robert de niro
(born 1943)
biography
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the godfather, part ii
mean streets
raging bull
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marlon brando
james caan
johnny depp
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jessica lange
karl malden
paul newman
al pacino
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rod steiger
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meryl streep
spencer tracy
orson welles
- robert
de niro
"My parents were very supportive; they were glad
[ r o b e r t d e n i r o : b i o g ]
I hadn't become an insurance salesman."
- Robert De Niro
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mean streets
raging bull |
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robert de niro
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spencer tracy
There is an agreeable symmetry for the fact that in The Godfather, Part II (1974) Robert De Niro played Vito Corleone, the young Sicilian who was to 'become' the old Mafia chief portrayed by Marlon Brando in The Godfather (1972). As Brando himself got older and his screen appearances rarer, it seemed for a long while that there was no-one to fill the void he was leaving: what other star was there possessed of such incredible sexual magnetism, who was at the same time a sensitive actor with a huge range, whose presence in even the most mediocre films lifted everything around him to a high level of intelligence and excitement?
Then in 1973 along came De Niro in Bang the Drum Slowly and, even more importantly, Mean Streets; it was not a 'new Brando) who had appeared, but an actor who would obviously become, like Brando, a consummate film actor.
At 10, he attended New York's
American Dramatic Workshop: at 16, he
studied with Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler at
the Actors' Studio.
After working in semi-professional theatre
outside New York City, he appeared Off-
Broadway in a number of plays, including One
Night Stands of a Noisy Passenger with Shelley
Winters. In 1967, the director Brian De Palma,
who had seen him on stage, hired De Niro to
play a friend of the groom in The Wedding
Party. They worked together again on the
comedies Greetings (1968) and Hi, Mom!
(1970). De Palma remembers:
People who know him have remarked that De
Niro 'isn't here' during the making of a film,
and he is well known for his 'isolation' between takes.
In 1970 he played one of the gangster sons of
Ma Barker (Shelley Winters) in Roger
Corman's Bloody Mama, and the following
year did three films - Ivan Passer's Born to
Win, Noel Black's Jennifer on My Mind, James
Goldstone's The Gang That Couldn't Shoot
Straight - none of which won him fame and
glory, but did get him noticed by other directors and producers.
His dying baseball player in John Hancock's
Bang the Drum Slowly had audiences asking
who he was and critics raving, and his Johnny
Boy stole Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (not
an easy task when your co-star is the excellent
Harvey Keitel), for which De Niro won the New
York Film Critics Circle Award as Best Actor.
The meeting with Martin Scorsese was particularly fortuitous:
Scorsese refers to De Niro as 'Mr Perfection',
and credits the actor as a major contributor to
each of the films, from improvising new dialogue to rearranging troublesome scenes so
that they work:
The Italian job
From the almost crazy, self-destructive Johnny
Boy, De Niro changed like a chameleon into
Corleone, the Sicilian immigrant on his way to
becoming the head of a Mafia family: the first
role was all frenzy, the second a kind of elegant
coolness. In Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Part II, De Niro also worked extensively
on his voice and intonation so that they matched exactly those of Marlon Brando's
Corleone in The Godfather. De Niro won the
1974 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his
performance.
Entirely different again, he
played the alienated, paranoid Travis Bickle,
dedicated to purifying New York and 'saving'
the virtue of an adolescent whore through
slaughter in Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). The
film won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film
Festival and De Niro became a solid international star.
De Niro has said that he constantly finds it
necessary to change directors and kinds of
roles:
A complete change came with 1900
(1976), made in Italy by Bernardo Bertolucci
and an international cast of stars all acting in
their own languages (later to be dubbed into
Italian). De Niro played a sympathetic Italian
landowner at the turn of the century trying to
come to terms with the idea of revolution and
maintain his relationship with his longtime
peasant friend.
More directly and authentically connected
to the old Hollywood, Scorsese's New York,
New York (1977), with its re-creation of the
New York of movies (as opposed to the 'real'
New York) and of the Big Band era, gave De
Niro a chance to improvise whole sequences of
dialogue, to demonstrate that he has a fine
comic talent, and to walk the razor's edge
between the comic and the emotionally touching. Jimmy Doyle was also De Niro's first fully
romantic role and suggested that if he had been a less talented and ambitious actor he
might have had a full career as a conventional
matinee idol.
