Avengers assemble!
IndieWire has learned that Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson are set to have an emergency call with Warner Bros boss David Zaslav today to call him out on the recent TCM layoffs.
Will this help tame down the man we like to refer to as Zaslav “The Destroyer”? I highly doubt it. It won’t help much of anything, but these three legendary filmmakers are having a go at it. TCM cannot be gutted.
This comes after the network laid off much of its leadership yesterday, including people who were responsible for curating the lineups, shooting intros and outros, and creating original shows, documentaries, and video essays.
In 2021, Scorsese mentioned that he has Turner Classic Movies on all day in the background when editing his movies with Thelma Schoonmaker (via The Los Angeles Times):
It gives me something to turn to, to bounce off of, to rest in, to reinvigorate my thinking — just glancing at some image or combination of images at a certain moment. It’s more like a presence in the room, a reminder of film history as a living, ongoing entity.
Lest we remind you that Zaslav mentioned earlier this week that he wanted Warner Bros. to be a studio for filmmakers. Yeah, sure.
I love TCM. I barely watch any television these days, it’s mostly streaming for me, but if I ever turn on the tube it’s to put TCM on in the background, or foreground. Pray that it is not shuttered — it’s one of the most important institutions for cinematic culture in the country.
I get it. Cable network television is a dying breed, but this goes way beyond that. It’s not about the bottom line. If Zaslav wants to prove his worth as a person who cares about cinema’s existence then this gutting of TCM might be the worst possible thing to do.