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.
and that will end too. look how Disney is giving so many flops. Especially the Marvel division. comic book fatigue has already started
Lmao I had comic book movie fatigue back in 2004, and quit watching movies entirely in 2009, after watching one too many remakes
movie fatigue is real. soon movies will collapse and we can finally go back to the golden age of plays
If marvel stopped after endgame it would have still arguably been art. Movies have always been a cash grab to some extent, but at least those movies were inspired.
I donât think Scorsese is wrong necessarily, but thereâre a lot of old man yells at cloud vibes happening. He still makes movies he wants but heâs butthurt he doesnât get the accolades he did in his heyday?
Peopleâs tastes ebb and flow and this will âcorrectâ eventually. I mean, punk rock happened because rock and disco got so overwrought and bland in the 70s. Cinema will evolve but Iâm willing to bet itâll be into something Scorsese hates before noir esque gangster films are de rigeur again
âCinemaâ as Scorsese knows it probably really is dead. When people go to a movie theater they typically want spectacle to justify the price tag.
Iâm all in favor of thought provoking artistic original movies that challenge my perspective but I rarely decide to chance a trip to the theater for that sort of film.
I still enjoy comic book movies when theyâre good. The problem is theyâre trying too hard to make all the characters quippy and that gets old. Not everyone needs to be Spider-Man. You can still make serious movies about comic book stories. The worst one I saw was Ragnarok. I didnât bother with love and thunder but heard it was even worse.
Love and thunder was Thor trying to do the Ragnarok thing and it not landing. It was very very not good