Directors should 'control' tech, not fear it: Scorsese

U.S. cinema legend Martin Scorsese said on Feb. 20 directors should harness technology to serve their "voice" rather than fearing it will kill their industry.

Scorsese, nominated for a record 10th time for a best director Oscar for "Killers of the Flower Moon," was speaking at the Berlin film festival where he is collecting an Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement.

He told a packed press conference that he was upbeat about the future of big-screen entertainment, even with small-screen diversions on the march.

"I don't think it's dying at all, no, I think it's transforming," he said when asked about the future of film. "It never was meant to be one thing."

Scorsese, 81, said the movie-going of his youth had given way to a world of new possibilities that didn't have to be threatening.

"If you wanted to see a movie, you went to a theater, a good theater or bad theater but it was a theater, it was always a communal experience," he said.

Scorsese said with entertainment technology now changing "so exhaustively and rapidly," "the only thing they [filmmakers] could really hold onto is the individual voice."

The "Taxi Driver" director, whose playful videos with his daughter Francesca have made him a social media star for a new generation, said the medium was far less important than the spark of imagination.

"The individual voice can express itself on TikTok or express itself in a four-hour film or two-hour miniseries," he said.

"What I'm getting at is that I don't think we should let the technology scare us. I think you don't become a slave to the technology," he said.

"Let us control the technology and put it in the right direction, the right direction being from the individual voice rather...