Martin Scorsese hasn’t actually seen Barbie or Oppenheimer yet
Martin Scorsese thinks Barbie and Oppenheimer were good for cinema, even though he hasn't seen them
Aux News Barbie
Breaking news: Martin Scorsese, patron saint of The Cinema, hasn’t actually seen this year’s cinema’s biggest offerings. We have to cut Marty some slack: he’s been busy finishing his film Killers Of The Flower Moon and single-handedly promoting it while the actors are on strike (not to mention filming absolutely darling TikToks with his daughter). Still, given what a cultural phenomenon it was, it’s something of a surprise that Scorsese managed to avoid both Barbie and Oppenheimer so far.
“I do think that the combination of Oppenheimer and Barbie was something special. It seemed to be, I hate that word, but the perfect storm. It came about at the right time. And the most important thing is that people went to watch these in a theater. And I think that’s wonderful,” the legendary filmmaker said in an interview with the Hindustan Times. However, he admitted, “I haven’t seen the films yet. I love Chris Nolan’s work. Margot Robbie, I must say, started with me from The Wolf Of Wall Street. [Cinematographer] Rodrigo Prieto, after finishing Killers Of The Flower Moon, went on to shoot Barbie. So it’s all in the family.”
The admission that Scorsese hasn’t actually seen Christopher Nolan’s latest picture comes after the Taxi Driver director heralded Nolan as a potential savior of the medium. Speaking with GQ last month, Scorsese pointed out the need to “fight back stronger” against comic book movies. “It’s gotta come from the filmmakers themselves. And you’ll have, you know, the Safdie brothers, and you’ll have Chris Nolan, you know what I mean?” (Nolan, of course, also made three Batman movies.) Scorsese added, “And hit ’em from all sides. Hit ’em from all sides, and don’t give up. Let’s see what you got. Go out there and do it. Go reinvent. Don’t complain about it. But it’s true, because we’ve got to save cinema.”
Scorsese, however, does see how the Barbenheimer phenomenon did its part to champion movies as a whole. “The way it fit perfectly—a film with such entertainment value, purely with the bright colors—and a film with such severity and strength, and pretty much about the danger of the end to our civilization—you couldn’t have more opposite films to work together,” he said to the Hindustan Times. “It does offer some hope for a different cinema to emerge, different from what’s been happening in the last 20 years, aside from the great work being done in independent cinema. I always get upset by that, the independent films being relegated to ‘indies.’ Films that only a certain kind of people would like. Just show them on a tiny screen somewhere.”
As for Killers Of The Flower Moon, its director encourages audiences to see it on a big screen. “Killers could play on a small screen, but in order to truly immerse yourself, you should take out the time,” he said. “People say it’s three hours, but come on, you can sit in front of the TV and watch something for five hours. Also, there are many people who watch theater for 3.5 hours. There are real actors on stage, you can’t get up and walk around. You give it that respect, give cinema some respect.”
33 Comments
Pfft. Poser!
A lot of people never saw “Sound of Freedom” either, they just bought a bunch of tickets for it, I wonder if Scorsese thinks that movie is good for cinema as well.
this is some “oh so you hate waffles”-ass logic.
How many “Sound of Freedom” did you buy that went unused? Scorsese’s food preferences aside, I thought this was about someone not watching movies they say are good for cinema.
well that’s bleak to see: someone taking the clickbait writing on avclub at face value.this is about taking a quote about the financial success of two movies and casting it as somehow dishonest/misleading because the speaker hasn’t seen the movies in question.
Ass logic is irrefutable.
Why don’t you ask him?
Quick! Nobody tell him that Nolan directed a superhero movie, he might have a rant come out!
Martin Scorsese thinks Barbie and Oppenheimer were good for cinema, even though he hasn’t seen themMaybe he’d have had time to do it if he wasn’t busy running to every microphone that’d have him.
“Killers could play on a small screen, but in order to truly immerse yourself, you should take out the time,” he said. “People say it’s three hours, but come on, you can sit in front of the TV and watch something for five hours. Also, there are many people who watch theater for 3.5 hours. There are real actors on stage, you can’t get up and walk around. You give it that respect, give cinema some respect.”There are intermissions in theater when the show is expected to run for three plus hours. And a pause button at home when you watch TV.
I wish it were the case and it doesn’t deter me from seeing them, but 3-plus hour movies don’t have intermissions these days.
Yea I mean stage performances do. Scorcese is comparing a three-hour movie to a three-hour stage performance and asking why people are OK with the latter but not former. And the difference is that stage performances still do have intermissions.
If you mean theater/stage productions, absolutely.Movies, though, are TRULY SPECIAL and audience brains couldn’t handle something as delicate as a 10 minute potty break.
The thing is: If there is an intermission and everyone takes advantage of that, there’s no way everyone gets their business done (bathrooms, snacks) in that amount of time.
Eh, if it’s a SUPER packed theater, maybe. But with movies starting and stopping at all hours, I think you could time intermissions pretty well to make sure facilities are able to accommodate.
Also – if this is what it takes to get people going to the movies more, then get more facilities built. Cost of business.
I guess I was flashing back to the only three theaters where I’ve seen movies presented with an intermission. They each had bathrooms (for men, anyway) which could accommodate maybe four to six people at a time. Fifteen minutes for a house of 500-1600 people ain’t much.
So what you’re saying is theaters should start having toilets you can watch the movie from
This only works for single screen theaters but a few places I’ve been have speakers in the bathroom so you’re missing out on less if you gotta go.
I’m just saying they’re not the same situations as the other two do give people an opportunity for a bio-break without missing any of the story.
Jesus Christ with this bullshit
THIS is cinema.
‘…even though he hasn’t seen them’I guess the AVClub is going with the idea that it’s problematic that this genius has an opinion on a topic he is an absolute expert in, something-something, eye-roll, he didn’t see the films in question, never mind that all evidence points to his exact conclusion? Why do I show up here? What is the point when all we get are slideshows and listicles, and the majority of articles we do get think that snark is what makes a good read?
Are his opinions valid when he has no idea what he’s talking about, but you happen to agree with them…?
They don’t make real movies anymore!And when they do, I don’t watch them!!!
Please just ask Scorcese about the projects he’s promoting. It’s not his job to weigh in on every stupid thing going on in the movie industry.
Not to start a kerfuffle, but didn’t he voluntarily weigh in on the whole cinema v Marvel thing? And even if he was asked, he could have stayed fairly mum on the subject instead of throwing big budget CGI movies under the bus.
he doesn’t mention marvel movies in this interview; the fact that people are still bringing that into any discussion he has about film shows why the AVClub is able to pull a statement from his press tour for the freaking movie he made and people will flock to the comments to ask why he dare say something about movies.
Context for what Crows said, not this interview. Why so serious? I mean, for everyone flocking to the comments to ask why he dare it seems there’s an equal number of people who get their jollies asking how dare they dare him… /shrug
Definitely not serious, mainly amused that four years later people are still grousing about how he could’ve kept his mouth shut when asked if he liked Endgame lol
I’ll star that.
Thing is, in the source article, they did! But the avclub is a media vulture, stripping context and information for the most reactionary-baiting snark possible.
When I was in Switzerland I was surprised at some movie theaters having actual intermissions put halfway through the movies! Bathroom, beer buying breaks (they sell beer in most cinemas), the movies themselves didn’t suffer much from having them.
What am I supposed to be outraged about here?People going to the movies is good for cinema. Lots of people went to see those movies.Taking it a step farther. Non-franchise, (arguably) auteur directed films getting wide attention and butts in seats is good.Why do you have to see either movie to think either of those things?