The Oscar winning director Guillermo del Toro, known more for his work than his opinions, recently came to the defense of fellow director Martin Scorsese after an article from The Critic criticized the Goodfellas director.
The article is titled “Martin Scorsese: rinse and repeat self-indulgence.” The article’s subtitle claims the director has “debased his talent.” And that’s just the title! The article itself is not much nicer. Here are some samples: Scorsese “has never been as great as occasional masterpieces like Goodfellas (1990) tricked us into believing it was.”
The author of the article also says the director is “simply moving the furniture around” with his newer movies. Anyway, you get it. Enter the usually discreet del Toro, who took the unusual route of taking his issues with the article to Twitter. And boy did he.
“I very, very seldom post anything contradictory here- but- the amount of misconceptions, sloppy [inaccuracies] and hostile adjectives not backed by an actual rationale is offensive, cruel and ill-intentioned. This article baited them traffic, but at what cost?”
That’s not all. Del Toro then says that he would happily die to make Scorsese live longer — a little dramatic for sure, but this is the director of The Shape of Water, after all.
“To be clear: If God offered to shorten my life to lengthen Scorsese’s — I’d take the deal. This man understands Cinema. Defends Cinema. Embodies Cinema. He has always fought for the art of it and against the industry of it. He has never been tamed and has a firm place in history.”
He also slams the article by claiming that he doesn’t slam articles, which is a delightful bit of double speak that would make any politician proud.
“I don’t shit talk, I don’t ‘slam’ and I support — but if anyone thinks that WWS is ‘…achingly slow’ or that Raging Bull is ‘…bad filmmaking’ and that ‘No studio dares to utter the word ‘no’ to him.’ Film language discussions, history lessons and research may be needed.”
Del Toro was not alone in his criticism. Former Daily Show writer Dan McCoy also took a shot at the magazine article.
“If you paid nothing for this article, you paid too much. It’s not only that I think it’s a bad assessment — criticism can be edifying even when you disagree — it’s that the writing fails to make any kind of cogent point and the (very little) supporting ‘evidence’ is laughable.”
Writer Patrick Marlborough, who goes by the Twitter handle Bang Bang Bart, said “If anyone but w 14 yo old virgin wrote this they should sincerely question every decision they’ve ever made in their life especially the one to write film criticism.”
The Critic, for its part, has tweeted out the article at least three times.
