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As the line between art and advertising gets blurrier and blurrier, if it hasn’t already been erased, Martin Scorsese and his preferred leading men pick up where BMW Films left off for the allegedly $70 million ad feature, The Audition. After being scrapped from its Venice premiere due to “unexpected technical problems,” the ad/film finally gets its unveiling, buried in a short film program at Busan. The 16-minute advertisement — and despite Venice director Alberto Barbera’s protestations, that’s what it is — for Australian hotelier James Packer’s Crown Casinos in Manila and Macau (Studio City) and, perhaps in a fantasy world, Tokyo, is a keenly self-aware pop culture nugget that’s probably on its way to becoming commonplace.
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The spot opens with a signature Scorsese aerial swoop in and extended tracking shot one-two punch — however not set to anything from Exile on Main Street — as Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio (playing themselves, as does the entire cast) arrive at the Crown Manila, each under the impression that he’s there to read for a part in a new Scorsese film. The director himself arrives in the opulent lobby (captured in all its glittery glory by DOP Rodrigo Prieto) and before he knows it, he’s stuck in the middle of the actors’ professional rivalry, which carries on to their next stop in Macau. Finally, in Tokyo, Scorsese gives up, dumps them both, and goes running off to meet Brad Pitt at a noodle shop — who, it turns out, is a (fabulously) terrible actor.
The Audition works on the strength of its (surprise!) strong cast and an awareness that they’re all shilling for a casino chain. But Scorsese and his A-list cast pull it off with aplomb, having a good time at their own expense. When they’re not spouting the requisite, “We could hit the tables, grab dinner or go to the spa. Or all three,” pitches demanded by head office, there’s some effortless banter between Scorsese’s first and current muse. After referring to “his director” to De Niro’s astonishment, DiCaprio gets to drop a pithy, “Let’s face it Bob, it’s been a while.” De Niro’s perfectly timed and pitched reply is a petulant, “I don’t like your beard.” Within this odd subgenre, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Powder Keg for BMW (also produced by RSA Films) has yet to be bested from an advertising or filmmaking perspective, but The Audition comes close.
Production company: RSA Films, Sikelia Productions
Cast: Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese, Brad Pitt
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriter: Terence Winter
Producer: Brett Ratner, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Jules Daly
Executive producer: Lawrence Ho, James Packer
Director of photography: Rodrigo Prieto
Production designer: Mark Friedberg
Costume designer: Aude Bronson Howard
Editor: Kevin Tent
Casting director: Ellen Lewis
No rating, 16 minutes
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