morning.

"I'm not mad," I say.

"It's just my face."

I no longer hide it.

It's out in the open.

My perennial scowl.

Which is why my smile,
when it does appear,
is so dazzling.

The sheer surprise of it.

That's supposed to be a joke.

SCORSESE: I look
at these pictures

and I can see that
Elia Kazan's smile
really was dazzling.

And he knew it.

Did he use it as a weapon?
A defense?

And if a defense,
defense against what?

Against disappointment
and failure?

Against fame and success
and all the distractions?

Against small talk,
which he hated?

Against shame and
public scourging?

Against rejection.

Against all kinds of adversity.

MAN: They are
bringing him, my friend.
They are bringing your boy.

See? A fine
young man.

(SOLDIER SHOUTING ORDERS)

Now, smile.

Smile.

I am very grateful to you.

SCORSESE: He had
a name for this defense.

The Anatolian Smile.

He learned it from
the men in his family,

who endured humiliation
on a daily basis
in the old country.

I like all the Greek
subject people.

We all know that.

KAZAN: Anatolian Greeks
were Greeks who were
afraid all the time

that they might
step out of line,
and that was my family.

MAN 1: He doesn't
know his place.

Well, it's not our affair.

They're Armenians, we're Greeks.

Their necks are not our necks.

SCORSESE: In fact,
The Anatolian Smile
was the original title

for the film he would
eventually make

about his uncle, called
America, America.

That film was Kazan's favorite.

And the picture is
very special to me
because it's "the" story.

The passage
from the old world
to the new world.

The story of his family,
and really, actually,
of my family, too.

That film tells
more about me
than I care to say.

INTERVIEWER:
Well, what does it
tell about you?

"Go fuck yourself."

(LAUGHING)

Well, I'd say that
I essentially have
the soul of an immigrant.

I'm essentially an outsider.

SCORSESE:
"The soul of an immigrant."

It's a certain way of
looking at the world,

staying outside,
being always on your guard,

and it was handed down
from the old world to
the next generation.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
Father communicated
to me by example.

Mind your own business.

Don't start up arguments.

Walk away from a fight.

Because out in the world,
Father couldn't afford anger.

And, of course, it had
to come out somewhere.

And it did, at home.

Cal, listen to me.

A man has a choice.
That's where he's different
from an animal.

You don't listen.
You'll never remember.

SCORSESE: Fear, resentment,
trusting nobody,

out in the world
and back at home.

As if that's the way
it's supposed to be.

Kazan understood
the way that can feel
when you're growing up.

There is nothing in this world

that I wouldn't do for you, boy.

There's nothing
I wouldn't do
if you do right.

If you do right, Bud.

SCORSESE: He knew
the weight you can carry
through your life.

The way it could feel
like a birthright.

(SNIFFLING)

Sometimes, though,
if things go
a certain way for you,

you could find a new home.

Make a new home for yourself.

And eventually,
Kazan found his
new home in movies,

making movies.

KAZAN: The thing
I wanted to be was
a film director.

I used to study,
I used to go to films
all the time.

I saw all the great
Russian films.

Dovzhenko, particularly,
had a big influence on me.

And I watched them all
and I said,

"God, that's it.
That's life, doing that."

SCORSESE:
For a young man with the soul
of an immigrant in 1932,

Hollywood would have seemed
almost impossible.

So Kazan took
a roundabout way
into movies.

KAZAN: How do
you get a start as
a film director in 1932?

There's no such way to do it.

Now you can get into TV

and one thing and another,
but then, nothing.

So I got a chance to go
with the Group Theater
and become an actor.

SCORSESE: The Group Theater.

These were
the people who changed
American theater

and acting all over the world.

Kazan worked his
way up the ladder
from apprentice to actor.

And for a while
he was a name on stage
and briefly on screen.

Remember me?
This is Googi
under these duds.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
Someone wrote that
I was supercharged.

Thank you very much,
but my opinion is
less flattering.

I had the energy of the era...

Tell you the truth, Danny,
I've been sightseeing.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
...and the intensity
of my neuroses.

