Martin Scorsese to Go 3-D

It seems not even Martin Scorsese (film historian, cinephile, archivist) is immune to the allure of making a 3-D motion picture. His next film will be an adaptation of the Brian Selznick children's book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" about a boy in 1930s Paris who fixes his father's broken robot.

Lest you fall into the mistaken belief that Scorsese is merely bowing to studio pressure, the film is, in fact, being independently produced. It will be distributed by Sony and is currently slated for a December 2011 release.

I'm both truly astonished and somehow not all that surprised by this move by Scorsese. He's a filmmaker who understands how to tell a story visually. He can exploit the medium better than 99 percent of film directors. I think he's a guy who is interested in how 3-D can help him tell a story in a new, different and possibly better way. Unlike the studios, who love it because it's basically pirate-proof, and theater owners, who love it because they can add a surcharge for the special glasses. Scorsese is even on record saying he thinks Precious should be in 3-D.

I don't want to go on a tirade now about 3-D movies (that will come at a later date, I'm sure), but I'm dismayed by the move toward more and more 3-D. Especially when it comes to the films shot in 2-D and then later converted in order to capitalize on the fad (Clash of the Titans and Alice in Wonderland). The only modern 3-D film I've seen is Avatar, which I saw in both traditional 2-D and then the 3-D version. I have nothing to compare that experience to, but I can say that I much rather prefer the 2-D version.