Italianamerican (1974)

Catherine Scorsese: Self

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Quotes 

• Catherine Scorsese : I remember it, one time, he had a fig tree. He used to love fig trees. My mother couldn't stand them. In the wintertime you had to cover them, very, very well; otherwise, they froze. One winter, when he did climb up, he was gettin' old, he fell off the ladder and he got hurt. And my mother was so angry. She says to him, "I hope those fig trees die. I hope they never bloom again." And, then, of course, my mother became ill and the next winter she passed away and the trees never bloomed anymore. It was just like, she took - she took them with her. And that was that.

• Catherine Scorsese : My father's name was Martin. But, a lot of people called him Philip. I don't know why? Don't ask me why! But, they called him: Filippo. Mr. Filippo.

  Martin Scorsese : I don't understand.

  Catherine Scorsese : I don't know why either? Don't ask me why. I have a brother, his name is Salvatore, they call him Charlie.

  Charles Scorsese : The same thing with me. My name is - my name is...

  Catherine Scorsese : Luciano.

  Charles Scorsese : Luciano. They call me Charlie.

  Catherine Scorsese : They call him Charlie. Why? My name was Katherine, they call me Kelly. I don't know why?

• [last lines] 

  Catherine Scorsese : That's a shame to make me say things like that. Is he still taping this?

  [jokingly] 

  Catherine Scorsese : I'll murder you. You won't get out of this house alive!

• Catherine Scorsese : [to her husband sitting on the other side of the coach]  Why are you so far from me? Get closer. No, you come here. That's it. That's more like it. Lovey-dovey, sort of, you know. They say as you get older, your love grows stronger. So for some reason, its getting a little stronger, you know. Right, Daddy? He's bashful.

• Charles Scorsese : It's been known that a man is a better cook than a woman anytime.

  Catherine Scorsese : Who said that?

  Charles Scorsese : I know that!

  Catherine Scorsese : Who said so?

  Charles Scorsese : It's been said in the books...

  Catherine Scorsese : Well, why aren't you cooking then?

  Charles Scorsese : I'm not supposed to. Not my line.

• Catherine Scorsese : There are times we sit in here and I says, "Charlie, are we mad at each other? Why don't we speak?" He says, "Well, what do you want me to tell you?" Gees, I was up in home all day, at least, talk to me!

  Charles Scorsese : What? What can you tell a person that you've been with them for 40 years?

• Charles Scorsese : Kids all used to steal.

  Catherine Scorsese : Kids! Petty theft. Petty

  Charles Scorsese : You know, just for fun sometimes. They'd take something from a pushcart, make the guy chase him and the rest of the kids used to go and pick stuff and go away with it.

  Martin Scorsese : What do you mean by...

  Catherine Scorsese : Move from hand to hand.

  Charles Scorsese : While he was chasin' one guy, the ones used to take a few pieces and go away.

  Catherine Scorsese : And that's it! The poor man is chasing him...

  Charles Scorsese : You know, kid's stuff.

  Catherine Scorsese : Kid's stuff.

  Charles Scorsese : That's all it was. But, kid's stuff or no kid's stuff, sometimes it was that you needed that stuff. You know, it was like, it isn't like today, it was like your mother and father couldn't afford to get you anything. You - kid's used to grab stuff - and, then - use it, you know. Fruit or vegetable or whatever it was. Or, a piece of crockery or something like that.

• Catherine Scorsese : I remember my brother, Charlie, gettin' older, he got a job, he was 14 years old, and, as I says, we had to go out to work, and he got a job working for JP Morgan, I think it was, as a messenger boy, 14 dollars a week, something like that. And, of course, we started to, you know, little by little, one brother started to work and the other brother started to work and the sister and we started accumulating some money and I remember one Christmas my brother finally told my mother that they wanted a proper tree. And we were thrilled. So, he bought the tree and he put the, whatever you call it, candles, I think they used candles at the time, we didn't have no electricity. And, we put up a tree! But, there was no such thing before that. I mean, we never had a tree.

