Every year, at the New York Film Festival, the event’s director Kent Jones sits down with a filmmaker, for the On Cinema conversation, to discuss the important movies that influence them. And this year, Jones had legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese join him to feature four films that stand out as important works to the director.
Scorsese, of course, is attending NYFF this year to help debut his new film “The Irishman,” but you would be hard-pressed to find a mafia drama among the projects that the filmmaker wanted to discuss. As seen in the full interview (you can watch below), Scorsese takes 40 minutes to go over two films from director Hugo Haas, “Bait” and “Strange Fascination,” as well as recent films “Hereditary” and “Archipelago,” from filmmakers Ari Aster and Joanna Hogg, respectively.
During the discussion, Scorsese talks about specific scenes in each film and why they stand out to him, as well as how each movie impacted him in some way. For “Hereditary,” he minces no words and says that Ari Aster’s debut is “a remarkable film.”
Jones and Scorsese show a scene from the horror film, which features the main cast eating family dinner together. And if you’ve seen “Hereditary,” you know that scene doesn’t end well for the characters.
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“I try to watch films,” explained Scorsese. “It’s very hard sometimes to be able to find the time. And when you do something that stands out as amazing, and [‘Hereditary’] did, I was really electrified by the dynamic that you see expressed in this scene.”
He goes on to admit that he has forgotten specific plot machinations, but that isn’t the point of the film.
“What I didn’t forget was the family. The three of them. And that’s what’s important in terms of this filmmaker,” the director added. “These actors, they’re astounding.”
As mentioned, you can watch the entire discussion below.
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