Martin Scorsese Argues Streaming Algorithms Devalue Cinema into 'Content' (harpers.org) 167
In a new essay for Harper's magazine, Martin Scorsese argues the art of cinema is being systematically devalued and demeaned by streaming services and their algorithms, "and reduced to its lowest common denominator, 'content.'"
"Content" became a business term for all moving images: a David Lean movie, a cat video, a Super Bowl commercial, a superhero sequel, a series episode. It was linked, of course, not to the theatrical experience but to home viewing, on the streaming platforms that have come to overtake the moviegoing experience, just as Amazon overtook physical stores.
On the one hand, this has been good for filmmakers, myself included. On the other hand, it has created a situation in which everything is presented to the viewer on a level playing field, which sounds democratic but isn't. If further viewing is "suggested" by algorithms based on what you've already seen, and the suggestions are based only on subject matter or genre, then what does that do to the art of cinema...?
[A]t this point, we can't take anything for granted. We can't depend on the movie business, such as it is, to take care of cinema. In the movie business, which is now the mass visual entertainment business, the emphasis is always on the word "business," and value is always determined by the amount of money to be made from any given property — in that sense, everything from Sunrise to La Strada to 2001 is now pretty much wrung dry and ready for the "Art Film" swim lane on a streaming platform.
Is Scorsese right? Slashdot reader entertainme shared some reactions gathered by the BBC's Entertainment reporter. Elinor Carmi, research associate at Liverpool University's communication and media department sees a "battle between the old and new gatekeepers of art and culture." "At its core, curation has always been conducted behind the scenes", with little clarity as to the rationale behind the choices made to produce and distribute art and culture, she says. Take the U.S.'s Motion Picture Association film rating system. The 2006 documentary, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, explored how film ratings affect the distribution of films, and accusations that big studio films get more lenient ratings than independent companies... "[I]t would be a mistake to present the old gatekeepers in romantic colours compared to new technology companies. In both cases, we are talking about powerful institutions that define, control and manage the boundaries of what is art and culture," Carmi says....
So is Scorsese right to suggest that streaming services reduce content to the "lowest common denominator"? Journalist and media lecturer Tufayel Ahmed suggests they are an easy target, and the reality is a little more complex. He says the focus on "pulling in the numbers" can mean some of the best shows don't get the promotion and are therefore cancelled... "Some of the best stuff on streaming seems to get little buzz, while tons of marketing and publicity is thrown behind more generic fare that they know people will watch. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy." Scorsese himself directly benefited from this by relying on Netflix to fund his 2019 gangster film The Irishman after traditional studios baulked at the cost. "There's an argument to be made about streaming services investing in publicity and marketing for these projects to create awareness," says Ahmed.
But if responsibility in part lands on the shoulders of streaming services, the choices of the audience themselves cannot be forgotten. "Algorithms alone can't be blamed for people consuming lowbrow content over series and movies that are deemed worthy, because people have flocked to easy viewing over acclaimed dramas on television, for example, for years."
The BBC ultimately argues that perhaps "the streaming algorithms really aren't to blame after all, but simply made in our image." But in his essay Scorsese remembered how the brave pioneering decisions made in the 1960s by film distributors and exhibitors led to that moment's "shared excitement over the possibilities of cinema" — and seems to want to preserve that special feeling: Those of us who know the cinema and its history have to share our love and our knowledge with as many people as possible. And we have to make it crystal clear to the current legal owners of these films that they amount to much, much more than mere property to be exploited and then locked away. They are among the greatest treasures of our culture, and they must be treated accordingly.
On the one hand, this has been good for filmmakers, myself included. On the other hand, it has created a situation in which everything is presented to the viewer on a level playing field, which sounds democratic but isn't. If further viewing is "suggested" by algorithms based on what you've already seen, and the suggestions are based only on subject matter or genre, then what does that do to the art of cinema...?
[A]t this point, we can't take anything for granted. We can't depend on the movie business, such as it is, to take care of cinema. In the movie business, which is now the mass visual entertainment business, the emphasis is always on the word "business," and value is always determined by the amount of money to be made from any given property — in that sense, everything from Sunrise to La Strada to 2001 is now pretty much wrung dry and ready for the "Art Film" swim lane on a streaming platform.
