"I've seen clips of it. It's fine."
To be fair to Martin Scorsese, when you're at his age and you've got his work schedule, odds are you don't really get a minute to yourself to enjoy a movie the way the rest of us do.
More to the point, if the movie directly lifts off your own work, the question is then why you'd even bother watching it in the first place. In a sprawling, no-holds-barred interview with the New York Times, Scorsese rattled through a number of topics - including his eventual retirement - and whether he's actually seen 'Joker', which is now a contender in a few of the same category as his own movie, 'The Irishman'.
"I saw clips of it... I know it. So it’s like, why do I need to? I get it. It’s fine." Funnily enough, Scorsese was at one time all set to help produce 'Joker' and eventually passed on it. Instead, his production company's president - Emma Tillinger Koskoff - ended up helping produce the movie in his place.
So, why not go see 'Joker' then? Well, the interview essentially puts it that Scorsese still hasn't seen every movie out this year, but did point to Bong Joon Ho's 'Parasite' as a favourite of the year. Not only that, given his comments on the Marvel machine and all that it entailed, he's probably trying to be as diplomatic as he can be without sending half the internet into a frenzy.
Or maybe he just doesn't care and is happy to admit that he's only seen bits and pieces of 'Joker' and that's enough for him? Who knows.