Asif Kapadia on how Martin Scorsese “celebrates and protects world cinema”
Known for his trilogy of narratively driven documentaries Senna, Amy and Diego Maradona, Asif Kapadia is a British filmmaker who recruits the medium of cinema in visually powerful features that examine and explore the trope of the ‘outsider’. The director’s characters reside in extreme circumstances, defying a corrupt or broken system, with this societal structure proposing a socio-political examination to complement the interior one.
Kapadia’s passion for visual storytelling derives from idolising many brilliant filmmakers and their compelling cinematic legacies. One example is the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, a filmmaker who echos Kapadia in depictions of societal structures.
To commemorate Kurosawa’s legacy, Kapadia has collaborated with Ian Haydn Smith, author of Selling the Movie and Cult Filmmakers, and is working on a Kurosawa programme at the BFI. To share the director’s genius and artistry with the world, Kapadia and Smith will showcase his most remarkable and lesser-known works. A number of Kurosawa’s international breakthroughs are included in this collection, such as the masterpiece Seven Samurai, the Shakespearean adaptation Ran, and the international breakthrough Rashomon.
During an insightful and passionate interview with Kapadia and Smith, I asked them about acclaimed American director Martin Scorsese, who began his cinematic career a decade before Kurosawa ended his. Scorsese paid tribute to the Ran director by stating: “The term ‘giant’ is used too often to describe artists. But in the case of Akira Kurosawa, we have one of the rare instances where the term fits,” a perspective I asked for insight on.
Despite his influential and respected status in filmmaking, Scorsese never shies away from praising the filmmakers who came before or after him, recognising any respect for the craft and honouring it. The director has also examined the societal structure, similar to Kapadia and Kurosawa, pairing it with a psychological character study, as evident in his defining work Taxi Driver, released in 1976 and starring Robert De Niro.
“(Scorsese’s) talking about an artist. He would recognise one. And you know, for, there are very few people that are up there,” Kapadia exclusively told Far Out. “But also, there are many people out there. Not everyone knows about them.”
In balancing out his positive viewpoints on cinema’s past and current climate, Scorsese has also offered criticism, generating heated discussion about cinema’s meaning, intentions and ideal executions. The filmmaker has argued for the importance of movie theatres as a vessel for cinema’s visual artistry to be wholly presented and processed in the way it was intended, something Kapadia aligns with.
With the rise of streaming platforms and easily accessible routes to film watching, such as iPhones and tablets, the experience of going to the cinemas to watch a movie on the big screen with surround sound and no distractions dies out a little more every year. Furthermore, Scorsese has also kickstarted discussions about what constitutes artistic and passionate filmmaking and box-office-driven movie-making that diverts from auteurship as studios take control.
“They criticise one of, one of the more well-known ones; there are many great directors and Scorsese’s one of those great filmmakers who celebrates world cinema, and protects world cinema,” Kapadia states as a defence of Scorsese’s proposals. “But also is a student and like one of the most knowledgeable people in world cinema.“
Scorsese’s ‘protection’ of world cinema refers to The Film Foundation, a non-profit organisation the Taxi Driver director founded along with several other leading filmmakers in 1990. As fuelled by Scorsese’s love for cinema and its artistry, the foundation is committed to film preservation and the exhibition of restored and classic cinema. The Film Foundation raises funds and awareness for film preservation projects, creates educational programs about the medium, and has reportedly restored more than 900 films from various countries and eras, such as 1970s Iran.
Kapadia’s latest film project is Creature, a cinematic capture of Akram Khan’s ballet that had an initial premiere at the BFI last year. The film is due for a theatrical release on February 24th. Kapadia and Smith’s programme on Kurosawa will be running at the BFI until February 28th.