“I’m afraid”: The legendary director Martin Scorsese was terrified to meet
The 1970s for cinema was a decade marked by extreme talent. In the filmmaker pool, there was a heady mix of exceptional players, including David Lynch, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Agnes Varda, and, of course, Martin Scorsese. While others remained in their respective lanes, Scorsese was busy reinventing what it meant to deliver complex and nuanced gritty drama and crime narratives and making a name for himself as one of the most generation-defining figures.
Scorsese might have peered beneath the curtain in the years prior, but this particular decade saw him deliver some of his best work, including Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and New York, New York. At this juncture, he operated alongside other esteemed names to ensure the industry forever remained a place where diverse characters and genres were always at the forefront of creativity.
Coinciding with Scorsese’s rise in prominence was David Cronenberg, their distinctive cinematic approaches filling the landscape with a delicious array of groundbreaking storytelling. On the one hand, there was Scorsese’s character-driven dramas and exploration of various aspects of urban life, while on the other, Cronenberg was becoming a defining name in gory horror, with stories that explored themes like bodily mutation through the lens of broader societal anxieties.
A pivotal moment for Cronenberg was his 1975 horror Shivers, followed by 1977’s Rabid, which both curated breeding grounds for study surrounding the fragility of human physicality and its susceptibility to mutation, disease, and other external forces. Although not for the faint-hearted, these efforts forged a worthy space in the horror canon by reflecting the societal transformations of the time with an overt, albeit difficult to swallow, macabre.
By contrast, Scorsese epitomised the new Hollywood wave with stories centred on realistic notions. This continued into his 1980s reign, but many of his films during this decade increased the psychological factor, with films like Raging Bull tackling the pitfalls of fame and After Hours proving he could venture beyond his robustness and appear more versatile with genre-blending techniques.
Scorsese experienced a notable run-in with Cronenberg’s work in the mid-1970s at the Edinburgh Film Festival, which introduced him to the beauty of Cronenberg’s Shivers. At first, he wasn’t sure what to make of the film and rendered his confusion an indicator that he didn’t enjoy his work. However, not long after, he couldn’t stop talking about it with anyone he met, proving there was something far more endearing and resonant than he first thought.
Interestingly, his enamourment eventually turned into intimidation because here was a director who genuinely understood his craft, which was a terrifying prospect for a fellow prominent filmmaker. When Cronenberg heard the news, however, he was astounded. “He did say [he was scared], yes, because he saw Shivers and Rabid,” Cronenberg told The Guardian in 2007. “When he told me that, I said, Marty, the guy who made Taxi Driver is afraid to meet me! I’m afraid to meet you!”
Cronenberg understandably enjoyed the dynamic to a point, but Scorsese’s anxieties didn’t really make sense when he thought about his position in the industry. To him, Scorsese was it, so for him to fear them crossing paths wasn’t all that easy to understand. As he reflected: “I expect straight citizens to confuse the artist with his art – they think if you make violent films you must be a violent person. What bothered me was that another filmmaker could make the same mistake.”
Thankfully, the pair eventually shared a pleasant dinner, exchanging anecdotes and filmmaking tips over a bottle of wine. Even though there was a sense of “tension” on Scorsese’s part, something about Cronenberg and his movies stuck with him, holding power even someone as esteemed and reputable as him will never truly get under the skin of.
