Chicago Sun-Times: 'Casino' still comes up aces 10 years later

Las Vegas is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. It's a history riddled both with bright shining moments and some not quite so upstanding. It's the latter history that is chronicled in Martin Scorsese's "Casino" (1995), celebrating its 10th anniversary with the release of a special anniversary edition DVD (Universal Home Entertainment).The disc is chock-full of bonuses, including a documentary on the making of the movie, a retrospective on the film's cult status, a look at the real-life people and places depicted and a mini-doc on Nicholas Pileggi, the best-selling author who penned the book on which the film was based and co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese.

"Casino" features an incomparable cast, including Robert DeNiro as mobster-turned-FBI informant Sam "Ace" Rothstein (who eventually brings down the Las Vegas mob), Joe Pesci as brutal crime boss Nicky Santoro and Sharon Stone as Ginger McKenna (who ignites a fatal rift between the two men).

Pileggi talked to the Sun-Times about his good pals, Scorsese and DeNiro, and the film that has only become better with age.

Q. Were you surprised when Martin Scorsese came calling about the film version of Casino?

A. I was just lucky to have Marty Scorsese as a director who liked what I wrote. I think [Goodfellas and Casino] were good, decent books, but he had such a vision for turning them into these incredible movies. I mean in "Goodfellas," there's a scene where [Stone and Ray Liotta] go into the Copacabana in New York and I gave it, like, three sentences in the book. He turns it into this amazing 10-minute hand-held camera scene with that incredible music.

Marty and I actually made our deal for "Casino" over the phone. He told me, "I've been waiting for this book all my life." [Laughs] And I told him, "I've been waiting for this call all my life."

Q. What was it like working on the script together with Scorsese?

A. I had never written a script before working with him. Basically, I was the typist, because he can't type. He would hover over me, playing all the parts. He's a wonderful actor, maybe a little over the top. [Laughs] But as we're doing the script, he has this fine-point pen that he uses to make notations and literally draw out each scene as the shots, the camera angles occur to him. So by the time you're done, you actually have a shooting script, a storyboard. Nobody does that.

Q. There was some initial dismay at the casting of Sharon Stone in such a critical, dramatic role.

A. She was brilliant. Scorsese really wanted her, and she proved she had real acting chops. In that big fight scene where Bobby drags her around the apartment, she actually hurt her arm pretty good, but she was back the next day and never complained. She was just a pro and stood her ground opposite all those guys.

Q. How did you feel about the movie when it finally came out?

A. I actually sensed disappointment from the reviews. The response to "Goodfellas" was phenomenal, and I didn't' get that with "Casino." One of the problems with the work I do is that it's all non-fiction. I think you pay a price in the movie world because there's a real difference between non-fiction drama and the fictionalization of non-fictional characters. My story was all about real people and real events, so we couldn't fictionalize any of it to make the story or the characters more sympathetic or more exciting. In "Casino," there's nobody to cheer for. There were no winners. There is no feel-good moment. It's a very hard movie. And I think that many people, not just the critics, found it hard to "enjoy" the film.

Q. Describe your good pal Scorsese in one word.

A. Brilliant. No, humanistic. He's this very human, loving person. He's just so kind. He's the most thoughtful person you'll ever meet. It's just too hard to condense that down to one word.

-- Miriam Di Nunzio