I was very happy to read Laura Barton’s lovely piece on the dual 40th anniversaries of The Last Waltz and Jim Szalapski’s Heartworn Highways (G2, 16 September). However, when I came to the paragraphs devoted to my old friend and producer Jonathan Taplin, I could feel my eyebrows furrowing: slightly, but furrowing nonetheless. I owe Jonathan a great deal: if it weren’t for him, I would never have been able to make either Mean Streets or The Last Waltz. Yet, it seems our recollections of the shoot on the latter film differ on one important point.
When the time came to plan the production, we had to make some decisions about what and what not to shoot - as Ms Barton points out, we filmed in 35mm (unheard of at the time), which meant that the magazines for every camera had to be changed every 10 minutes and that mechanical failure was likely. So, if some performers were scheduled for one number or two numbers, a choice had to be made.
When that great, pounding rhythm on Mannish Boy started up, I certainly did go into a panic. As Jonathan remembers, I didn’t know the song’s alternate title: like a lot of people my age, I was still learning my way through the blues by way of rock and roll. It was indeed fortunate that one of the cameramen kept on shooting, for whatever reason, and doubly fortunate that the cameraman happened to be the great cinematographer László Kovács.
Jonathan and I concur on every detail but one. My producers, Jonathan included, guided me in the selection of which songs to shoot. It was decided that we would shoot Caledonia and sacrifice Mannish Boy. Since I knew the second song only as I’m a Man I deferred to their expertise. Forty years later, we can all agree on one crucial, all-important factor: we were blessed to have a rogue cameraman.
Martin Scorsese
New York
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