Academy Award-winning movie director Martin Scorsese is once again making his feelings about comic book and franchise movies clear.
The 80-year-old Hollywood mainstay shared his views during a recent cover profile for GQ magazine. Scorsese came down hard on the genre and went as far as urging other industry professionals to join him in rebelling against them.
“The danger there is what it’s doing to our culture. Because there are going to be generations now that think movies are only those — that’s what movies are,” the legendary director said.
“They already think that. Which means that we have to then fight back stronger. And it’s got to come from the grassroots level.”
Scorsese continued, saying, “It’s gotta come from the filmmakers themselves. And you’ll have, you know, the Safdie brothers, and you’ll have Chris Nolan, you know what I mean? And hit ’em from all sides. Hit ’em from all sides, and don’t give up. Let’s see what you got. Go out there and do it. Go reinvent. Don’t complain about it. But it’s true, because we’ve got to save cinema.”
He added, “I do think that the manufactured content isn’t really cinema,” before backtracking a little. “No, I don’t want to say it,” Scorsese went on. “But what I mean is that, it’s manufactured content. It’s almost like AI making a film.”
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“And that doesn’t mean that you don’t have incredible directors and special effects people doing beautiful artwork,” he said. “But what does it mean? What do these films, what will it give you? Aside from a kind of consummation of something and then eliminating it from your mind, your whole body, you know? So what is it giving you?”
The “Goodfellas” director said he’s not opposed to technology as a whole, citing IMAX and 3D as innovative ways to enhance filmmaking. But he still has no love for the comic book genre.
“I’m looking forward to new ways,” he said. “You gotta say something with a movie. Otherwise, what’s the point of making it? You’ve got to be saying something.”
Scorsese got into hot water with Marvel fans in 2019 when he compared superhero films to “theme parks” during an interview with Empire magazine.
“I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema,” the director said at the time. “Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”