Extraído de Leituras de Assinatura :
MARTIN SCORSESE: The only good thing about the drug use is that it was very obvious in my case. And I just had to go to that brick wall. Nobody was going to tell me otherwise, whether it was a rock 'n' roller, or a studio executive, or an actor. People can try to guide me, but I always have to go my own way.
RS: The only reason I bring it up is because it's part of the public record of your life.
MS: Right. After "New York, New York" I was exhausted to the point where a number of people were worried about my health. I said, "Don't worry, I'm fine." And then after the Labor Day weekend in Telluride, at the film festival, I got back to New York and suffered a total collapse. That's when I finally went to the hospital, and that's when De Niro came to visit and asked if I wanted to do the film. Really, we had been working on it since Taxi Driver. I realized I had nothing else to do. I had exhausted all the possibilities. Even my friends were all going off on their own. I was alone. And it was time to go back to work. And what I discovered - it's in "Raging Bull" and it's in the other pictures later on - is that I had to come to terms with something.
Então, parece que Scorsese salvou sua própria vida, mas DiNero teve uma mão nisso. Ou, possivelmente, uma conversa com Ebert naquele festival de cinema causou o colapso inicial. Difícil dizer.