Then I took a little trip
up the Hudson, too.

There's a beautiful view
up there from
a certain window,

and I ought to know
because I looked
at it for 36 months.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
I was, for a few years,
a cult favorite.

I was playing for peanuts.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
I spoke for the times.

SCORSESE: He moved on
from acting to directing,

and he directed
the first productions
of two great American plays.

On both Death of a Salesman
and A Streetcar Named Desire,

Kazan contributed so much
to their unusual staging

and the way they blended
reality and memory.

He went beyond
what was expected
of a theater director

and quickly became the most
sought-after man on Broadway.

I imagine it must
have been dizzying

to be Elia Kazan in those days.

He was on top of the world.

But the more
successful he was,
the more dissatisfied.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
I put myself in
the author's shoes.

I was many men,
but none of them was myself.

SCORSESE:
When 20th Century Fox
brought him out to Hollywood,

he had everything
laid out for him.

But he was frustrated by it all.

KAZAN: I was essentially
a stage director.

What I did was that
I staged the scenes,
wherever they took place,

mostly in a room,
the way I would on stage.

Neeley, sometimes I think
you make these holes
on purpose.

SCORSESE: But I think
he was quietly developing
his own voice,

whether he knew it or not.

You know what I read
in a magazine once?

What was it, Francie?

Well, it said that walking
was a good thing.

It said people would
look and feel a lot better
if they did more of it.

"Walking puts rose petals
in your cheeks," it said.

SCORSESE: That first picture,
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,

from the famous novel
by Betty Smith,

is a beautifully
made period piece

produced in Fox's
best house style.

But it's what Kazan
found with his actors
that brings it alive.

It ain't right.
If you got something to say,
just say it right out.

SCORSESE: Peggy Ann Garner,
for instance.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
You can't get it out
of them unless it's in them.

It's difficult,
if not impossible,

to get away
with anything false
before the camera.

Because it reveals
what's truly happening...

KATIE: I should
have had time.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
...if anything,

if nothing.

I don't know how
I could do any different.

What time is it?

SCORSESE: Many child actors
from the period seem
formally controlled.

But you don't feel that
with Peggy Ann Garner.

She's a very good actress,
but she also has
the freedom of a child,

the awareness of a child,
and the vulnerability.

These are things
that can't be faked.

I'd like my
father's shaving cup.
That one, "Nolan."

Oh, you're the little girl.

Yes, I'll clean it up for you.

He was a fine man.

Tell your mama
that I, his barber,
said this.

SCORSESE: Kazan always
made the point

that he would have done
this picture differently

if he had been on his own.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
really does feel like
a Kazan movie to me,

but I can understand
why he saw it differently.

Hello, Father.

Hello, my dear.

(GUN FIRES)

SCORSESE: Boomerang!,
made a couple
of years later,

was a courtroom melodrama,

but it was shot in
the docu-drama style

that came out of
Italian neorealism
popular in the late '40s.

And it allowed Kazan to get away

from the status and security
of the studio system

and, literally,
outside into the open air.

The important part was
that I caught something
in the background

in the life of a city like that

that made me feel,
"I can go anywhere
and make a film."

God bless you, Blackie.
God bless you.

God bless you.

Hey! You get away...

SCORSESE:
Kazan went even further with
Panic in the Streets,

which was shot
on the streets
of New Orleans.

KAZAN: I tried
to make, in effect,
a silent picture,

and I said,
"The pictures themselves
should tell a story

"and not hang
on the dialogue."

(HORN BLARING)

SCORSESE: There's such
a sense of freedom and
invention in this movie.

You'd better wait down here.

SCORSESE: Sometimes
filmmakers are energized
by their environment,

the spirit of the moment.

We got a sick man here!

I'm a doctor.
I want to take
a look at him.

SCORSESE:
And you can feel
that right here.

Isn't his name Poldi?
Put him down.
I want to see.

Get out of the way!
(MAN SCREAMING)

I found out that it's
a very important thing

not to pay
too much attention
to the script

once you've got it good.

Then you can work
and you can say,
"Wait a minute.

"Let me look back
on this thing and see
what it says here."

