It’s impossible to type the name “Martin Scorsese” without feeling like you’re about to write some sort of missive on one of the founding fathers of storytelling.
A lot of pressure comes with that!
In a new piece on Scorsese in Time Magazine, the writer correctly states that a lot of people want to be Martin Scorsese without knowing how much that entails.
As an avid Scorsese fan and an active dreamer about my place in Hollywood, I feel like I am just coming to terms with how much time Scorsese spends caring not only about his art form, but the continuation of it long after he’s made whatever his final film will be.
Hollywood, over the last few years, has not been kind to people breaking in or forging ahead. The pandemic set back many a career, and, now, the AMPTP’s refusal to end the dual strikes from the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA is stalling things again.
The rise of content and tentpole movies also have to give people who want to create personal stories a bit of pause.
Scorsese has time to worry about all of this, while still making movies.
It’s nice to feel like you have someone you’ve never met looking out for you.
When it comes to this current climate, Scorsese has hope. He says, “Young people expressing themselves with moving images, they’re going to find a way to be seen… But they have to fight, they have to really, really fight and not be co-opted.”
This fight is playing out right now in the climate I mentioned before. People are trying to break in and be seen and seek financing for stories they believe in.
Scorsese came of age in Hollywood in the 1970s, when it felt like personal movies and new ideas were a commodity that was valued. Sure, it caused a ruckus and some pushback, but it delivered classics. That world changed.
Scorsese talked about studio heads back then, saying, ““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!’””
This imitation shows that the mindset in Hollywood hasn’t changed all that much. It’s become about profits and ease versus art, vision, and expression.
So where do ingenuity and forward-thinking fit into all of this?
Scorsese does so much for us, I wonder if the only way we can repay him is to make sure this stuff lasts. It’s to keep honoring our voices and vision. To keep struggling.
And to hope that if we ever get the power or opportunity to get things to change, we take some of that burden from him and carry our share of the load.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
