Speaking to Empire, Schoonmaker said: “It would appear that we’ve lost the battle. It’s just impossible to fight it anymore, the collapse of film. I think Marty just feels it’s unfortunately over, and there’s been no bigger champion of film than him.”
The celebrated director of Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, The Departed and Goodfellas and founder of The Film Foundation has been a vocal campaigner for the preservation and restoration of old film prints, while his support of the British Film Institute’s archival work is well documented.
Scorsese – whose career has spanned over 40-years – won an Academy Award for his first 3D film Hugo Cabret.
But his new film The Wolf of Wall Street, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a corrupt stockbroker, will be his first 2D film to be shot in digital.
With the majority of multiplexes permanently converting to digital projectors from next year onwards, and with studios increasingly willing to pressurise filmmakers into embracing digital shooting, Scorsese has bowed to the march of technology.
Based on the memoir by Jordan Belfort , The Wolf of Wall Street is based on a drug addicted stockbroker indicted for security fraud and money laundering in 1998, before serving a 22-month term in federal prison.
DiCaprio will be supported by Jonah Hill, Jean Dujardin, Kyle Chandler, Jon Bernthal, Margot Robbie. Shooting on the film is scheduled to start in August.
Schoonmaker said of the film: “It’s going to be pretty wild. Very, very wild. Very quick with a strong narration.”
The news comes as Christopher Nolan revealed he was pressured by Warner Bros. to shoot The Dark Knight Rises in digital (although held out for film stock). He recently told The Director’s Guild of America:
“For the last 10 years, I’ve felt increasing pressure to stop shooting film and start shooting video, but I’ve never understood why. It’s cheaper to work on film, it’s far better looking, it’s the technology that’s been known and understood for a hundred years, and it’s extremely reliable. I think, truthfully, it boils down to the economic interest of manufacturers and [a production] industry that makes more money through change rather than through maintaining the status quo.”
