Oh Marty! Clearly, Martin Scorsese does not give a shit about pissing off Marvel fans, because after saying their films are “not cinema” and a “theme park” the legendary director doubled-down.
Speaking on a panel at BFI London Film Festival, Scorsese went even further than before, actually encouraging action to stop the Marvel Studios juggernaut. His words go beyond mere insult, which makes me wonder if he’s going to do anything about the situation himself…
“The value of a film that is like a theme park film, for example, the Marvel pictures, where the theaters become amusement parks,” he said. “That’s a different experience. It’s not cinema. It’s something else. Whether you go for it or not, it is something else. We shouldn’t be invaded by it.”
“And so, that’s a big issue. And we need the theater owners to step up for that. To allow theaters to show films that are narrative films. A narrative film can be one long take for three hours, you know? It doesn’t have to be a conventional beginning, middle, and end.”
Does anybody think Scorsese has bought a ticket to a Marvel movie and experienced this “theme park” of which he speaks? Probably not. He sounds really bitter and kinda snobby, maybe because his film The Irishman is only going to be in theaters a couple of weeks before hitting Netflix. The theater experience used to be his to command, but the landscape is different now and people haven’t paid for a Scorsese film since The Wolf of Wall Street in 2013.
Anyway, Scorsese’s doing himself no favors. Those who support what he’s saying are going to love this, while those who are pissed will continue to be pissed. This probably isn’t over as Scorsese has a lot of press left to do for The Irishman and no interviewer is going to let it go.
