Martin And Francesca Scorsese Make A Website In Squarespace's Super Bowl Commercial
Martin Scorsese: elder statesman of film, our greatest living director, and surprise TikTok star. The latter classification comes courtesy of Scorsese's daughter Francesca, who has helped turn her famous dad into a viral sensation thanks to several videos in which the elder Scorsese appears befuddled by the modern world. I'm usually averse to these sorts of things and I'll freely admit the viral videos of Scorsese and his daughter are kind of adorable. The filmmaker comes across as a charming old man with sharp comedic timing, and he and his daughter play off each other nicely. Speaking with Vanity Fair, Francesca even indicates that she feels the viral videos helped bring younger audiences to Scorsese's latest picture, "Killers of the Flower Moon." "I feel like it definitely helped," she said, continuing:
"I didn't know that until I think I did an interview, and was told that they called it the Francesca Scorsese Effect, which I was like, "What the hell is that?" And it was because there was a very high percentage of much younger people going to see the film. [46% of opening night moviegoers were under the age of 35.] I didn't really plan on it. Then once our videos started blowing up, I realized that it was actually beneficial in keeping him current with the younger generations. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I think it's definitely helped a little bit in keeping him with fresh eyes."
Now, father and daughter are taking the show on the road and appearing in a Super Bowl commercial for Squarespace. It's pretty darn cute, and you can watch the full ad above.
This website slaps
The commercial opens with Scorsese telling his daughter he's working on making a "short film" — about 30 seconds long. The main character of Scorsese's latest picture happens to be a website (somehow), causing Marty to admit he doesn't really know what a website is. This sets the stage for Francesca to use Squarespace to show her father how to build a site, all while Scorsese talks about extraterrestrials. Sure, it's all an exercise in consumerism, but admit it: it's fun to watch Martin Scorsese do this sort of thing, and he and his daughter work together well. It's an amusing ad, and it will no doubt be cut down into smaller chunks beyond its initial nearly 4-minute runtime.
Martin Scorsese is no stranger to commercials — he's done a few over the years. Click here to see one of my favorites, in which he criticizes his own photography skills while shilling for Amex. As for the Squarespace spot, it's another excuse to showcase Scorsese, and since he's my favorite filmmaker of all time, I'll gladly take it. Give me more Marty, I say! I can't get enough.
As for Scorsese's work outside of commercials, he's currently gearing up to make his next movie, which is based on the life of Jesus. As for his partnership with his daughter, Francesca tells Vanity Fair: "We've started talking about working on other projects together, and he is actually very excited about the TikToks. He's always telling me to get make more with him ... We're writing a book together for A24. We're working on a couple of other things that we're writing and casting, so it's been cool to start working together in a more professional way. And I've always had behind-the-scenes input on some of the stuff that he does."