Thor: Love and Thunder star Natalie Portman was recently in attendance at the 6th annual Los Angeles Dance Project Gala where she took a moment to respond to Martin Scorsese’s recent claim that the Marvel movies don’t qualify as cinema.
The legendary director’s comments managed to cause quite a stir in the MCU fandom, especially after the filmmaker doubled down on his stance at a subsequent event supporting his new feature The Irishman. Already, the likes of Robert Downey Jr. and Love and Thunder helmsman Taika Waititi have weighed in on Scorsese’s remarks, and now Portman has shared her thoughts with The Hollywood Reporter, arguing that “there’s room for all types of cinema” and “there’s not one way to make art.”
The Jane Foster actress went on to suggest that the MCU movies provide valuable escapism for the filmgoing public:
“I think that Marvel films are so popular because they’re really entertaining and people desire entertainment when they have their special time after work, after dealing with their hardships in real life.”
No doubt the debate over the MCU’s validity as art will continue for a while yet, especially now that Francis Ford Coppola has weighed in on the matter with comments that make Scorsese’s criticisms seem almost tame by comparison. Speaking to the French press over the weekend, the Godfather director denounced the Marvel franchise as “despicable” and “the same movie over and over again.”
Nonetheless, the superhero saga continues. And while Portman herself has had some criticisms of her own about her experience working on 2013’s Thor: The Dark World, the actress will be coming back in a big way with the release of Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5th, 2021. In the meantime, you might want to check out Scorsese’s The Irishman when it hits theaters on November 1st of this year, because hey, it’s still okay to like both.