• Catherine Scorsese : My mother used to wash clothes by hand with the - with the washboard. Scrubbed them! And then we had no stoves, no gas stove, we had a cold stove which she used to heat up, put this big pot on top of it, with the Chlorax, whatever you had, put it in there and boil your clothes and let them turn white. You can just imagine, nine children, with all these diapers and clothes and things like that. Our poor mothers worked.

• Catherine Scorsesee : This is also in Palermo. This is cows. They were in the street there - right in front of the house. And we took a picture of them. We thought it was very nice. This was in Palermo. They called it Piazza de Vergogna. The Piazza of Shame.

  Martin Scorsese : The shameful piazza.

  Catherine Scorsesee : That's right.

  Martin Scorsese : Why was it called that?

  Catherine Scorsesee : Well, because there was all these...

  Martin Scorsese : Naked statutes?

  Catherine Scorsesee : Naked statues and I thought they were just - great.

  Charles Scorsese : You thought they were great.

  Catherine Scorsesee : And - the statues were beautiful.

• Charles Scorsese : Talk natural. Don't try to put on that - you're not an actress.

  Catherine Scorsese : I'm not putting on any airs! You - you lookin' for a fight or something?

  Charles Scorsese : Talk the way you talk to me, when you to your son.

  Catherine Scorsese : You lookin' for a fight or something, dear? See Marty, every time I sit close to him, he moves away. I don't know *why*? It's either, it's either - I don't know, he's a little older now, you know.

• Charles Scorsese : First, it was all Irish. Then, the Italian people came in.

  Catherine Scorsese : Then, the Italian people came in.

  Charles Scorsese : And, there was a lot of Jewish business around. There was a little five and ten cent store, there was a shoe store. All Jewish business around here.

  Catherine Scorsese : Mostly Jewish tradespeople.

  Charles Scorsese : And, a dry goods store. Stands with - like Orchard Street today.

  Catherine Scorsese : There was pushcarts, you know.

  Charles Scorsese : Pushcarts.

• Catherine Scorsese : This was, eh, leaning, eh...

  Charles Scorsese : Leaning Peter of Paula, eh, Pise.

  Catherine Scorsese : Pise, Pise, Pise, that's it! This was...

  Charles Scorsese : Pise. Leaning Tower of Pise. Pise!

• Catherine Scorsese : Anyway, they came to America. They went and lived, I think, on Third Street. Then, they went and lived across the street. Then, eventually, my Aunt came. Naturally, they had no place to live. So, you come and board with us. So, they took my Aunt in, my Uncle, and her son.

  Charles Scorsese : That's three, plus nine kids...

  Catherine Scorsese : So, that's *three*, plus nine children, you figure it.

  Martin Scorsese : Three plus nine children.

  Catherine Scorsese : Right.

  Charles Scorsese : Plus - Plus...

  Catherine Scorsese : Plus my mother and father. Eleven. And three - is - fourteen. That's fourteen. So, my mother - so my Aunt occupied the bedroom, the kitchen in the middle, and, the, my mother and father and the children where in the living room.

  Charles Scorsese : Three rooms, worst than us, three rooms.

  Catherine Scorsese : And don't forget, they had their babies at home too. Don't think there was hospitals.

  Charles Scorsese : There was no such thing as a hospital.

  Catherine Scorsese : They used to call the midwife and the midwife, midwife would come in!

• Catherine Scorsese : Now, that's enough for today, Marty.

  Martin Scorsese : Okay, that's it.

• Catherine Scorsese : You know, when you first get married, you're really not much of a cook. I watched my mother make sauce. I watched my mother-in-law. I got a lot from my mother-in-law, a lot from - family.

  Charles Scorsese : She got more from my mother than her mother.

  Catherine Scorsese : See, there he goes puttin' his mother in there.

• Charles Scorsese : I'll never forget, the pushcarts, in the morning, were on this side because there was no sun. In the afternoon, when the sun came out on this side, the pushcarts shifted over...

