The closest Martin Scorsese ever came to directing Marlon Brando: “They shot him down”
As one of cinema’s greatest-ever directors, Martin Scorsese has worked with many of cinema’s greatest-ever actors. However, he came agonisingly close to collaborating with the de facto greatest of all time until he was eliminated from contention for reasons that even Marlon Brando found bizarre.
While the debate over which thespian can definitively be called the best to ever set foot on stage or screen doesn’t have an answer, it’s Brando that comes up the most often, largely because so many other stars who are part of the same conversation have placed him at the very top of the mountain.
Scorsese, meanwhile, has become something of an expert in bringing the best out of his cast members, regardless of how established they are or not. He’s directed five Academy Award-winning performances and 21 Oscar-nominated turns, which covers everyone from Ellen Burstyn to Mark Wahlberg, so it’s not a stretch to suggest that he could have reined in a wayward Brando and steered him to awards season glory.
The Godfather icon became increasingly troublesome as his career progressed, mostly because he couldn’t be arsed in the majority of movies he appeared in, and made that perfectly clear both in front of the cameras and away from them, but as a passion project he’d dreamed of bringing to the screen himself, he was determined to see Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee through to the finish.
His planned adaptation of Dee Brown’s nonfiction tome was something Brando, as a long-time, vocal, and vociferous supporter of Native American rights, held close to his heart, with the book detailing how the rapid expansion of the American West devastated, destroyed, and decimated the indigenous people.
The two-time Oscar winner wouldn’t do it unless he had the express approval of those communities whose stories would be depicted in the film, and when one small incident convinced them that Scorsese wasn’t the man for the job, that was the end of his involvement, and the chance to work with Brando slipped through his fingers.
“The Indians don’t take anybody’s word for anything,” Brando explained to Lawrence Grobel. “They want to find out who you are in their own way. The Indians have revived an asshole concept of who’s a warrior and who isn’t.” As you may have gathered, that asshole concept was on full display it was decreed that Scorsese wasn’t qualified to make Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
“So, somebody made a pass at his girl, or his girl made a pass at somebody, one of those dumb things, and he didn’t do anything about it, he didn’t give a shit about the girl, what the fuck does he care?” Brando recalled. “Well, a man who doesn’t fight for his woman can’t be a man we want to have direct our movie, so they shot him down.”
In an instant, Scorsese’s plans to collaborate with Brando had gone up in smoke after he was vetoed as director. The legendary method man considered trying to make it with Gillo Pontecorvo instead, but that didn’t happen either, and half a century later, the only adaptation of the story to make it to the screen was a 2007 made-for-television feature that aired on HBO.
