This year Ethan Hawke was inducted into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, albeit by way of a TV show. He’s the baddie in Moon Knight, opposite Oscar Isaac’s DID-suffering hero, and he’s said he had a great time working for the biggest comic book motion picture creator in town. That freaky first episode opening? His idea, and he was shocked that they okayed it. But that won’t stop him from defending the great auteurs who’ve come for his newish bosses.
In a new interview with IndieWire, Hawke waddled into perhaps the most volatile conversation in the Marvel-verse — namely that legendary filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola are simply not fans. It’s hard to believe it’s been 2 ½ years since the former called today’s comic book movies “not cinema.” And while fans like Kevin Smith are still angry about it, Hawke tried to thread the needle between defending his idols and not, you know, getting fired.
“If people like Scorsese and Coppola don’t come out to tell their truth about how there are more important things than making money, who’s going to?” Hawke declared. He said there “needs to be somebody in the community saying, ‘Hey, everybody, this is not Fanny and Alexander. If you keep reviewing these movies that are basically made for 14-year-olds like they’re Fanny and Alexander or Winter Light, then who the hell’s going to get to make Winter Light?” he said, referring to two of Bergman’s most cherished works.
“I appreciate the elder statesmen of the community reminding people not to set the bar too low,” he concluded, adding, “I know it makes some people think they’re stuck up, but they’re not stuck up.”
Hawks was frank about Kevin Feige and company, too. “That group of people is extremely actor-friendly — they might not be director-friendly, and that could be what Scorsese and Coppola are talking about,” Hawke said. (It’s true, some directors they’ve courted — including the brilliant Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel — balked when they discovered they wouldn’t actually be directing their own action scenes.)
So there! It’s a bold take, especially coming from one of the many, many actors on the Marvel payroll. May it at least cut down on people wielding pitchforks at the makers of Goodfellas and The Godfather.
(Via IndieWire)