Martin Scorsese doesn’t watch a lot of television. You can find hundreds upon hundreds of movies he’s recommended, from prestigious old classics like The Red Shoes to goopy, grisly, gothic B-movies like Horror of Dracula, but very few TV shows. Whenever he’s asked about cinema, he can’t wait to expound on decades’ worth of favorites, but whenever he’s asked about television, he tends to shrug it off and move on — you might as well be asking his opinion of Marvel movies.
Scorsese has done some work in television; he directed the pilot episode of Boardwalk Empire, he co-created the ’70s-set rock ‘n’ roll drama Vinyl with Mick Jagger, and he’s made a few documentaries for HBO. But you won’t catch him binging seasons of Friends or rewatching Twin Peaks to look for clues and foreshadowing, because he just can’t get into episodic television the way you or I can. Scorsese couldn’t even get into The Sopranos, one of the most acclaimed TV shows ever made, which was heavily influenced by Scorsese’s own Goodfellas and seems tailor-made for Scorsese himself.
But there are a select few TV shows that Scorsese has publicly expressed his love for, and he has very unexpected taste. The TV shows he enjoys are nothing like the movies he makes. He makes dark, gritty, violent character studies, but all his favorite TV shows are silly, lighthearted comedies. He makes movies about gun-toting vigilantes and murderous mobsters, but he watches TV shows about Catholic schoolkids and petty Hollywood stars.
Curb Your Enthusiasm
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In an interview with The Independent to promote the premiere of Boardwalk Empire, Scorsese was asked why he decided to make the move into television after so many years of shooting movies for the big screen. It was assumed that he’d been converted by The Sopranos, since Boardwalk Empire was a collaboration with Sopranos writer Terence Winter, and it’s essentially a Prohibition-era Sopranos set in Atlantic City. It even has Steve Buscemi, the other Tony from The Sopranos, in the lead role as crooked treasurer Nucky Thompson.
But, surprisingly, Scorsese isn’t a fan of The Sopranos. He couldn’t get into The Sopranos, but Curb Your Enthusiasm opened his eyes to what could be done on TV. He decided to explore the realm of episodic television and long-form storytelling after seeing what Larry David and his merry band of improvisers did on Curb: “I started watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. That is the key one. That is when I realized you could do something on television.”
Curb reinvented the sitcom: it swapped out the rigid multi-camera setup for a vérité-style single-camera shooting style; it swapped out the laugh track for awkward silence; it swapped out meticulously scripted dialogue for looser, scenario-driven improvisation; and it blurred the line between fiction and reality by casting most of its actors as exaggerated versions of themselves. It’s easy to see why this was the show that opened Scorsese’s eyes to the possibilities of television, even if it’s nothing like the television he would ultimately produce.
Scorsese was such a huge fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm that he came on as a guest star and played himself in a couple of episodes in season 3. We saw him directing Larry in a gangster movie, and when he asked for a couple more takes, Larry wondered, “Do you even know what you’re doing?” Only Larry David would have the gall to ask the visionary behind Taxi Driver and Raging Bull if he has any idea what he’s doing on a film set.
Chappelle’s Show
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Scorsese has never publicly declared his love for Chappelle’s Show, but Dave Chappelle declared it for him. On the DVD commentary for Chappelle’s Show‘s second and final season (before Chappelle ducked out and left Hollywood for a few years), Chappelle tells a story about a time he bumped into Scorsese. Scorsese told Chappelle that he was a huge fan of his show, and that his favorite sketch was “The Playa Haters Ball.” That’s how you know he’s a true fan: his favorite sketch is a classic.
Chappelle’s Show is in the running for the title of greatest sketch show ever made. Along with Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Mr. Show with Bob and David, and its own successor Key & Peele, Chappelle’s Show is one of the most inventive, idiosyncratic, consistently hilarious sketch shows out there. There was rarely a weak sketch, and more than a few that rank among the funniest sketches ever filmed. “Mad Real World” was a searing racebent spin on the MTV reality show, and “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories” gave us unforgettable anecdotes about Rick James and Prince.
While most sketch shows cast a wide satirical net, Chappelle’s Show had a specific comedic point of view. Chappelle and his co-creator Neal Brennan examined race relations in America during the Bush era (with one sketch even imagining how the press would be reporting on the War on Terror if Bush was a Black man).
Derry Girls
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After expressing his love for Curb Your Enthusiasm (directly) and Chappelle’s Show (indirectly), Scorsese recommended a third TV comedy: Derry Girls. According to The Guardian, during an on-stage Q&A session, an 80-year-old Scorsese was asked what he’s been watching on TV recently. He said, “I watched, the other night, Derry Girls,” and raised his fist in solidarity with fellow Derry Girls fans who cheered from the crowd.
It’s easy to see why the satire of Derry Girls appealed to Scorsese. He may not be Irish, and he may not have grown up during The Troubles, but he is a lifelong devout Catholic. He’s explored themes of Catholicism and Catholic guilt all throughout his films: Mean Streets opens with Harvey Keitel confessing his sins in church; Silence follows the adventures of two 17th-century Jesuit priests; and The Last Temptation of Christ humanized Jesus himself. Derry Girls explores The Troubles from the Catholic side, following a group of students at an all-girls’ Catholic school, so, naturally, Scorsese could relate.
When the applause following his recommendation died down, Scorsese added, “Those nuns…” Derry Girls revolves around a relatable family dynamic, but the nuns steal the show. Sister Michael is one of Derry Girls‘ funniest characters; she’s every bit as grumpy and mean as Catholics know nuns to be, but she’s not very spiritual; she’s very droll and dry-witted. Anyone would enjoy this character — Siobhán McSweeney gives a hysterical performance — but especially someone who grew up dealing with real nuns.
It’s no surprise that Scorsese isn’t a big TV watcher. He grew up at the cinema, avoiding asthma attacks by watching all-day movie marathons while his friends were playing sports, and he’s been around long enough to remember when TV first came along to make cinema obsolete. He wasn’t swayed by television when it came to replace cinema, he wasn’t swayed by streaming when that came to replace cinema, and he definitely wasn’t swayed by Marvel when that came to replace cinema.
It is interesting that all of Scorsese’s favorite TV shows are lighthearted comedies, because most of his movies are dark dramas. Even his comedies, like After Hours and The King of Comedy and The Wolf of Wall Street, aren’t just straightforward comedies; they’re twisted character studies with some pitch-black humor.
Source: The Independent, The Guardian
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