Is Scorsese right? Slashdot reader entertainme shared some reactions gathered by the BBC's Entertainment reporter. Elinor Carmi, research associate at Liverpool University's communication and media department sees a "battle between the old and new gatekeepers of art and culture." "At its core, curation has always been conducted behind the scenes", with little clarity as to the rationale behind the choices made to produce and distribute art and culture, she says. Take the U.S.'s Motion Picture Association film rating system. The 2006 documentary, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, explored how film ratings affect the distribution of films, and accusations that big studio films get more lenient ratings than independent companies... "[I]t would be a mistake to present the old gatekeepers in romantic colours compared to new technology companies. In both cases, we are talking about powerful institutions that define, control and manage the boundaries of what is art and culture," Carmi says....
So is Scorsese right to suggest that streaming services reduce content to the "lowest common denominator"? Journalist and media lecturer Tufayel Ahmed suggests they are an easy target, and the reality is a little more complex. He says the focus on "pulling in the numbers" can mean some of the best shows don't get the promotion and are therefore cancelled... "Some of the best stuff on streaming seems to get little buzz, while tons of marketing and publicity is thrown behind more generic fare that they know people will watch. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy." Scorsese himself directly benefited from this by relying on Netflix to fund his 2019 gangster film The Irishman after traditional studios baulked at the cost. "There's an argument to be made about streaming services investing in publicity and marketing for these projects to create awareness," says Ahmed.
But if responsibility in part lands on the shoulders of streaming services, the choices of the audience themselves cannot be forgotten. "Algorithms alone can't be blamed for people consuming lowbrow content over series and movies that are deemed worthy, because people have flocked to easy viewing over acclaimed dramas on television, for example, for years."
The BBC ultimately argues that perhaps "the streaming algorithms really aren't to blame after all, but simply made in our image." But in his essay Scorsese remembered how the brave pioneering decisions made in the 1960s by film distributors and exhibitors led to that moment's "shared excitement over the possibilities of cinema" — and seems to want to preserve that special feeling: Those of us who know the cinema and its history have to share our love and our knowledge with as many people as possible. And we have to make it crystal clear to the current legal owners of these films that they amount to much, much more than mere property to be exploited and then locked away. They are among the greatest treasures of our culture, and they must be treated accordingly.
Brave And Daring (Score:2)
Brave and daring do not exist anymore. News sites monetizing outrage have ensured that.
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Brave and daring do not exist anymore.
Which movie, ever, required bravery to produce?
Martin Scorsese is overestimating both his courage and his importance.
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Re:Brave And Daring (Score:5, Informative)
Which movie, ever, required bravery to produce?
Citizen Kane pissed off the most powerful news tycoon in the US. Seven Years in Tibet got pretty much everyone involved in the project banned from China forever. Scorsese is banned from China for Kundun. Sergei Eisenstein pissed off Stalin, but was so popular he managed to get away with it long enough to die of natural causes. Fritz Lang's last German film was banned by Goebbels, who offered him a "job" making films for the Reich. Lang hocked his wife's jewelry and left for Paris the same day.
cinema was always content (Score:2)
They called it media.
Re: cinema was always content (Score:2)
Past tense. Do tell me: What is it contained in?
cinema is just content (Score:2)
>>Streaming Algorithms Devalue Cinema into 'Content'
cinema is content
Acclaimed (Score:2)
Acclaimed is a euphemism for "shitty" in my experience.
He's right though (Score:2)
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Re: He's right though (Score:5, Interesting)
yes hollywood has become a pale shadow of its former glory.
Much of that is due to a business structure based on "blockbusters".
Low-budget movies that don't fit a proven formula are no longer made.
When Covid hit, my family watched a movie nearly every evening. We watched some fantastic movies from decades ago, including "Airplane" (the greatest movie ever made), "Naked Gun", "Life of Brian", etc.
My kids laughed so hard that their sides hurt. Then they asked me why nobody makes movies like that anymore. It was difficult to explain.
streaming has nothing to do with it.
On the contrary, streaming may save Hollywood from blockbusteritis. Low-budget movies can become profitable again. Creativity may make a comeback.
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There have been some "golden eras" during which film quality greatly exceeded the overall average. The last 10 years or so are arguably NOT such an era. Now you have the luxury of being able to cherry-pick the best movies from the last 100 years, so you might as well do that until the producers get the memo and start making films that are actually worth watching.
BTW, check out "The producers". Great film, but I digress.
And, although directors deserve a lot of credit, the screenplay writers are the ones that
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We watched some fantastic movies from decades ago, including "Airplane" (the greatest movie ever made),
On the contrary, streaming may save Hollywood from blockbusteritis. Low-budget movies can become profitable again. Creativity may make a comeback.
