Martin Scorsese Essay on Streaming Platforms and Film as "Content"

[Jumptheshark]

I brielfy looked at his comments and then remembered he was given 200 mill from netflix for the Irishman and Prime for his docs

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Counter argument

 

[Pink Mist]

I brielfy looked at his comments and then remembered he was given 200 mill from netflix for the Irishman and Prime for his docs

which is his point, that while it helps filmmakers like himself, their algorithm is detrimental to audiences.

 

[NyQuil]

I'm curious as to whether the film as the pre-eminent canvas for creative and original visual storytelling is now under serious competition from "television" - which offers different allotments of screen-time and formats (mini-series, 10 episode series, multiple seasons, etc.) to explore character development and give the appropriate space and foundation for excellent acting performances.

Film might be considered a "poem" in comparison with the "novel" offered by television.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

He's not wrong.

Every Netflix production has the same look, feel and production. It is noticeably worse production than big studio movies and is low budget.

A streaming service is going to care more about the volume of content they pump out rather than the quality. They get their money from views, so like a Youtuber, they're going to focus on pumping out as much content as they can to just get eyeballs rather than making less but higher quality content.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

He's not wrong.

Every Netflix production has the same look, feel and production.

This is just not true. Making you both wrong.



(this is the extreme example, but a film like What We Wanted that I watched recently has nothing to do with Polar, which has nothing to do with Always Be My Maybe,... etc.)

 

[discostu]

I did a quick read through of the essay, and it reads as mainly just a piece of someone reminiscing about an earlier age. It's Scorsese, and he's earned that right with his contribution to film, but, like others, don't feel it adds anything new.

I also don't personally see the concern with the state of the film industry today. This era has its own quirks and issues, but, there's a lot of different stuff that's produced, and people have more access than ever before. They can also access different opinions of film and learn about lesser known filmmakers easier than before.

I also may not understand the past eras (or the current), but, the image that Scorsese paints of the top filmmakers going back and forth to outdo each other in defining cinema feels a lot to me of an industry that's got some gatekeepers that only works for people in the club already.

The current era has its issues, but, it feels likely there's more potential from a great film to come from anywhere, and word of mouth can spread quicker.

 

[Shareefruck]

Counter argument

View attachment 397223

Was his concern really just that artistic things don't exist on streaming platforms? I assumed it was that he thinks the mechanism leads us down a dangerous path, which this doesn't seem like it would be a counter argument to.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Was his concern really just that artistic things don't exist on streaming platforms? I assumed it was that he thinks the mechanism leads us down a dangerous path, which this doesn't seem like it would be a counter argument to.

I'm not sure what you are answering to. The article is about a new generation of cinephiles being created by Netflix's inclusion - in France - of a part of the country's filmography that was slowly disappearing and that now gains in momentum.

 

[Shareefruck]

I'm not sure what you are answering to. The article is about a new generation of cinephiles being created by Netflix's inclusion - in France - of a part of the country's filmography that was slowly disappearing and that now gains in momentum.

The article that your image is referring to? Ahh, I don't read French.

 

[John Price]

It seems like everything is going on a streaming service now as many theaters remain closed

In a pandemic era many movies that would have gone to theaters are instead being released online legally (Mulan / Soul / Judas and the Black Messiah / etc)

The problem is that there are so many disparate streaming services that you cannot possibly own them all. I subscribed to Netflix to watch Cobra Kai. I can't find anything else I care about, because I finished CK S3 in one day. Then I have another streaming service that I use for rewatching 24 (Hulu), another one for Amazon Prime content, a cable subscription through Youtube TV...and then if I wanted to watch soccer I would have to get 3 more services just to watch (CBS AA, Peacock (I have peacock FREE but they want 5 dollars extra per month for Premium), and ESPN+). And then if you want to watch Justice League Snyder cut you have to get HBO Max!

The only good thing about this is all these services allow you to cancel without penalty.

We wanted a la carte, the bundles don't work for cable, "I get too many channels I don't subscribe to". But what is the alternative? 80 different subscription services? I don't know about you but consider me very wary of the era we are moving towards.

