Film Martin Scorsese - Marvel movies are 'not cinema'
- Thread starter Sweet Square
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There are definitely movies in the MCU that are inconsequential filler that might only be "memorable" for a post credit scene or a mention of a character yet to appear but outside those misses Marvel have done a good job of having an overarching story thats run through 20+ movies and multiple tv shows and you need to have those hooks to keep people interested and to keep the story ticking over.
Ultimately though, MCU is to Film as Comics are to serious literature. You'll have some which will be accepted on merit (The Dark Knight as a film versus Watchmen as a graphic novel for example) but overall the media is designed to be a thrill ride like Scorsese says.
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That’s a good analogy actually. Because even the finest graphic novel ever written doesn’t compare to classic works of literature. Which is not to say that it’s not a high quality/interesting piece of art. It just doesn’t really belong in the same category. Which is basically in agreement with the thread title.
Well I've also said I watched the last two movies with full attention, it just started on a treadmill.
I didn't get the point about Lynch?
Finally, some real cinema. I'm sure Martin will agree...
Finally, some real cinema. I'm sure Martin will agree...
Maybe I'm paraphrasing, but did he not call for real people, emotions and stakes?
All the jackass movies should be in the criterion collection.
Modern day 3 stooges.
Modern day 3 stooges.
Didn't want to derail the movie review thread but this post reminds of both scorsese harper's essay
and this video
That resulted in 2000+ comments of frothing nerd rage and "ACKshually...." on Reddit.
I think i find the debate around big dumb action movies more dumb than the dumb action movies. No they're not Casablanca - they're star wars, they're bond movies, they're 90% of the westerns released before them. I don't get the hysteria around them being popular.
Aquaman has chimed in:
No one could have played Iron Man better than RDJ and considering it is what set up and started the MCU as a result, anyone claiming otherwise is an idiot.
Meryl Streep would easily outshine him.
Oh so we're just gonna pretend that Jim Carrey doesn't exist are we?
What a messy piece of text. I still don't get his overall point. Was it a tweet or something?
Yeah grown men (and women) getting worked up about movies produced primarily for children.
I think that is a Sane idea.
That resulted in 2000+ comments of frothing nerd rage and "ACKshually...." on Reddit.
He is right . There is no acting ability at all required in these films. Just a bunch of steroid chewing people who could easily play each other's roles and no one would notice anything different.
It's a bit mad that a lot of people still haven't engaged with Scorsese point. He isn't saying super hero movies are simply bad cinema or that he has yet to see a marvel film which meets his standards, it's that he views them as a different form of media. In the same way the doritos advert playing before you watch spiderman part 10,000 is different.
Robert Downey Jr is a good actor and he could of put in a oscar winning performance as iron man but this isn't what gets people to the cinema. People are going see to the flying costume robot for 90 minutes, thats it. It's like debating how important the artwork is on the nemesis roller coaster at Alton Towers. The first suicide squad is truly terrible and great example of comic books not being cinema(Although thats not to say all comic book films) and yet it still made over $700 million. It really doesn't matter who is directing or acting in these giant spectacles.
There could of been a interesting debate after Scorsese comments about what actually is cinema but instead because we live in a hell world we end up with people calling one of americas greatest directors a boring old man and Aquaman saying it's all opinions dude and do you know global warming is hurting all the fish!
Robert Downey Jr is a good actor and he could of put in a oscar winning performance as iron man but this isn't what gets people to the cinema. People are going see to the flying costume robot for 90 minutes, thats it. It's like debating how important the artwork is on the nemesis roller coaster at Alton Towers. The first suicide squad is truly terrible and great example of comic books not being cinema(Although thats not to say all comic book films) and yet it still made over $700 million. It really doesn't matter who is directing or acting in these giant spectacles.
There could of been a interesting debate after Scorsese comments about what actually is cinema but instead because we live in a hell world we end up with people calling one of americas greatest directors a boring old man and Aquaman saying it's all opinions dude and do you know global warming is hurting all the fish!
