Martin Scorsese on ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ 206-minute length: ‘You should take out the time’
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In the last decade of his career, Martin Scorsese hasn’t been shy about extending the lengths of his pictures beyond three hours. “The Wolf of Wall Street” clocked in at 180 minutes, “Silence” came in at 161 minutes, “The Irishman” ran for a whopping 209 minutes (it’s the longest movie of Scorsese’s career), and now “Killers of the Flower Moon” unfolds over 206 minutes.
Much has already been made about the length of Scorsese’s latest epic, but the Oscar-winning director says it’s something audiences should accept in the name of art and cinema.
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“People say it’s three hours, but come on, you can sit in front of the TV and watch something for five hours,” Scorsese said during a round table with international journalists. “Also, there are many people who watch theater for three-and-a-half hours. There are real actors on stage, you can’t get up and walk around. You give it that respect, give cinema some respect.”
As most probably know, Scorsese remains a steadfast supporter of cinema, and he has worked hard to preserve film history whenever possible. Scorsese has also spoken out against the prominence of superhero movies in the marketplace at the expense of other types of films. (We don’t need to rehash this long debate again, but suffice it to say, Scorsese doesn’t hate Marvel films, he just hopes audiences aren’t given only Marvel films to enjoy in theaters.) But asked during international press about Barbenheimer – the portmanteau given to “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” both of which were released on the same day this summer and combined to gross more than $2 billion worldwide – Scorsese said it was a sign of progress.
“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,” Scorsese was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times. “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.”
Scorsese said he hadn’t yet watched either film, but “I love [‘Oppenheimer’ director] Chris Nolan’s work. [‘Barbie’ star and producer] 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.”
Scorsese said the two films worked “perfectly” together because they were such strong compliments in terms of theme and tone. “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,” Scorsese said. “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.”
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