Surely you jest.
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Yes, but they're never going to accept that their own shitty content is the reason for poor sales. They will always look for someone else to blame.
For years they have blamed "piracy" for poor sales of shit movies, only to find that few people even bother to pirate the shit movies either.
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Not just cinema either. Look at the clickbait industry that has replaced our former news media. Or the autotune industry that has replaced music.
Maybe he's just mad (Score:2)
"Content" became a business term for all moving images: a David Lean movie, a cat video, a Super Bowl commercial, a superhero sequel, a series episode.
'Cause no one wants him to direct any of those. Just sayin' ...
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False. He did a cameo as himself in a Coca-Cola commercial in 2019.
Ge directed... Goodfellas. And a bunch of crap. He directed an American Express commercial. Because they asked. He did not direct any superhero movies, because they didn't ask. He tried to follow up on Goodfellas, but he didn't have Nicholas Pileggi to write it so he ended up with "Gangs of New York." Of course they didn't ask him to do something more popular.
He's was a niche producer/director, popular with people at film festivals trying to
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Ge directed... Goodfellas. And a bunch of crap
A bunch of crap including one of the '100 best movies of all time' - that wasn't Goodfellas.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.... [hollywoodreporter.com]
Of course, it's not just Hollywood that likes his work.
https://www.timeout.com/newyor... [timeout.com] has three of his on it.
But you know, he's just a niche producer/director who's directed four of the entries on this list of 'The 100 Greatest Movies': https://www.empireonline.com/m... [empireonline.com]
You don't have to like or enjoy his work, and you're welcome to disagree with his views on streaming. Hopefully yo
Re: Maybe he's just mad (Score:2)
Yes, like the city's leading industrial pipe systems designer wants to fix your toilet pipes... What a honorable job. He sure is sad he doesn't "get" to dig througg your turds!
Maybe on to something? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've noticed a decline in good movies over the last 3-4 years. I originally thought it might be me, I'm getting older and there really hasn't been many new movie plots coming out of Hollywood. Most of the stuff coming out of Hollywood feels like rebooted themes that have been re-written to be more politically correct or to make China happy.
Maybe Not (Score:2)
I don't know how you define "good movies" but they are probably one in a hundred or so and "great movies" are basically generational and are one in thousands.
Do you think if "Casablanca" appeared today on Netflix it would be any less good? What about "The Godfather" on Prime or "Raiders of the Lost Ark" on Disney+?
If Scorsese were to argue that finding that one in a hundred or one in every two thousand was much more difficult (for both the consumer and the critic) as there is so much more content then I
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If anything, there are more great movies being made than ever before. Because there is so much better access to technology and good film production equipment than ever before. Even some generic action movie is a lot better than what used to pass for a movie. Most of the stuff made 60 years ago was so bad that it wouldn't even make it onto late night TV, let alone getting playtime in a cinema.
Re:Maybe on to something? (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the stuff coming out of Hollywood feels like rebooted themes that have been re-written to be more politically correct or to make China happy.
Protip: Hollywood is not the only place that movies are made
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We were saying the same thing in the 90s. Too many Batman sequels, remakes, same plot different setting kind of thing. Disney was at the height of its ripping off public domain stories. New Bond movie every few years.
Looking back we remember the highlights. Pixar, I think The Matrix was 1999, True Lies, Terminator 2... But living through it there was a lot of crap. I paid to see Judge Dread.
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At a time of big budget action films it was a big budget action film that entirely respected its characters, gave them realistic and plausible responses to their circumstances, didn't shy away from nastiness, didn't condemn or take sides, was an excellent sequel.
It also had cutting edge special effects and used them well, included worthy one-liners, didn't shy away from the classic burning wheel out of the wreckage (after a top-notch stunt) and had the single most awesome cocking of a shotgun in cinema hist
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It had a decent plot for an action movie. Some great action scenes. The villain, the T1000 liquid metal murder machine, was really good too. The "music" they used for it was basically the sound of your stomach sinking in terror, and it took the concept of this unstoppable force relentlessly coming for you to a new level.
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On the other hand, we're living in the golden age of TV shows, so... swings and roundabouts.
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I can't wait to see what Amazon does with The Lord of the Rings and The Wheel of Time. Especially interested to see how exactly they do Wheel of Time. It will probably be a butchering but hopefully whatever they do get to include in the show is awesome. We will see.
