Martin Scorsese: ‘There are going to be generations now that think movies are’ only blockbusters

Christopher Rosen
·4 min read
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During a wide-ranging and contemplative conversation with GQ, “Killers of the Flower Moon” director Martin Scorsese discussed his thoughts on how the film industry has evolved and where it might go in the future if the only movies that reach theaters are of the blockbuster variety.

“I think there will always be theatrical, because people want to experience this thing together,” Scorsese said. “But at the same time, the theaters have to step up to make them places where people will want to go and enjoy themselves or want to go and see something that moves them.”

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When the GQ writer Zach Baron suggested to Scorsese that another issue is the prevalence of comic book movies and franchise properties, the Oscar-winning director agreed. “The danger there is what it’s doing to our culture,” Scorsese said. “Because there are going to be generations now that think movies are only those—that’s what movies are.”

“They already think that,” Scorsese added. “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.”

Scorsese continued, suggesting “manufactured content” isn’t what he would deem “cinema.”

“What I mean is that, 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,” he said. “But what does it mean? 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?”

In his later years, Scorsese has often been pitted against Marvel fans due to his steadfast commitment to film as an artform rather than mere content. This has been going on, full tilt, since 2019. Back then, during press for “The Irishman,” Scorsese even wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times that sought to clarify his take that Marvel movies aren’t “cinema” but rather more akin to theme park rides.

“Many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures. What’s not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes,” Scorsese wrote in 2019. “They are sequels in name but they are remakes in spirit, and everything in them is officially sanctioned because it can’t really be any other way. That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, reverted, and remodified until they’re ready for consumption.”

He added at the time, “Another way of putting it would be that they are everything that the films of Paul Thomas Anderson or Claire Denis or Spike Lee or Ari Aster or Kathryn Bigelow or Wes Anderson are not. When I watch a movie by any of those filmmakers, I know I’m going to see something absolutely new and be taken to unexpected and maybe even unnameable areas of experience. My sense of what is possible in telling stories with moving images and sounds is going to be expanded.”

Scorsese is out promoting “Killers of the Flower Moon,” his long-awaited epic based on the David Grann non-fiction book of the same name. The movie, out on October 20 in theaters before later arriving on Apple TV+, stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone, and it is expected to be a major factor in the 2024 Oscars race in numerous categories. His interview with GQ, where the legendary director talks about his own mortality and what he has come to realize as he reaches the latter stages of his life, is worth reading in full.

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