  Catherine Scorsese : Shifted over...

  Charles Scorsese : To the other side...

  Catherine Scorsese : Other side.

  Charles Scorsese : There was no sun.

• Charles Scorsese : The land is so beautiful, you could go see it. But, there's no work over there, they have no industry.

  Catherine Scorsese : That's why they came to America! There was - they got better here than there. That's why - you speak to these little children, 8 - 9 years old, their first words out of their mouth is, "As soon as I become 18, I'm coming to America."

  Charles Scorsese : Coming to America.

  Catherine Scorsese : There's your answer.

• Charles Scorsese : It's not like it was years ago when the people used to leave their doors open and it was like all big one house. The whole apartment you go in the hall and you'd go into one house and to another. And me, I used to - kind of like, when my mother used to cook, I used to go downstairs and eat. I had to go upstairs, "Now what are you cooking, Mom? I don't like it""Downstairs!" it used to be like all one family. It was different - it was all again different.

  Catherine Scorsese : It's really different.

• Catherine Scorsese : You can just imagine what it looked like, you know. In the kitchen, all this box of grapes piled up. Then, of course, he used to take, he used to pick it out, take it, bring it downstairs, and he used to put it in this barrel that was sawed in half. Put on a pair of black boots and start mashing it. Running, you know, walking around in the grapes. And then, of course, when it was mashed very, very good, he would take it out and put it in this a...

  Charles Scorsese : Barrel.

  Catherine Scorsese : In this... stringitura, to strain it, real tight.

  Charles Scorsese : Now, Katie, you're wrong. If he did it with his feet - if he did with his feet, he didn't have to have to use the machine.

  Catherine Scorsese : Well, how did he get the juice out?

  Charles Scorsese : The only time...

  Catherine Scorsese : How do you get the juice out?

  Charles Scorsese : The only time they use - the only time they used their feet is when they didn't have the machine. And then...

  Catherine Scorsese : You got mixed up.

  Charles Scorsese : No. I'm tellin' ya...

  Catherine Scorsese : Now, he got mixed up.

  Charles Scorsese : No. That's the way it is. The only time they used it with their feet, when they didn't have the machine to grind it.

  Catherine Scorsese : Well, how'd - I'm not talking about the grinding machine, I'm talking about the machine that squeezes it.

  Charles Scorsese : That's the grinding machine, that's the stringitura. Now, they have it. Don't tell me; because, I made wine too! And in Europe...

  Catherine Scorsese : Well, anyway, my father had great wine.

• Charles Scorsese : With the vinegar, in itself,

  Catherine Scorsese : They made money on it.

  Charles Scorsese : In itself, they got money. Because, good vinegar was...

  Catherine Scorsese : They sold it as vinegar!

  Charles Scorsese : Much more profitable than wine. Good vinegar.

• Catherine Scorsese : My mother was a very fine hand-sewer. You can't remember, but, the old people will remember when I mention his name. My mother made pants for Daddy Browning, a millionaire.

  Charles Scorsese : He married...

  Catherine Scorsese : He a young girl, her name was Peaches. Right. This is - I'm serious and my mother was such a fine sewer that - and he used to go here on... on Ninth Street to have his clothes made. And they used to give the pants to my mother because her sewing was beautiful and so fine. And my mother used to take the clothes, listen to me, take the pants, sew them, and she used to teach us how to sew. We had to sit by her and do the seams up too. And the children, who was running around, who was wet, who was hungry, who we had to give a bottle to, that's how we were raised. - - My mother used to finish the pants, fold them all up nicely, make a bundle and carry them back to Ninth Street. They would give her another batch and she would come back. You had to bring them and deliver them! Home work! Nobody would come to the home and pick them up!

  Charles Scorsese : My mother did the same thing. My mother did the same thing.

  Catherine Scorsese : And naturally, we had to - she taught us, she taught us how to sew, she taught us how to knit, how to crochet, how to embroider, everything! We did everything! We watched her and we learned!