Martin Scorsese Tripled Down On His Marvel Comments And Rebuffed A Question About Female Characters

Over the weekend, The Irishman director Martin Scorsese’s recent suggestion that Marvel movies are “not cinema” and more like theme parks resurfaced thanks to fellow filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. And while Scorsese had already revisited the subject thanks to its incessant buzz, he did so again at the Rome Film Fest on Monday, where The Hollywood Reporter and other entertainment journalists caught up with him during a rather heated discussion of young filmgoers and his movies’ apparent lack of female characters.

Per THR, Scorsese initially explained “the key” to his previous comments was his hope “for theaters to continue to support narrative cinema of this kind.” (That is, “narrative cinema” like The Irishman.) He added that “the theaters support the films. But right now the theaters seem to be mainly supporting the theme park, amusement park, comic book films. They’re taking over the theaters. I think they can have those films; it’s fine. It’s just that that shouldn’t become what our young people believe is cinema. It just shouldn’t.”

That would have been enough, but Scorsese didn’t stop there. After lamenting how “sad” it was that young people today didn’t know who Jimmy Hoffa was, he kept going:

“This is the world we live in. Our children are, I don’t know what they’re doing with those devices. They perceive reality differently. They perceive even the concept of what history is supposed to be [differently],” continued the director.

“How are they going to know about WWII How are they going to know about Vietnam What do they think of Afghanistan What do they think of all of this They’re perceiving it in bits and pieces. There seems to be no continuity of history.”

If that weren’t enough, Scorsese echoed fellow director Quentin Tarantino — who “snapped” at a reporter’s question about Margot Robbie’s role in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood at the Venice Film Festival — when he was asked about his films’ apparent lack of female characters. “No. That’s not even a valid point,” he said. “If the story doesn’t call for it… It’s a waste of everybody’s time. If the story calls for a female character lead, why not”