No more Netflix: Italian Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino no longer wants to shoot for the US streaming service. “Maybe it’s because I’m getting old, but for me the best thing is to try and do something for the big screen,” the director said at the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday. For Sorrentino, the “power of the image” is only fully appreciated on a big screen.
“I don’t look at movies that are made for TV or platforms because I can’t find what I’m looking for there,” said the director of The Great Beauty, who won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2014.
Sorrentino is one of many highly acclaimed directors who have benefited from Netflix and the provider’s high fees in recent years. He directed the television series “The Young Pope” and the autobiographical film “The Hand of God” for the platform.
“The film I did for Netflix was good for Netflix, but it’s not something I want to do again,” he said. The 51-year-old also criticized the time pressure that prevailed in the productions. “A good film takes time,” he emphasised.
He doesn’t see the end of cinema coming. “Eventually people will get tired of watching movies at home.” Spoiled by success, Netflix recently announced that it had lost subscribers for the first time in a decade. The company also cut jobs last week.
