Now the Raging Bull's stuff will reside with Selznick's and Swanson's --
Kirby McDaniel
www.movieart.net
Robert De Niro archives coming to Ransom Center
A treasure trove from a Hollywood legend lands in Austin.
By Chris Garcia
AMERICAN-STATESMAN FILM WRITER
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Robert De Niro is dumping his stuff in Austin.
The leopard-skin robe from "Raging Bull." Leisure suits from
"Casino." A lighter from "Goodfellas." Boxes and boxes of scripts,
notes and photos from almost all of the 75 films in which he has
starred or produced.
This is but a fraction of the cinematic belongings the Oscar-winning
actor has bestowed to the Ransom Center at the University of Texas,
some of which will be displayed this weekend through June 18 in the
Ransom lobby. The collection is the center's second biggest film
acquisition after its world-renowned David O. Selznick archive, which
was obtained in the 1980s.
De Niro's things are still arriving at the Ransom and could require
up to four 18-wheelers to haul from two warehouses and an apartment
in New York, said Ransom film curator Steve Wilson. The acquisition
includes some 3,000 costume and prop items and about 100 boxes of
papers and pictures, ranging from his second film, "Greetings," in
1968 to the present. Its inventory runs hundreds of pages and fills
30 binders. De Niro will continue to bestow items from future film
projects.
The acquisition was almost two years in the making. The Ransom's
reputation as one of the nation's pre-eminent research facilities was
a key consideration, De Niro said in a statement. Students, scholars
and the public will have access to the colossal trove once it is
cataloged, which should be by year's end. This means the average
person will be able to thumb through the script for "Raging Bull" or
read the letter from director Elia Kaza to De Niro about his role in
"The Last Tycoon."
Other major film repositories, such as the Library of Congress,
Margaret Herrick Library and the Museum of Modern Art Film Collection
were passed over for the Ransom's size and breadth, allowing the
archive to be kept in one piece, said Wilson.
De Niro and individual donors have put up an endowment to maintain
and preserve the collection, and a fellowship is being established to
support long-distance scholars who want to study the collection.
Wilson declined to give the endowment's worth. De Niro would not
comment.
Though other living filmmakers have bestowed their archives to the
Ransom, including director Tobe Hooper and "North by Northwest"
screenwriter Ernest Lehman (who has since died), this is the first
collection presented by a genuine movie legend who remains prolific.
A cinema icon who also produces and directs films, De Niro, 62, is
one of the most recognizable movie stars in the world and widely
considered the best actor of his generation. With his trademark
grimace and clenched air of tough-guy menace, he has molded himself
into the consummate screen gangster, playing heavies in numerous
films, eight of them directed by Martin Scorsese. He has six Academy
Award nominations and two wins: best supporting actor for "The
Godfather II" in 1975 and best actor for "Raging Bull" in 1981.
"This is very, very important. Our film collection goes up to about
1975, and that's when De Niro's career really took off. So it really
brings us up to the present," Wilson said.
The De Niro archive is also important for the center's reputation, as
it could attract more bestowals.
"We're very hopeful that if we do a good job with this collection,
other filmmakers of similar stature would consider (the Ransom),"
Wilson said.
Besides the nostalgic feast the collection provides, it sheds a
fascinating light on the actor's creative mechanics. De Niro, a
famous practitioner of Method acting, does extensive research for his
roles, and much of it is here, including audio interviews with real
gangsters, a military manual for dismantling a rifle in preparation
for "The Deer Hunter" and the New York taxi driver's license he
earned preparing to play a cabbie in 1976's "Taxi Driver." His note-
taking is legendary.
"Every page of every script is covered in notes," Wilson said. "And
he usually kept a spiral notebook about his character, which is
really unusual. He has notes about how he was going to walk, what
he's thinking, things like that. You're inside his head, seeing his
creative process. That's one of the things I'm most excited about."
The De Niro archive is the Ransom's largest acquisition this year.
Worth millions of dollars, the institution's film holdings include
the archives of Gloria Swanson, Zachary Scott and, acquired last
month, an original negative of the 1963 feature "Lord of the Flies"
and the papers of the film's producer, Lewis M. Allen, and his
screenwriter wife, Jay Presson Allen.
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2006/06/7deniro.html
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