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Right, but not all Scorsese movies are gangster movies, not even the majority of them.
I think you have "director" confused with "production company."
There were small production companies that were divisions or subsidiaries of the big companies (as Marvel is owned by Disney) that turned out only one genre of film. For instance, speaking of Disney, their Buena Vista division turned out reams of nature and other Disney non-fiction movies.
Do you really expect the "Marvel" or "DC" divisions of their respective companies to be producing anything other than superhero movies? That's why they're "divisions."
Maybe I haven't properly conveyed the meaning of my comments. As this strange controversy becomes more contentious, Scorsese seems to have been dismissively branded as the "one-note gangster movie guy." Saying Marvel-DC only does one type of movie isn't unfair, and doesn't sell short their body of work. My only point was Scorsese has helmed a good variety of well-known films.
Maybe I haven't properly conveyed the meaning of my comments. As this strange controversy becomes more contentious, Scorsese seems to have been dismissively branded as the "one-note gangster movie guy." Saying Marvel-DC only does one type of movie isn't unfair, and doesn't sell short their body of work. My only point was Scorsese has helmed a good variety of well-known films.
Scorsese is an old guy wearing nostalgia goggles. He's forgotten how many hundreds of westerns Hollywood churned out when he was a kid.
Maybe I haven't properly conveyed the meaning of my comments. As this strange controversy becomes more contentious, Scorsese seems to have been dismissively branded as the "one-note gangster movie guy." Saying Marvel-DC only does one type of movie isn't unfair, and doesn't sell short their body of work. My only point was Scorsese has helmed a good variety of well-known films.
That's true.
The thing is: Both sides have a valid point on this.
Scorsese and Coppola have a point that too many super hero movies are really McMovies. Fun, yes. Absolutely. But here today. Gone tomorrow. Nothing really special. Very little risk or real creativity is going into them. The studios are manufacturing a product, and consumers are gobbling it up.
But are Scorsese and Coppola also suffering from a bit of sour grapes? A bit of the old man attitude, "Why back in my day ..." Yeah. They are.
Not every movie has to be high art. Popcorn flicks are fine. But if 90% of movies are popcorn flicks and nothing else, we have a problem. And I think we have a problem.
Not every movie has to be high art. Popcorn flicks are fine. But if 90% of movies are popcorn flicks and nothing else, we have a problem. And I think we have a problem.
I know you intended "90%" to be a hyperbolic expression of your impression, but I think your impression is incorrect.
There are still five or six hundred theatrical movies coming out of Hollywood every year. I don't think anywhere close to 90% are "popcorn flicks."
And I suspect the percentage of more artistic movies is greater now than it was when Scorsese was young. If we add the movies appearing on cable and streaming media, I'm sure there are more artistic opportunities today than there were for Scorsese.
This is a better time to be a young director than ever before.
I know you intended "90%" to be a hyperbolic expression of your impression, but I think your impression is incorrect.
There are still five or six hundred theatrical movies coming out of Hollywood every year. I don't think anywhere close to 90% are "popcorn flicks."
Yup. Agreed. But popcorn flicks are definitely what are dominating the box office.
But Scorsese is smart enough he needs to realize that is the way it has ALWAYS been. Yeah, the '70s gave us THE GRADUATE and MEAN STREETS and THE GODFATHER. But it also gave us EAT MY DUST and GATOR and THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk
And I suspect the percentage of more artistic movies is greater now than it was when Scorsese was young. If we add the movies appearing on cable and streaming media, I'm sure there are more artistic opportunities today than there were for Scorsese.
This is a better time to be a young director than ever before.
I think that is part of Scorsese's gripe though. If you want to do an indie or art movie, you're pretty much relegated to the art house circuit and streaming. Megaplexes only want the latest popcorn flicks. And so that's what the studios are feeding them. Movie studios are still a bottom-line business. If Scorsese's latest gangster epic was selling out theaters, studios would be clamoring for more.
