To me, there was nobody else who could do it better – period.” “I do recall telling him he could really make this picture special and we would have something that would be remembered for all the right reasons.

But I had to give him that out and ask him if he wanted to do it. While the actor says he doesn’t remember the conversation playing out in that way, he told Glennie: “The thought was unthinkable to me to move on without Marty. These were: “What is it you want to do? Do you want to die, is that it? Don’t you want to live to see your daughter grow up and get married?”ĭe Niro was convinced Scorsese was the only man who could direct Raging Bull and, keen to get back to work, asked him: “Are you gonna be one of those directors who makes a couple of good movies and then it’s over for them?” Hearing about Scorsese’s state, De Niro visited him and asked him some questions that ultimately prompted the director to clean up his act.

The filmmaker was told by a doctor: “You cannot go anywhere you may get a brain haemorrhage any second.” Scorsese was rushed to hospital in a “near death” state, where the film’s co-screenwriter Mardik Martin said: “He was bleeding from the mouth, bleeding from his nose, bleeding from his eyes.” Speaking to author Jay Glennie for Raging Bull: The Making Of, Scorsese recalls: “It became more impossible for me to function, both physically and mentally, until I finally collapsed.”

The making of raging bull