@Sweet Square
I think it can be summarized like this:
Marvel = McDonald's.
Scorsese films = an Italian restaurant with surprisingly reasonable prices that is nonetheless run by a master chef.
Both are technically restaurants And whether McDonald's food tastes bad or not is highly subjective.
I think it can be summarized like this:
Marvel = McDonald's.
Scorsese films = an Italian restaurant with surprisingly reasonable prices that is nonetheless run by a master chef.
Both are technically restaurants
And whether McDonald's food tastes bad or not is highly subjective.Of course it had to be Italian.
Of course it had to be Italian.
I wanted to go for a restaurant that serves more "subtle" dishes, like sushi for instance. But then I noticed how wrong it sounds to equate Scorsese with sushi
Also, Scorsese's films aren't really that subtle. I feel that they are made for everyone. There's nothing elitist about his films.
What is cinema then?
I'm kind of enjoying the silly explosions in space cgi fest of recent years. I'm there for the spectacle primarily in most cases. I found the visuals in Intersteller or the new Alien movies or Bladerunner all kind of cinematic and new and interesting. I wasn't especially pushed about anything else in the movie in some cases but i'm glad they were made and financed. Dont get me wrong, i liked the Sunset Limited a lot and found that a great piece of cinema too.
I think it was a throwaway comment on his part and hes become an unwitting figurehead to artisitc snobbery with a side of 'back in my day' basically. I dont see this crisis thats afflicting cinema that Marvel are apparently responsible for. Hollywood has been churning out basic shit for decades, the time to decry summer blockbusters kind of feels done and dusted. Theres still great movies for most tastes being made and produced. Just feels odd to me really. Kind of feels like some genres like horror have never had it so good but they're invalid or irrelevant because there's too many dumb action movies being made.
True, but you can't deny that there has been a drop in original high budget films. There are some directors that still produce high budget originals, like Tarantino, Nolan and Scorsese, but they are few and far between.
I don't think Scorsese was talking about blockbusters, but rather blockbuster brands. People go to watch "the latest Marvel" or the millionth superhero film(which also technically is a brand). The way the general public watch movies has obviously changed. Think about movies like The Matrix or Gladiator. I don't like either of these movies anymore but I loved them as a child/teen. These are original blockbusters that everyone went mad for and talked about for years.
There is something very different about going to watch a movie you know nothing about in advance other than the hype from friends. Not because of the brand, but because the movie itself is good. Sure, you could argue that the actor or the director technically was the "brand" before, but that is still very different. A brand is nothing but a soulless corporation with a bunch of nameless faces creating a hivemind designed to come up with the best way to make money. Directors must also make money, but at least they can enforce their vision onto the movie. You can often tell that "oh, this must be a Tarantino movie" or "this is typical of Scorsese". Marvel movies are characterized by the same superheros being used again and again.
I'm not saying that Marvel movies can't be good. But they clearly represent a different form of cinema. And they(and other companies, to be fair) are dominating the movie industry. Movies like The Matrix and Gladiator are simply not being produced anymore, because they are generally too risky to make. And I think that is a shame.
And it's not just the actors.
If my count is correct, there have been 17 different directors for the 24 MCU films. And I believe more than 30 different writers have been involved as well. Marvel is a machine that churns out movies. It's all about the comic book characters they already have the exclusive rights to.
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Well they couldn't make movies based on characters they don't have the rights to.
I feel like Dune is a good counter to your argument
My impression is that the cgi involved with something like Interstellar is where a lot of the budget seems to go, if your not going through a black hole in your film I'm not sure it requires a big budget. So I'm not sure its a great barometer of the health of the movie industry or artform.
