It’s not untrue that the current movie landscape can feel a little bleak. With tired remakes and an oversaturation of super-hero films, it’s not as interesting as it once was. But if there’s one film-maker that believes cinema is suffering and needs saving from itself, it’s Martin Scorsese. The prolific filmmaker has been very outspoken on his disdain for super-hero flicks. For years, he’s spoken out against them, claiming they “aren’t cinema.”
On one hand, we can see where he’s coming from. On the other, he claims the saviors of movie theaters are people like the Safdie Brothers and…Christopher Nolan?
Really? Nolan is Scorsese’s savior? The man who re-popularized the Batman franchise with the grittiest Gotham you’d ever seen in a trilogy? Explosions and a Batmobile built like a tank? That Nolan? To be fair, “Oppenheimer” has made significant waves and is more than likely to take home an Oscar or two. But Nolan jumped on the super-hero bandwagon just as “Iron Man” started the avalanche of Marvel Studios movies. Something that Scorsese seems to have completely forgotten about.
When Was The Last Time You Had Deep Thought At The Movies?
To Scorsese’s point we have to concede a little. The current media landscape is a lot of CG fodder that seems less concerned about making audiences think. Rather it’s happy so long as there are butts in seats and snacks being consumed. But movies that are evocative and emotional are a bit few and far between currently. Movies that are thought-provoking seem less interesting to the current cinema-goer. So long as they can turn their brains off and look at their phones while watching, they’ll say the movie was good.
“We have to, then, fight back stronger. It’s got to come from the grassroots level,” cinema battle leader Scorsese said. “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.”
There is something to be said of feeling as though cinema has become heavily commercialized and less concerned with a voice being heard. But it does feel as though the pendulum might be on a backswing. “Barbie” was a startlingly introspective and interesting film. And it definitely left you thinking. Just like fashion and fads, there’s a cyclical quality to entertainment. So it’s possible we’re already heading back into a movie landscape full of fresh voices and original stories.
Scorsese’s next film, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is due out in theaters October 20th, 2023.
