Page 82 - PROTAGONIST-131

Left, Robert De Niro with his Oscar for Best Male Performance in the movie
Raging Bull. Next page, American actors Liza Minnelli and Robert de Niro
on the set of New York New York, directed by Martin Scorsese.
©Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

It is Christmas 1971. During a dinner party in New York vitalised the New York area after the September 11, 2001
hosted by mutual friends, two boys who grew up in Down- attacks.
town meet. Their names: Robert De Niro and Martin Scors- At 80, he continues to work; in fact, two more films (Alto
ese. “Hey, didn’t you live around Hester Street?” the direc- Knights and Tin Soldier) in which he stars will be released in
tor asked, who, at the time, had only made one film. De Niro, 2024.
an actor at the beginning of his career, only a year young- The two Oscars he won (for The Godfather – Part II and
er than Scorsese, did not immediately respond. He stared Raging Bull) do not define his talent as an actor. De Niro has
at him and after squinting, corrected him: “It wasn't Hester become a symbol of what an actor is capable. His painstak-
Street. It was Kenmare Street.” ing physical and psychological preparation for the charac-
And the rest is history. Scorsese, the talkative genius, ters is legendary.
and De Niro, shy and grumpy, with those piercing eyes we But what makes him an iconic actor is mostly the story
have come to know over the years, both possess enough he chooses to tell us. The rich nuances of his characters will
talent to shape a few decades of cinema. Almost everything remain in the collective imaginary for generations.
that we may consider the best of each other’s filmography, Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle embodies the criminal mad-
they made together: Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976) ness of a war veteran, but also the neurosis of a metropolis
and New York New York (1977). The next decade opened made up of loneliness. In the Jake La Motta of Raging Bull
with the formidable Raging Bull (1980), and the 90s with there is a will to win, with an almost desperate grit. In The
Goodfellas (1990). And the collaboration goes all the way Deer Hunter, humanity is trying to survive when all seems
to the recent The Irishman (2019) and Killers of the Flower lost. As the protagonist of The Last Tycoon, in that beautiful
Moon (2023). final scene, he says, “I was just making pictures”. Here, all
De Niro’s performances, of course, are not limited to the fragility and power which make up an industry that has
these films. He has worked with other great directors and shaped the tastes and dreams of the last century. And we
from different generations (from Francis Ford Coppola to could go on. Each character, a world of deeply real, and well
Quentin Tarantino, Sergio Leone to Bernardo Bertolucci), ‘acted’ states of mind.
moved from drama to popular comedies (the Meet the Fo- Today, De Niro still speaks little and is disinclined to do
ckers series), he debuted as a director (Bronx Tale), and interviews and red carpets that new generation actors so
demonstrated business acumen and skills, making res- enjoy. Inside, he is probably still the shy boy who first met
taurants and even founding a festival, TriBeca, which re- Scorsese at that dinner in New York.

80 Portrait Protagonist