So if these two actors and Scorsese have a special connection the question remains – who is the better muse for Scorsese?

The Stats

Number of Films – Robert De Niro – 10, Leonardo DiCaprio – 6

Oscars – Of De Niro’s two Oscars he won Best Actor for Scorsese’s Raging Bull. DiCaprio’s Oscar win was for The Revenant – not a Scorsese film. But Scorsese’s only Best Director Oscar came from The Departed, starring DiCaprio.

Reviews Aside from Oscars and looking at the general critical reception going through Rotten Tomatoes Scorsese-De Niro films have an average critic rating of 85%, compared to 80% for Scorsese-DiCaprio. Perhaps a small difference but the 5% between 80% and 85% might just be where a film becomes a classic.

Money In terms of box office – adjusted for inflation – Scorsese-DiCaprio films have made an average $168,000,000, compared to $84,000,000 for Scorsese-De Niro. DiCaprio’s box office is double that of De Niro, a huge difference…but what does Scorsese care of money? He is an artist and would rather make a good movie than a profitable one.

The Switch

De Niro worked steadily with Scorsese until Casino in 1995, when he didn’t work with the director again until The Irishman in 2019 and in this time it seems like Di Caprio replaced him as Scorsese’s go-to actor. Part of this could simply be down to age, Di Caprio could play roles that would be ridiculous for De Niro to play. Its worth noting that when Scorsese was confident enough in the technology he would digitally de-age De Niro for The Irishman allowing him to cover decades of the character’s life.

The Roles

De Niro is famous for playing gangsters, in Scorsese films and beyond, Goodfellas, The Irishman, Mean Streets and Casino all see him take on a gangster or someone in that world. Apart from gangsters De Niro has played a lot of troubled characters – King of Comedy, Taxi Driver and Cape Fear all feature characters who are deeply disturbed. The most glaring exception is New York, New York, a musical romantic comedy where De Niro plays a saxophonist.

DiCaprio has some similar roles – in The Departed he plays a cop posing as a gangster, in Gangs of New York he plays a gangster but this time in the nineteenth century, in Shutter Island DiCaprio plays a cop/patient at a psychiatric hospital. In The Aviator DiCaprio plays the real-life character of Howard Hughes, inventor, filmmaker and more. Then there is The Wolf of Wall Street, with DiCaprio playing the charismatic, ruthless stockbroker Jordan Belfort.

Obviously, when the technology exists Scorsese will splice together some terrifying DiCaprio-De Niro hybrid clone creature – terrifying but undeniably a compelling actor (Robnardo Dei Nirio?)- but until then can we determine who has the best working relationship? My instinct leans towards De Niro but that could be just because the passage of time has elevated these films to classics while Di Caprio’s are more recent. Outside of Scorsese DiCaprio’s recent film output has been vastly superior to De Niro’s…but this isn’t really about outside of Scorsese and so the title will have to be given to Robert De Niro.

Also Read: The Many Films of Martin Scorsese

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The most recent iteration of their machine learning-based natural language processor, ChatGPT3 has recently generated furore on the internet as to the possibilities of A.I. In order to test out the A.I tool, we asked the programme to define itself, giving the prompt “What is Chat GPT“? Here’s what it responded with:

“ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI that can generate human-like text in response to prompts. It is trained on a massive dataset of text from the internet and is able to understand and respond to a wide range of topics and questions. It can be used for various natural language processing tasks such as language translation, text summarization, and chatbot development.”

With that out of the way, it was time for a movie-related question. We asked the question “In your opinion, what are the 10 best movies ever made and why?” The response below is directly from Chat GPT:

“As a machine learning model, I do not have personal opinions or preferences. However, I can provide a list of some critically acclaimed films and a brief explanation of why they are considered to be among the best ever made.

“The Godfather” (1972) – Considered a masterpiece of filmmaking, the film explores themes of family, power, and corruption through the story of a New York crime family.
“The Shawshank Redemption” (1994) – This film tells the story of a man wrongfully convicted of murder and his friendship with a fellow inmate. It is praised for its performances, direction, and themes of hope and redemption.