I feel like Marvel has been the exception to the burning wasteland of dead franchises left behind that the rest of the industry have been making, it hasn't been very succesful ultimately in my view. Again it just feels like a battle lost long ago before cinematic universes were an idea. It was trilogy's and then sequel and prequel trilogies before that. I kind of feel Marvel are on borrowed time at this point too. Fatigue is long set in and continuing to release at the standard they've set with new characters would be hard work. I kind of hope Hollywood moves on but have no expectation of it happening. I dont disagree about the lack of originality and the current fixation on nostalgia and familiar imagery is shallow as feck. Bad movies are pretty terrible atm by any eras standards. I just think theres enough notable exceptions like Dune above or Once Upon a Time in America for it to be in good hands going forward.
Like i think its never been cheaper to throw Pesci, De Niro and Pacino in a room together for 2 hours and have something low key and thoughtful (ignoring actors contracts i guess). In terms of the quality and price of camera's accessability feels like its in a good place. And if an indie director like Taiki Waititi goes and makes a few goofy thor movies then he can spend the rest of his career doing whatever weird, obscure, crazy stuff he wants afterwards and I'm pretty sure Netflix will take literally anything so hes sorted for publishing for the rest of his life.
Cinema is fine
Thats not a Marvel thing though is it? Feels more a sign of where cinema is at this moment in time. Matrix blew me away because I want into watching it without much of a clue about what it was about, and then Trinity kicked a chair, jumped up in slow motion and we were blown away. No films sneak onto the screen now. Last one off the top of my head is John Wick that just seemed to appear from nowhere. And that doesn't feel like it's marvels fault, just a lack of original ideas.
Feels like you need a big name as a director to get an big movie made now if its not part of a franchise, Last Duel and House of Gucci being examples from Ridley Scott, Tenet last year
Horror movies are crap nowadays. Absolute crap. Film-makers forgot how to make them.
Shit dialogues, shit CGI, shit plot and shit actors.
Insidious, Annabelle, The Nun, IT (the remake) and all those modern crappy movies, are to horror, what the Marvel movies are to action movies.
Ok and what about the witch, hereditary, midsummer, mother and get out? I mean i get them not being to your taste but from a high art perspective they're obviously quite strong.
Under the shadow, Let the right one in and a girl walks home alone at night are all strong too.
I enjoyed those (haven't seen "Mother!", yet). A breath of fresh air that kinda proves the point in my opinion. They are on the right path for sure. "The Descent" is another one that can be recommended.
It's not the best example, imo. Dune is based on a hugely popular and famous book and they've already made a film and a TV series based on the source material in the last 37 years. It's more like a reboot/remake.
I'm not sure if this is correct. A-list actors, directors and writers are really expensive. Building sets, blocking off entire streets and staging large battle scenes etc will all be very expensive. Of course it's going to be more expensive if you throw in a lot of CGI on top of this, but it's not the only way to make an expensive film.
It depends on who you ask. There's still arthouse, foreign film and Oscar bait, of course. But we have (almost) lost something, and that is the grey area between high art and pure popcorn coming out of Hollywood. The beauty of this grey area is that while most of the films are mediocre and hardly any better than popcorn films, you occasionally get something original that blows everyone away. And there is something quite different about that. I just can't imagine a movie like The Matrix being released today.
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Singling out Marvel is wrong, yeah. But they are the biggest culprits. And if I'm not mistaken, their newer films often serve as commercials for upcoming films by adding small teasers or introducing "new" characters? If so, then that must be pretty unique to Marvel?
It's not a lack of original ideas, but rather a lack of investment. Why take a risk on something original when using the same formula over and over again is a guaranteed success? Like someone else said above: Suicide Squad was a train-wreck to the point where it's become a meme, but it still made a lot of money.
Hollywood has always made shameless and unnecessary sequels(for instance) just to make bank on a beloved title or character. But they probably overestimated the need to make original stuff. The mainstream quite clearly don't need it. And they may not actual want it either.
According to Scorsese it's this
I think with the movies mentioned above there's at least some attempt to put forward the ideas Scorsese mentions in the NYT article. While Scott was clearly high on his own supply while making those Aliens film, they were his films and his attempt to tell a story(The same can be said of Intersteller). Imo Bladerunner 2049 bombing at the box office, shows why it's not similar to the Marvel films. That isn't to say there isn't a dystopian element around these films. The fact Denis Villeneuve needs to dress up his movies in 80's nostalgia just to get funding is pretty depressing.