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I can't wait to die before LOTR is remade and I forced to see its trailer, ruining the world that exists in my head.
Re:Maybe on to something? (Score:4)
I've noticed a decline in good movies over the last 3-4 years. I originally thought it might be me, I'm getting older and there really hasn't been many new movie plots coming out of Hollywood.
Ever since movies were first invented, 90% of them have been crap. The reasons why they suck may have changed over the years, but the overall level of quality has remained steady for the past 100 years:
5% Good
5% Watchable, more or less
90% Suckage
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The Martian is good example. Besides being political propaganda for the USA it’s China that steps in and saves the day. Its as if the studio execs suddenly noticed that a billion potential customers live there.
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Or maybe it's as if the director decided to follow the plot of the book it was based on.
Narratively, it had to be China or Russia who stepped in, because you wouldn't have tension unless there was a plausible chance that the senior decision-makers would refuse to sacrifice their mission to save Mark Watney.
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You haven't noticed yet? China has become a major funding source and Hollywood does not bite the hand that feeds it.
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They don't want to get canceled.
I would argue that he's right (Score:5, Interesting)
I would argue that he's right. I'm sure everyone here who has a Netflix subscription has had an evening where you have some time to kill and just want to watch something, so you open up Netflix and get presented with a giant mountain of crap. After trying to sift through the crap for a bit, you eventually just give up and either watch a show you've already watched because it's a known quantity, or just go do something else.
Scorsese isn't complaining about streaming, he's complaining about how the streaming services determine what they're going to offer for you to watch. And the way it works is pretty terrible. It basically tries to pigeon-hole you into some set of "content" that it thinks you're going to like, and makes it nearly impossible to locate stuff outside those boundaries. Sure, you can manually search by genre, but the things it shows in those genres are based on what you've already watched.
I remember once wanting to watch a Netflix exclusive and having to search for it by name because it wasn't being promoted - and even then, when searching for it by its exact title, Netflix showed it as something like the fifth result, promoting other titles with inexact matches that it thought were "more to my liking" above it.
The BBC ultimately argues that perhaps "the streaming algorithms really aren't to blame after all, but simply made in our image."
I disagree. The suggestion algorithms do exactly what they're supposed to do - suggest the content it thinks we're most likely to choose when shown a little poster for it. But what they don't do - because that's not what they're supposed to do - is pick the content that we'd most like to actually watch. As far as the algorithm is concerned, a view is a view, and it doesn't matter if you actually enjoyed it, as long as you watched it. Just because that's what it's designed to do, doesn't mean that's the only way a suggestion algorithm could work, and certainly doesn't mean it's the right way for it to work.
(And on a side note about the little posters Netflix uses for shows in its interface: you can see that Netflix does A/B testing of the posters it uses to represent a show, because frequently, the same title will show up in a results list for a genre, with the sole difference being the poster used to represent it. Clearly Netflix wants to figure out which posters are most effective in getting clicks.)
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It's not the algorithm, it's the cost.
Back in the day I fitted a modchip to my brother's PlayStation. Suddenly games that used to be £40 were the price of a black CD, or at most the overnight rental fee at blockbuster.
He used to spend time even on crap games, getting some value out of them. Some were good games but needed a few hours to get into. Once he could pirate them he often spent longer copying the disc than playing it. If it wasn't instantly great he moved on to the next one
With streamin
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Exactly.
Netflix in a way suffers from the same thing we've come to realize about social media. They are giving us what we 'want' to maximize our viewing time. Yet, it may not be what we should want or should watch.
Just to add to your Netflix makes it hard to search/watch something specific... I'm a parent. My kids love the same episodes of the same shows. It would be nice if I could click on the Paw Patrol and then favorite some episodes. Can't do it as far as I can tell on my TV.
They also don't really have
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Maybe what Netflix needs is a "drag me there" feature. I think most of us have experienced it outside the world of "content". Maybe if happened to you in school. Maybe a friend did it to you. Maybe you went to something just because it was a date. You were "dragged there" and weren't really interested in whatever it was because it's "a chick flick" or it's "a historical drama and you like comedy", or "you hate jazz". And then you walked out transformed.
In real life, the people that drag you someplace
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4chan would coordinate spending lots of moderation points on the most unpleasant content available.