“The Godfather: Part II” (1974) – A continuation of the story from the first film, this movie explores the early life of Vito Corleone and the rise of Michael Corleone, while also depicting the fall of the Corleone empire.

“The Dark Knight” (2008) – A psychological thriller that explores the theme of good vs evil through the story of Batman and the Joker. It is widely praised for its performances, direction and its exploration of the human psyche.

“Schindler’s List” (1993) – This film is based on the true story of a German businessman who saves the lives of more than a thousand Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. It is praised for its powerful performances, direction and its unflinching portrayal of one of the darkest periods in human history.

“12 Angry Men” (1957) – This film tells the story of a jury deliberation in a murder trial. It is widely praised for its performances and its exploration of themes of justice, bias and the human condition.

“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003) – The final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it is widely praised for its visual effects, action sequences, and its exploration of themes of love, sacrifice, and friendship.

“Pulp Fiction” (1994) – This film is widely considered a masterpiece of modern cinema. It tells a number of interconnected stories that explore themes of love, violence and redemption.

“Goodfellas” (1990) – This film tells the true story of a mobster’s rise and fall. It is widely praised for its performances, direction and its unflinching portrayal of the criminal underworld.

“The Matrix” (1999) – This groundbreaking film explores the theme of reality and perception through the story of a hacker who discovers that the world he knows is a simulation. It is praised for its visual effects, action sequences, and its exploration of deep philosophical ideas.”

The above is the full transcript of ChatGPT’s response. It is interesting to note that the machine learning tool clearly states it has no personal opinion. Current A.I chatbots (from ChatGPT to Amazon’s Alexa) function more as a development on Google search i.e. providing information to human prompts than they do as conscious humanoids who develop their own opinions in the way that we do (at least for now). However, it’s still interesting to see ChatGPT’s response. Firstly, it’s very well written and contains films that regularly feature on different movie lists. What is fascinating is why ChatGPT chose these films in this order. How did Chat GPT weigh up what a “critically acclaimed” film was? Why did it only respond with 9 movies? Furthermore, in the future when we look at such programmes to analyse critical acclaim, how do the human biases in the data that are used to train the A.I model play out in its response?

Also Read: A.I Generated Art & Movies: A Collision Course

Your contribution to Big Picture Film Club will allow us to continue to produce content. No matter the amount your contributions are greatly appreciated.

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What’s Going On?

In a crowded club, Tommy DeVito is telling a story, everyone is hanging on his every word, and the story involves a time he committed a crime and got arrested by the police. In the story, Tommy is beaten by the police but he continues to be rude and defiant to them. Everyone else is in hysterics in what is clearly meant to be a funny story. When Henry Hill makes the throwaway comment that Tommy is a “funny guy” the mood changes. Suddenly Tommy is upset and thinks Henry is mocking him. Henry stumbles as he tries to explain what he meant, while other members of the group try and calm things down. Just as Tommy seems on the verge of violence Henry starts laughing and the tension is gone – Tommy was joking. A moment later after a discussion about paying his tab, Tommy smashes a bottle over the head of the owner, again to riotous laughter, and not just from his own friends but from many of the other patrons. When Tommy comes back once again he calls Tommy “a funny guy” leading to more mock anger from Tommy.

Tommy DeVito

This is one of the first scenes we see as Henry and Tommy as adults, having seen them as youngsters as they started working for the mob. This scene sets up the whole of the film for Tommy DeVito. He’s impulsive, he’s reckless, he’s scary and he might be a little crazy. When he is intimidating Henry the group seems to have a genuine fear that this will end in violence; that attacking a childhood friend over nothing is exactly the sort of thing Tommy might do. A moment later Tommy does attack the club owner, someone well known to them all, but no one tries to calm Tommy down. In fact, this horrific event does nothing to spoil the mood, showcasing this level of casual violence against someone outside of their group is entirely normal. Like many people of my generation, my introduction to Joe Pesci was Home Alone, the silly slapstick-violence home invasion children’s film, and it was some time before I discovered the other side to Joe Pesci’s career.

