Martin Scorsese Says Cinema Is Transforming, Not Dying

Is this the end of cinema? Or the start of a whole new era?

According to Martin Scorsese — a guy who knows a thing or two about cinema — cinema is not “dying” but rather in a state of transformation.

Speaking at the Berlin Film Festival (via Variety) Scorsese said

I don’t think it’s dying at all, no. I think it’s transforming. It never was meant to be one thing. We were used to it being one thing. I grew up [with cinema] as one thing: if you wanted to see a movie you went to a theater. A good theater or a bad theater, but it was a theater. It was always a communal experience.

Apple

Scorsese added “the technology’s changed so rapidly and exhaustedly, that in a sense the only thing you can really hold on to is the individual voice. The individual voice, I must say, can express itself on TikTok or can express itself on a four-hour film or a two-hour miniseries.”

This is a somewhat more hopeful message from Scorsese, who in the recent past has issued pleas to “save cinema” from the dangers of franchise filmmaking and comic-book movies, which have long struck Scorsese as a problematic element of the cinematic landscape. (Gonna guess he didn’t see Madame Web last weekend.) He’s also decried the fascination with box-office totals.

Even as he has championed the big screen experience, Scorsese has also worked for major streaming services; producing The Irishman for Netflix and Killers of the Flower Moon for Apple.

Killers of the Flower Moon is now streaming on Apple TV+. Transforming, not dying indeed.