Feature Spotlight

Spotlight On: The Career of Robert De Niro

by Robin Ruinsky (robin@filmschoolrejects.com)

“If there are things I take from my own life, it’s because I feel that they are useful to the character that I’m playing.” – Robert De Niro

When Robert De Niro appears on film we rarely see him, but we always see the character he plays. There is no “De Niro” persona that undercuts the role. It’s that ability to become, to be, to inhabit the skin of so many different roles that has made him one of the best actors in film. He’s the actor other actors name when asked who has inspired them.

Born in 1943, the actor burst into film in the early seventies in a wide variety of roles from petty gangsters to a dying ball player to a psychotic taxi driver. There are films that I think of as De Niro films such as The Deer Hunter, The Godfather II, Goodfellas,Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.

Before he took on these memorable roles Robert De Niro studied with Stella Adler and at the age of 16 was touring in plays. His early experience was all in the theater. Stella Adler, The Group Theater, taught the Method, the inside out school of acting that means an actor lives his role finding a way into the mind of the character. I don’t know if he applied the Method when he appeared on Sesame Street in 1994 with Elmo. Or if it helped him get through an appearance in 1993 on “Aretha Franklin’s Duets”. Maybe those were appearances were De Niro was De Niro.

What makes De Niro the man, De Niro the actor? What is that indefinable De Nironess in his performances even as he disappears into them? And how the heck does he do it? One minute he’s a raging maniac in Cape Fear and the next he’s in the comedy Mistress. Even as he disappears into his roles there’s still a powerful screen presence that rivets us.

He’s a part of one of the great film collaborations. The combination of De Niro and Scorsese has been powerful. In 1973 he appeared in his first Scorsese film Mean Streets. To get an idea of how versatile De Niro has been from the start contrast his role as the thug Johnny Boy in Mean Streets to his role the same year as Bruce Pearson, the dying catcher in the baseball film Bang the Drum Slowly. Where Johnny is all rough edges mixed with anger and bravado, Bruce is a gentle, naive man trying to get one last good season playing ball. The role of Pearson won him a New York Film Critics Award.

The collaboration with Martin Scorsese kicked De Niro’s career into high gear with characters ranging from thugs and gangsters, Mean Streets, Goodfellas to psychos Taxi Driver, Cape Fear to The King of Comedy and his portrayal of stand up comic wannabee Rupert Pupkin.

The King of Comedy is a film that is relevant still, perhaps more than ever. In an age where faking a memoir gets you a book deal, being an heiress gets you a television show and the idea that not only will everyone get that 15 minutes of fame as Andy Warhol predicted, but that committing a crime to get it, pays.

Scorsese’s Raging Bull in 1980 won De Niro a Best Actor Oscar for playing boxer Jake La Motta. To play the role De Niro got into the best shape of his life, training to achieve the look of a boxer at the top of his game. And then he ate his way into the worst shape of his life putting on 60 pounds to portray the post boxing life of the older La Motta. And you thought Daniel Day-Lewis was a man of extremes?

De Niro has often been at his best when working with Scorsese so it’s good to hear they’ll collaborate once again on a new gangster film The Winter of Frankie Machine.

The actor is known as a perfectionist, but he’s never been known as difficult. He talked about it in an interview quoted on Real.com.

“You can have integrity, but that doesn’t mean you are difficult. There is a difference. I don’t like it when any actor – or anybody, it could be someone in the crew – brings their own craziness to the set.”

Integrity is a good word to describe De Niro. His work has integrity, every character completely realized, never “phoned” in, but always present in the moment on film after film.

Once he broke through with Mean Streets De Niro had a string of extraordinary roles in the 1970’s. In 1974’s The Godfather II he not only played the young Vito Corleone, but he was thoroughly convincing portraying the Corleone that would age into Brando’s. He won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the role as Marlon Brando did two years earlier, the first time two actors won for playing the same role.

With all of his brilliance it’s not to say he hasn’t done his share of real stinkers, but we gather here to praise De Niro, so I’ll leave it at that.

Even though he’s been know for his work in serious dramas, he’s worked in his share of comedies. These include some where he’s demonstrated his sense of humor as an actor poking fun at his own work as he did when playing a comic riff on his tough guy characters in films like Analyze This and Meet the Parents.

It’s not only as an actor in film that Robert De Niro has had an impact. When lower Manhattan was devastated by the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, De Niro was determined to help the area rise from the ashes. To help it revive he started The Tribeca Film Festival with the first event taking place in 2002. It’s grown into one of the most anticipated film festivals attracting film makers and film lovers to NYC from all over the world.

At age ten Robert De Niro found his passion for acting by playing the Cowardly Lion in a local production of the Wizard of Oz. He’s gone on to be the Wizard himself, the man behind a curtain of characters who never lets us see the gears working, or the actor acting. He’s inhabited over thirty years worth of characters in over 75 films. His career is still going strong with forays into directing and producing. Hardly the work of a cowardly lion, more like one that still knows how to roar.

I thought it might be fun to add some famous quotes from some of De Niro’s characters. You never know when you need something special to say for that extra special occasion.

“Better to be a king for a night than a schmuck for a lifetime.” – Rupert Pupkin, The King of Comedy

“You talking to me? YOU TALKING TO ME?” – Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver

“I’ll give you FIST-ophobia!” – Jack Walsh, Midnight Run

“You stupid bastard, I can’t fuckin’ believe you. Now, you’re gonna dig the fuckin’ thing now. You’re gonna dig the hole. You’re gonna do it. I got no fuckin’ lime. You’re gonna do it.” – Jimmy Conway, Goodfellas

“I’d keep my promises if I were you.” – The Creature, Frankenstein

“Running a casino is like robbing a bank with no cops around. For guys like me, Las Vegas washes away your sins. It’s like a morality car wash.” – Ace Rothstein, Casino

“Here I am, you lucky people!” – Dwight Hanson, This Boys Life

“What, am I supposed to get a fuckin’ website?” – Boss Paul Vitti, Analyze This