You brought them
their food every day?

Yes, sir.

Did they ever say anything?

Sure. "Food stinks.
Goodbye."

This boy just
kills you, doesn't he?

Now, did they...
Are you the cook?

Yes, sir.
Go away.

SCORSESE:
I think you could say
that, around this time,

a director was
slowly becoming
a filmmaker.

And these pictures,
each of them
beautifully made,

were kind of stops
along the way.

Professionally,
he had reached a peak

in Hollywood, on Broadway,
and as co-founder
of the Actors Studio.

And then something happened.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
I did what I did

because it was
the more tolerable
of two alternatives

that were, either way,
painful, even disastrous,

and, either way, wrong for me.

That's what
a difficult decision means.

Either way you go, you lose.

SCORSESE:
During the height
of the Red Scare,

when anyone with
leftist connections
in their past

was suspected of
being a Communist
and a traitor,

when no one felt safe
and careers and even lives
were on the line,

Kazan appeared twice
before the House Un-American
Activities Committee.

First time,
he was uncooperative.

But the second time,
he gave eight names

of former
Communist Party members
from the Group Theater days.

Of course,
Kazan wasn't the only
friendly witness.

But when
he published a letter in
The New York Times

attempting to
justify and explain,

he almost guaranteed that
he was the one people would
always remember.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
What happened
during that time,

and how I dealt with it,

made my face what it is today.

SCORSESE: Was it destructive?
Of course it was.

And the consequences
were tragic for everyone.

To many people,

friends, co-workers,
old acquaintances,

he became a pariah,

a guy
you crossed the street
to avoid running into.

But something else
happened to Kazan
after his testimony.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
The only genuinely good

and original films I've made,

I've made after my testimony.

The films
after April 1, 1952
were personal.

They came out of me.

Now you take it easy, slugger.

SCORSESE:
If you're talking about
the work, the art,

this is a moment
when a director
became a filmmaker.

Joey!

SCORSESE: Ultimately,
a great filmmaker.

All right!
What do you want?

Hey, I got one of your birds.

Yeah, must be Danny Boy.
I lost him in the last race.

Listen, don't worry.
I'll take him up
to your loft.

Okay, I'll see you on the roof.

SCORSESE:
Something began for me
with this picture.

The drunk getting
thrown out of the bar,

these guys standing there
in their big overcoats,
hanging out.

The harsh light, the cold.

How goes?

He's up on the roof.

The pigeon?

Yeah, it worked.

(SCREAMING)

I think somebody
fell off the roof.

SCORSESE: At the time
I saw the picture, I mean,
that's where I lived.

I was growing up
in these places.
I knew them.

I knew rooms like this
with that kind of paint job

and the crucifix on the wall.

Faces like this.

People I didn't ordinarily
see in movies.

The way they looked,
the way they moved.

And I knew the roof,
the pigeons.

Hi.

What are you doing
up here on the roof?

Just looking.

Hey! This bum here
is my shadow.

SCORSESE: There was this way
of being with each other,

tough guys
knocking each other around,
just kidding,

but it could turn on a dime.

The people who wanted
to let you know
they were tough.

Joey used to raise pigeons.

SCORSESE: But also,
it was sensitive in some way.

Yeah, he had a few birds.

SCORSESE: I grew up
around all that.

You know, I've seen you
a lot of times before.

SCORSESE: There was
a stylized version of it

in the studio pictures
that I'd been seeing...

...had your hair...

Braids.

...but what Marlon Brando
did was different.

You had wires on
your teeth and glasses.
Everything.

You was really a mess.

I can get home all
right now, thanks.

Hey, listen. Don't get sore.
I was just kidding
you a little bit.

I just mean to tell
you that you're...

You grew up very nice.

Thanks.

You don't remember me, do you?

Come on, come on!

SCORSESE: The awkwardness,
the sense that you're nobody,

it was all there.

You just stay here
and finish your drink.

Oh, no. No.
Listen, don't go. I've got
my whole life to drink.

SCORSESE: These were guys
you loved and hated
at the same time.

Are you sore at me?

