Martin Scorsese is now at the Rome Film Festival, where his Netflix gangster epic “The Irishman” is being screened as the centerpiece selection of the festival. During a press conference (via THR/Kinótico), an Italian journalist asked Scorsese why his filmography is mostly dominated by male characters and how female stories are sparse in his catalog. Scorsese immediately responded by calling the question invalid:
“No. That’s not even a valid point. That’s not valid,” Scorsese said. “I can’t… That goes back to 1970. That’s a question that I’ve had for so many years. Am I supposed to? 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?”
I can barely stand covering this side of Scorsese’s movies, the lack of a female perspective, because it’s just an ignorant argument. They say you write and create what you know most about and Scorsese has been doing that for almost 50 years. Almost all of his films are personal statements about what fascinates him most (religion, crime, America).
It’s not like he hasn’t tackled female characters either. “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” is a feminist classic. Michelle Pfeiffer practically stole “The Age of Innocence” from Daniel Day-Lewis. Sharon Stone was never better than in “Casino.” How about Lorraine Bracco in “Goodfellas”?
Meanwhile, Scorsese continued throwing a weight of legitimacy behind his Marvel criticisms of the past few weeks. “The key that I’m hoping for is for theaters to continue to support narrative cinema of this kind,” said Scorsese, naming off filmmakers such as Noah Baumbach, Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson.
”The Irishman” is opening in select theaters on November 1st before launching November 27th on Netflix.