Berlin – The Hollywood Reporter

Courtesy Everett Collection

This year, Martin Scorsese will receive an honorary Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, celebrating the 81-year-old auteur’s achievements in cinema.

But it was 43 years ago, in 1981, when Scorsese ventured to the Berlinale for the first time for a non-competitive screening of his film. Raging BullIt doesn’t seem like he has much of his life left in cinema. In fact, Scorsese looked washed out.

His previous film was in 1977 New York, New York, was a massive box office bomb as well as one of the worst reviewed films of his career. Scorsese was devastated by the picture’s dismal reception, and spent the next year in despair and cocaine addiction, dropping to 109 pounds, until he collapsed and nearly died of massive internal bleeding. “I was in the hospital for 10 days and nights,” he said. THR The year 2016. “And they took care of me, these doctors, and I became aware that I did not want to die or waste (my life).”

Among the friends who visited Scorsese in the hospital was Robert De Niro, the director taxi driver star, who became obsessed with making a film about Jake La Motta, the troubled middleweight boxing champion from 1949 to 1951. Scorsese did not initially share this fascination, as he was not interested in making what he thought was a sports film. But De Niro was persistent.

The actor couldn’t be more right. Raging Bull It turned out to be a masterpiece, earning eight Academy Award nominations (it lost Best Picture and Best Director to Robert Redford). Ordinary people But he won Best Actor for De Niro), setting Scorsese on for another four decades of exceptional filmmaking. King of comedy It was next, followed by After hours, Color of money, The last temptation of Christ And more than a dozen others, including Good guys, casino, Gangs of New York, The late one, wolf of wall street, And this year’s Oscar contender Moonflower Killers.