Although the film was politically and aesthetically controversial (some praised its view
of America healing itself while others criticized
its verbosity), De Niro's sensitive portrayal of a
man learning to understand himself was universally acclaimed.
Bring on the Bronx Bull
De Niro's work with Scorsese on Raging Bull
(1980), the story of middleweight boxer Jake La
Motta, again demonstrates the actor's incredible range and love of change. He played La Motta as an inarticulate, instinctual
animal. De Niro was fascinated by La Motta's
'destiny':
The same passion for complete
preparation that had made the actor learn the
saxophone for New York, New York, here led
him to take boxing lessons and gain 60Ibs in
four months for the scenes of La Motta in
retirement. He also learned something about
the inner character of the role:
De Niro's dedication earned him Best Actor
Oscar for 1981. He continued his effective
partnership with Scorsese in The King of Comedy
(1983), this time playing a man who is
convinced of his own talent as a stand-up
comic. In De Niro's hands, Rupert Pupkin's
arrogance and pathos made a studied comment on those who search after stardom.
By now, De Niro was established as the most
capable actor of his generation but he could no
longer continue to play out the conflicts of his
times. He settled into middle-age with Falling in
Love (1984), a gentle romance co-starring
Meryl Streep, which marked a complete change of pace.
Nevertheless, De Niro is still in demand
whenever an epic picture is made which
attempts to comment on the state of America.
Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America
(1984) and Brian de Palma's The Untouchables
both recruited him to add depth to historic
investigations of America's past.
Even given the success he's achieved with other directors, De Niro is at his best when teamed with Scorsese, who has a gift for eliciting jaw-dropping performances from his star, as witness GoodFellas (1990, as coldblooded gangster Jimmy Conway), and Cape Fear (1991, Oscar-nominated again as sadistic ex-con Max Cady).
De Niro eschews the conventional in his choice of roles; even in a buddy movie like Midnight Run (1988), he brings an added dimension to his parts. He's certainly not afraid to go over the top, as he did with tongue-in-cheek playing the sinister Louis Cyphre in Alan Parker's Angel Heart (1987). And no one on the screen today can match him for depicting inner conflict, as he did so well in Jacknife (1989), playing a Vietnam vet whose eccentricity and corny humor mask a seriously wounded psyche. It's precisely those traits that make him the most compulsively watchable male star currently working.
After delivering a harrowing performance as a small-minded bully in This Boy's Life (1993), De Niro took the plunge and directed his first feature film (in which he also costarred), the well-received A Bronx Tale (also 1993). He then played the Creature in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) and re-teamed with Scorsese - the eighth time - for Casino (1995).
biography
'You talking to me? Well, who the hell else are you talking to? You talking to me? Well I'm the only one here.' Travis Bickle, the rabid urban avenger played by Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, affirms his solitariness in front of a mirror. As the Seventies wore on it seemed De Niro himself was the only one 'here' - the one actor immediately identifiable with lost souls on the streets of New York, fall-guys of the Vietnam fall-out, and other victims of the age. The brilliance he brings to such roles makes him the most authentic movie-hero of his generation.
mean streets
(1973)
In 1973, however, De Niro - born on August 17, 1943 - was already 30 years old, and his career had begun much earlier.
'I was born in Greenwich Village. I wanted
to be an actor when I was 10, and then again
when I was 16.'
'My parents were artists, and I thought they
were Bohemian, and like all kids I wanted to
rebel, so I decided to live a very conventional
life. When it came time to make a real choice,
however, I studied acting, which is what I
always really wanted to do. My parents were
very supportive; they were glad I hadn't
become an insurance salesman.'
'One day on Greetings, he came in to shoot a
scene and I didn't recognize him. We had to
put a label on him so that viewers would
remember that it was the same character they
had seen at the beginning....He really lives
his roles, and that changes him physically.'
taxi driver
(1976)
Living an illusion
'I can't cheat when I act. I know that the
cinema is only an illusion, but not for me. The
qualities of an actor must be those which
Faulkner said were those of a writer: experience, observation, imagination. The preparation of a role, the experience of making a
film, are hard. When you are 10, you dream of
beauty, of glory, and you aren't aware of the
reality: study and work. If one is really in a
film, the rest of the world disappears. No
obligations, no telephone, no everyday details,
no bothers. Then when it is finished and you
return to reality you have to lose all the weight
of the character, and go back to other disciplines. You have time for yourself, and that
can be a source of new problems.'
