First shot. There is a frontal shot of the pool-table. Spectator's point of view: while the camera moves right with a 90° pan (I think Scorsese has used a steady-cam), a man enters in the shot from left to right. Beyond the table, in the background, there's an actor who holds a cue. He's sixty, fat and very elegant. He's probably the owner of the house. So I'll call him the House Owner. While the camera is moving, the House Owner moves himself to the right of the shot, stopping himself near the pool-table angle, ready to shoot the ball with the cue. Another actor, which is also elegant but older than the House Owner (I'll call him the Older Man), moves to the right of the shot getting over him. He talks to the House Owner. They're not alone. I've heard other voices out of the shot. They're discussing about some riots by New York's gangs. "City is not mad…", says one of the two.

Second shot. The House Owner is at the pool-table angle. Now the point of view is behind him. The camera shots his back and the short side of the pool-table. On the other side of the pool-table we can see three men, including Tweed which is at the left of the shot. In the middle of the shot we can see a tall guy without hat and almost bald and at the right the trio's smallest man. The last man reminded me Marcel Proust. The House Owner repeats his lines to the Older Man who talks to him out of the shot. They repeat all the movements. I think that Scorsese really loved the House Owner's hesitation just before he hits the ball with the cue.

Third shot. Now the pool-table is shooted from an angle of it. The House Owner stands at the other angle in front of the spectators. In this shot the House Owner hits the ball and then he moves to the right to reach the Older Man. I haven't noted substantial differences about the takes I've seen. The ball always enters the hole.

Fourth shot. The pool-table is shooted from the short side of it. The camera position is the same of the second shot; the shot is just tighter. We can see Tweed & Co. with the legs covered by the table. They're listening the voices off of the House Owner and the Older Man. They listen without moving themselves.

Fifth shot. The camera shoots the Older Man from his feet up to his head. He talks. Then Scorsese has changed range. In the next shots, in fact, the Older Man is nearer, shooted from his waist up to his head. The shot composition is very elegant. Behind the older man we can see an arch which leads to another room. Through the arch we can see a sitting-room. Some women (five, seated in two groups: the first is composed by three women down to the left; the second is composed by two women up to the right) are chatting. The Older Man's head is between two hermae (one in the left, one in the right) which put a frame to the arch. While the dialogue goes on out of the shot, the Older Man listens to it very carefully.

Sixth shot. The camera point of view is two metres high from the ground and ten metres distant from the action of the scene. The point of view is opposite of the second shot. The Older Man is just before the camera. The House Owner is at his right. Tweed and Co. are at his far right. The scene is entirely repeated with all the dialogues and the actors' movements.

This is what my colleague Alò, has also seen. But now I can tell you more.

Blue screen
I've seen: actors on a great blue carpet. The camera is filming them from above. The camera is also about fifteen metres distant from the men. We can't see the men's faces clearly because the camera is too far away. At the left and the right of the carpet we can also see some asphalt. A gate in the background. At the right and the left of the shot we can also see some technicians. Now I recognise the place. It's Villa Borghese (the most beautiful and famous park of Rome). The actors are in costume. Probably the blue carpet is used for the blue screen effect. In the editing room all the blue zone of the shot will be replaced by whatever background Mr. Scorsese is going to use. At the end of the operation, the two shots will flow together. Then, I've heard Martin Scorsese shouting "Aaand Action!". I've seen a lot of takes of this shot. The number and the positions of the actors were always different in each take. In the first take the five actors involved are arranged in a semicircle. There are nine actors: seven in the semicircle with an embracing couple (male and female; wife and husband?) in the middle of the great carpet. Then, in the following takes, the actors are always nine but arranged in different positions for each take. In the final takes the actors are nine, arranged in groups of two and three. They always talk with each other. In every take. I was wondering: What kind of scene is this? From what I know about the plot, I really don't understand. It seemed to me, by the mood of the scene, a funeral (Father Vallon/Liam Neeson, death?) or something like that. It's like a sad event (a death, a lost battle, a firing) had happened and the community was trying to give courage to itself. The atmosphere is sad, contemplative. The calm after the storm. Some actors indicate something on their upper right. They look, they indicate and they call the others to look in the same direction. Which shot will Scorsese put on the blue carpet? I don't know. These shots I've seen remind me the sadness of the chorus of a Greek tragedy. And the shared (truly catholic use) of the pain.

