Movies
Scorsese, blunt: If you complain about 3-hour movies, you don’t respect cinema
‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ is the director’s new movie, it’s 3.5 hours long and Scorsese has a message for you if you find it too long.
Martin Scorsese has a new movie on the way and it looks to be one of the biggest releases of the year. Entitled ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’, the movie is a critical darling and a contender in the Oscar race. The only complaint seems to be its length: 206 minutes (3 hours and 26 minutes). But if you think that’s “too long” and that it doesn’t take that long to tell a good story, the director has a message for you:
“People say it’s three hours, but come on, you can sit in front of the TV and watch something for five hours. Also, there are many people who watch theatre for 3.5 hours. There are real actors on stage, you can’t get up and walk around. You give it that respect, give cinema some respect.”
Something similar is his opinion about watching the movie on mobile or streaming platforms (which is curious coming from making The Irishman with a very specific deal with Netflix, and knowing that Killers of the Flower Moon will go straight to Apple TV after its theatrical release). “Sometimes, it’s the strength of the picture too, if it plays well on a smaller screen, that’s interesting. Killers could play on a small screen, but in order to truly immerse yourself, you should take out the time.”
His comments echo those of James Cameron with the sequel to “Avatar,” which also ran over three hours. Cameron was blunt: “I don’t want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch [TV].” His solution was even more blunt: when you get tired, get up and go to the bathroom.
The movie of the year?
The director of ‘Goodfellas’, ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ or ‘Shutter Island’ returns to his 80 years ready to score one last dance. The production company of the apple has bathed him in gold and resources so that he can delight us again with one of those great stories that move you inside and that will surely be in the race for the Oscar. Scheduled for release on October 20, so reads the synopsis of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’:
“At the turn of the 20th century, oil brought a fortune to the Osage Nation, who became some of the richest people in the world overnight. The wealth of these Native Americans immediately attracted white interlopers, who manipulated, extorted and stole as much Osage money as they could before resorting to murder. Based on a true story and told through the improbable romance of Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ is an epic western crime saga, where real love crosses paths with unspeakable betrayal.”
The star-studded cast does not end with Leonardo DiCaprio, as the actor will be joined by Hollywood’s best and brightest: Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Tantoo Cardinal, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins and Jillian Dion, among others. As for the story, the film will adapt David Grann’s best-selling novel from a screenplay by Scorsese himself and Eric Roth (the eminence who signed ‘Dune,’ ‘Forrest Gump’ and ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’).