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Martin Scorsese on being reviewed: ‘You can’t be bothered’

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There are certain external indicators filmmakers can look to when trying to evaluate the quality of their work — positive reviews, triumph at the box office, awards gold — but even these are imperfect measures. So how and when do filmmakers know if they’ve made a good movie?

At the recent Envelope Directors Roundtable, Martin Scorsese (‘Hugo’), Michel Hazanavicius (‘The Artist’), Alexander Payne (‘The Descendants’), George Clooney (‘The Ides of March’) and Stephen Daldry (‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’) addressed that question.

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‘I have a problem: I always think it’s good,’ Hazanavicius said of his work. ‘So I think I’m not a good judge, really.’ But, he added, ‘What’s true one day in October on a set, it’s not the same truth four months later in an editing room. So I try to trust what I wrote, to trust what I storyboarded and to let things happen on set.’

Payne said he has confident days and not-so-confident days: ‘Some days I am Orson Welles,’ he said. ‘Other days I am the worst loser, impostor, know-nothing, wannabe filmmaker in the world. I believe both with equal conviction.’

Scorsese added that it’s important to focus on the work and have confidence, without paying too much attention to concerns like movie reviews. ‘If you read the good ones, you might believe those, and if you read the bad ones, you certainly believe those,’ Scorsese said. ‘At a certain point, you’ve got to work.’

Check out their full conversation in the video above.

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Oscars 2012: Scorsese, Hazanavicius, Payne vie for best director

— Oliver Gettell

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