Making Movies

Technology has made it relatively easy for the new filmmaker to make a movie. Now just about anyone with a modicum of desire and drive can see their story turned into a film in the digital format. But this ease of creation does not ensure that the content will have any depth. When movies were made the old way, on celluloid, it took a lot of money, time, and effort, and those requirements were enough to discourage anyone who did not feel compelled to tell the story they believed had to be told.  Today’s young filmmakers have been raised on what Martin Scorsese calls “theme park movies,” movies that rely too much on special effects, imagery, and celebrity actors. Scorsese says he feels like one of the last of a dying breed of filmmakers, the ones who take risks and make movies with personal themes of scope and power. Movies must have scope and power, and they must be made with a passion for truth and a depth of psychology, otherwise they are nothing more than exercises in vanity.