“Except maybe Frank Capra”: Why Jodie Foster names the greatest American director of all time.
When a third-generation Sicilian immigrant from Queens gets named by one of the most celebrated actor-directors of our times, one can hardly object.
In 1965, at the age of three, Jodie Foster had already begun her career as a model by appearing in Coppertone Television advertisements.
After a brief stint of acting in Disney films, Foster was cast in a supporting role by Martin Scorsese in his 1974 romantic-comedy drama Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. She was a mere 12 years of age, but her future seemed written in the stars.
But the film, which went on to premiere at the 27th Cannes Film Festival and compete for its top honour, the Palme d’Or, was just the beginning of what was already shaping up to be two legendary film careers.
Three years later, Scorsese cast Foster in the role of a teenage prostitute opposite the legendary Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver.
Today, The movie is counted as one of the essential works of excellence in the American neo-noir genre.
It launched its lead actor and director into a lifetime of overnight critical acclaim and international success.
In a conversation with Matt Mueller, Foster credits her mother entirely for this early career choice. “I have to hand it to my mom because she was really forward-thinking,” she says.
Recalling fond memories of watching Scorsese’s Mean Streets with her mother when she was just ten, Foster underlines the “vicarious thrill” her mother got from watching her daughter morph into a legacy actor.
“She wanted me to be respected; she wasn’t interested in me being a pig-tailed, model-type actress. She wanted me to be up there with Robert De Niro,” adds Foster.
After a series of short films and comedy features that were inspired by the cinematic lexicon of French New Wave and Italian Neo-Realists like Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini, Mean Streets was Scorsese’s first venture into the crime-drama genre.
It also marked the first of his many lifelong collaborations with actor De Niro.
Very soon, in a role that defined the larger part of his career as an actor, De Niro was cast as the psychologically troubled, war-veteran turned vigilante Travis Bickle in the auteur’s Taxi Driver.
