Martin Scorsese is a living encyclopedia of cinema, but he didn’t know this masterpiece!

Martin Scorsese’s cinephilia is legendary. A veritable living encyclopedia of film history, Marty is also a passionate defender of the world’s cinematic heritage, through his Cinema FoundationCreated in 1990 and its program World Cinema Projectwhich aims to restore certain films in light of the special place they occupy in world heritage.

To date, more than 1000 films have been restored. Among them, we can cite a number of masterpieces, such as La Fureur de vivre, Colonel Blimp, Richard III by Laurence Olivier, Rocco and his brothers, The Red Shoes, Salvatore Giuliano Francesco Rosi…

It is in this well-thought-out logic that Marty also delivers influential work, and he regularly asks actors to watch a film or another, research a cast of characters, give ideas for games, an actor or a clarification. staging intentions. When you get a chance like Leonardo DiCaprio to work with a great director like Scorsese, it helps.

“You’ve seen every movie that’s come out since 1980!”

The Letterboxd site posted a fascinating exchange online between two interested in this topic. “We need to talk together about the films we’ve made and the works that have influenced them.” DiCaprio says. “I’ve been asked to talk about the movies I’ve introduced you to, but knowing that you’ve seen every movie made since 1980, it’s really hard to say!”

And to say that he at least introduced her to the works of Hayao Miyazaki, namely Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. “Soulful, you asked me to watch!” replies Scorsese, clearly excited by his discovery.

Released in July 2001 in Japan, The spirit is gone It enjoyed phenomenal success in its home country, surpassing Titanic for the top spot at the all-time box office with over 17 million viewers recorded at the end of 2001.

In mid-October of that year, Hayao Miyazaki’s film even became the first non-American feature film to gross over $200 million, despite not yet being released in Europe or North America. Crowned with the Oscar for Best Animated Feature and even the Golden Bear in Berlin, this masterpiece from Studio Ghibli is also available on Netflix.

Insatiable curiosity

In addition to the fact that these two works signed by the legend of Japanese animation appear in DiCaprio’s personal pantheon of favorite films, we can only once again admire the insatiable curiosity of the cinematographer, who, let’s remember, is also particularly interested in Japanese cinema. in his top 39 (Yes yes, no 40) Of his favorite foreign films, no less than seven of them are Japanese; The first was Yasujiro Ozu’s masterpiece, A Trip to Tokyo, released in 1953.