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This isn't because algorithms or art or anything of the kind. This is because there are too many walled gardens and too much money being poured into keeping eyeballs from jumping the wall. Let's face it - if you had free access to all the four thousand damn streaming platforms that now exist, and
The Irishman counter-example (Score:4, Interesting)
What exactly does producing tired genre mash-ups with actors so past their prime you need to create weird CGI mock-ups of them do for the art of cinema? The irony is I never would have watched this movie if Netflix's algorithm hadn't recommended it, now I just wish there were more options to weed this stuff out so I don't waste hours of my life on this derivative garbage again in the future.
Market shifts (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like he's upset that his preferred art form is falling from the center of the marketplace, with similar but more mass produced generic products taking its place.
While to an extent I agree that's unfortunate, it's frankly amazing that one art form held such commercial sway for so long - generally art gets relegated to a niche once commercial factors kick in.
Artistic cinema isn't going away, it's just going to be increasingly relegated to the film festivals, universities and art circles. It won't be a multi billion dollar industry so much, but a smaller, poorer one.
The mass market will return to what mass markets are everywhere - generic, cookie cutter products optimized for volume and profit, and most people (and therefore most money) will be fine with that.
Things change.
Both sides of his mouth (Score:2)
That's a dishonest statement coming from a major player in Hollywood. When the most prestigious film award, the Oscars, regularly nom
I think Scorsese is Right (Score:3)
Aiming to please the direct centre of the bell curve results in the perpetual reinforcement of mediocrity. But that's where all the money is. I do sometimes wish that the curve would shift to the right en masse a little bit.
The lack of a good search engine (Score:2)
is the biggest problem for most streaming services.
I have a pretty short list of the kinds of movies/shows I enjoy, not included is pretty much any "Oscar Winning" movie, or Documentaries, or kids shows/movies.
There were (once upon a time) some decent front ends for searching content on Netflix/Amazon... which all seem to have been shut down.
I don't think I've ever received a decent recommendation from a streaming service, or Amazon.com, based on my previous selections.
I'm now left to find out about new med
Re: The lack of a good search engine (Score:2)
May I suggest they implement the same idea Native Instruments uses for their instrument preset collections?
https://www.native-instruments... [native-instruments.com]
There are different properties and values, and you can select multiples, like tags, to get a lost of all presets that match all of them.
This would get you to the right movies and shows in no time. Example:
Type: Film ;)
Genre: Sci-fi, Thriller
Mood: Dystopic, Uplifting
Year: 1999-2012
Format: 2.35:1-
Audio: THX 5.1-
Language: Klingon you p'tak!
Film Festivals also Stream! This is HUGE! (Score:2)
I love film festivals. I get to see the promise of students and others new to filmmaking. To see films that are not distributed in the US. To see short films by folks who want to get "edgy", or are "just having fun", or simply lack the time and money for a feature-length production. To see experimental cinema from the world over.
For example, this is how I got hooked on Korean RomComs. I saw a masterful and hilarious short on an online festival, and it was love at first sight. I had previously avoided
The term "content"... (Score:2)
Content of what exactly?
Can we stop using terms from the times when people still used phyiscal media and the Internet hadn't obsoleted the industry that manufactured them?
Because some ... elements ... refuse to accept that fact, and this term helps them.
It's just information, data or a "work". Or just use the actual term for what it is, like "movie". (Which makes sense again, as it isn't a film of some polymer anymore, but moving pictures.)
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"Content" makes sense from an advertiser perspective (and that's where the word seems to have arisen). You don't care if it's good or bad, you don't care what it is, as long as it brings the ad clicks.
In whose image (Score:2)
> the streaming algorithms really aren't to blame after all, but simply made in our image
Not in our image. In the image of the developers behind algorithms for Youtube, Netflix and whatnot. We consume, they decide what we see. Let's not pretend we're all on the same boat.
Old man yells at cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
Thankyou Martin Scorcese (Score:2)
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Movies are and always have been "content". Much of it is bad, some is good, and some even rises to the level of art. But in the end it's all just content. Sturgeon's Law applies. It has always applied. It will always apply. Streaming services aren't corrupting the "art" of cinema any more than talkies did, or TV, or cheap 3D monster movies. Scorsese is suffering being old and lamenting that the young people are ruining the world that he knew, just like every generation has done as far back as there's been recorded history.
Agreed. Most viewers of movies aren't looking at it as art. It's entertainment.
Just as wine being sold in grocery stores hasn't prevented tasting events, movies being primarily streaming won't shut down the elite cinema houses. The aficionados will have their places.