SCORSESE: I used
to find myself looking
at them and wondering,

"Who could be with them?
Who could love them?"

If I had my tuxedo,
I'd ask you to dance, but...

Come on.
You want to spin?

Huh?

Come on, don't be afraid.

Oh, you dance divinely.

SCORSESE: You could feel
their desire to be with

somebody who'll
make all their pain
just go away.

I want you to stay away from me.

I know what you want me to do,

but I ain't gonna do it,
so forget it.

I don't want you to do anything.

You let your conscience
tell you what to do.

Shut up about that conscience!

That's all I've been hearing!

I never mentioned
the word before.
You just stay away from me!

Edie, you love me.

I didn't say
I didn't love you,
I said stay away from me!

I want you to say it with me.

Stay away from me!

Raise your right hand.

SCORSESE: Now, there was
an official theme
to the picture,

the part that's always been seen

in the light of
Kazan's testimony...

"I do."
I do.

Be seated, please.

SCORSESE:
...standing up for yourself

and breaking through
the wall of silence.

But Brando's character,
Terry, triumphs at the end.

...you were the last one
to see him before he was
pushed from the roof?

SCORSESE:
And where I came from,

we knew that this was,
in a way, a fantasy.

Wait! Except for the guys
that pushed him off.

SCORSESE: Because people
like Terry Malloy

wound up dead in the river
for informing on
a regular basis.

At the time,
I just accepted this
as a convention

that supported
what was so special
about the rest of the movie.

What are you going around
with his sister for?

I'm not...
Just shut up!

SCORSESE: The moments
where Kazan and Brando
pushed each other...

You...

Let's go!

Wise up!

All right. Do you think
Johnny's going to jeopardize
the whole set-up

for one
rubber-lipped ex-tanker
who's walking on his heels?

What the...

SCORSESE: I remember
being really disturbed

by all that resentment and anger

coming out into the open.

Well, make up your mind
before we get to
437 River Street!

SCORSESE: Betrayal.
The worst thing you could do.

Betrayed by your own brother.

Before we get to where, Charley?

Before we get to...

Listen to me, Terry.

Take the job. Just take it.
No questions. Take it!

Charley.

Terry, take this job, please.

Charley!

Please take it!

Charley...

SCORSESE:
Every time I see
this famous scene,

I forget about the camera.

It's just one brother
confronting another.

When you
weighed 168 pounds,
you were beautiful.

You could have been
another Billy Conn.

That skunk we got
you for a manager,

he brought you along too fast.

It wasn't him, Charley.
It was you.

Remember that night
in the Garden?

You came down to my
dressing room and said,

"Kid, this ain't your night.

"We're going for
the price on Wilson."

You remember that?

"This ain't your night."

My night? I could
have taken Wilson apart!

So what happens?
He gets the title shot
outdoors in the ball park,

and what do I get?
A one-way ticket
to Palookaville!

You was my brother, Charley.

You should have
looked out for me
a little bit.

You should've
taken care of me
just a little bit

so I wouldn't have
to take them dives
for the short-end money.

I had some bets down for you.
You saw some money.

You don't understand,
I could have had class!

I could have been a contender.

I could have been somebody.

Instead of a bum,
which is what I am.
Let's face it.

It was you, Charley.

Okay. Okay.

SCORSESE:
Now I see the mastery.
Brando and Kazan's,

but also Rod Steiger's,
Eva Marie Saint's,

Leonard Bernstein's score,
Budd Schulberg's language,

Boris Kaufman's cinematography.

But back then,
at the Loew's Commodore,

I wasn't thinking about
technique or mastery,

I was living through the film,

through the movie,

taking it all in.

And, I suppose, on some level,

what hit me on the deepest level

was what went on
between the brothers.

And the betrayal.

Maybe because
of my relationship
with my own brother,

who was older than me.

We all lived together
in three rooms then,

and it seemed like there was
always some kind of tension.

Everybody knew each other
in my neighborhood.

Actually, it was
like a little village.

You got the best of it
and the worst of it.

It wasn't
a place where anyone
wanted to live,

I mean, they just had to.