To see watch any film that isn't a franchise in the cinema I have to go to a small arthouse cinema. A giant director like Tarantino had to go public in order for his films to be shown at his favourite cinema. Giants corporations like Disney are simply book up entire cinemas and stopping the ability to see other films. These's franchise films are like the blob, consuming everything in slight. They also end up destroying new directors, as it's a lottery win for the inexperienced director terms of a pay day but they have little say on the creative process. Which means the Disney movies all look the same, sound the same and they all have the same mind numbingly dull liberal world view(Some credit has to go to Zack Synder for being a insane muscle loving libertarian). The end result is production line for movies.
Agree that there are still great movies still getting made today and that Hollywood has always made ton of shite and will continue to after Super hero movies but I do think the last decade has easily been the worse(Hopefully these numbers are correct).
Film | Distributor | Year | Gross | |
| 1 | E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial #* | Universal | 1982 | $399.805 M |
| 2 | Return of the Jedi #* | 20th Century Fox | 1983 | $263.837 M |
| 3 | Batman | Warner Bros. | 1989 | $252.101 M |
| 4 | Raiders of the Lost Ark #* | Paramount | 1981 | $245.034 M |
| 5 | Ghostbusters #* | Columbia | 1984 | $238.632 M |
| 6 | Beverly Hills Cop | Paramount | 1984 | $234.760 M |
| 7 | The Empire Strikes Back #* | 20th Century Fox | 1980 | $222.674 M |
| 8 | Back to the Future * | Universal | 1985 | $210.610 M |
| 9 | Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade | Paramount | 1989 | $197.172 M |
| 10 | Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom |
Film | Distributor | Year | Gross | |
| 1 | Titanic * | Paramount | 1997 | $600.788 M |
| 2 | Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace * | 20th Century Fox | 1999 | $431.088 M |
| 3 | Jurassic Park #* | Universal | 1993 | $357.068 M |
| 4 | Forrest Gump #* | Paramount | 1994 | $329.694 M |
| 5 | The Lion King * | Disney | 1994 | $312.856 M |
| 6 | Independence Day | 20th Century Fox | 1996 | $306.169 M |
| 7 | The Sixth Sense | Disney | 1999 | $293.506 M |
| 8 | Home Alone | 20th Century Fox | 1990 | $285.761 M |
| 9 | Men in Black | Sony / Columbia | 1997 | $250.691 M |
| 10 | Toy Story 2 * | Disney | 1999 |
Film | Distributor | Year | Gross | |
| 1 | Avatar * | 20th Century Fox | 2009 | $749.766 M |
| 2 | The Dark Knight * | Warner Bros. | 2008 | $533.345 M |
| 3 | Shrek 2 | DreamWorks | 2004 | $441.226 M |
| 4 | Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest | Disney | 2006 | $423.316 M |
| 5 | Spider-Man | Sony / Columbia | 2002 | $407.023 M |
| 6 | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | Paramount / DWorks | 2009 | $402.112 M |
| 7 | Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith | 20th Century Fox | 2005 | $380.271 M |
| 8 | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King * | New Line | 2003 | $377.027 M |
| 9 | Spider-Man 2 | Sony / Columbia | 2004 | $373.586 M |
| 10 | The Passion of the Christ # | Newmarket | 2004 | $370.783 M |
Film | Distributor | Year | Gross | |
| 1 | Star Wars: The Force Awakens | Disney | 2015 | $936.662 M |
| 2 | Avengers: Endgame | Disney | 2019 | $858.373 M |
| 3 | Black Panther | Disney | 2018 | $700.060 M |
| 4 | Avengers: Infinity War | Disney | 2018 | $678.815 M |
| 5 | Jurassic World | Universal | 2015 | $652.271 M |
| 6 | Marvel's The Avengers | Disney | 2012 | $623.358 M |
| 7 | