Scorsese is enlisting Christopher Nolan and the Safdie brothers in his war to “save cinema”
"We have to then fight back stronger. And it’s got to come from the grassroots level," the Killers Of The Flower Moon director said about the content mill
Aux News Safdie
In a 2021 essay for The A.V. Club, Alex McLevy referred to Martin Scorsese’s bitter defense of Capital-C Cinema as “Martin Scorsese’s infinity war.” While the essay was largely in response to the backlash fans and even some Marvel actors themselves heaped upon the legendary director for daring to suggest that Ant-Man And The Wasp wasn’t as important as, say, Citizen Kane, McLevy’s turn of phrase has turned out to be prescient in more way than one. As in, Scorsese is using war metaphors to talk about movie-making now.
In a new profile, GQ asked the Killers Of The Flower Moon director a question that has now become perfunctory: what should Hollywood do about the glut of franchise content taking over theaters? (To the interviewer’s credit, he does “feel bad about having done this, since Scorsese’s skeptical comments about Marvel and comic book films in the past have attracted a lot of vitriol.”)
“The danger there is what [content] is doing to our culture,” Scorsese answered. “Because there are going to be generations now that think movies are only those—that’s what movies are… They already think that.”
He went on:
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. 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. 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.
Apart from this sounding a little bit like an army recruitment ad, Scorsese also took the opportunity to rail against the choking out of emotion from the film-making process. “It’s manufactured content. It’s almost like AI making a film. And that doesn’t mean that you don’t have incredible directors and special effects people doing beautiful artwork. But what does it mean?” he asked. (For what it’s worth, he apparently loved Avatar: The Way Of Water.) “What do these films, what will it give you? Aside from a kind of consummation of something and then eliminating it from your mind, your whole body, you know? So what is it giving you?”
“What I mean is that you gotta rip it out of your skull and your guts. To find out what the hell you really… what do you really feel should be said at this point in life by you? You gotta say something with a movie,” he concluded. “Otherwise, what’s the point of making it? You’ve got to be saying something.”
We’ll find out exactly what Scorsese is saying when Killers Of The Flower Moon hits theaters on October 20.
87 Comments
How many times can you repeat the same mantra over and over? You canât force or shame people into watching or not watching certain types of films.More Cinema would probably get made if it didnât cost 200M like Killers of the Flower Moon. It seems like only Nolan is able to bring in large crowds on his own.
Egotistical assholes. The public has always swung between big Studio Extravaganza and trends, and smaller indie type âcinemaâ movies. It didnât need saving. All they are doing is reading the tea leaves and jumping in as the current big blockbuster trend wanes, so they can claim credit for a simple natural consumer cycle. It is all about their ego. Smaller, more experimental, movies are going to be the order of the day for the next few years anyway. They are just going to spend the rest of their lives at parties bragging that it was really their influence than caused it instead of the regular boom-bust cycle.Â
Ah yes, the year [citation missing], when independent films were making hundreds of millions of dollars, and high-budget spectacle headed by marquee stars couldnât make its budget back.Iâd describe it less like some weird boxing match where âbig budget cinema is up, independent cinema is down,â and more like an ecosystem: ideally thereâs room for both, and the shortcomings of one are the gains of the other. The problem is the ecosystem is changing, and thereâs less room for the independent film in a literal sense in terms of the availability of screens and the willingness of distributors to invest in a theatrical run rather than shunting projects direct to the streaming bargain bin. To project economic terms on it, you used to be able to go to the grocery store and the fruit stand until WalMart cruised in and made the farm stand a financial impossibility. But I do think the idea that the Safdies are making stuff like Good Time and Daddy Longlegs like some day traders shorting penny stocks; thanks for the laugh.
Heck, the more I think about it, the sillier this âconsumer cycleâ stuff sounds; itâs not like you can currently point to âsmaller, weirderâ movies in cinemas now and say theyâre clearly making a financial upswing at the box office, or even are increasing dominance as the type of movies people are making. Theyâre not trending. I doubt you could provide any numbers which prove this historical tug-of-war youâre implying, because thatâs not the way the film market works.Plus, the project of independent cinema isnât profit, and when it is, the profit being sought isnât on the same scale as a big-budget blockbuster. When you make a $2 million budget movie, you can make a decent profit due to the smaller size of the endeavor both in terms of personnel and investment, but itâs just not going to pull in as much money as something with better production value, wider distribution, and more aggressive publicity.
Itâs across the board, not just film (or art for that matter). Pretty much everything we consume is run through algorithms by bean counters and marketing execs in the name of âoptimizationâ more than ever, which is why what we consume is more homogenized than ever. Why make a sports car that only has a 30% chance of selling when you can go all in on a crossover that has 60% odds? No dollar can be left on the table, and theyâll be damned if theyâre going to take a risk that means not making as much money
Big blockbuster movies arenât going away, I know that, you know that, and Scorsese knows that. But so many people act like anything but bootlicking Hollywood are an argument to get rid of big blockbuster movies instead of what they are, a defense to keep the little guy from being annihilated.
Made a similar comment above. Cracks are starting to show in the mega-budget superhero model. The finance companies get burned on enough of those productions and they will look to de-risk by spreading cash around.
Ah yes, the year [citation missing], when independent films were making hundreds of millions of dollars, and high-budget spectacle headed by marquee stars couldnât make its budget back.Iâd describe it less like some weird boxing match where âbig budget cinema is up, independent cinema is down,â and more like an ecosystem: ideally thereâs room for both, and the shortcomings of one are the gains of the other. The problem is the ecosystem is changing, and thereâs less room for the independent film in a literal sense in terms of the availability of screens and the willingness of distributors to invest in a theatrical run rather than shunting projects direct to the streaming bargain bin. To project economic terms on it, you used to be able to go to the grocery store and the fruit stand until WalMart cruised in and made the farm stand a financial impossibility.But I do think the idea that the Safdies are making stuff like Good Time and Daddy Longlegs like some day traders shorting penny stocks; thanks for the laugh.
Heâs not wrong…I just donât know what we can expect anyone to do about it. Auteur films (Captital C Cinema) still get made, but I donât know that theyâll ever reach the level of recognition to compete with franchise blockbusters when studio execs see everything in terms of dollar signs.Oh, you made a 3 hour epic biopic of this osbcure figure from history? Thatâs great, how many sequels and spinoffs can it make? How will it do in the Chinese and International market? I havenât read the interview, but in this article itâs not clear who this war is AGAINST. Because the clear answer would seem to be the studios, and the execs in charge of the studios. If you canât drag something out into a franchise that will continue to make billions over the course of multiple decades, how are you supposed to compete with stuff that does that when money is the ONLY goal?
âBecause the clear answer would seem to be the studios, and the execs in charge of the studios.âI promise you, that is mostly who he means. At this point he is beyond vividly, painfully aware of the dichotomey of art&capitailism.
If the studios keep consolidating and hanging their hats on billion-dollar earners, then a market will develop for studios that can make a lot of mid-budget movies for much less money and return decent profits to their financiers. The upside may not be as high but thereâs something to be said for diversification and predictability.
This is what I hope for. Plus, indie movies are typically budget-conscious. Cinema history has shown us what inventive creators can do with a little money.
Do these not already exist? Youâve got A24 and other similar studios putting out mid-budget arty fare that does reasonably well.It seems like Scorcese is mad that these movies arenât neck and neck with the big budget franchise blockbusters, but how could they be?
A24 is the first one that comes to mind but the current roster feels short.
Iâm very excited for Killers of the Flower Moon. Less excited for a month of the AVClub doing the guy in the yellow suit behind the tree meme towards every piece of press where someone even obliquely asks about the state of popular film.
I read âyellow suitâ and was hoping for a blue velvet reference
I was hoping for a Curious George reference.
I am too, but Iâm also terrified of an old white guy (Martin Scorsese) making a story about Native Americans into a story about an old white guy (Leonardo DiCaprio).
at least itâs better than convincing otherwise unskilled italian hardasses that they actually are mafia tough guys in real life, despite being in the profession probably most removed from it (paid pretending?) /s
K.
Had to look this meme up, and I definitely know it. Never noticed his suit was yellow before. I did notice that heâs rubbing his hands together, though.Â
Chris Nolan? The guy who made a Batman trilogy, the third of which was a comedy film where Tom Hardy and Christian Bale growled at each other in frigging hilarious voices for a couple hours?
He does shoot the silly-voice boys on film though, and made a freakinâ Borges/Escher movie between Batsmen.
But – hear me out, ok? – but he was also willing to kill thousands of people just so they could go and not understand what the fucking was going on in Tenet on the big screen.
Serious kino-auteur question:If Christopher Nolan put himself in Tenet, would we have been able to see him pull his own head out of his arse?
Serious question: Have you read a single account of a single assertion that anyone might have actually contracted C-19 due to exposure in a movie theater?
Nope. But Iâm also not a dumb enough cunt to believe that just because a Movie Engineer throws a fuckinâ tantrum about how no one will see his earsplitting work of staggering nonsense in the middle of a pandemic means itâs suddenly fuckinâ safe and wife to encourage people to go out.Â
You donât have a wife.
Look, man, Iâve been up for 36 hours straight.Â
Iâm also not sure about that part immediately after âNopeâ either…
No need to change lanes.
You wrote this: âhe was also willing to kill thousands of peopleâ
And now youâre saying that that wasnât actually true at all. So whyâd you type it?
Hereâs the deal: Iâm fine with you making a perfectly valid risk assessment for your own household and deciding that it isnât (and/or wasnât) worth it to go to the movies; Iâve never seen a movie worth dying for and the gap between the in-theater experience and my own isnât so great that Iâd take that risk either. You know what IS a huge gap, though? The gap between âHe was willing to kill thousands of peopleâ and âYouâre right. Iâve never heard of anyone getting COVID at a movie theater.â You didnât type that last sentence because you wanted to change the subject. You wanted to make it about âdumb cuntsâ and âstaggering nonsense.â I think you changed the subject because you got called out for being full of shit.
Itâs okay to not like Tenet… or Christopher Nolan… without suggesting that he âwas willing to kill thousands of people.â
The only thing more insufferable than a Chris Nolan fanboi with a neckbeard is a COVID-denying, sealioning Chris Nolan fanboi with a neckbeard. I never changed lanes. You know that Ivermectin and bleach? Youâve either ingested too much or not enough.
Ever the fabulist… I just wish you were better at it. Or… more interesting with your insults. Or had even a modicum of self-awareness.
It could have happened, and thatâs all that matters!!! /s
American culture steers further into infantilization every day. Adults used to act like adults. Now they have Decepticon emblems on their cars.Â
bold of you to assume theyâre not real transformers
I am an adult, I have a picture of Calvin from Calvin andHobbes peeing on a Chevy logo
Oh no not Decepticon emblems! Next theyâll pay money to see cartoon movies in theaters!!
Itâs a self-fulfilling cycle.Yes, 40 year olds put Decepticon stickers on their cars. Those cars are also 10 years old and get parked on the street in front of a shitty apartment building, because wages havenât kept up with cost of living… virtually for all of that 40yoâs life.If people donât have the option of living like adults (able to buy houses, save for retirement, etc) then is it any surprise they cling to childhood?
now Iâm sad.
AND our guitar cases.
Some Roman busybody, circa 440 CE: âThe youth of today are failing Rome. Once, they walked the streets in proper attire, but nowadays they all shuffle around in their fashionable barbarian âpantsâ, faces glued to their handheld tabulas.â
Thanks, Dana Carvey character
ok, Spartacus…
Getting old sucks. The Way of Water gets me out of bed pretty much every single night.
…the legendary director for daring to suggest that Ant-Man And The Wasp wasnât as important as, say, Citizen Kane…To be fair any movie staring movie buff Gregg Turkington is an instant popcorn classic.
I rate it five bags of popcorn and five chastisements to Marty for not understanding the dramatic power of Gregg Turkington.
Iâll just point out that the most awarded movie of all time, which also made a shit-ton of money, is a totally unrestrained trip through its creatorsâ minds that feels like it was written by every single thought that happened to briefly float to the top of their minds going right on the page, including a fight over whether a guy can stick a trophy up his ass.Just to be clear, Iâm saying this is a good thing.
Ben Hur?
Ben Hur, done that
Where was the trophy-ass scene in Gone With the Wind?
Right after Sherman burns Atlanta.
I swear to god I donât think I remember a time before now where Iâve had such unparalleled access to independent cinema from a variety of voices and experiences. Not being facetious in the slightest; I can log into any number of different services and see the most insane range of projects. I donât really care if they say Marvel is ruining the blockbuster (fine argument to make, have at it) but this idea that thereâs not an incredible wealth of cinematic options available literally at our fingertips is just wild to me.
âI can log into any number of different services and see the most insane range of projects.â
Iâm so glad I read your entire comment. Itâs good that you so obviously get the point of what Scorsese is saying. Thanks for coming.
