Martin Scorsese: Teach visual literacy
Film director Martin Scorsese has made an impassioned plea for young people to embrace the rich cinema heritage of America before it disappears.
The 70-year-old Oscar-winning director of films such as Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Taxi Driver was delivering the annual Jefferson humanities lecture at the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington.
In a speech called Persistence of Vision: Reading the Language of Cinema, Scorsese said: “We’re face-to-face with images all the time in a way that we never have been before. Young people need to understand that not all images are out there to be consumed like, you know, fast food and then forgotten. We need to educate them to understand the difference between moving images that engage their humanity and their intelligence, and moving images that are just selling them something.”
