Every now and then I find myself wondering what aging members of the New Hollywood gang discuss when (or if) they pal around. (Photos like this really spark the imagination.) Such interests in mind, it goes without saying that this is a real find: Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola plunking down for a 50-minute discussion, their thoughts on the typical — career trajectories, personal influences — writ enlightening when two masters can bounce off one another to find points of commonality.
For that much, you’ll be wanting to give it a look. But there’s an uncommonly important historical context, too: recorded in 1997, Scorsese was about to debut Kundun, Coppola on the verge of opening The Rainmaker — personal and populist titles, respectively, one a flop and the other a soft entry which wouldn’t be followed for ten years. It’s not simply titans sharing a stage, but titans on the verge of hitting their own crossroads.
Watch the talk below (via Cinephilia and Beyond and @digifruitella):
Did Scorsese and Coppola make for an entertaining duo?