 

[Mickey Marner]

It falls under the same wing as the debate over social media. These companies have been allowed to mine an insane amount of behavioral data from the public, largely under false pretenses and/or hidden behind encyclopedia-sized TOS and are now capable of shaping/creating thoughts, feelings, interests and opinions that increase their bottom line. Govt. intervention is at least a decade behind the eight ball.

Movies are also competing for ground (and losing it) to television. It's inevitable that television quality will overtake film, if it hasn't already. The HBO's of the world have narrowed that gap and there's no going back. I even find myself much more enthralled with captivating television than I do films.

 

[IceNeophyte]

It could well be argued that cinema has debased literature, the rationale being that instead of building a complex picture in one's mind of the scene, actions, and particularly thoughts and emotions, that picture, or rather a simplified interpretation of it, is spoonfed to the audience. I wonder how Scorsese feels about his role in the destruction of art.....

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

It could well be argued that cinema has debased literature, the rationale being that instead of building a complex picture in one's mind of the scene, actions, and particularly thoughts and emotions, that picture, or rather a simplified interpretation of it, is spoonfed to the audience. I wonder how Scorsese feels about his role in the destruction of art.....

Literature? And what about the way writing was a threat to memory and wisdom?!

If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only the semblance of wisdom, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much while for the most part they know nothing. ​

 

[SniperHF]

While I'm sure there are negative effects, it seems to me that film production and distribution is merely catching up with reality and not that streaming by itself is really driving this but more accelerating it.

Or put another way, I really doubt that most of movie going audiences in 1942 were going to see Casablanca its artistic vision. It was content to them too. The reality is that to the vast majority of the audience, film was always "content".

The mid to big/blockbuster budget film pushed by visionary or artistic leaning directors was probably in large part a happy accident of an era between small upstart studios growing into a burgeoning industry over half a century. At the end of the essay he acknowledges this mostly, but he misses (or is intentionally not stating) a big part of the reason. The audience.

 

[IceNeophyte]

Literature? And what about the way writing was a threat to memory and wisdom?!

If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only the semblance of wisdom, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much while for the most part they know nothing. ​

Spot on. Stories are told with technology and they always have been. Grunts and miming, early language, petroglyphs, stories told in developed language, song for mnemonics.....The best way to get a story out will be the chosen medium.

 

[Osprey]

which is his point, that while it helps filmmakers like himself, their algorithm is detrimental to audiences.

Watching The Irishman was certainly detrimental to me. That's four hours that I'm not getting back.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Whenever i read things like this, i remind myself that 68 million people eat at McDonald's every day. Most people want convenience over anything else. Even if it means they dumb themselves down in the process. Scorsese isn't wrong here, he wasn't wrong about super hero movies either, but his argument will always be true and this problem will probably never go away.

Lower your expectations for humanity and society, then go ahead and peacefully do the things you want to do.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Whenever i read things like this, i remind myself that 68 million people eat at McDonald's every day. Most people want convenience over anything else. Even if it means they dumb themselves down in the process. Scorsese isn't wrong here, he wasn't wrong about super hero movies either, but his argument will always be true and this problem will probably never go away.

Lower your expectations for humanity and society, then go ahead and peacefully do the things you want to do.

The analogy would work if McDo's was selling fresh tartare and promote it the same as a BigMac. Marty's "problem" is not that there's no interesting film to be seen on streaming platforms.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

We give too much time to certain people just because they're good at one thing meaning they must have an opinion on another thing.

Watching The Irishman was certainly detrimental to me. That's four hours that I'm not getting back.

Every hour of your life is an hour you won't get back (based on my understand of the linearity of time).

 

[DoyleG]

Streaming service v. the content providers

Spotify Officially Explains Why Hundreds Of K-Pop Releases Were Removed From Platform Worldwide

Anybody that's got songs by Korean artists on Spotify might want to check if they still have them.

 

[glovesave_35]

This is why I always find it really dumb when some people have that "I don't read reviews/care about what other people think because I don't want my opinion to be affected by others" attitude-- impressionability is a good thing.

Impressionability can be a good thing. I wouldn't put that in the definitive, myself.

