Martin Scorsese is urging filmmakers to save cinema, by doubling down on his call to fight comic book movie culture.
The storied filmmaker is revisiting the topic of comic book movies in a new profile for GQ. Despite facing intense blowback from filmmakers, actors and the public for the 2019 comments he made slamming the Marvel Cinematic Universe films — he called them theme parks rather than actual cinema — Scorsese isn’t shying away from the topic.
“The danger there is what it’s doing to our culture,” he told GQ. “Because there are going to be generations now that think … that’s what movies are.”
GQ’s Zach Baron posited that what Scorsese was saying might already be true, and the “Killers of the Flower Moon” filmmaker agreed.
“They already think that. Which means that we have to then fight back stronger. And it’s got to come from the grassroots level. It’s gotta come from the filmmakers themselves,” Scorsese continued to the outlet. “And you’ll have, you know, the Safdie brothers, and you’ll have Chris Nolan, you know what I mean? And hit ’em from all sides. Hit ’em from all sides, and don’t give up. … Go reinvent. Don’t complain about it. But it’s true, because we’ve got to save cinema.”
Scorsese referred to movies inspired by comic books as “manufactured content” rather than cinema.
“It’s almost like AI making a film,” he said. “And that doesn’t mean that you don’t have incredible directors and special effects people doing beautiful artwork. But what does it mean? What do these films, what will it give you?”
His forthcoming film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” had been on Scorsese’s wish list for several years; it’s based on David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction book of the same name. He called the story “a sober look at who we are as a culture.”
The film tells the true story of the murders of Osage Nation members by white settlers in the 1920s. DiCaprio originally was attached to play FBI investigator Tom White, who was sent to the Osage Nation within Oklahoma to probe the killings. The script, however, underwent a significant rewrite.
“After a certain point,” the filmmaker told Time, “I realized I was making a movie about all the white guys.”
The dramatic focus shifted from White’s investigation to the Osage and the circumstances that led to them being systematically killed with no consequences.
The character of White now is played by Jesse Plemons in a supporting role. DiCaprio stars as the husband of a Native American woman, Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), an oil-rich Osage woman, and member of a conspiracy to kill her loved ones in an effort to steal her family fortune.
Scorsese worked closely with Osage Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear and his office from the beginning of production, consulting producer Chad Renfro told Time. On the first day of shooting, the Oscar-winning filmmaker had an elder of the nation come to set to say a prayer for the cast and crew.
What does this even mean?
Probably talking about new IPs? Studios are pretty risk averse nowadays.
It obviously means studios wouldn’t take a chance on something “wacky” which is a change that prevents as much actual creativity from getting to audiences
Big money has always and will always chase success. That some people don’t like the current trends doesn’t mean it’s the downfall of the industry, and it doesn’t mean things were better or different in the past. And why should we be bothered about trends anyway? Indy film has been killing it for ages now and anybody that’s worth listening to is looking there for innovation, not at profit driven studios.
As many people have pointed out, if all the money gets spent on ironman 72, movies like pulp fiction can’t be funded. Yeah indie films are great, but there was also a time that movies in that same vein could reach hundreds of millions in the mainstream, and that impact on culture was a good one imo
Good things that’s not happening! Again, that you and others aren’t happy with current trends doesn’t mean the industry is dying, or even that it’s objectively worse than it was. Is it really that surprising that the trends today aren’t the same as they were 40 years ago? And in 40 more years, there’ll be entirely different trends. Change is inevitable and fearmongering about it is just pointless. Find the good in it and celebrate the continued success of cinema instead of wallowing in a miserable yearning for something that’s moved on.
Just because Scorcese frames it as an industry dying doesn’t mean I fully agree with that. I absolutely agree that the overall quality of stories is down and marvel crap is largely to blame. Doesn’t matter if it’s not a new thing for trash media to exist, I can still dislike it
Ok? If you read my comments, you might see that my point isn’t that people aren’t allowed to dislike things, though I would recommend against it when it only serves to make them needlessly pessimistic about anything and everything.
I apologize, but the case was made to be in a long and very compelling article that I don’t have a link for.
I think it was about consolidation, and how the lack of diversity in small independent theaters and small independent distributors robbed movies that weren’t copies of successful films the chance to become surprise hits.
Now, most theaters are chains, and they’re largely owned by the same entities that own distributors. So everywhere shows the same films, and there’s no one to take a chance on something different or risky.
Gotcha. Yeah, vertical integration, such as studios owning theaters, has been a longstanding back-and-forth struggle in film. Most dramatically seen back in the “Golden Age” where studios basically owned the whole process, from actors to theaters. Even if we’re swinging back towards studio domination (or are already there), the Internet really changes things to the point I don’t think it’s gonna be the downfall of anything. Distribution is simply too easy to be entirely dominated by established studios like it was before.
When you say this I feel like you’re explaining how competition in healthcare is providing incredible choice for patients at incredibly low prices. Because what you’re saying sounds very reasonable in theory, but just doesn’t seem to match up with the reality we’re living in.
If you wanna read it that way, I’m not sure what to tell you. I’m just saying all’s not lost because Marvel is making bank.