Timothée Chalamet is the newest GQ cover star. For the occasion, the magazine got the “Dune” star to sit down with legendary director Martin Scorsese for an epic conversation.
Why Scorsese, exactly? Well, they collaborated on a new Blue de Chanel fragrance campaign a few months back (Chalamet starred, Scorsese directed; you can watch it below), and that was part of the hook; the native New Yorkers were obviously equally in awe, and inspired by one another during this interview.
The interview covers “Killers of the Flower Moon” and the death of “mainstream,” to “Raging Bull,” a film Scorsese says he didn’t want to do at first to “Wolf Of Wall Street.”
About “Wolf Of Wall Street,” the two men started discussing corruption and morality onscreen and how to depict it on screen, which led Scorsese to recall the critical split on the film when in the late fall of 2013 when the film was first screened to critics (though to be fair, he says he just learned about that debacle recently).
“That’s what’s so great about the Leo[nardo DiCaprio] character in it,” Chalamet said of ‘Wall Street.’ “This guy is a complicated figure, to say the least, but it’s handled so delicately, and you don’t feel like you’re [as a director] instructing the viewer on how to feel [about it] either way.”
This comment sparked Scorsese’s recollection of the ‘Wolf Of Wall Street’ critical wars, as some of us remember it (an ugly time, by the way, at the height of toxic social media interactions between critics; that’s the year I stopped making top 10 lists in silent protest, lol).
“No, not at all,” he said about guiding the viewer to a sense of morality of what was so immoral on screen.
“Apparently, I was told this: there were two camps [in New York], one camp that loved the picture, the other that was furious and said that I didn’t take a moral stand on [‘Wolf Of Wall Street’ protagonist] Jordan Belfort, and one of the critics from the other camps that liked the picture, said, ‘Do you really need Martin Scorsese to tell you that that’s wrong?’” Scorsese said, smiling, pointing at an imaginary screen, implying all the moral rot was already clear as day and then laughing hard.
“You really need him to tell you? He knows it’s wrong,” Scorsese continued, said smiling. “Does that moralistic attitude bore you a little bit?” Chalemet asked.
“Well, it’s beyond boring,” Scorsese countered. “And it’s always been around…” the filmmaker said, but was then quickly sidetracked about the question of America as too much of a puritanical culture (and love Marty, but if you’ve listened to or read many of his interviews of late, they’re incredibly discursive).
That’s just a little slice of a very long, very engaging conversation that tackles their collaboration, the concerns of each generation, and many of Scorsese’s classic works. We encourage you to watch the whole thing below.
