"The Age of Innocence 3D"?
That might have been the case if the 3D technology had been around when Martin Scorsese first filmed Edith Wharton's tragic love story.
After shooting "Hugo" in 3D last year and earning an Oscar nomination for his efforts, Scorsese has become such a convert to the format that he said at a CinemaCon panel on Wednesday that he would have shot all of his "post-'Raging Bull" films in three dimension.
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“Raging Bull” came out in 1980, so that’s a list that would theoretically include the Oscar-winning “The Departed,” “Kundun,” “The Aviator” and “Bringing Out the Dead.”
Scorsese said he also would have preferred to shoot some earlier film, such as 1976’s “Taxi Driver,” in 3D, though not his 1977 musical “New York, New York.”
“I think you have to accept it as just another part of storytelling,” Scorsese said of 3D technology.
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His tastes in prospective 3D material is certainly unorthodox. Films such as “The Passion of Anna” by directors such as Ingmar Bergman would be improved in the format, he said.
As for exhibiting films at higher frame rates, Scorsese sees the value in that too, although he missed the CinemaCon preview of Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit,” shown at a rate of 48 frames per second to mixed reactions Tuesday.
The standard rate is 24 frames, and some convention-goers complained that the picture quality was too streamlined and came off more like a filmed stage performance than a movie.
That response, Scorsese said, might not be the case with rising generations of movie-watchers.
“I think it’s in the generation itself,” he said. “It’s how you accept an image.”