Cinema is content. (Score:2)
To say Cinema is content, is to say a newspaper article is literature. Or a pic I took on my phone is photographic art.
In the end, people want to watch things, read things, and/or be entertained. The cream will rise to the top regardless of its contents. I can see being upset when you spent your life creating movies and something like "Baby Shark Dance" has more views than there are people on Earth. I'm sure some amazingly talented musicians who have spent thousands of hours honing their skills get peeved w
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Depending on the kind of pictures you are taking, you could do photographic art with your phone. You'll still be exporting the pictures to be done over with photoshop or the gimp, same as if you used some fancy camera and lens.
Really depends on what you are photographing. Heck, some long read articles I would definitely count as literature as well, but then I suppose it is all in how you want to define these terms at the end of the day.
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FYI, Darktable is more apposite than the GIMP in this context.
Is it a show or is it a movie? (Score:3)
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Depends what you compare movies to I suppose. A lot of HBO and Showtime series could feel like an ultra long movie. Just depends how the make the series really. You'll probably see more movie like series going forward but plenty of great made for cable television will also come along as well.
The wife and I have watched Game of Thrones, Dexter, and Grey's Anatomy while I've watched Dark Matter and she is watching Heartland. All different shows telling a story but some have a more television style episode fee
He's right but Hollywood is out of ideas (Score:2)
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If it's the 7th art (Score:2)
...as the French say, perhaps Monsieur should show his movies in museums?
To all the "old man yells at clouds" assholes (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't even know if anyone is going to bother scrolling down to read this post, but here goes anyway.
Although I regret that I'm probably not going to live long enough to see this, I still take great comfort at the thought that someday, you'll all be old too, and you too will have to deal with your own bunch of agist, heartless, entitled, ungratefull, whiny little shitfucks that will show you as much respect, understanding and compassion as you're currently showing the generations that preceded you and basi
For good or for ill everything is content (Score:2)
And then there is other forms of competition for time and eyes that didn't exist at all 40 years ago, and were derided 20 years ago: Video games and a hot of other electronic diversions.
I think a lot of the issue is Scorsese is running up against actual competition, and from many different directions
missing algorithm (Score:2)
Every suggestion algorithm that I've seen suggests content similar to content I've watched. I'll never forget Netflix, after I watched inside out, the first recommendation was inside out in French!
YouTube is terrible for this too. After learning how to fix my dishwasher, it suggests more dishwasher repair videos for months, like I'm some sort of dishwasher junkie?!
What's missing, especially for artistic entertainment, is "here's something completely different from anything you've ever watched".
The opposite
Treasures (Score:2)
"... these films that they amount to much, much more than mere property to be exploited and then locked away. They are among the greatest treasures of our culture, and they must be treated accordingly."
Said as Disney slaps warning labels and age restrictions on The Muppet Show. What's to say that future generations will even tolerate these "treasures" and not ban them outright?
Video killed the radio star (Score:2)
Sorry guys, there is nothing "magic" about cinema. Except you get to sit behind some bald guy with a baseball cap taking up the bottom third of the screen and wiggle your toes in somebody's spilled Pepsi while enjoying a chorus of coughs and munching on popcorn consisting of mostly salt and drenched in something resembling butter more but more akin to spray tan. Just sit down and enjoy your home theatre.
Cinema (Score:2)
I love seeing movies in cinemas, but at the same time I don't dying from or more likely like being responsible for asymptomatically spreading a disease that is fatal to many people. When COVID is under control (summer?) I hope we all go back to the theaters, bars, and clubs.
Locked away... (Score:2)
And we have to make it crystal clear to the current legal owners of these films that they amount to much, much more than mere property to be exploited and then locked away.
But that's exactly the problem. Movies are distributed by businesses, not by artists. These businesses do not care one bit about the value of art or culture, they are solely concerned about maximising profit.
Add to that the totally broken and corrupt copyright system which allows for companies to lock content away until it's become totally forgotten, and you have the current mess.
Four different points (Score:3)
1) Scorsese (and many artists) tend to think that art is there for them, not the viewer/consumer. They are wrong. They are owed nothing. The things that successful, famous, artists like are not owed any more respect than things other people like. If "Cinema" can not stand the test of viewers, than it is worthless and should be thrown away. Often people do not want high art, they want low art and have the more respectable stuff forced on them (Wedding photographers in particular are known for this crap).