And you'd see things there,
in the streets
and in the hallways

and at night under the el,
that would stay with you.

But in Saint Patrick's
Old Cathedral,

our church around the corner,

I found a kind of refuge.

And I also found
it at the movies,

at the second and
third-run theaters
that were on 2nd Avenue.

That was where I was learning
that life around me,
the world around me,

could be made into
some kind of art.

And I'd go inside,
and after I'd paid about

12 or 15 cents at the time

and found my seat,

I was safe.

And I was at peace.

Another universe, another time.

1917, just before
the country entered
World War I.

California by the sea.

Wide-open space.

And vivid color.

The original CinemaScope,
real widescreen.

And in this movie,
the shape became dynamic.

I watched the picture,

and I started to feel
like I was right there,

in the movie, with this boy,

as he wandered into a place
that was off-limits.

It was forbidden.

This was James Dean's
first starring role,

and you had to look at him.

You couldn't take
your eyes off him.

And he gave a performance
that didn't care what
you thought about it.

I mean, he may have been
23 years old when
he made the picture,

but up there on the screen,
he was a teenager

who found himself
sneaking his way
into an adult world

and then daring to go
as far as he could...

Thank you.

...down the hallway.

What are you gonna do?

Please, kid,
don't make any trouble...

(SHUSHING)

(WHISPERING) Not gonna
make any trouble.

I'm gonna wait till
you're gone. Okay?

SCORSESE: For me,
this instantly became
"the" hallway.

He went inside,
and he took me with him.

I mean, what was going on here?

Had she taken
morphine, or heroin?

Why did her hands feel so naked?

I mean, it felt profane,
and blasphemous, even,

because she was his mother,
and she was a whore.

Let me talk
to you. Please.

I've gotta talk to you.

Joe. Joe!

Get out of here.

Get him out! Punish him!

Get him out of here!
Get him out of here!

Cal! Stop! Stop that, Cal!
What are you doing? Stop it!

Why did you push that ice down?

SCORSESE: Family...

I don't know.

...the dinner table,

a battle ground.

Was it vengeance?

SCORSESE: One brother
was supposed to be good...

Fear that I would
punish you for not
coming home last night?

...and another was
supposed to be bad.

ADAM: What was it?

I wanted to see it
slide down the chute.

Perhaps you'd better
read from here on.

I'll read it, Dad.

No, it's for Cal to read.

SCORSESE:
The father has told them
that their mother is dead,

but the bad son knows the truth.

"I acknowledged
my sin unto thee,

"and mine iniquity
have I not hid..."

SCORSESE: And his knowledge
gives him a kind of power.

"...forgavest
the iniquity of my sin."
See? Look.

ADAM: Go on.

SCORSESE: At first glance,

I projected
the role of the bad one
onto my teen-aged brother.

And I suggest
a little slower, Cal.

"And surely in the floods
of great waters..."

SCORSESE: By default,
that made me the good one.

"Seven..."

Not the numbers, Cal.

"Thou art my hiding place,
thou shalt
preserve me from..."

SCORSESE: But
I became conflicted.

I was having
the same feelings
that the bad brother had.

"Eight..."

You have no repentance!
You're bad!

Through and through, bad.

SCORSESE:
Only I wasn't allowed
to express it at home.

The way he loved his father,

and the way he hated his father.

Seeing his father vulnerable.

It's going to work.

And wanting to please him,

to bring his
grand dream to life.

A dream of progress,
a brighter future,

a better America.

We were feeling that
back in the '50s, too.

The dream of a country,
a father and a son.

Well, it's still a good idea.

Cold can preserve things.

Someday, somebody will prove it.

Dad. It was your idea.

No!

It was presumptuous of me
to think it would be I.

SCORSESE: He sees
his father humiliated,
and he wants to reverse it

and make up for the loss.

And there is only
one place to go.

At certain moments,

East of Eden
had the sense of being
almost like a horror film.

The same kind of unease.

A mother and son
who've never known
each other

literally crossing paths
in a misty landscape.

Aren't you afraid
to come around here again?

