Several weeks ago a war began that is apparently still raging. Director Martin Scorsese, the man behind some of the greatest films in the history of the art form, made some negative comments about Marvel movies and everybody sort of lost their grip. Unfortunately, it seems like nobody, on either side of the argument, can let things go.
Two days ago Martin Scorsese's The Irishman made it's long anticipated Netflix debut and everybody who had three and a half hours free on a Wednesday (read: not people with 2-year-olds) jumped right into it. One of those people was director Josh Trank, who added fuel to the Scorsese vs. Marvel fire with a tweet that received such massive backlash, he has since deleted it. Here's the original text.
Watching the Irishman. The first 5 minutes have more humanity and truth and cinematic intrigue than the running length of every single Marvel movie combined ahahahahahahahaha. Sorry, facts. PS: Not sorry.
Clearly, Josh Trank's tweet was meant specifically to draw the ire of those who were upset by Martin Scorsese's original comments, and it appears that he succeeded. Trank could have simply said The Irishman was a great movie and left it at that. That's not exactly a controversial opinion. Pretty much everybody agrees the film is great and some are calling it Martin Scorsese's best work ever.
However, by including Marvel in the comment, Josh Trank, who knows a thing or two about superhero movies, essentially picked a side in a battle that won't just go the hell away, and so those that are keeping it alive on the Marvel side, jumped all over it. While Trank may have been trying to get a rise out of people, it seems it may have been a bit more than he anticipated. Rather than engaging with the attackers, or even simply ignoring them, he deleted the tweet that caused the uproar.
As a test balloon, this entire experience proves that people still aren't over this whole Scorsese/Marvel thing. Even after the director wrote an op-ed in the bloody New York TImes in which he more deeply explained his feelings on Marvel's films, in a way that's pretty hard to argue with, there are still people with very serious opinions on this that they feel they need to express.
It's already beginning to feel like this is going to become one of those exhausting conversations online that will never end. It may die down for a while, after The Irishman has run its course in public, though, if the movie views for awards, as many expect it will, it could be March before we get there.
Then, in two or three years when Martin Scorsese makes another movie, it will all be brought up again. I seriously hope I'm wrong about this. Hopefully, we can all agree that lots of movies great, lots of movies have problems, we can all love movies that have problems, and everybody can have different opinions on all of that.
