Hey, folks. Happy Friday. We’re back with more “superheroes aren’t cinema” talk. The Martin Scorsese vs. Marvel thing seemed like it was recently put to bed with a pretty great NYTimes op-ed that the filmmaker penned, further explaining his feelings about the superhero film genre, and franchises, in general. But there’s one more person that would like to chime in, and in the case of Chadwick Boseman, he makes some pretty interesting points, defending superhero films and, specifically, “Black Panther.”
Speaking to BBC radio, Boseman was asked about the whole debate over whether or not superhero films are “cinema” or if they’re just glorified “theme park rides.” And as the star of Marvel Studios’ first Best Picture Oscar-nominated film, not only does the actor defend his film but gives a couple of reasons why he thinks Scorsese is speaking out.
The first argument is that the timing of this discussion is awfully important to consider.
“I have to respect his opinion because he’s a genius at what he does. At the same time you’ve got to think about when he’s saying it,” said Boseman. “He’s saying it when he’s possibly campaigning for an award.”
He continued, “He’s saying it at a time when he’s making a Netflix movie, so that’s how eyes get on his film and it’s not going to be in the cinemas. It’s not going to be seen the best way. So, he is speaking to the time period. He is speaking also to his advantage…I did the first, you know, the superhero movie that was nominated for a [Best Picture] Oscar. I’m secure in that.”
This is a comment that probably hits close to home for Scorsese. Now, it doesn’t appear that the filmmaker is somehow trying to knock other films down to prop up his own, but it is interesting that in a world where Netflix films aren’t seemingly given a fair shake come awards time, Scorsese is trying to take down other films for not being “cinema.” Some have said (Steven Spielberg included) that Netflix films are glorified TV movies.
READ MORE: Steven Spielberg Thinks Netflix Films Are ‘TV Movies’ And Shouldn’t Compete For Oscars
But for his second argument, Boseman brings up the fact that “Black Panther” had a lot of the qualifications that Scorsese has been using for real cinema. It’s just that the filmmaker isn’t the target audience.
“The mystery that Scorsese is talking about, it’s in ‘Black Panther.’ And I think he funny thing about it is if he saw ‘Black Panther,’ he didn’t get that. He didn’t get that there was this feeling of being unsure. There was this feeling of not knowing what was gonna happy that Black people feel. Cause we never had a superhero like this before.
He added, “We thought that they, you know, white people will kill us off. So it’s a possibility that we could be gone. So we felt that angst, we felt that thing that you would feel from cinema when we watched it. Maybe Scorsese didn’t get that when he watched it. That’s cultural. Maybe it’s generational. I don’t know, but I’m secure in what we did, you know?”
Look, this debate has been going on for a long time now and is definitely getting a bit stale. However, in a world where social media seems to be going back and forth with very little actual discussion, Boseman does offer some points that haven’t really been brought up yet.
In a couple of weeks we'll have @chadwickboseman on the show talking about his new film, @21BridgesMovie. @simonmayo took the opportunity to ask him his thoughts on Martin Scorsese's recent comments on Marvel films.
???? Hear the full chat with Chadwick in a couple of week's time. pic.twitter.com/CrbzYxDsxo
— Wittertainment from 3pm Friday with Simon and Mark (@wittertainment) November 8, 2019