Martin Scorsese‘s sudden social media fame was not by his own doing. A day before he turns 81, Scorsese has revealed that he felt bamboozled — in the most loving way — by his 24-year-old daughter, Francesca, into becoming a TikTok star.
In recent weeks, the filmmaker has appeared in several now-viral videos with his daughter, where he’s been seen learning the definition of “simp” and unwittingly ranking movies, much to the delight of millions. “I was tricked into [TikTok],” Scorsese told the Los Angeles Times. “That was a trick. I didn’t know those things go viral. They say ‘viral.’ I didn’t know.”
Scorsese explained that he’s often working on something at home in his PJs when Francesca shows up with her phone and starts her inquisitions. So when he was making a bracket out of Wonder Woman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or Birdman and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, he had no idea anyone would ever see it. “That I didn’t know was going to go up,” Scorsese told the Times. “I was just doing it in the other room with her. I don’t know what they’re going to do. They always have those iPhone cameras in their hands. You’re not aware. I honestly did not know she was going to post it…. They use the words ‘post it,’ right?”
He added that he feels ambivalent about how he ended up choosing 2001: A Space Odyssey as his favorite. “Yes, we started yelling, ‘Yay. 2001!’” he said. “Somehow, we chose that. Am I choosing the poster, or am I choosing the film?” (Incidentally, when the Times queried him on why he felt cold about The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, he said he prefers Sergio Leone’s other brilliant spaghetti western, Once Upon a Time in the West.)
All that said, he was complimentary of his daughter’s cinematography. “I will say that my daughter has a good eye,” he said.
Also new to Scorsese: electronic mail. “I’ve only begun this year to read emails,” he told The Associated Press. “Emails, they scare me. It says ‘CC’ and there are a thousand names. Who are these people? … I’m saying, ‘Wait a minute, is this like a personal email?’ What does that mean? And then what really gets me in the email, the system, is that you don’t know where you’re supposed to … respond. There’s all this hieroglyphics all over it. So I don’t know where to read.”
Now, don’t get him started on emojis.