Yeah, I am.
No. Well, kind of.

What do you want?

Just to look at me?

I want $5,000.

Caleb.
Yes, ma'am.

Caleb and Aron.

Your father
still thinks he's living
in the Bible, huh?

Maybe you know
what I'm talking
about, huh?

Always so right himself?

SCORSESE: Sharing a laugh
at your father's expense.

ADAM: You have my blessing.

ARON: Thank you, Dad.

SCORSESE: That film kept
making me uncomfortable.

What's this?

What is this?

It's for you.

It's all the money you lost
in the lettuce business.

It's for you.

I made it for you.

Cal, you will
have to give it back.

No, I made it for you, Dad.
I want you to have it.

Cal!

I sign my name and boys go out,

and some die and
some live helpless
without arms and legs.

Not one will come back untorn.

Do you think I could take
a profit from that?

I don't want the money, Cal!
I couldn't take it!

I'll keep it for you.

I'll wrap it up
and we'll just
keep it in here...

I'll never take it! Son!

If you want to
give me a present,
give me a good life.

That's something I could value.

SCORSESE:
Thinking you're doing
something good,

and instead,
being told you've done
something terrible,

without even realizing it.

Most movies I've seen
just didn't deal

with private feelings like that.

Abra!

SCORSESE: And so
I thought I was alone,

that it was
just between me
and the movie.

I mean,
when I was watching it
that first time,

I still wasn't focused
on film technique
or film acting,

I was just responding
to what was genuine
and what wasn't.

The framing,

the control of movement
within the frame,

it all led to
a sensation, a feeling,

that the people
making the movie
knew me,

maybe better than I knew myself.

ARON: Don't you
ever touch her again.

I don't trust you.

You're no good.

Father and I have
put up with every mean

and vicious thing
you could think of

ever since you were a child.

And we've always forgiven you.

But now I don't want
you to go near Abra.

SCORSESE: Everything led back
to that sinful place.

Oh, Cal.

Hello.

SCORSESE: The mother,
it's frightening
how open she is,

how vulnerable
for the first time.

I sensed what was coming,
I wanted to look away,

but I couldn't.

Mother,

this is your other son, Aron.

Aron, say hello to your mother.

Oh, Cal.

Say hello to your mother, Aron!

KATE: Joe! No! No!

SCORSESE: The emotions
spinning out of control,

the song in
the background clashing

with Leonard Rosenman's
powerful score,

the brothers
exchanging identities,

it had all
become full-blown,
real-life horror.

No one's good, no one's bad.

It was frightening,

because I knew
from experience
it could happen like that.

CAL: Father.

SCORSESE: And then there was
the calm after the storm.

Julie Harris as Abra.

Like an angel,

her role is to unite them.

You never gave him your love.

You never asked him for his.

You have to
give him some sign
that you love him,

or else he'll never be a man.

Please help him.

SCORSESE: They say
what they always
wanted to say.

A man has a choice.

You used to say
that was where
we differed from an animal

and that the choice is
what makes him a man.

SCORSESE: But the movies
let so many emotions loose,

and they're still flying around,

and they can't be contained
and wrapped up so neatly.

Look.

SCORSESE: At the time,
we were so moved
by this scene

because it's
the kind of resolution
we wanted to have...

Do something...

...that we thought
was still possible.

...for me.

Yes.

SCORSESE: I look back now

and I realize
just how important
East of Eden was for me.

I mean, everything
I couldn't articulate
at the age of 12,

the picture articulated for me.

So I kept going back
and reliving those feelings

and those
struggles with my family
over and over again,

and having that catharsis,
of watching that film,
repeatedly.

Of course, James Dean
in East of Eden

became symbolic of
adolescent angst,

but I didn't know
what that was back then

because I was going through it.

It was all new to me,

and to all the other teenagers

who looked at James Dean
in this movie

and saw a reflection
of themselves

and their feelings
and their lives
in some way.

And I had an inkling
of something else.

The more I saw the picture,

the more I understood
the presence

of an artist behind the camera.

Later, I went back
and tried to figure
out how he did it,

why it affected me
so powerfully.