...continue

Daniel Day Lewis, The Butcher
I've seen: Daniel Day Lewis playing the infamous Billy Poole. At the beginning I hardly recognised him. These takes are shot by Victor Armstrong, the action-unit director. The scene is very fast. We see Billy Poole from his knees up to his head. He comes to us, to the camera's point of view. The camera tracks out while Billy advances. Billy's shirt is open. He wears a "bandana" on his head. Billy has a long, sharp knife in his left hand and an axe in his right. Scorsese didn't want firearms in GONY. Every battle is fought with cold steel (the only exception is the character played by Cameron Diaz, Jenny, who hides a little revolver in her suspender). Back to Billy Poole. Billy advances so fast and quick like a predatory beast. So ferocious. He strikes a lot of blows, always with great coordination, to the left and to the right. All the while he screams his furious rage. The voice is loud and scary, the glance bloodthirsty. The enemies attack him from the left and the right of the shot. Billy kills four of them with terrible and exact blows. A war machine, eager for blood. This shot is probably about one of the big gang fights of the movie. I've seen two takes of this shot. I haven't seen differences between one and the other. I think these shots will take 3 or 4 seconds at the final cut (maybe Scorsese will cut it out of the movie), but, anyway, the movements of this ferocious warrior, eager for blood, are fascinating.

...continue

Leonardo DiCaprio, black power
I've seen: the internal part of a church. I think it's The Five Point Mission. It would be one of the most important location of GONY, with Satan's Circus, which is the local bar and brothel, and Chinese Pagoda, an opium den.

First shot. An actor, whose identity I couldn't determine, is kneeling before an altar. There are a lot of church candles. There's an enormous candlestick. The man lights a match. Then he lights one of the candles with it. He blows out the match. He begins to mumble a prayer. It seems a prayer of thanksgiving. So I will call him the prayer man. Now he stands up slowly. He turns and a whistle attracts his attention. While he is making these movements the camera follows him moving toward the right and showing us a wider space. Now we can see a foreshortening of the church. On the right of the shot I see a pulpit. From the right side five men come out of the shadow and surround the prayer man. They all have a red band stitched on their pants, on both of the legs. It's a gang armed with sticks. Leonardo DiCaprio is among them. Three men are on his right. One stands on his left - this one is black. DiCaprio is impudently eating peanuts. The five men look defiant. The prayer man faces them and doesn't show fear. Now everybody is in the shot. DiCaprio greets the prayer man. His voice is rude but sagacious. He seems unafraid. The prayer man wants to provoke him. So he offends the black henchman by asking DiCaprio why he dared to take a black man to the church. Whatever else we know, the race riots are one of the essential points of GONY's plot. DiCaprio's gang was looking forward to a racial offence. The black henchman starts the fight. The others soon follow him. Cut.

I've seen different takes of this shot. Not all the takes were complete. Sometimes the action was interrupted by Scorsese because something went wrong. For example: at the beginning of the fight someone moved too fast or too slow to hurt the prayer man. All the takes were a little different. The prayer man stood up slowly or faster. DiCaprio whistled or made a sound like "OOOOHHHH". And so on.

Second shot. We see the kneeling man. The camera takes his shoulders from a brief distance. The man makes the same actions. He lights the candle. He mumbles the prayer. He stands up. He turns around. Now the camera lets us see him frontally, down to the waist. He looks at them defiantly. He makes his comment to the black henchman.

There's a substantial difference among all the takes of this shot: Scorsese asked the prayer man to act in different ways. In one take the actor's face is full of rage and he shouts the line. In another there's more contempt. The actor whispers the line scornfully. Scorsese will decide his favourite one when he works in the editing room.

Third shot. From the camera's point of view: we see all five actors. We can see DiCaprio and his henchmen to the right. The prayer man to the left. The distance between the camera and the actors is less than the previous shot. We can see some actors (the prayer man, DiCaprio, the black henchman) nearer to the camera than the others (three of DiCaprio's henchmen). In the background the church main door is half-open. So, a wonderful light, which cuts the church floor and the shot, enters from the outside. A beautiful composition. The action in the scene starts with the infamous line by the prayer man who is assaulted by DiCaprio's gang. I haven't noticed too many differences between the three takes I've seen of this shot. The action was stopped twice by Scorsese because one of the actors actually got hurt.

Fourth and last shot. The camera's point of view is one metre from the ground and we can see the floor of the church. The centre of the shot is empty. The prayer man's shadow occupies the centre of the shot. Around it we can see the legs of DiCaprio's gang, who stands to the right of the shot while the prayer man is on the left. The scene is the same. The prayer man offends the black henchman who starts the fight. The others follow the black man. The prayer man, hit by the men, falls down to the ground at the centre of the shot. This portion of the shot was occupied, before the prayer man's fall, by his shadow. While the man is down, DiCaprio's gang kick him. He tries to protect himself. When the gang stops kicking him, the prayer man slowly rises up. The camera also rises up, then an extensive zoom. Now we can see all the actors from head to feet with, in the background, the church's main door half-open.

The prayer man, after recovering himself, starts to exit and he continues to look defiantly at DiCaprio's Gang, who let him pass. While the prayer man exits, he laughs in an unseemly manner. He understands that he was only warned. He lost a battle, not the war. Cut.