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 â he called them theme parks rather than actual cinema â Scorsese isnât shying away from the topic.
âThe danger there is what itâs doing to our culture,â he told GQ. âBecause there are going to be generations now that think ⊠thatâs what movies are.â
GQâs Zach Baron posited that what Scorsese was saying might already be true, and the âKillers of the Flower Moonâ filmmaker agreed.
âThey already think that. Which means that we have to then fight back stronger. And itâs got to come from the grassroots level. Itâs gotta come from the filmmakers themselves,â Scorsese continued to the outlet. âAnd youâll have, you know, the Safdie brothers, and youâll have Chris Nolan, you know what I mean? And hit âem from all sides. Hit âem from all sides, and donât give up. ⊠Go reinvent. Donât complain about it. But itâs true, because weâve got to save cinema.â
Scorsese referred to movies inspired by comic books as âmanufactured contentâ rather than cinema.
âItâs almost like AI making a film,â he said. âAnd that doesnât mean that you donât have incredible directors and special effects people doing beautiful artwork. But what does it mean? What do these films, what will it give you?â
His forthcoming film, âKillers of the Flower Moon,â had been on Scorseseâs wish list for several years; itâs based on David Grannâs 2017 nonfiction book of the same name. He called the story âa sober look at who we are as a culture.â
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.
âAfter a certain point,â the filmmaker told Time, âI realized I was making a movie about all the white guys.â
The dramatic focus shifted from Whiteâs 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.
It obviously means studios wouldnât take a chance on something âwackyâ 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 donât like the current trends doesnât mean itâs the downfall of the industry, and it doesnât 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 thatâs 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 canât 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 thatâs not happening! Again, that you and others arenât happy with current trends doesnât mean the industry is dying, or even that itâs objectively worse than it was. Is it really that surprising that the trends today arenât the same as they were 40 years ago? And in 40 more years, thereâll 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 thatâs moved on.
Just because Scorcese frames it as an industry dying doesnât mean I fully agree with that. I absolutely agree that the overall quality of stories is down and marvel crap is largely to blame. Doesnât matter if itâs 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 isnât that people arenât allowed to dislike things, though I would recommend against it when it only serves to make them needlessly pessimistic about anything and everything.