example, when he was in the editing process for
The Departed, the obscure Stones song 'Let it Loose' came to mind. "The scene where
Jack Nicholson sat down next to
Leonardo DiCaprio and said, 'Do you know who I am?' The tone of that, and the mood, I heard that sound from the song. So I played it again, and I tried a couple of other songs afterwards, because invariably you say, 'Well that's the first one, it can't be right, it works, but working on the first try? It can't be that way.' So we tried some other songs. But we went back to 'Let it Loose' and we placed it just at the right moments, in between the dialogue, for the highlights of the song. But it had the tone, and again the edge, that I think the scene had, and that I think the characters were like, really."
When Scorsese and the band were in the initial planning stages of filming a concert, Mick Jagger originally wanted him to film an outdoor concert in Rio de Janeiro that would be the Stones' biggest concert ever. What they eventually settled on, with Scorsese's urging, was the exact opposite – the comparably tiny Beacon Theater in New York City.
"The importance of making it at a smaller venue, for me? Well, we contemplated, we discussed doing it at a bigger venue. And I looked into it," he says. "But while I was doing that, while I was trying to prepare for that, I realized I'm better suited, I think, to try to capture the group on stage, on a smaller stage. More for the intimacy of the group and the way they play together, the way you see the band work together, and work each song. I found that to be interesting. More than interesting: it's a compulsion of mine. I like to be able to see that, have that, be able to cut from one image to the other, movement, that sort of thing. But really, it's about the intimacy of the group, and how they work together."
It's not the only time Scorsese and Jagger had their differences; in the beginning of the film, the two argue over whether or not Scorsese can use moving cameras (necessary for the film, but very distracting to the band), and Scorsese apparently only receives the set list seconds before the concert began.
It turns out, though, that at least some of the arguments were exaggerated in the film for comic effect. When the set list is mentioned, Scorsese cracks up. "Well, we fudged that a bit. I mean, it felt that [rushed], but that wasn't exactly how it was...someone did purloin it for me. I'm not going to use the word 'stolen', I don't want to say who it was, but, we found it."
The camera issue, on the other hand, was almost a catch-22.