Aside from the major influences of his
teachers - Lee Strasberg, Luther James and
Stella Adler (who he says was the first to give
him 'a total sense of the theatre and of a
character') - he says that the actors who
'marked' him include Montgomery Clift,
James Dean,
Marlon Brando, Kim Stanley,
Geraldine Page - and also Spencer Tracy:
'I know, he was more conventional, but his authenticity touched me, and I admire Walter
Huston for his magic - remember The Treasure
of the Sierra Madre (1948)? - and Jeanne
Morceau because of something she emanates
which always strikes me.'
'If I look back, I made a lot of films (indepenent or commercial, big and little) before
I had any success, which was unforeseen. My
luck was to be able to work and to learn; that's
what an actor must never forget.'
'What matters to me is to work with a
director who responds to me. That's been the
case for a long time with Martin Scorsese.
What's important in our work, which is very
heavy and very slow, is a kind of complicity,
solidarity, and at least a minimum of fun -
which prevents migraines.'
'Our collaboration is a complete
collaboration. We work together in total trust.'
'in order to escape from that vicious circle
in which we all find ourselves at any given
moment.'
the deer hunter
(1978)
Although Elia Kazan's The Last Tycoon
(1976) was made ineffective by its trowelled-on
period decor and absolute fidelity to F. Scott
Fitzgerald's unfinished Hollywood novel, De
Niro came through unscathed. His elegant
performance in a role modelled on Irving G.
Thalberg suggested - more than did the leaden
script - that the character was a part of the old
Hollywood, that he knew about and loved film,
and that he had been caught up in a love affair
he knew was finally an illusion more hopeless
than the films he was making.
goodfellas
(1990)
In The Deer Hunter (1978), De Niro played a
metal-worker whose hellish experiences in
Vietnam make it impossible for him to return
to a normal life until he comes to terms with
what has happened to himself and his friends.
The actor has high praise for Michael Cimino,
the film's director:
'I responded to him. From the time I met
him, he was full of his project, of his subject,
and I could see he was ready and felt the film
had to be made. We were open to one another,
ready to meet anywhere and anytime to work
together to the end. As with John Hancock (to
say nothing of Martin Scorsese) I felt there was
something fresh and something good there.'
'He fought for everything and he lost
everything.'
'I don't like boxing. It's too primitive. But
Jake is a more complex being than you think.
Take his style: that way of uncovering his face
to take blows and tire his opponents. In one
way or another there has to be some feeling of
guilt to deliberately look to get hit'
1968
1970
1971
1973
1974
1976
1977
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1981
1983
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1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
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1993
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1995
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2002
2004
2004
2005
filmography
1967
- The Wedding Party
- Greetings
- Hi, Mom!
- Bloody Mama
- Jennifer on My Mind
- Born to Win
- The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight
- Bang the Drum Slowly
- Mean Streets
- The Godfather: Part II
- Taxi Driver
- 1900
- The Last Tycoon
- New York, New York
- The Deer Hunter
- Raging Bull
- True Confessions
- The King of Comedy
- Once Upon a Time in America
- Falling in Love
- Brazil
- The Mission
- Angel Heart
- The
Untouchables
- Midnight Run
- Jacknife
- We're No Angels
- Stanley & Iris
- Goodfellas
- Awakenings
- Guilty by Suspicion
- Backdraft
- Cape Fear
- Mistress
- Night and the City
- The Godfather Trilogy: 1901-1980 (Video)
- Mad Dog and Glory
- This Boy's Life
- A Bronx Tale
- Frankenstein
- Les Cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma
- Casino
- Heat
- The Fan
- Sleepers
- Marvin's Roooom
- Cop Land
- Wag the Dog
- Jackie Brown
- Great Expectations
- Ronin
- Analyze This
- Flawless
- The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
- Men of Honor
- Meet the Parents
- 15 Minutes
- The Score
- Showtime
- City by the Sea
- Analyze That
- Godsend
- Shark Tale (voice)
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey
- Meet the Fockers
- Chaos
- Hide and Seek
- The Good Shepherd
biography |
filmography |
the godfather, part ii
|
mean streets
raging bull |
books |
dvds |
posters |
videos
robert de niro
marlon brando |
jessica lange |
paul newman
|
al pacino
sharon stone |
meryl streep |
spencer tracy
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Changes last made: 2004
