Martin Scorsese interviewed by Michael Henry Wilson about Hugo. “The antidote for film is more film”

Abstract

This interview arose from a desire to compile a selection of Scorsese’s comments about how his cinephilia has affected his work as a filmmaker. In the director’s words, the purpose was not “a gratuitous fetish” but to demonstrate that “film was freedom, the alternative to the dreary conformism of the era, a genuine passion (2000: 14)”. His experience as a spectator paved the way for him to make his own films, and thus it is logical that the films that had the greatest impact on him can be seen reflected in different ways in his filmography, and would become the object of study in A Personal Journey. As a complement to the Notebook in this issue, L’Atalante thus presents a brief anthology made up of interviews and texts by Michael Henry Wilson (the most authoritative voice on the subject), some of them recent (like the interview discussing Hugo), in which Scorsese reflects on the medium itself. In this way, we have sought to underline Scorsese’s status not as a filmmaker, but as a spectator, critic and even an advocate for the recovery and restoration of classic films.