SBIFF 2014 Vanguard award Scorsese and DiCaprio

Reviewed by Poya Salari. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2014.

To attend the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s Cinema Vanguard award honoring of Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio was a real struggle for me, as I did not have a ticket at first and it was completely sold out. Fortunately, I went to the Arlington Theatre at the night of the event and managed to buy myself a ticket outside. The place was packed and everyone were very excited, which made sense because of the presence of two of the biggest names in the film industry today.

The event started out with Scorsese and DiCaprio talking about how they first learned about each other. Martin Scorsese said Robert De Niro told him he just worked with Leonardo DiCaprio on This Boy’s Life (Michael Caton-Jones, 1993) and that Scorsese should work with him sometime, he later saw DiCaprio’s performance in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (Lasse Hallström, 1993) and thought he was magnificent. Leonardo DiCaprio learned about the legend Scorsese early on as most of us, he recalled watching Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) and being blown away.

Scorsese and DiCaprio went on to talk about their first collaboration, Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese, 2002). After seeing a clip from the film they talked about the making of that film and how they set up the intense scenes.

After having done Gangs of New York, the two were reunited when they made The Aviator (Martin Scorsese, 2004). Leonardo DiCaprio talked about how passionate he was about this project and how he wanted to play Howard Hughes badly. Scorsese recalled DiCaprio coming to him with the project, and how it was similar to when Robert De Niro approached him to direct Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980). Scorsese talked about how he went into Raging Bull knowing nothing about boxing, and that the same went for The Aviator as he knew nothing about airplanes.

Their third collaboration was The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006). Scorsese and DiCaprio told a story about working with Jack Nicholson and how he wanted to do unscripted things during an interrogation scene with DiCaprio, it involved setting a table on fire and brining a gun with him.

Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio’s fourth collaboration was Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010). After having seen a clip from the film, the two talked about the hard weather conditions they ran into when making this film, with storms affecting the shooting of Shutter Island.

Scorsese and DiCaprio’s sixth and latest feature film collaboration, is The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013). Leonardo DiCaprio once again talked about how this was a passionate project of his that he had been trying to get off the ground for some while. Scorsese talked about how at this point in his career he had the energy to make this film, that might be his craziest to date.

The event ended with Jonah Hill appearing on stage and giving the Vanguard award to Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio. Overall it was a really fun and interesting event.