I think Scorsese is arguing that if something isnât done to elevate and amplify those independent voices, then those voices will get drowned out, and thatâs not good. Itâs great that we have unparalleled access to those independent voices, but ask any independent developer on an app store what good that access is if no one ever hears about you.
Is there a review show on YouTube or something that talks about independent films? It would be great to have someone out there like Anthony Fantano for movies.
I agree with what you said, but Scorsese didnât say that. Heâs whinging about âcontentâ and saying that all this stuff being produced falls into the bucket of disposable stuff we just consume and forget about. Heâs basically calling out Netflix algorithm movies, which â fine! As he should! But it implies that thereâs just not enough good cinema being made right now and thatâs easily debatable. Itâs that old argument of âmusic isnât as good as it used to beâ when you only look at what is considered âpopâ.
I dunnoâ. To me (I canât stress that enough), heâs talking like a human being, and especially in text, that makes it easy for people who are predisposed one way or the other to read into what he says and conclude that he thinks this or that, or is implying one thing or another. FWIW Iâm obviously guilty of that.Itâs a very draining discourse. Oh well.
Haha, true that. Heâs said a lot on the topic, probably most of it begrudgingly. Since heâs an elder statesman of cinema I suppose heâs gotta be asked these things, but…yeah. I think I just want to make sure that people know that the sky isnât falling or anything. Maybe thatâs just for my own edification?
Problem is I donât know who many of those voices are. I log into any one of the streaming services I subscribe to and itâs massive volumes of things Iâve never heard of. I know they all need their proprietary content but the lack of theatrical releases and the associated reviews and market reception they create make identifying which of the 100 films is worth checking out first essentially impossible.More importantly, other than works from a handful of directors like Nolan, almost all major tentpole films are superhero/comic book properties. That eats resources that could be dedicated to something unique that has lasting resonance with audiences. If youâre not a comic book movie person then big budget options have been limited for a while.
Could you hook me up with the services youâre refering to and maybe some good titles? I donât even know where to start my search. I have a subscription to the Criterion Collection but Iâm not even sure where to begin there. And, wow, the user interface is crap.
Iâm speaking in broad terms, so for instance recentlyI watched You Wonât be Alone on Peacock, Lamb on Paramount, Hatching on Hulu, Glorious on Shudder (I like horror, if you canât tell). But those are all movies I wouldâve been hard-pressed to ever find before, let alone easily. Hell, even Oscar-winning doc All That Breathes I watched on Max, but outside of a small theatre or two how else could I have really seen that, ya know?Iâd say the best value streamer is Kanopy through your local library (depending on what that is, of course, Iâm based in LA). Big name titles and a bunch of indie things, all for free. I havenât used it that much because Iâm still paying for the other stuff, so it feels less urgent.
Thanks.
If you donât watch them in a movie theater, it doesnât count. Apparently.
I…huh. K.Maybe just make fucking movies, Marty? Maybe donât worry about what the kids are seeing?
Someone square the circle for me of of multi-million dollar paycheck directors being considered âgrass rootsâ.
itâs got to come from the grassroots level. Itâs gotta come from the filmmakers themselves. And 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 sidesI donât think heâs considering multi-million dollar paycheck directors âgrassroots.â
Fair enough.
To the interviewerâs credit, he does âfeel bad about having done this, since Scorseseâs skeptical comments about Marvel and comic book films in the past have attracted a lot of vitriol.âLiterally no matter what he said, the AVC was going to stick a snarky? reference to his comments about Marvel and cinema somewhere in their write-up.
âItâs manufactured content.â(For what itâs worth, he apparently loved Avatar: The Way Of Water.)
Anyone else see the irony in the juxtaposition of those two lines? Calling other things âmanufactured contentâ while loving a film that is the pinnacle of that (seriously, was anyone excited for Way of Water beyond the visual?)
You either misunderstand or honestly didnât see the film.There are plenty of criticism to make but both Avatar films are deeply Jim Cameron films, full to the brim of shit that any sane producer would shut down in a heartbeat (âbro!â). Almost everything in the film exists because crazy man Jim Cameron wanted it to be there. It wasnât about focus-testing things to death or hitting criteria. The director had a very specific vision and through a rather remarkable amount of effort, put it on screen. His proposal for the second film was so audacious, his money folks probably got physically upset. One of the reasons a lot of folks enjoyed it was because it was a magic carpet ride through someone elses vision. Many blockbusters clearly are made by comittiee and it is very clear that a checklist method was used to make sure everyone is âappealedâ to. Donât too anything too complicated, it wonât translate in china! Donât go too long without an action scene, the algorithm says people are going to get bored! The recent Jurassic Park films are such pure garbage, they exist as without vision or desire to actually communicate with the audience.You see this in Netflix&Amazon, both of which showrunnerswritersactors have been upfront about how much weight the âalgorithmâ has in their production process. This has resulted in moderately attractive, mildly entertaining, utterly generic âcontentâ that is being passed off as works made by people who are actually excited to be creating.
