Martin Scorsese: Young Filmmakers Have to ‘Really Fight’ to Not Be ‘Co-Opted’ by Studios

Samantha Bergeson
·3 min read
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Martin Scorsese is urging aspiring filmmakers to get ready to “really, really fight” to not be “co-opted” by Hollywood.

The “Killers of the Flower Moon” auteur told Time magazine in a cover story that up-and-coming directors still need to challenge studios for the sake of personal filmmaking.

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“Young people expressing themselves with moving images, they’re going to find a way to be seen,” Scorsese said. “But they have to fight, they have to really, really fight and not be co-opted.”

He continued of the studios, “Ultimately, they say, ‘Well, who wants personal filmmaking? Look what happened in the ’70s. By the end of it, you all went mad! And you went over budget and schedule, and you made these three movies, “Apocalypse Now,” “Raging Bull,” and “Heaven’s Gate”!'”

Scorsese also spoke about how film culture has become fragmented across genres and platforms.

“It should be one cinematic culture, you know? But right now everything is being fragmented and broken up in a way,” he said, citing his own upbringing which was to see everything playing in theaters regardless of genre. “Not everybody liked musicals. Not everybody liked westerns. Not everybody liked gangster films or noirs. But at the time, we just went to the movies, and that’s what was playing.”

However, it seems like Scorsese won’t be clamoring to see a superhero film anytime soon. The director revealed in 2019 that he “tried” to watch a Marvel movie but deemed the films “theme parks” and not true cinema. “It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being,” Scorsese infamously told Empire magazine.

The “Silence” helmer later reflected on how “cinema is devalued, demeaned, belittled from all sides, not necessarily the business side but certainly the art” earlier this year while at the premiere of documentary “Personality Crisis: One Night Only.”

“Since the ’80s, there’s been a focus on numbers. It’s kind of repulsive,” Scorsese said of the box office obsession. “The cost of a movie is one thing. Understand that a film costs a certain amount, they expect to at least get the amount back, plus, again. The emphasis is now on numbers, cost, the opening weekend, how much it made in the U.S.A., how much it made in England, how much it made in Asia, how much it made in the entire world, how many viewers it got.”

Scorsese added, “As a filmmaker, and as a person who can’t imagine life without cinema, I always find it really insulting. I’ve always known that such considerations have no place at the New York Film Festival, and here’s the key also with this: There are no awards here. You don’t have to compete. You just have to love cinema here.”

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