2) That said, there IS value in High Art, and the Algorithms do not properly measure it. One of the issues is that good high art is rarer and less common than acceptable low art. The higher quality makes it harder to find. So you are exposed to 20 acceptable crap and 1 high art film a year, you like 10 of the acceptable and the single high art and the algorithm shows you 50 more acceptable pieces and no high art. Even though I rated the 10 acceptable as 4 star, and the High art as 5 star.
3) Different services can specialize in low vs high. And the existence of one stream specializing in low art does not mean you can't go to another specializing in high art. I can go to both a Broadway play (some day after covid....) and a high school play of my niece. If Scorsese does not like the current medium, he can BUILD HIS OWN. He is wealthy enough and famous enough to create this. I personally would pay $15 a month to see Scorsese+ on my Roku.
4) Finally, difficulty in making high art is itself more responsible for it's low numbers than anything else. This is not something new. In 1955, Hollywood made hundreds of films, including both Apache Ambush and Apache Woman (Big year for Apache....) but the number of High art (On the Water Front, A Star is Born, To Catch a Thief), can be counted on your fingers.
Cinema is still being made in roughly the same percentage as it was 50 years ago. We just look back and think of all the wonderful stuff it took 50 years to make and compare it to what we made THIS year.
Yes, Scorsese has a point about the new media not focusing on high art. But his fear is unwarranted.
Scorsese (Score:2)
While it might be true, his own movies have devalued it more. I mean have you seen Kundun? That was a cluster fuck.
Are we that lazy? (Score:2)
Seriously, how lazy do you have to be, to accept the curation of content, rather than going out to seek it?
Sure, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll find something you want to watch, but that's a different story all together,
However, if the curation of content also means shows cancelled or worthy shows not being made because of 'risk' (nothing new there!), that's probably not such a good thing.
And really, how DO you curate content for so many different tastes with such a mind blowing amount of content avai
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* it isn't always going to appeal
content and sticky floors and overpriced snacks (Score:2)
Sorry, it really is only content. Sticky floors and five bucks for a coke are not features. Neither is "crowd appeal". Especially as a significant number have their phones out.
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Algorithms are useless (Score:2)
"The cinema experience" (Score:2)
Re: Martin Scorsese (Score:5, Insightful)
You didn't even attack his arguments.
You just attacked the person.
Which means you did not even qualify for the discussion.
And your comment does literally not even contain a relevant argument.
If anything, you convincingly displayed the lack of counter-arguments that give his arguments weight. :)
That's true. Same problem in 1973 (Score:3, Insightful)
That's true. Also one of your better posts, btw.
As to counter-arguments, the movie and other entertainment companies have been focused on making money for at least 100 years. the Brady Bunch did an episode about that in 1973. "So long, Johnny Bravo" was an episode about how the entertainment industry doesn't care about quality, they care about what a lot of people will buy / watch. So clearly this isn't a new thing with streaming companies.
In 1978 there was an embarrassingly bad script for an episode of H
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I was thinking of jumping the shark as I wrote that. Jumping the shark was the season premiere of the next season.
Robin F_ing Williams (Score:2)
That's what introduced the world to the local street performer Robin Williams. Comic legend Robin Williams. So yeah, turned out for good.
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I mean, sure, he became a legend by stealing only the best material and giving it a manic energy.
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You just attacked the person.
Which means you did not even qualify for the discussion.
LOL! I'll bet you can't find your mistake.
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You didn't even attack his arguments.
His argument is a mixture of two old tired ones from the artistic elite though: "How dare people watch/read/listen to what they want when we know better as to what they should be watching/reading/listening." and a general rejection of modern media as somehow demeaning "real" art.
The latter argument always disappears in a few years once artists adapt to the new platform and produce deep and meaningful material for it: if it didn't then cave paintings would have been the pinnacle of art. The former one is
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You didn't even attack his arguments. You just attacked the person. Which means you did not even qualify for the discussion. And your comment does literally not even contain a relevant argument.
If anything, you convincingly displayed the lack of counter-arguments that give his arguments weight. :)
Scorsese starts out arguing the problem is algorithms do not connect people properly to content but rather by misapplying tags across the spectrum of content fail to expand the viewers exposure to great cinema. He then goes on to lavish praise on Fellini, which, in a backhanded way, counters his argument at the very end when brining up his last movie. No one wanted to distribute in the US, so the then curators fo what a viewer should be interested in decided to leave it out; whereas today's AI would includ
Re:Martin Scorsese (Score:5, Interesting)
I know most people will probably write this comment off but it is true.