Pesci is amazing in this scene. As is pointed out throughout the film, he is short, not immediately physically imposing, but he relentlessly and effectively portrays Tommy as extremely intimidating. The story he is telling is funny and charming and with moments of self-deprecation – and when I say funny and charming that is how his friends are perceiving it, they are in riotous laughter. Tommy’s short temper is clearly not only dangerous for other people but a liability in a criminal enterprise. But none of them seems to care, at worst, they see it as a minor character flaw.

Like a clown? I amuse you?

I have long thought about why someone saying “you’re a funny guy” could ever be construed as an insult. And I think it’s a question of what you are as opposed to what you can do – Tommy can tell a funny story, that’s an admirable talent, but to be funny, to be laughed at (even if you’re attempting to make people laugh) is weak and pathetic. Tommy is not funny. He is scary, he is tough, he is to be feared and respected. The outburst of violence at the club owner is about Tommy not feeling respected. The waiter is nervous to bring him the bill because…well because he smashes bottles over people, and that’s when he’s in a good mood.

How scared is Henry?

It would be interesting to know whether Henry always knew Tommy was joking or if he only worked it out at the end, or if indeed he had no idea but could see that as the only way out. Henry certainly looks scared, those around him look concerned, and again, Henry is one of Tommy’s closest friends. The stress that mounts on Henry throughout the film is evident here – not only does he have to worry about rival criminals and the police, he can’t be completely sure his best friend won’t attack him with a bottle.

The scene is a few minutes of outright brilliance and does much to set the tone for the rest of the film. In many scenes, happy get-togethers and fun gatherings descend into violence or intimidation with little provocation or it’s clear that violence is only a poorly chosen word away.

Also Read: The Many Films of Martin Scorsese

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Long Stories

Martin Scorsese tells long stories, often spanning decades – Goodfellas follows Henry Hill from a child getting a part-time job in a cab stand to him turning on his Mafia friends many years later. The Aviator spans decades in the life of trouble genius Howard Hughes. Unsurprisingly the films have run times to match this, the last time Scorsese made a film under two hours it was The Colour of Money in 1986 – with one whole minute to spare. Scorsese’s most recent film, The Irishman, is also one of his longest, running at 3 hours and 29 minutes. This was released on Netflix which I think is important, as I imagine it being streamed at home was a factor in this and so eager to have this prestigious director working with them the streaming service would have agreed to anything. The story runs from 1949 to 2000 and seeing characters age, grow old and die has quite an impact. You don’t just assume characters are friends because you’re told this – you see it happening. The journey of Peggy Sheeran – the daughter of De Niro’s character – from child to adult and how she viewed her father is particularly devastating.

Casino is just shy of a three-hour runtime which showed the destruction of the relationships between three people: Ace Rothstein, Nicky Santora and Ginger McKenna. Ace and Nicky are childhood friends and Ace and Ginger have a somewhat unconventional marriage, and as rifts and new feelings develop between the three of them things get ugly. It doesn’t help that whilst this is going on Ace is running casinos for the Mafia with Nicky meant to be protecting him but is as much a liability as security. Nothing in the demise of these relationships feels forced or motivated to advance the plot but develops naturally from the flaws in the characters.

The Wolf of Wall Street was three hours long and the story goes that Scorsese wanted a four-hour cut and a lot was said at the time about how it felt long. Various people have suggested that this was a directorial choice in the sense that the main character’s seemingly endless party of drugs and sex was meant to feel gruelling, you were meant to feel like it was too much – because it was.

Quentin Tarantino is another director who makes long films but while I often feel with Tarantino this is self-indulgence, Scorsese earns this time and uses it to maximum effect.

