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.
He’s right. Not that comic book movies are bad but how they are made is bad (also other movies nowadays). Batman trilogy is magnificent and I don’t like comic books… It’s all about constant action and no plot and thrilling parts to graduate the plot. You don’t need bambilion of explosions to have a good movie (Joker).
Also I think that part of the problem is CGI. Before CGI movie makers needed to take the shot for the first time (cause money) so everyone was max concentrated and gave everything into their performance. Also everything needed to be precise to make sense. Nowadays it doesn’t matter… Just do few shots in front of green screen and we’ll do the rest.
Of course there are exceptions, but the mainstream money-making machine is taking this movie soul-sucking path to produce quantity not quality in order to make piles of money. They don’t care about art.
If I’m paying $25 to watch a movie on a giant screen, it better have explosions and other shiny shit to justify the price.
I can watch other films at home.
Lol people like you think this way and then you wonder why we elect fascists like Donald Trump. 😆
That’s a conclusion for sure.
One you don’t like and in turn, you can have yourself a nice hot cup of “too bad”. We’re sick of immature idiots like you defending an exploitative industry that has monopolized an entire art form, enabled the rape of countless innocent actors and actresses because of that monopoly, and does nothing but churn out prefabricated, hollow, meaningless, propaganda-filled garbage. We don’t want your fucking crap anymore. Shove it.
Say the guy who thinks everyone who doesnt enjoy the same thing as him is a Trump-voting fascist.
Please. Dont generalise like that. To anyone.
Says the guy who doesn’t see that fascism is enabled by anti-intellectualist mindsets that make people reject movies and other media that require a modicum of thought and intellectual participation on the audience’s part. Anti-intellectualist mindsets like the kind you’re peddling.
Grow the fuck up and stop getting defensive when called out on it. You’re wrong and Martin Scorsese is right whether you want him to be or not.
And thinking everyone should think the same and enjoy the same thing is a big step into fascistic thinking. You might tell yourself that forcing a modicum of thought and intellectual participation on people is for a good cause. But you arent, in these comments at least, a good judge of what intellectual participation is.
Which is what you do when you do something wrong and then demand everyone has to conform to your way of thinking when called out on it. Because you portray yourself as an ignorant common man standing up to the out-of-touch academic in the ivory tower who tells you facts you don’t want to hear. Because you think that’s an acceptable way to live. Because you refuse to see how doing that hurts everyone else.
You might think of thinking and intellectual investment as egregious violations of your human rights, but that’s not how the real world works. You are an adult with responsibilities who is helping to run a democracy, and as such, you do in fact have to think and consume content that helps you think. It’s called growing up and you and the rest of the United States badly need to do it before Trump and his little cult exploits your refusal to stop being a child to commit genocide.
This shit happening with movies is having far-reaching effects throughout all of society and you see it as well as we do; you just don’t want to take responsibility for it.
You are a child.
Well, excuse me for not wanting to be called a fascist just for liking action movies.
So now you’re calling me an American?! Jeez.
Excuse us for wanting movies that aren’t worthless fucking garbage that are all CG and no substance.
Excuse us for calling you out for being the root of the problem supporting the enshittification of movies because you refuse to stop being a selfish, indolent, immature dipshit who thinks the world revolves around you.
Excuse us for telling you the truth.