In an essay praising cinema legend Federico Fellini as part of the March issue of Harper’s Magazine, Martin Scorsese laments the devaluation of cinema.
“Only fifteen years ago, the term” content “was heard only when people discussed cinema on a serious level, and it was contrasted and measured against ‘form’,” he wrote. “Then, little by little, it was used more and more by people who took control of media companies, most of whom knew nothing about the history of the art form, or even cared enough to think they should.”
Before entering Fellini’s evolution and his relationship with the director, Scorsese asks a question to highlight a problem in the digital age: “If the later view is ‘suggested’ by algorithms based on what you’ve seen, and the suggestions are based only on in the subject or genre, so what does that do with the art of cinema? “
The essay is reminiscent of the article he published in the New York Times in November 2019, in which he explains why Marvel films look more like theme parks than cinema. He called the current industry “inhospitable for art,” even as someone who just finished a movie for Netflix.
His written applause for Fellini is overshadowed by his lenses and shows that the hesitant film industry is failing in our culture.
“Here was an artist who managed to express the anxiety of the nuclear era, the feeling that nothing really mattered anymore because everything and everyone could be annihilated at any time,” writes Scorsese of Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” experience. “We feel this shock, but we also feel the joy of Fellini’s love for the art of cinema – and, consequently, for life itself.”
In his criticism, Scorsese calls for the rehabilitation of the industry, even though he knows that the cinema business “is now the business of mass visual entertainment”.
“Everything has changed – cinema and the importance it has in our culture. Of course, it is not surprising that artists like Godard, Bergman, Kubrick and Fellini, who once reigned over our great art form as gods, ended up retreating in the shadows over time, ”writes Scorsese. “But at this point, we cannot take anything for granted. We cannot depend on the cinema industry, as it is, to take care of cinema … Whoever knows cinema and its history, we have to share our love and our knowledge with as many people as possible. And we have to make it very clear to the current legal owners of these films that they represent much, much more than a mere property to be exploited and then locked up. They are among the greatest treasures of our culture and must be treated accordingly. “