Film director Martin Scorsese has shared a new list of films for fans that are ‘companion pieces’ to his own films.
Yesterday (October 26), Scorsese revealed that he joined Letterboxd, a film social media site that encourages users to log and review films they’ve seen.
Since joining, Scorsese has logged 69 films and has curated a list of classic film watches that users can pair with his own films.
“I love the idea of putting different films together into one program. I grew up seeing double features, programs in repertory houses, evenings of avant-garde films in storefront theatres,” Scorsese wrote in his Companion Films list introduction.
He continued: “You always learn something, see something in a new light, because every movie is in conversation with every other movie. The greater the difference between the pictures, the better.”
“Over the years, I’ve been asked to pair my own pictures with older films by other people that have inspired them. The request has come from film festivals, which present the pairings as a program. The terms ‘inspiration’ and ‘influence’ aren’t completely accurate. I think of them as companion films. Sometimes the relationship is based on inspiration. Sometimes it’s the relationships between the characters. Sometimes it’s the spirit of the picture. Sometimes it’s far more mysterious than that.”
Scorsese’s latest film, Killers of the Flower Moon, is based on the true story of the murder of more than 60 Native Americans in 1920s Oklahoma and stars Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio as an uncle and nephew plotting to steal the oil underneath the tribe’s land.
In a five-star review of the film, NME wrote: “This is among Scorsese’s most important work. Popular music from the 1920s, Native American songs and Robbie Robertson’s bluesy score help round off this remarkable Western, a film that will linger in the minds of its audience for a long time.”
Speaking to NME recently about the story behind the film, Scorsese said: “For some reason, the story stuck with me. And I think a lot of it had to do with the nature of the system that was created in Oklahoma at that time. And still, to a certain extent is. What I mean by the system is how, ultimately, the indigenous people, by sheer fortune, became the richest people in the world. And at which point, they were totally controlled. And they were completely in a way swindled out of their money as much as possible by whites in every capacity.”
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