I think that is part of Scorsese's gripe though. If you want to do an indie or art movie, you're pretty much relegated to the art house circuit and streaming. Megaplexes only want the latest popcorn flicks. And so that's what the studios are feeding them. Movie studios are still a bottom-line business. If Scorsese's latest gangster epic was selling out theaters, studios would be clamoring for more.
That was always true. Back in the day, there were more small "art" theaters around, but megaplexes haven't made the situation any different. The big single-screen town theaters still needed to pack the house and earn their money. They weren't showing those indies and art movies then, either.
Streaming has taken the place of the little art theaters...except the audience is much larger. That's not a worse situation, that's a better situation.
My wife (who is a serious hobby chef) likes watching this Netflix documentary series about some old woman 'way off in a jungle somewhere who prepares food for her family in the old way (read: Extremely laborious). They spend 20 minutes just watching the woman pound leaves into paste with a pestle. My wife finds it relaxing, like visual white noise. I find it incredibly boring.
How in Sam Hill did someone convince anyone to fund that project? There are eight hours of it. Where would they have shown it back in the 70s?
Streaming has taken the place of the little art theaters...except the audience is much larger. That's not a worse situation, that's a better situation.
Yes and no. I applaud the rise of cable and streaming that allows more in-depth and mature storytelling for both movies and TV. I love it.
But watching a great movie on a TV or computer screen is MUCH different than watching it on a projected screen. In the former, your eyes are perceiving direct light. In the latter, your eyes are perceiving reflected light. It really is a different experience.
This is especially true in movies with lots of black and shadows (first 5 minutes of THE GODFATHER, for example) or a director who really knows how to use his cinematographer (anything by David Lean or Ridley Scott). If you've never seen THE GODFATHER or LAWRENCE OF ARABIA on a big movie screen, then you've never really seen it.
So I sympathize with Scorsese lamenting the sickness of real cinema. But the solution seems simple enough to me: Make a movie worthy of the big screen that is going to get people to the cinema. Do that or stop whining.
Yes and no. I applaud the rise of cable and streaming that allows more in-depth and mature storytelling for both movies and TV. I love it.
But watching a great movie on a TV or computer screen is MUCH different than watching it on a projected screen. In the former, your eyes are perceiving direct light. In the latter, your eyes are perceiving reflected light. It really is a different experience.
This is especially true in movies with lots of black and shadows (first 5 minutes of THE GODFATHER, for example) or a director who really knows how to use his cinematographer (anything by David Lean or Ridley Scott). If you've never seen THE GODFATHER or LAWRENCE OF ARABIA on a big movie screen, then you've never really seen it.
So I sympathize with Scorsese lamenting the sickness of real cinema. But the solution seems simple enough to me: Make a movie worthy of the big screen that is going to get people to the cinema. Do that or stop whining.
I've said this before: Internet streaming media is the changed landscape. The big screen is the place for sensory blockbusters, explosions of imagery and sound.
If they want to do more thoughtful movies, their land of opportunity is the Internet.
The problem with that split is that it leaves no place for films like Cave of Forgotten Dreams or Roma (the latter, ironically, funded by Netflix). Both of those films are only done justice on a large screen (and the former needs 3-D, as well). They are both sensory immersive experiences, but of a sort far different from the typical action movie. The average "big screen" TV can't show those films the way they need to be shown in order to be appreciated (any more than the average "big screen" TV does justice to Lawrence of Arabia).
There's nothing wrong with fun blockbuster movies, but there IS something wrong when those are the only sort of movies that get shown on full-sized screens. I think that's what Coppola and Scorsese are complaining about, and they are right. Economics may dictate that that is how things are going to be going forward, but that doesn't mean we can't note and mourn that certain types of cinema won't flourish under the new system (though it may work well for other sorts of stories, such as visual novels that take place over several seasons).
Last edited by Aredhel; 10-31-2019 at 05:55 PM..
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