Chadwick Boseman says Martin Scorsese ‘didn’t get’ what black people saw in ‘Black Panther’
Chadwick Boseman finally got his turn to respond to Martin Scorsese’s thoughts on Marvel movies, suggesting that if Scorsese saw “Black Panther,” he “didn’t get” what many black people around the world saw in the film.
The Civil War between Marvel vs. Auteurs is still very much a thing over a month later, with even Marvel chief Kevin Feige feeling the need to weigh in over the weekend after Scorsese doubled and tripled down in saying that Marvel movies were “not cinema.”
In a radio interview with BBC 5 Live in the U.K. (via The Independent), Boseman took pride in knowing he starred in the first superhero movie nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars in “Black Panther.” While Scorsese argued that superhero movies lack stakes or the emotional conflict we generally see in cinema, Boseman argues all those qualities are in “Black Panther” for an audience who would recognize it.
“The mystery that Scorsese’s talking about, it’s in ‘Black Panther.’ And I think the funny thing about it is, maybe if he saw ‘Black Panther,’ he didn’t get that,” Boseman said. “He didn’t get that there was this feeling of being unsure, there was this feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen, because we never had a superhero like this before. We thought that white people will kill us off. So it’s a possibility that we could be gone. So we felt that angst. We felt that angst that you would feel from cinema when you watched it. That’s cultural. Maybe it’s generational. I don’t know. But I’m secure in what we did, so his statements don’t really bother me.”
Boseman, who stars in the thriller “21 Bridges,” said he respects Scorsese’s opinion and that “he’s a genius at what he does,” but chided Scorsese for making the comments at a time when he’s promoting his movie “The Irishman” as a way to generate awards buzz and draw people to the cinema.
Scorsese wrote what is effectively his last word on the subject in an op-ed for the New York Times, clarifying his positions on why in an interview he compared the emotions felt in Marvel movies to “theme parks” and said “nothing is at risk.”
