Martin Scorsese Explains Why You'll Never See A "Director's Cut" Of One Of His Films

Martin Scorsese's movies are typically long – his latest, The Irishman, clocks in at 209 minutes. But some people (like me!) wouldn't mind seeing even longer cuts of Scorsese's films. Director's cuts, if you will. But according to the man himself, you're never going to see a Martin Scorsese director's cut – at least not in the traditional sense. As Scorsese tells it, every theatrical cut he's ever released counts as his "director's cut," and it's the same for movies from other directors as well – unless there was some sort of studio interference.

In a new interview with EW, someone took a break from asking Martin Scorsese for his opinion on Marvel movies long enough to ask him about director's cut. Specifically if we'd ever get a director's cut of on his films. Scorsese's reply is that technically speaking, we already have seen a Scorsese director's cut:

"The director's cut is the film that's released — unless it's been taken away from the director by the financiers and the studio. [The director] has made their decisions based on the process they were going through at the time. There could be money issues, there could be somebody that dies [while making] the picture, the studio changes heads and the next person hates it. Sometimes [a director says], 'I wish I could go back and put it all back together.' All these things happen. But I do think once the die is cast, you have to go with it and say, 'That's the movie I made under those circumstances.'"

In other words, Scorsese has been lucky enough to not have much interference with his movies, and is thus mostly content with what ended up in the theater. However, Scorsese does go on to add that he's not against the idea of director's cuts as a whole, singling out the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid:

"We would have loved to see an extended version of a number of films in the past where scenes were cut out. Now [those scenes were] cut out from the director's cut, not from the rough cut. There's a big difference. [Sometimes to] capitalize on [a film's popularity] and exploit it they say, 'This is the director's cut.' You should take a look at Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. I saw the full version a few days before it opened at a meeting and it was two hours and 20 minutes or so. Then MGM released their version and it was 90 minutes. We all said, 'Oh no, it was a masterpiece,' and wished it could be saved. The editor saved a copy and what you see now is what we saw in that meeting. That is a director's cut."

While I personally would love to see longer cuts of several of Scorsese's movies, I'm also happy to know that he considers his films as they are now to be "director's cuts" and not works that were tampered with.

The Irishman opens in select theaters November 1 and on Netflix November 27.