Yeah, Iâm not surprised he dug Way of Water considering itâs effectively Cameron with a massive budget and full creative control. As thatâs the sort of film Scorcese celebrates.
You see this in Netflix&Amazon, both of which showrunnerswritersactors have been upfront about how much weight the âalgorithmâ has in their production process. Like who? It has always seemed to me like Netflix gave the big-name directors / creatives it got a pretty wide berth to make whatever they wanted. Scorsese himself made a movie on Netflix and said they were the only company willing to let him make the movie the way he wanted to. His gripe with them was around theatrical release
They saved him from an expensive mistake. Not too many people are going to spend three and a half hours watching a relatively quiet movie where at the end youâre just like â…huh.â
I like that itâs 3+ hours so tricks my dog that Iâm at home while I go run errands. Havenât actually watched the movie though.
so much salt from the worms in these comments đ
People get so mad when they read this stuff. Yeah, you can watch old stuff on streaming services, if you can find them in the dustiest back-menu before they get dropped off. But independentâor even midbudget studioâmovies arenât being greenlit and playing in the theaters which makes new filmmakers struggle more than they have any time since at least the start of Scorceseâs career. Film executives have always been monsters, but theyâre absolutely soulless monsters now who hate movies, just stripping the copper wiring out of the walls to meet quarterly goals. If hearing this stuff makes you mad, think for a second why it does! Itâs ok to like Spider-Man stuff, but heâs right that giant franchise tentpoles becoming the only game in town, and films only being watchable on TV, is going to make the future of moviemaking really dull.
Ant Man and the likes of Aquaman are cinematic garbage. These films reflect the lack of imagination in the film industry today. đ
When I hear his kind of complaints about this kind of thing it kind of makes me laugh because a Martin Scorcese movie (or a Nolan movie) is just as much of a franchise as a Marvel movie. With a bunch of the same actors being used and a hardcore fanbase that will see them no matter what they put out.Also it seems like a director at his level could do a lot more to promote more variety in movie theatres, so besides doing articles and interviews?
TBF the guy has founded or co-founded at least three foundations explicitly designed to preserve, restore and exhibit neglected or marginalised cinema. Heâs doing a fair bit. Also, I must have missed Robert De Niro in Kundun.
Exactly; this is someone who has been putting his money where his mouth is for decades.
No itâs not.
Just like Hideaki Anno is taking a lot of his profits to support independent anime creators by providing them events and platforms.
Absolutely on point: my favorite part of going to see a Scorcese movie is lining up with hundreds of other Scor-heads dressed up as our favorite characters, watching a marathon of all the previous movies right before the new one, then going out to McDonalds and buying a complete set of collectible cups.Â
That was going to be my thesis, thanks Emma. Yes, letâs make a war out of this. At the same time, âthemâs fightinâ wordsâ has been the rhetoric since…. forever, and itâs still the dominant language everywhere else: âWe have to fight for this, fight for that. Itâs how America thinks. I guess âwe have to work for thisâ sounds like to much…. work? Doesnât sound very masculine.Sure, AI generated shit is shit, but thereâs no stopping it. Thank goodness there are usually cadres of inventive artists who push back against popular consumerist culture. I have faith. It must be difficult to be a famous old white guy still thirsty for attention. Scorsese has done some film-perservation work, but is he actually doing anything to support young indie filmakers?
He needs to pool his money with the moneymakers and create a viable chain of non-profit theaters or something. Iâm being kind of facetious, but really, while it failed when Pearl Jam tried to cut out Ticketmaster they at least diagnosed the right problemâitâs not people itâs the business model. Or adopt one movie theater and just fund it. If there were an actual circuit with just a tenth of a regular Scorcese movie budget, thatâd probably show ten movies a year that would sink otherwise.
How about lower the ticket price? Not everyone willing to go to the theatre because itâs an auteur movie when they can wait until BluRay (with extra feature) or streaming arrive.