Two Martin Scorsese movies inspired Peter Jackson to complete ‘The Lord of the Rings’
They both might have Academy Awards for ‘Best Director’ under their respective belts, but the paths Peter Jackson and Martin Scorsese took to get there couldn’t have been more different.
Despite operating under diametrically opposite genre parameters in order to secure one of the most coveted prizes in the industry, The Lord of the Rings filmmaker unexpectedly revealed that a pair of Scorsese’s gangster classics played a huge part in inspiring his journey to bring the epic fantasy trilogy across the finish line.
It would be an understatement to say that ushering JRR Tolkien’s classic saga onto the big screen was an arduous process, with Jackson and his assembled cast and crew shooting a trio of massively expensive and labour-intensive blockbusters back-to-back, an experience Scorsese hasn’t felt compelled to undertake during his own lengthy career as one of the most acclaimed directors to have ever picked up a megaphone.
And yet, Jackson opened up to the Directors Guild of America as to how Goodfellas and Casino helped re-energise him creatively whenever he was feeling brow-beaten by the prospect of exhaustion. The thought of having to compare yourself to one of the greatest movie makers of all time might have put some people off, but only the best will truly challenge themselves by reaching for icons like Scorsese.
Jackson was clearly one of those directors. Rather than shirk the challenge of matching up to the greats, he used their movies to start a fire beneath him, get himself back off the sofa and back on to the set. He confessed: “I got to a point where, on my day off, I’d put on a DVD of Goodfellas or Casino and say, ‘OK, I know what I’ve got to try and do now'”.
While the Middle Earth trio exist in an entirely different cinematic space from the aforementioned duo, Jackson explained how revisiting the crime thrillers “inspired and re-energised me”. The pictures were innovative parts of Scortsese’s career and were not wihtout their own issues. Overcoming them to channell your vision on to the screen is what being a filmmaker is all about. And it clearly resonated with Jackson, as he said, adding: “Telling me what my job is: to come up with interesting ways to shoot scenes, interesting camera moves, and interesting ways to show the performance”.
The Oscar-winner admitted: “I used to do that as a therapeutic thing when I was in a state of exhaustion,” before the self-effacing New Zealander made a point of saying that he “couldn’t do it as good as Scorsese”.
Of course, before he dedicated his life to The Lord of the Rings and, subsequently, The Hobbit trilogies, Jackson first gained attention and notoriety for his splatter films including Bad Taste and Braindead, before venturing into different genre territory through crime drama Heavenly Creatures and supernatural horror comedy The Frighteners, prior to taking on the property that would ultimately bring in close to $3billion at the global box office and win a cumulative total of 17 Academy Awards.
As a result, it wasn’t just Scorsese who served as an influence and inspiration during his downtime; Jackson also named several other luminaries. He said: “I’ve always been completely into genre directors: Stuart Gordon, George Romero, Sam Raimi. I like Kubrick – not that I could ever make a film like him. On The Lord of the Rings where we had an 18-month shoot, I got so exhausted and when that happens your brain stops sparking and your imagination stops fizzing the way you’d like it to.”
The rise and fall of Henry Hill and Ace Rothstein’s exile to the Nevada desert to head up a mob-backed gambling establishment hardly come across as the ideal double feature with which to help steer a landmark achievement in blockbuster cinema to iconic status, but Casino and Goodfellas nonetheless made an impact on not just Jackson as a professional and creative, but The Lord of the Rings trilogy as a whole.
