Martin Scorsese Made a Short Film About His Lockdown Experience for BBC

Are you bored in lockdown? Listless? Finding yourself with nothing but time on your hands? Isolation can be distressing for everyone, but rather than lounging around with nothing to do, legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese decided to take advantage of the extra time. Scorsese has already shot and edited a short film about his experience in lockdown for BBC, which will debut the short this week on BBC’s flagship arts program Front Row Late.

Martin Scorsese will explore what isolation in lockdown has meant to him in a self-shot short film for the BBC, according to The Hollywood Reporter. But more than being a contemplative musing about the perils of isolation (which the director has explored before on the big screen, to acclaimed effect), Scorsese’s short film will be an appreciation of his family and loved ones that help carry him through lockdown.

“What I look forward to in the future is carrying with me what I have been forced to learn in these circumstances,” said Scorsese of his isolation experience. “It is the essential. The people you love. Being able to take care of them and be with them as much as you can.”

“Martin Scorsese makes a wonderful end to the series. We see him at home, thinking about lockdown through the lens of classic movies, like Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man,” Lockdown Culture host Mary Beard said. “But what’s really clever is that this great Hollywood luminary also gets us to look at Hitchcock again and afresh through the lens of our current predicament. I was absolutely over the moon when he agreed to do it for us. It feels a bit like hosting a little premiere! And it all contributes to a pretty amazing finale.”

From Beard’s description, it sounds like Scorsese’s short film will akin to a MasterClass with the director, in which Scorsese chats about classic movies and his love for cinema, while relating it to the current situation. Either way, it’s a blessing to see Scorsese making films even from his own home.

Lee Daniels will also appear on the show to argue that the current shutdown in Hollywood can be a “radical creative opportunity for filmmakers.” The show will also include an exclusive monologue told through the voice of the coronavirus (COVID-19) from 2019’s Booker Prize winner, Bernardine Evaristo, as well as John Donne poem readings by British actresses Dame Helen Mirren and Emma Thompson. Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke will make an appearance to discuss the power of poetry with poet Lemn Sissay and historian David Olusoga.

Scorsese’s short film is set to premiere in the final episode of BBC’s Lockdown Culture with Mary Beard, a branding of the network’s flagship arts program Front Row Late, on May 28, 2020.