KUALA LUMPUR: Veteran director Martin Scorsese has stood by his recent comment which compared Marvel films to "theme parks."
The Hollywood Reporter reported yesterday that Scorsese, 76, reiterated his earlier statement that Marvel films were "not cinema" at a press conference to promote his latest film The Irishman at the on-going BFI London Film Festival in London, the United Kingdom.
“It's not cinema, it’s something else," said Scorsese. "We shouldn’t be invaded by it. We need cinemas to step up and show films that are narrative films."
Scorsese's comments echoed his statement on Oct 12 in London, where he claimed that cinemas were "all being taken over by theme park films".
“Theatres have become amusement parks. That is all fine and good but don’t invade everything else in that sense," he said. "That is fine and good for those who enjoy that type of film and, by the way, knowing what goes into them now, I admire what they do. It’s not my kind of thing, it simply is not. It’s creating another kind of audience that thinks cinema is that."
Scorsese, a filmmaker for five decades, has received an AFI Life Achievement Award, an Academy Award, a Palme d'Or, a Cannes Film Festival Best Director Award, Golden Globes, and Directors Guild of America Awards.
His best known films include Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), Shutter Island (2010) and The Departed (2006). Two of his best known collaborators are actors Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.