Martin Scorsese might be an old curmudgeon by now. But, then, so am I. I totally agree:
Martin Scorsese is once again making it clear that he’s not a fan of blockbuster comic book-inspired films — which he once likened to “theme parks” in the past. In a new profile with GQ, Scorsese slammed comic book movie culture, asserting that it’s negatively impacting audiences who aren’t familiar with other types of film.
“The danger there is what it’s doing to our culture,” he said. “Because there are going to be generations now that think movies are only those — that’s what movies are.”
Scorsese continued, “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. 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.”
— Martin Scorsese believes comic book movies threaten our very culture: “We’ve got to save cinema”
But I think he is overly optimistic. Given the constellations of late capitalism, the movie as an art form – as we knew it – may well be yet another art form that is cast aside. Perhaps surviving as small, semi-amateur projects? One benign (among very few others) side effect of late capitalism is that the equipment necessary to create some form of movie and tell some form of a story is now right here in my pocket.