the age of wisdom

Martin Scorsese Had a Cinema Epiphany ‘Too Late’

Marty filming Vertigo in April. Photo: Gotham/GC Images

Everyone ages, but we really wish Martin Scorsese wouldn’t for the sake of cinema. Our directing king who came up during the New Hollywood movement with provocative films like Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and Taxi Driver says he understands filmmaking on a whole new level — though his age gets in the way. When asked if he still has the fire to get behind the camera at 80 years old, he said he’s “got to.†“I wish I could take a break for eight weeks and make a film at the same time [laughs],†he told Deadline. “The whole world has opened up to me, but it’s too late. It’s too late.†Why? “I’m old,†he explained. “I read stuff. I see things. I want to tell stories, and there’s no more time.†Describing his earlier self, that guy who made movies in the ’60s and ’70s inspired by French New Wave films like Jules and Jim, as a “wild kid running around†with an “edgy thing†going on, he now sees that it took him around six decades to really grasp the potential of the art form. “Kurosawa, when he got his Oscar, when George [Lucas] and Steven [Spielberg] gave it to him, he said, ‘I’m only now beginning to see the possibility of what cinema could be, and it’s too late,’†the Killers of the Flower Moon director remembered. “He was 83. At the time, I said, ‘What does he mean?’ Now I know what he means.â€

Martin Scorsese Had a Cinema Epiphany ‘Too Late’