Martin Scorsese has been praised for writing an opinion piece for the New York Times elaborating on why he made a number of controversial remarks about Marvel during press for his film The Irishman.
The filmmaker caused a debate about superhero films after comparing Marvel films to theme park rides during an interview with Empire magazine,which was published last month. He stated that he had “tried” to watch movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe but felt they are “not cinema”.
Rather than shy away from the furore his comments caused, including backlash from cast members and crew who have worked on Marvel films, Scorsese doubled down on his criticism and expanded it to include the entire film industry.
“Many franchise films are made by people of considerable talent and artistry,” he wrote. ”The fact that the films themselves don’t interest me is a matter of personal taste and temperament. I know that if I were younger, if I’d come of age at a later time, I might have been excited by these pictures and maybe even wanted to make one myself.”
He said that Marvel films “are everything that the films of Paul Thomas Anderson or Claire Denis or Spike Lee or Ari Aster or Kathryn Bigelow or Wes Anderson are not,” adding: “When I watch a movie by any of those filmmakers, I know I’m going to see something absolutely new and be taken to unexpected and maybe even unnameable areas of experience.”
Scorsese, who acknowledged that his new film The Irishman will be released on Netflix, said it’s “a perilous time in film exhibition” and stated: “I don’t know a single filmmaker who doesn’t want to design films for the big screen, to be projected before audiences in theatres.”
He also said that films by Alfred Hitchcock could also be compared to theme park rides, but argued that people don’t consider them classics because of their set-pieces.
“They would be nothing more than a succession of dynamic and elegant compositions and cuts without the painful emotions at the centre of the story or the absolute.”
Scorsese's article has been shared by many on Twitter, with one user writing: "It's genuinely thrilling, and oddly moving, to read an authority figure articulate in no uncertain terms the anxieties shared by just about everyone I know."
The Irishman will be available to stream on Netflix from 28 November after a theatrical run that begins on 8 November.
