The Legendary Martin Scorsese Shares the Stage — and Great Stories — with Fellow Oscar Nominee Justine Triet

Film is, of course, an incredibly collaborative storytelling medium, but at its core it is very much a director’s medium, and I would be hard pressed to imagine a more scintillating pairing to talk about their craft than Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s Outstanding Directors of the Year Award honorees Martin Scorsese and Justine Triet.

Scorsese, as we all know, is without a doubt one of the most highly regarded directors of our time, and at age 81, he is still putting out incredibly accomplished work, including 2023’s Academy Award nominated Killers of the Flower Moon. But he’s more than just a cinematic legend — directing Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and The Wolf of Wall Street, to name just a few of his 44 films — he’s a fabulous storyteller and conversationalist. As SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling said in presenting the award, “I cannot think of anything more beautiful than listening to the rat tat tat of Martin Scorsese.”

Scorsese was on fire last night, as he spoke about first meeting his longtime muse and leading man Robert DeNiro when they were both kids in New York. Even though they ran with different crowds, “we would always remember him as a nice kid that Bobby,” said Scorsese. Years later, when DeNiro was in Brian De Palma’s 1970 film Hi Mom! (one of his first movies), he and Scorsese reconnected socially and went on to work together on their first of ten films, Mean Streets. Scorsese said that of all his movies, that 1973 crime story that takes place in Little Italy is the most autobiographical film for both him and DeNiro too, “because he really knew the people that it was based on.”

Speaking further on DeNiro, Scorsese said, “His sensitivity taught me a lot. He had really good instincts about human nature and psychology.” He also credited DeNiro with ad-libbing to come up with the iconic “you talkin’ to me” scene looking in the mirror in Taxi Driver.

DeNiro was also the one who first brought Leonardo DiCaprio — another longtime muse and leading man — to Scorsese’s attention. Typically DeNiro would never say anything about other actors, but after working with an 18-year-old DiCaprio in This Boy’s Life, DeNiro said, “You’ve got to meet this kid, he’s really interesting.” 

Indeed Scorsese and DiCaprio did meet and that led to their collaboration on six films to date, including Shutter Island, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, The Departed (Scorsese’s only Best Director Academy Award so far after a record setting ten nominations, including his current one), The Wolf of Wall Street, and the most recent work on Killers of the Flower Moon. 

“On set, Leo is very effusive and has such great energy,” said Scorsese. “He makes me get excited again.” 

Appearing to be both excited and overwhelmed by sharing a marquee with Martin Scorsese, aided by a translator/helper, the French film director Triet is only the eighth woman ever nominated for an Academy Award as Best Director. Triet — whose film Anatomy of a Fall is also a Best Picture nominee — joins the small but mighty list of women directors with Oscar nominations including: Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties in 1976; followed by Jane Campion, who was nominated for The Piano in 1993 and won in 2021 for The Power of the Dog; Sophia Coppola for Lost in Translation in 2003; Kathryn Bigelow, who won for The Hurt Locker in 2009; Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird in 2017; Emerald Fennell, who was nominated in 2020 for Promising Young Woman; and Chloé Zhao, who won for Nomadland in 2020. 

Moderator Scott Feinberg asked her about working with her film’s star, German actress Sandra Hüller (who also stars in another 2023 Best Picture Academy Award nominee, The Zone of Interest), who Triet described as “very shy in real life but on set she was on fire.” 

As a writer whose life partner — Arthur Harari — is also a filmmaker and the co-writer of  Anatomy of a Fall, there are some similarities between Triet and the character Hüller plays in the film, whose husband is also a writer and dies early in the film. “I assure you, my significant other, he’s still alive,” said Triet. “But working with your husband can be dangerous in a way.” 

In terms of that film’s inspiration, it was both her own life and her star Hüller, who Triet had wanted to work with for some time, she said.  “How can we dive into this complex woman? She gave me the inspiration, of course. She’s a mystery in a way. … For me she was not playing, she was living.” 

The ending of that film is also a mystery of sorts, about which Feinberg tried unsuccessfully to coax the truth out of Triet. “What really happened,” he asked. “Did she really kill him?” Triet responded, “I have only told one person. I will speak about it, maybe, in 10 years.” 

Given that, at age 45, Triet has many, many more decades of films to share with us, we can certainly look forward to hearing from her again in 10 years. But hopefully — and likely — much sooner.