I avoid reviews and critical essays about movies/films prior to viewing. I generally like to know as little as possible. I like to take as few expectations into a viewing as possible. I can't possibly imagine why that would be seen as a bad thing. I sometimes enjoy reading critical reviews of a film or TV show after watching, but almost never before.

 

[Shareefruck]

Impressionability can be a good thing. I wouldn't put that in the definitive, myself.

I avoid reviews and critical essays about movies/films prior to viewing. I generally like to know as little as possible. I like to take as few expectations into a viewing as possible. I can't possibly imagine why that would be seen as a bad thing. I sometimes enjoy reading critical reviews of a film or TV show after watching, but almost never before.

I think you've misunderstood me. What you're describing is still impressionability, in my view.

I'm referring to people who don't want to be exposed to other people's thoughts, period, even after experiencing something for the first time-- I'm not sure why both you and Pranzo assumed otherwise. If you're interested in other people's thoughts afterwards and you're eventually adding that consideration to your own (even if you're the arbiter of what influences you and what doesn't), that's still exactly the kind of impressionability that I'm referring to and that I think is essential. Sure, it might feel less and less useful after a certain point where you've already been exposed to quite a bit, but I think that you can only get to that point through lots of exposure to different views-- I doubt that anyone can just arrive at everything 100% on their own in a vaccuum and end up better off, and I doubt that that's how you guys developed your tastes as well, nor do I think that approach has any merit whatsoever. I've come across people who actually have this mentality that their opinion is just 100% their own, that anything resembling reviews are something to scoff at, and they block out everything else as if it's some point of pride that speaks to their individuality or something, and I think that's just a bull-**** recipe for never broadening one's perspective and just being stuck in arrested development, personally. I tend to feel that our default opinions before letting ourselves be influenced by others aren't our true individual opinions at all-- they're the incomplete version of it, and impressionability is required to develop it to completion, in my opinion.

That said, I do kind of personally disagree/differ on your approach as well, but I just respectfully don't relate to it and find it confusing, I don't have some negative view or problem with it the way I did about what I was talking about. The way I see it, if you're willing to do it afterwards anyways, then the result will ultimately end up the same anyways-- you'd likely end up exactly as influenced. Maybe your approach speeds up the process or something? I don't know, I find the idea kind of pointless, myself. To me it's like trying to avoid letting something happen, and then seeking it out afterwards anyways with the intention of letting it happen.

 

[glovesave_35]

That said, I do kind of personally disagree/differ on your approach as well, but I just respectfully don't relate to it and find it confusing, I don't have some negative view or problem with it the way I did about what I was talking about. The way I see it, if you're willing to do it afterwards anyways, then the result will ultimately end up the same anyways-- you'd likely end up exactly as influenced. Maybe your approach speeds up the process or something? I don't know, I find the idea kind of pointless, myself. To me it's like trying to avoid letting something happen, and then seeking it out afterwards anyways with the intention of letting it happen.

I'm not sure what's difficult to understand about it. I would rather watch something without another person's pointed opinions or critique running through my head and helping to shape my opinion of what I'm watching.

The opposite - reading critical essays, reviews by fans, reviews by critics, would be like observing a book club discuss a novel at length before sitting down to read it myself.

 

[Shareefruck]

I'm not sure what's difficult to understand about it. I would rather watch something without another person's pointed opinions or critique running through my head and helping to shape my opinion of what I'm watching.

The opposite - reading critical essays, reviews by fans, reviews by critics, would be like observing a book club discuss a novel at length before sitting down to read it myself.

I just don't see what difference it would make if you would want those pointed opinions running through your head and helping to shape your opinion after the fact anyways (which, again, I think is a good thing). This is probably just me not placing some special emphasis on the first viewing the way that a lot of people do, though. My interest is usually in the most recent viewing and nothing else.

Same deal with the idea of observing a book club discussing a novel at length before sitting down to read it. That does not sound like some objectionable thing to me either. I just don't relate to that concern at all.

You lose the unfiltered raw reaction, sure, but I just don't view that as being worth anything personally, considering that I value the eventual reaction after all the filtering much more anyways.