Martin Scorsese “had a different ending” in mind for ‘Schindler’s List’
Not known for sugar-coating the content in his films, it should come as no surprise that legendary director Martin Scorsese might have handled the somewhat uplifting end to Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List a little differently.
Speaking with Deadline ahead of the release of his upcoming four-hour epic, Killers of the Flower Moon, the director explains: “If I did it, it would not have been the hit that it became. It may have been good, that I can tell you. I had some ideas. Most of it’s there. I had a different ending. I admired the film greatly. But I know that my films just don’t go there.”
Back in 1990, it seems that Martin Scorsese was fairly serious about adapting the book by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. Having hired screenwriter Steve Zaillian, the pair were working on a script with the plan being for Scorsese to direct before the Goodfellas filmmaker passed on the project.
On how the material interested him and what direction he wanted the film to take, he recalls: “I heard that there were people who complained about Schindler, that he used the inmates to make money off them. I said, ‘Wait a minute.’ I could… well, not defend him, but argue who he was.”
Despite these aspirations, the unfavourable reception of the director’s previous attempt at humanising a prominent historical figure, The Last Temptation of Christ, ultimately dissuaded him from taking the Holocaust picture any further.
“The whole point of that movie [The Last Temptation of Christ] was to start a dialogue about something which is still important to me, which is the nature — the true nature — of love, which could be god, could be Jesus. Is god in us? I like to explore that. I wanted a dialogue on that. But I didn’t know about all that yet. So, I did Last Temptation, I did it a certain way, and Schindler’s List was scuttled by its reception.”
It was unsurprising to Scorsese that the Jaws director ultimately ended up directing the film: “I remember Steve Spielberg, over the years, mentioning it to me all the time. He held up the book when we on a plane going to Cannes, and he said, ‘This is my dark movie and I’m going to make it.’ That was back in 1975. And I said, ‘Well, I have The Last Temptation of Christ, and I’m gonna make that.’”
Referring to the differences between the reception to Spielberg’s films and his own, he says: “When Paul Schrader and I were not nominated for ‘Best Screenplay’ and for directing Taxi Driver, that set the tone. From King of Comedy, up to Goodfellas. Nothing on Last Temptation. I realised, ‘You just don’t make these films, Marty. You don’t do them. Just shut up, make your films.'”
Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, will premiere on Saturday, May 20th, in the Grand Théâtre Lumière as part of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
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