Movies, music, madness: Robbie Robertson’s ‘Insomnia’ tells ‘origin story’ of his partnership with Martin Scorsese

Robbie Robertson‘s final solo album, 2019’s Sinematic, features “Beautiful Madness,” a song inspired by the two years he and Martin Scorsese lived together after their respective marriages collapsed. That “madness” is now detailed in The Band guitarist’s brutally honest new book Insomnia, the sequel to his memoir, Testimony.

In Insomnia, Robertson and Scorsese are creatively on fire. As The Band dissolves, they work on The Last Waltz and Raging Bull; hang with Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel and Warren Beatty; travel the world; bed beautiful women and do ridiculous amounts of drugs, stopping only after Scorsese nearly dies. Their creative partnership, though, continued for decades.

“I think they both admired each other greatly … Robbie thought Marty was a genius filmmaker, and I think Marty thought Robbie was an amazing writer and an amazing storyteller,” Robertson’s longtime manager, Jared Levine, says of their relationship.

Levine says Robertson had wanted to tell the “origin story” of his friendship with Scorsese for years, but in the form of a movie, which David Fincher planned to direct. Dissatisfied with the screenplay, Levine says, “Robbie was like, ‘You know what? I need to write the story for this to be done properly.'” 

While Robertson completed Insomnia’s first draft prior to his unexpected 2023 death, Levine says, “We didn’t rush to release it” — in part because Robertson’s family was “ambivalent” about it. “They weren’t prepared for what this book was,” Levine notes.

“It’s so irreverent and so much about being a bad boy,” Levine says, noting the guitarist’s descriptions of his affairs with actresses and models “aren’t things that Robbie ever talked to his kids about.” He continues, “To read it after he had passed, it was even more so a difficult thing.”

Consequently, Insomnia includes an afterward by Robertson’s ex-wife and lifelong friend, Dominique Robertson, providing context for that period.

Filmworks: Insomnia, an LP collecting Robertson’s music for The Last Waltz, Raging Bull and his acting debut, Carny, arrives on Record Store Day Black Friday, happening Nov. 28.

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