US film studios too powerful, says Scorsese

Legendary director Martin Scorsese today spoke out against the power of giant US movie studios as he launched a campaign to salvage "lost" films around the world.

The 'Goodfellas' director, whose hits have also included 'Taxi Driver', 'Raging Bull', 'Gangs of New York' and 'The Departed', said he was concerned that the large US movie studios inhibited domestic film.

Scorsese, 64, founded the World Cinema Foundation with film luminaries from Africa, Asia and Europe, including 'The Queen' director Stephen Frears, 'Pan's Labyrinth' filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro and cult Chinese director Wong Kar Wai.

He told a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival today that counteracting the power of megalithic studios was part of the inspiration for the newly-launched World Cinema Foundation.

Asked about the ownership of cinemas by film distributors, Scorsese said: "This is one of the reasons why I helped try to pull this together, this network. I do feel that often the cinema of the actual country, the bigger studios in America show and have control over a great deal of many of the screens.

"I'm interested in diversity. I feel that it feeds cultures back and forth.

"This is one of the reasons that I'm pulling this together to give as much as possible a platform for domestic film around the world."

The World Cinema Foundation is working with specialist laboratories to restore unknown, older films that are in danger of lost forever.

Scorsese has already set up a US organisation along with the same lines with the likes of 'The Godfather' director Francis Ford Coppola, 'A Clockwork Orange' filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, 'Star Wars' creator George Lucas and actor-turned-director Clint Eastwood.

The Film Foundation restored 495 US films in 15 years.

But Scorsese said: "In America, 90% of silent films are gone. Things have changed but it's almost impossible to catch up.

He said: "We put pressure on the studios. So many American films have been neglected, they've lost their rights like orphan films.

"Things have changed, but we thought wouldn't it be great to try and do the same internationally, particularly with countries that couldn't get the support and finances to restore certain films.

"We thought wouldn't it be wonderful to pull our influence around the world.

"Some films take 10 years to track down… it's about the tenacity and the obsession of the filmmaker."

He added: "One of the key reasons why I tried to pull this together is that coming from a working class background in New York, my parents were not educated, they were not in the habit of reading books, I sought all my education from films.

"Foreign films on TV introduced so many different cultures to me."

He said of the importance of saving home-grown film: "When we influence each other that creates a new kind of cinema, once we begin to understand, have less a feeling of strangeness towards other cultures but a feeling of familiarity with other cultures, this can hopefully bring about greater political understanding.

"Even if we get it to the cinema the younger people will come to see these pictures. I know it".

"For every 100 films only 10 will be found and maybe finished.

"It's also about the ability of the labs to work. There's only a few that can do the lab work."