Cinema. (2021)

Martin Scorsese made remarks in 2019 that superhero movies were not cinema. As he himself says at the beginning of this video essay, what is a film anyway? Streaming services, memes, GIFs and other Internet phenomena all transform our concept of cinema in this day and age. While platforms like Netflix promise unlimited movies, too much access to images cheapens their intrinsic value. Movie theaters are mortally threatened from the pandemic, and Scorsese finds himself at a crossroads where Cinema doesn't mean what it used to be for many people. This video essay is from the perspective of an editor burned out on films, who now looks at them the way a surgeon looks at human flesh.