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.

  • nostradiel
    link
    English
    331 year ago

    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).

    • nostradiel
      link
      English
      51 year ago

      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.

    • @chiliedogg
      link
      English
      -161 year ago

      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.

        • @kmkz_ninja
          link
          English
          41 year ago

          That’s a conclusion for sure.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          01 year ago

          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.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              -11 year ago

              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.