Martin Scorsese

[Noiretirc]

The Art Directors Guild released a statement on Scorsese's Flux genAI endorsement.

All of this pushback gives me hope.

Hope that Scorsese - All The Films will be...complete soon?

[pistolwink]

This is the key point from the ADG statement—and the key fact about AI in my opinion:

Generative AI is only capable of producing this type of ‘cinematic intelligence’ by ingesting large swaths of copyrighted work, likely scraped from the internet without consent, credit, compensation, or transparency.

The entire business model of this sort of AI is one of theft and enclosure of the commons.

I assume Scorsese is doing this because they're giving him a big fat check he'll put to decent use, not because he actually plans to do much "advising." That doesn't make it any better.

[hearthesilence]

MoMA is screening a rare 35mm preservation print of Gangs of New York courtesy of the George Eastman Museum and Scorsese's production company. Part of their current series, "Immigrant Nation: People in Transit" (no doubt inspired by the current political climate), the first screening was tonight and there's another on July 10. It's a beautiful print (the scene where Amsterdam is surrounded by a fog of dust is spotless) and given the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, I strongly recommend going to this just to see it fill the entire span of MoMA's T1 stage, it really benefits from it.

I actually saw this film when it first opened, so it was a real treat to see it again this way, especially when the DVD's and Blu-rays have all been lacking despite incremental improvements with each reissue. When the movie was first released, the most timely thing about it was the election that alluded to the 2000 recount. Everything else felt like a time capsule, but it's become much more powerful now because the "Natives"' vile anti-immigration sentiments no longer sound dated, they're now a spot-on mirror of the Republican Party, both in ideology and personality.

My main reservations about casting remain. No doubt it would've been impossible to get the same financing without stars like DiCaprio and Diaz, but I still wish all of the Irish characters had been played by Irish actors. And it sticks out how Amsterdam is able to heal back into his good looks no matter how much injury is inflicted on him, even when it's done with the intention of disfiguring him. But those reservations faded pretty quickly, partly by the film's presentation but above all by the sad timeliness that's made this film age better than it should.

I should add that deep into the film, it really sank in how some of Daniel Day-Lewis's mannerisms and diction brought to mind Robert De Niro, who was originally cast as Bill the Butcher. To be clear, it's no imitation, nor was it apparent before, but with De Niro's performance in Killers of the Flower Moon now burned into memory, the parallels between their characters is apparent, as if William King Hale could've been a proud descendant of the other. (Figuratively speaking of course, given the backstory with Jenny.) Taken together, the two complete a dark picture of American history as one driven by supremacist leanings.