Martin Scorsese uses his freedom of speech to express his distaste for many hot topics in the film industry. Fans would remember he previously dissed Marvel films and would not acknowledge them as cinema. In the past, he also criticized a popular movie review site that seemed to hate Zack Snyder’s movies.
Yes, the critics at Rotten Tomatoes sort of loathe many of Snyder’s DCEU movies, such as Batman v Superman and Justice League. The ratings these films received affected the views of the audience when it came to the movie experience, and that is what Scorsese wanted to point out in his essay.
Martin Scorsese Slammed Rotten Tomatoes And Cinemascore For ‘Pure Judgmentalism’
In a guest post via The Hollywood Reporter, veteran filmmaker Martin Scorsese talked about people’s obsession with box office and movie ratings. He wrote:
“Box office is the undercurrent in almost all discussions of cinema, and frequently it’s more than just an undercurrent. The brutal judgmentalism that has made opening weekend grosses into a bloodthirsty spectator sport seems to have encouraged an even more brutal approach to film reviewing.”
While film analysis is a crucial part of the viewing experience, Scorsese targeted movie review sites such as Cinemascore and Rotten Tomatoes that somehow became authorities in film criticism:
“I’m talking about market research firms like Cinemascore, which started in the late ‘70s, and online “aggregators” like Rotten Tomatoes, which have absolutely nothing to do with real film criticism.”
He slammed the sites for being so involved in the industry even though they had no hand in the entire filmmaking process. This affects both the moviemaker and the viewer:
“They have everything to do with the movie business and absolutely nothing to do with either the creation or the intelligent viewing of film. The filmmaker is reduced to a content manufacturer and the viewer to an unadventurous consumer. These firms and aggregators have set a tone that is hostile to serious filmmakers — even the actual name Rotten Tomatoes is insulting.”
Scorsese lamented how real movie critics who have adept knowledge of films have been very few nowadays, and there are more opinions coming from pure judgmentalism.
Martin Scorsese Wants Rotten Tomatoes And Cinemascore To Dissolve
In the same essay via THR, Martin Scorsese defended the industry of filmmaking and claimed that movies are not meant to be understood in the simplest ways:
“Good films by real filmmakers aren’t made to be decoded, consumed, or instantly comprehended. They’re not even made to be instantly liked. They’re just made because the person behind the camera had to make them.”
He hopes that these movie review sites will soon disappear as time goes by so films will no longer be boxed into ratings or grades:
“Tomatometer ratings and Cinemascore grades will be gone soon enough. Maybe they’ll be muscled out by something even worse. Or maybe they’ll fade away and dissolve in the light of a new spirit in film literacy.”
Even though Zack Snyder and Scorsese operate on different sides of the spectrum, these filmmakers have their own ways of telling stories for the screens that serve a purpose no amount of ratings can define.
