Emmys 2011: Martin Scorsese compares new prize to Oscar
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Now that Martin Scorsese has both an Emmy and an Oscar under his belt, which prize does he consider more gratifying?
“I must say, this is something I really never dreamed of,” Scorsese told reporters backstage of his Emmy win for directing HBO’s period drama series “Boardwalk Empire.” “It’s a different medium in a way, although we approached ‘Boardwalk Empire’ as a film — a very long film. It’s just as exciting [as the Oscar win].”
Scorsese won his first Academy Award back in 2007 for directing “The Departed,” the crime drama loosely based on the life of Whitey Bulger. Asked if when he made the film he ever imagined that the mobster would ever be caught, Scorsese replied: “No. Absolutely not,” he said, beginning to chuckle. “I really didn’t. Who knew? He’s in California. Surprising, eh?”
The filmmaker said he was intrigued by “Boardwalk” because it allowed him the opportunity to develop characters over a longer period of time.
“It was almost like the way Victorian novels were written. They were serialized. Dickens wrote that way,” he explained. “We had always hoped in the ‘60s when films started to be made for television that long-form films were going to be created for the medium, and it didn’t really work out that way. I think you really have an opportunity here now, and I can see it even more so than what is possible in independent cinema.”
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— Amy Kaufman