It’s 2021 and we are being splashed with streaming content everywhere we go. That about sums up the state of cinema right now. With a majority movie theaters now closed for 10 months, or since the COVID-19 pandemic began, film enthusiasts have had to rely on platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO Max to keep up with the latest films being released.
It’s a dire situation and Martin Scorsese has chimed in on it via a new essay he wrote primarily about the late great Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. Titled “Il Maestro,” and published in the March 2021 edition of Harper’s Magazine (full essay), Scorsese tackles Fellini’s classic films and uses them as a way to attack streaming platforms’ usage of “content”.
Of course, Scorsese knows that there would no “The Irishman” with Netflix, nor would his upcoming movie, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” be able to go into production next month if it weren’t for Apple, but he believes “the art of cinema is being systematically devalued, sidelined, demeaned, and reduced to its lowest common denominator” by presenting films as “content.”
“As recently as 15 years ago, the term ‘content’ was heard only when people were discussing the cinema on a serious level, and it was contrasted with and measured against ‘form,'” Scorsese writes. “Then, gradually, it was used more and more by the people who took over media companies, most of whom knew nothing about the history of the art form, or even cared enough to think that they should. ‘Content’ became a business term for all moving images: a David Lean movie, a cat video, a Super Bowl commercial, a superhero sequel, a series episode. It was linked, of course, not to the theatrical experience but to home viewing, on the streaming platforms that have come to overtake the moviegoing experience, just as Amazon overtook physical stores.”
The endless catalogues of Netflix and Amazon being categorized as “content” “has created a situation in which everything is presented to the viewer on a level playing field, which sounds democratic but isn’t,” Scorsese continues. “If further viewing is ‘suggested’ by algorithms based on what you’ve already seen, and the suggestions are based only on subject matter or genre, then what does that do to the art of cinema?”
Scorsese adds, “Curating isn’t undemocratic or ‘elitist,’ a term that is now used so often that it’s become meaningless. It’s an act of generosity — you’re sharing what you love and what has inspired you. (The best streaming platforms, such as the Criterion Channel and MUBI and traditional outlets such as TCM, are based on curating — they’re actually curated.) Algorithms, by definition, are based on calculations that treat the viewer as a consumer and nothing else.”
Later in the essay, Scorsese writes “the cinema and the importance it holds in our culture” has changed and that cinephiles “can’t depend on the movie business, such as it is, to take care of cinema.”
“In the movie business, which is now the mass visual entertainment business, the emphasis is always on the word ‘business,’ and value is always determined by the amount of money to be made from any given property — in that sense, everything from ‘Sunrise’ to ‘La Strada’ to ‘2001’ is now pretty much wrung dry and ready for the ‘Art Film’ swim lane on a streaming platform,” the essay reads. “Those of us who know the cinema and its history have to share our love and our knowledge with as many people as possible. And we have to make it crystal clear to the current legal owners of these films that they amount to much, much more than mere property to be exploited and then locked away. They are among the greatest treasures of our culture, and they must be treated accordingly.”
Scorsese concludes: “I suppose we also have to refine our notions of what cinema is and what it isn’t. Federico Fellini is a good place to start. You can say a lot of things about Fellini’s movies, but here’s one thing that is incontestable: they are cinema. Fellini’s work goes a long way toward defining the art form.”
It’s not the first time that Scorsese has used the word “devalued” and “content” to describe cinema’s current state. A few years ago [via EW], accepting the Robert Osborne Award at the TCM Film Festival, Scorsese decided to use his speech to comment on modern film criticism.
“It can all be summed up in the word that’s being used now: content. All movie images are lumped together. You’ve got a picture, you’ve got a TV episode, a new trailer, you’ve got a how-to video on a coffee-maker, you’ve got a Super Bowl commercial, you’ve got ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ it’s all the same,” said the filmmaker. “They can also turn a picture off and go straight to the next piece of content. If there’s no sense of value tied to a given movie, of course, it can be sampled in bits and pieces and just forgotten.”
On the toxicity of Rotten Tomatoes:
“The horrible idea they reinforce that every picture, every image is there to be instantly judged and dismissed without giving audiences time to see it. Time to see it, maybe ruminate and maybe make a decision for themselves. So the great 20th-century art form, the American art form, is reduced to content. You know the difference between a YouTube video and the great American art form? You react against the devaluation of cinema and movies by showing up.”
Of course, what Scorsese is ruminating about has a lot of truth to it. Rotten Tomatoes narrowing movies down to a binary good/bad is helpful for a general audience sense-of-the-term, but it also stops people from actually reading reviews. Instead of finding a critic they trust, a lot of moviegoers now see a 40% rotten score and think the movie isn't worth their time
I've seen the rise of the internet ruin the art of film criticism. As I mentioned to a colleague the other day, there is no way Pauline Kael would have survived today's zeitgeist. She'd be touted as a "troll." Admit it, I'm right. A movie, hell art, should not be given a consensus-driven endeavor. Imagine having a Rotten Tomatoes for paintings? Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" receiving a 95% Fresh score. I cringe just thinking about it.
Film and music seem to be the only art forms that are rated by score ratings. If they want to be taken more seriously in the next generation they will have to delve away from this format and into more thought-driven criticism. I say, stop giving ratings to film and force the reader to actually, you know, read the review. It should always be a hands-on approach of attentive dissection. No matter the movie. Now with Rotten Tomatoes all but accepting 500 or so critics for their aggregator system, the difference between a good film critic and a bad film critic is being blurred into oblivion. My advice? Seek the ones worth reading.
Edward Berger seems to have settled on what comes next. His Lance Armstrong biopic, starring Austin Butler, is now holding casting calls, with production eyed for January.