Back in the 1960s mentioned by Scorsese, there were less movie theaters and less television channels which caused air time for both a premium that made producing unique content a hard sell for not only studios but publishers and theater chains or television networks.
The mediums out to the consumers were finite and narrow. A lot of what was produced was pretty similar with some variation while also tending to be targeted at the people making the decisions instead of what consumers wanted. It wasn't until the 1970s that more variety started to arrive and then 1980s that it started to explode because of home entertainment (Beta, VHS, cable TV).
Now that the Internet can provide an unlimited medium for the content, it also allows an almost unlimited variety for what is available as well.
Most people will see this as a problem trying to find something they like but this was inevitable. Because there is so much content and the variety has become insanely broad, many of the mediums had no way to manually curate/moderate it so the companies providing the platforms attempted to provide matches to content using algorithms.
But the reality is that we have been left to curate it ourselves and the algorithms could never get enough information to judge your mood and such, so we need to find a way to get back to curated content so not only can we find something for ourselves to watch but the people we trust with the curation can help guide studios and publishes to produce something we want to watch.
Re:Martin Scorsese (Score:5, Insightful)
Scorsese isn't saying that companies shouldn't make suggestions, so much as saying that we should think of ourselves as lovers of art rather than consumers of content. In that role, it is worth seeking out the recommendations of artists we enjoy rather than the next cat video that will keep us from doing something productive.
If anything, wide-variety allows low quality novelty to drown out higher quality material that asks something of the viewer. Every deuce I've dropped has been unique. Sturgeon's Law of 90% crap was made when there were gatekeepers. Now, a genius can publish for the world, but must fight for attention against an unending current of amplified 90+% crap.
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When the studios and "guides" have the power to curate content as you suggest it has been abused every single time. In the 90's they did it with cheap reality content and mass appeal shit with no depth.
The rise of streaming has given legs to real genre programming, real Science fiction and fantasy works that isn't just another take on Arthur, Robinhood or the 3 musketeers and absolutely no content that would appeal or star non-white characters or audiences.
Scorsese and the people like him are a legacy, the
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Or perhaps, "old man yells at cloud"?
Re:Martin Scorsese (Score:4, Interesting)
Re-read what he's saying. He's not saying its financially bad (In fact he's said its been good for him, in that respect). The problem is about art. It rewards "content" and reconfigures the arts economy towards "engagement" rather than "Is this actually a good movie with artistic merit".
And he's right. Amazon Prime, upon watching a couple of X-Files episodes (I have pretty strong nostalgia for that show) stopped recomending films and started recomending Z-grade UFO documentaries. Why the *fsck* would I want to watch THAT? Because its "content" and conspiracy nonsense tends to have high engagement.
Compare to Netflix which whilst it does have its fair share of nonsense gibberish, tends to think in terms of movies and TV shows instead of "content". X-Files isn't on netflxi here, but that operation blue book series is which seems to be an updated x-files of sorts. Good supernatural thriller, lots of fun. Netflix DIDNT start recomending me garbage UFO documentaries and z-grade yotuube level conspiracy trash.
Movies != "Content"
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There are several issues that he identifies or implies, all mixed in: ...
Reducing cinema art to generic corporate content that's evaluated only on it's ability to generate profit.
The business of cinema no doubt changing the direction of cinema art by what it invests in, and how that's terrifying for a cinema artist.
Businesses not investing in good film/shows (determined how...?), but mostly in what will be watched, which it usually already knows what will be.
Algorithms that offer viewers "content" based on
Re: Martin Scorsese (Score:3)
Heâ(TM)s not. He is pointing to the banalization of art and reduction of visual arts to what he calls the lowest denominator. Did you not notice how Netflix and all removed your ability to actually RATE content? Content cannot be poor, very poor, good, very good. It either passes with a Thumb Up or Down, which is a shorthand for you saying Morrnof Rhod or Less of This. It becomes unidimensional. The algorithm tries to inform what the next movies should *have* to make you Thumb Up or just keep watching.
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He had one good film in Goodfellas
There are very few directors that have created films as good as Raging Bull. There are even fewer that could boast five films as collectively good as Mean Streets, After Hours, Taxi Driver, The Departed and Hugo.
So we're up to seven good films already, which is where I'll step away and leave you to ponder your brave claim.
Re: Don't be content with dis content. (Score:2)
I concur'd
and I can't end
and not pretend
you ain't quite the cunt end.