Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel discusses in an interview with The Film Stage how Marvel approached her to direct 2021’s Black Widow and how she turned down their offer. Additionally, she discusses how she hadn’t seen the final product due to her own misgivings about Marvel films in general.
In a 2018 interview with IndieWire, she mentioned how she was approached by Marvel via email to attend a meeting during their 10th Anniversary Reunion and discuss the upcoming project. During the meeting, she and plenty of other female directors were rounded up in order to find “someone who is mostly concerned with the development of Scarlett Johansson’s character.” While this sounded good on the surface, Martel was put off by Marvel’s proposal that she be more focused on Johansson’s character while they take care of the action scenes themselves. Martel was interested in talking with Johannson and get a better idea for her character, but she wanted to work on the action sequences as well. As a result of this condition, Martel passed on the project, and directing duties went to Berlin Syndrome director Cate Shortland.
When asked about her thoughts when rejecting Black Widow, Martle mused that most film studios seem to believe that directing action sequences is more of a man’s job than anything else. If she had been given the opportunity to work on this film, she proposed that she would “change the special effects because there’s so many laser lights,” which she considers unbearable.
Even today, Martel decries the sound in Marvel films, calling them ugly and “in very poor taste.” Martel specifically focused on the Foley connected to the effects and the soundtrack itself, referencing her older interview on how it was hard on the ears to watch a Marvel film.
Well-renowned for her knowledge of sound in film, Lucrecia Martel is currently working on a documentary about Indigenous Leader Javier Chocobar.
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