Ok, good explainer here, but (and I can't believe I have to fucking go all filmbro on this, but I fell down a hyper-fixation rabbit hole on this a while back) what's pissing me off about all of this, is that everyone, including op, keeps giving Martin Scorsese credit as the director, when the title card clearly shows "Martin Scorsese Presents" (I think it's the snippet in the 3rd tweet, maybe the 4th) which means that Martin Scorsese was the DISTRIBUTOR.
Like. Ok, so Scorsese graduates film school roughly the same time as George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, Brian DePalma, and the rest of the Movie Brats, coming up with Steven Spielberg etc, launching the American auteur era of film, but smack in the middle of research for Mean Streets, Scorsese encounters this film by the mononymic Italian director, Matteo (JWHJ0715 was his member id number in Italy's version of the Director's Guild of America - pretty sure they stopped requiring directors include their guild number in the credits after Fellini refused for like 20 years and they just gave up trying to fine him. This is also what inspired Lucas to cow the DGA into submission on the credits at the end thing for Star Wars).
And Scorsese is just fucking blown away. Like, it's everything he's wanted to do since he went into film school. The symbolism, the interpersonal intrigue, the conflicting loyalties between love, honor and duty, the family you are born into vs. the mafia family that finds, accepts and trains you, the constant ethical tension between doing what's right for your morality and what's right for YOUR family vs. what's right for THE family.
I mean. Jesus, look at Goodfellas if you want to see how Scorsese tries to touch on SOME OF THAT when he finally feels like he knows enough to even attempt to approach Matteo's mastery.
Of course, that's not even touching on the Cold War intrigue about the Russian mob operating outside of Soviet Russia and the whole KGB subplot aspect of it all.
Anyway, so back to 1972. Scorsese is just absolutely blown away. The Godfather has just come out and America is mafia mad! Scorsese has had some modest hits. He thinks that Mean Streets is gonna be his big break, and he sees this movie. Not only does he dump his original lead actor to cast Robert Deniro because of it, he decides that he's gonna use the connections he's been making to get this film in front of American movie goers, to help finance the films he wants to make.
So he just, he just fuckin COLD CALLS Dominico Procacci and says "I know people and I can get this movie seen over here" and Procacci takes the meeting... Like, the balls on Martin!
But Procacci doesn't tell him that the real Russian mafia is already sniffing around. Anyway, Scorsese gets the distribution rights for the US and starts getting prints made and ready to distribute to prop up the mob-movie-fever so he can ride it when Mean Streets hits later in the year.
Like, the film was already in cans and at the theater, when the Russian mob knocks on Marty's door and have a very convincing conversation with him.
Next thing you know, all of the prints are back at the warehouse where, reportedly, the fucking Russian mob counts each and every single one. Then they toss the fucking master on the pile (I don't know where they got that, does anyone have that story??) and set it all alight, while Marty watches his future go up in flames.
But then they just fucking walk away and Martin Scorsese, with britches full, goes back to his car and doesn't even see the bag of cash in the backseat until the next day. Business concluded.
Gotta give Old Ivan credit. Just like Matteo depicted - they keep their fucking word. Martin Scorsese decided to stick to the Italian and Irish mobs in his movies from then on, and leave the god damned Ruskies alone.
Of course, none of them knew about the test prints back at the warehouse of the company that was hired to make the copies for American distribution. I could be wrong, but isn't the leading theory about the provenance of the Twitter copy that someone probably found one of those test prints in some corporate asset auction or something?
Anyway, sorry for the ramble. I just hate seeing Matteo getting left out of the fucking conversation, especially now that arguably his greatest work is finally getting attention.
Scorsese has been basically fanfic AU-ing "Goncharov" his whole fucking career and now he's gonna get actually credit for the original? Not on my fucking watch, thank you.
yousharknotpass
vaporwave
2087
gracieabrams
discoholicmusic
prguitarman
