Martin Scorsese may drag some of today’s biggest movies, but that doesn’t mean he’s given up on the medium he loves more than almost anyone. The beloved filmmaker and cinema cheerleader recently laid out for how it can move on from the comic book and franchise model. He’s even optimistic about its future, in part thanks to the one-two punch of non-franchise cinema that was “Barbenheimer.”
“I do think that the combination of Oppenheimer and Barbie was something special. It seemed to be, I hate that word, but the perfect storm,” Scorsese told The Hindustan Times (as caught by Deadline). “It came about at the right time. And the most important thing is that people went to watch these in a theater. And I think that’s wonderful.”
Mind you, Scorsese hasn’t actually seen either film yet, but he is a fan of Christopher Nolan. What’s more, when cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto was done shooting his latest film, Killers of the Flower Moon, his next assignment was — you guessed it — Barbie.
Besides, he doesn’t have to see the two money gobblers to spot one of their most assuring qualities: how dissimilar they were.
“The way it fit perfectly – a film with such entertainment value, purely with the bright colors – and a film with such severity and strength, and pretty much about the danger of the end to our civilization – you couldn’t have more opposite films to work together,” Scorsese explained. “It does offer some hope for a different cinema to emerge, different from what’s been happening in the last 20 years, aside from the great work being done in independent cinema.”
Scorsese isn’t the only legendary filmmaker of his generation to find hope in the success of the Barbie/Oppenheimer diptych. No less than Francis Ford Coppola called it a “victory for cinema.”
Combined, the two films have grossed nearly $2.5 billion worldwide. Given that one is an grim epic that’s mostly men in rooms talking, that’s nothing to sneeze at.
(Via Deadline)