Obsession

A lot of the stories in Scorsese’s stories revolve around obsessions characters have. Travis Bickle is obsessed with cleaning up the streets, Rupert Pupkin is obsessed both with talk show host Jerry Langford and being famous, Amsterdam is obsessed with getting revenge on Bill the Butcher. For each of these characters, their obsessions take them to odd places – Bickle becomes a hero to people when he could so easily have been the villain, Pupkin fulfils his ambition for fame by kidnapping his hero. Amsterdam saves Bill’s life at one point, just so he can kill him himself, and at times is taken in by the strength of Bill’s personality. Normally obsessions don’t go too well for people in films but looking at these characters it’s not that simple – Pupkin becomes famous, Bickle becomes a hero to people, Amsterdam gets his revenge and seems on the verge of moving onto a happier life.

Crime

I considered not writing about this but considering twelve of Scorsese’s films are directly about crime, criminals or law enforcement it was impossible to ignore. A lot of these films focus on people who don’t want to do things the typical way. In Goodfellas, Henry Hill spends a lot of time complaining about normal life and trying to get ahead that way is pointless. In Casino, the mob bosses baulk at the idea of just making the profit they could out of a huge casino in Las Vegas – they have to break the law to get every penny. Joe Pesci’s character in Casino is even frustrated with the “normal” way the mob conduct business and makes his own path. The Wolf of Wall Street is entirely about finding new ways to rip people off using the stock market. It’s important to say that I don’t think Scorsese celebrates this attitude – his crime films are full of death and violence, they’re not simply enterprising, they’re dangerous people. Casino and Goodfellas both contain sections of utter bloodbaths against people who by the supposed rules of the mob “shouldn’t” have gotten hurt. While The Wolf of Wall Street is not focused on violent crime Belfort’s contempt for the people (especially people who can’t afford to lose money) he cons is sickening.

Gangs of New York focused on vicious gang violence in 19th Century New York with the main issue being around the tension between newly arriving immigrants and longer established gangs (but, it’s America, so ultimately immigrants as well). More or less the city authorities abandon this area, the Five Points, to gang rule. Taxi Driver dealt with the crime-ridden streets of 1970s New York – given rise to Bickle who while wanting to clean things up was just as dangerous and unhinged as those he fought. Both of these films are set in New York and despite the hundred years between them the violence and the inability or indifference of the authorities is damning.

Iconic Cinema

Martin Scorsese has created countless iconic shots and scenes in films. Raging Bull is packed with amazing shot after amazing shot, the title sequence to the film has more artistic ambition than whole features. Travis Bickle is gifted with at least three truly legendary moments in one film, lurking in his taxi, his mirror conversation and stalking the streets with his mohawk. The unforgettable single-take scene in Goodfellas of Henry and Karen entering the Copacabana, moving around corridors and cutting through the kitchen still looks brilliant after thirty years, let alone Joe Pesci’s handling of the most tense example of “friendly banter” in the history of the world, with the audience thinking he might just murder one of his closest friends because Henry had the audacity to laugh at one of his jokes.

Acting Partnerships

Martin Scorsese has made nine full-length films with Robert De Niro and it would not be out of the question to call it the most successful director-actor partnership in cinema history. De Niro starred in The Irishman with a sizeable amount of money being spent on digitally de-ageing the actor. The buzz around Scorsese and De Niro reuniting was a huge draw for the film.

However, in the 2000s, Scorsese turned to Leonardo Di Caprio, who went on to star in five of his films (with Di Caprio also down to star in two future Scorsese films). Di Caprio’s change in reputation from teenage pinup to one of the most respected actors working today is due in no small amount to these films.

I’ve barely mentioned so much of Scorsese’s work and he’s done everything from religious epics to psychological thrillers – it’s hard to imagine a fan of film not finding something to enjoy. He is one of those directors where even films of his I haven’t seen, like Silence, for example, I feel on very safe ground saying it will be a good film.

Also Read: Dynamic Duos: Iconic Actor / Director Match-Ups

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