Improv(e)

Abstract

After The Last Tycoon De Niro re-dedicated himself to the value of improvisation, which he approached in very different ways in three films that were directed by Martin Scorsese, but essentially co-authored by De Niro. In New York, New York (1977) he draws on techniques of musical improvisation; in Raging Bull (1980) he is extensively re-writes the text in exploring ways to embody the boxer Jake LaMotta; and in The King of Comedy (1982) he again actively develops the script and works to maintain an ambiguity about whether his comedian character is ‘actually’ funny. In all three films he plays a performer thinking about performance, and the script annotations reveal the techniques he used to prefigure this.