Say hello to your mother, Aron!

SCORSESE: Color,
the acting, the editing...

KATE: No!

...the sound editing,

camera movement, lighting,

I studied them.

Back then, 50 years ago,
watching East of Eden,

re-watching East of Eden,

I put my own struggle,
my own rite of passage,
into this picture.

It spoke to me
in a way that no one else
I knew in my life

seemed to be able to do.

And, I guess, ultimately,
I came to project
onto Elia Kazan,

the man behind these two
extraordinary experiences,

wherever he was,
wherever he came from,
whoever he was,

the role of a father.

A different father,
but a father.

After those formative pictures,

I made sure I saw
everything by Kazan.

Studied it.

Movies like A Face in the Crowd,

which was quite
unusual and perceptive

about television
and the monsters
it could create.

It's dangerous.

What, baton twirling?

No, power.

(GIRLS SCREAMING)

SCORSESE:
But what really stayed
with me, and still does,

was the relationship
between Andy Griffith
and Patricia Neal.

Did I call you
a cold fish, Marcia?

Marcia.

SCORSESE: Kazan kept
looking at couples,

the battleground
between men and women.

My little marshmallow.

SCORSESE:
How they can break apart...

Baby, please.

But I'm afraid.

Oh, Bud.

Don't, Bud.

SCORSESE: ...and how
they could come together.

(MAN SINGING)

I think the picture
that meant the most to me,
at this time,

was one of his best,
and least appreciated,
Wild River.

I don't know,
I don't know,
I don't know.

I just don't know.

SCORSESE: The scenes
between Montgomery Clift
and Lee Remick

were so delicate,

and so frank.

All the polite facades
around romantic love

that we were used
to seeing in movies...

It's getting dark out.

SCORSESE:...just gave way.

Don't go.

Please don't go.

SCORSESE:
Kazan's couples
felt real longing.

Hold still.

They craved each other.

Anyway, now it's wonderful.
Right now.

You can't get
enough of me right now,
can you?

Tell me! Tell me!

I can't get enough of you.

SCORSESE: When I was
at New York University,

Kazan was the only
major filmmaker who came
to talk to us.

This was in 1964.

I remember one student
asked him a question,

"If you had to start
your career over again,
what would you do?"

He answered, "I'd start
in the editing room."

In those early days
when he was
brought out to Fox,

instead of being
in the editing room,
it was done for him,

the way it was done
for most directors
at that time.

But he loved movies
and he loved the craft
of making movies,

and he approached movie-making
with the same spirit

as many of
the younger filmmakers

who were just
starting out at the time.

He was one of the artists
who gave me the desire
and the confidence

to try making my own movies.

And it was an exciting time,

because everyone
seemed to be trying
something new with film.

Suddenly, there was
an overwhelming
sense of freedom

to reinvent and redefine cinema.

And it was happening
all around the world
at the same time.

New stories,
new approaches
to film grammar,

new emotions.

We saw everything,
discussed everything

and absorbed everything.

And it was around
this time that I saw
America, America.

It came out when
I was 21 years old,

right after
the Kennedy assassination.

For Kazan,
it was significant
in many ways.

His first completely
personal picture,

his total break with Hollywood,

and it premiered just
after his first wife's
sudden death.

For me, it was a touchstone,

because it felt personal,
hand-crafted,

but it was also an epic.

It was about
leaving what you know,

doing absolutely
everything you can
to get where you want to be.

Come on!

SCORSESE: Stavros,
in that picture,

humiliates himself
to get to America.

He goes through hell,
sacrifices everything,

and he's totally ruthless.

You like me?
STAVROS: Yes.

Would you tell me if you didn't?

No, I wouldn't.

But I do like you.

The way a husband
should like a wife?

I don't want to be my father!

I don't want to be your father!

I don't want that
good family life.

That good family life.

All those good people,
they stay here and
live in this shame.

The churchgoers
who give to the poor,
they live in this shame.

The respectable ones,
the polite ones,
their good manners.

But I am going.

No matter how,
no matter, no matter.
I am going!

(CRYING)

What will happen to you?

