Vidor's natural and uncompromising film tells the episodic, poignant story of the working and domestic life of an average, commonplace man in 'the crowd' - John - with his wife Mary (played exquisitely by the director's real-life wife Eleanor Boardman), chronicling their ups and downs, including their meeting, courtship, marriage, and family life.The main thematic strand that ran throughout the film was the conflict between the changing world of modernity, intellectual reason and enlightened progress vs.Director Martin Scorsese was convinced by actor Robert De Niro, with whom he had madeMean Streets (1973),Taxi Driver (1976), andNew York, New York (1977), that he film had to be made, after he was given La Motta's biography by De Niro in 1974.On his next visit to Lecter, Graham asked about the tree carving, identified as a Chinese character ("zhong") that appeared on a Mah-Jongg piece - the center piece translated in English as "the Red Dragon.She gave him a present of a white horse statuette, that reminded him of his previous night's "really good dream," in which his mother was dressed in white like a beautiful ghost, and walking down a white sanitarium hallway leading a big white horse.