I believe...

I believe that, in America...

I believe I will be
washed clean.

KAZAN: What America meant,
that is a good part
of the film.

What America meant.
Liberation, freedom.

When somebody says
bad things about America,
I bristle,

because it
meant so much to me,
I saw the other side.

(MEN CHATTERING)

SCORSESE: For Kazan,
you had to be ready
to struggle,

to fight, to get to America,

to make the movie
you need to make,

to become yourself.

KAZAN: I think,
finally a film director

has to get a shot,
no matter what he does.

We're desperate people.

And one way or another,
no matter what we have
to do, we'll do it.

SCORSESE: I was leaving
the old world behind myself

when I saw this picture.

It was a world
that had formed me,

and one that would
always be a part of me.

But if I was going
to make my own way
and my own movies,

I knew I had to say goodbye.

And I also knew
that it can never be easy.

(ALL CHATTERING)

John Cassavetes,
another tough Greek,

once said that,
to be a filmmaker,

you need to not be afraid
of anybody or anything.

The money, the pressures,
all the little worries
and difficulties,

they're all unimportant.

There's nothing but the movie.

I first understood
that from watching
Elia Kazan's pictures.

MAN: Hey, you!
You, there!

Keep moving now,
you're blocking traffic.

Come on, now. Yes, you.
Move it along...

SCORSESE: I met
Elia Kazan in person
for the first time

around the time
he came to NYU to speak.

It was not
an auspicious occasion.

I wanted to work as an assistant

on his new film,
The Arrangement,

and I actually got lost
trying to find his office,

which was above the Astor,
the Victorian theater,

on Broadway at the time.

I was a little late,
and he was already
standing there,

dressed in a trench coat,
ready to leave.

He wished me luck,
and that was that.

I was young and ambitious,
and he didn't have
the time for me.

It's a good thing,
because I don't think
I would've lasted a day.

I would have asked him
too many questions
about his old movies,

and told not to come back.

He was
still trying to get his
own pictures made.

He wasn't ready
to be the old master.

Maybe you learn more
from the work than the man.

That's something
I didn't really understand
at that time.

Later, after I'd made
a few of my own pictures,

our paths started
to cross again.

Over the years,
we got to know
each other a little.

He liked
some of my pictures,
and told me,

and he disliked others,
and he told me that, too.

He'd always let me know
everything straight out.

We'd get together,
look at movies,

sometimes his own.

There was a kind
of understanding
between us.

I mean, I never
tried to tell him

how much his films meant to me.

I don't think
it would've been fair.

When somebody's work has
touched you that deeply,

you can never
expect them to understand
how much they mean to you.

It had to stay between me
and the pictures.

When he was given an Oscar
for lifetime achievement

near the end of his life,

Robert De Niro
and I were asked
to present it to him.

The old controversies
came out again,

and there were a lot of people

who felt that he didn't
deserve that award.

And there still are.

I knew
I had to be there
by his side.

Those pictures
mean so much to me

that I can't imagine
where I'd be without them.

When the lights dimmed,
I was standing in the wings,

and I looked at the images
from his tribute reel.

It was an overwhelming feeling.

It was as if
I was seeing layers
of my own experience,

my own life,
unfolding right there
up on the screen.

I'm not my brother's keeper.

Where did you go?
For a ride.

What did you quarrel about?

You.

Still there.

NARRATOR: (AS KAZAN)
What kind of a person

must a film director
train himself to be?

The subject he must see,

in the greatest detail
and in the most
pitiless light,

is what?

Right.

Himself.

SCORSESE:
The last time I saw him,
he was alone in his room.

His hearing wasn't so good then,

and that was
a real blow to him,
he used to tell us,

because it made
him lose contact
with people.

He was sitting there

and he was wandering
through his memories
of his family,

back in the old world.

His walls were lined
with their pictures.

He looked at me
and he told me,
"I talk to them,

"and, you know,
sometimes they
talk back to me."

It always had to stay
between me and the movies,

and the only way
I could tell you
how much you meant to me

was by making movies.

ENGLISH - US - PSDH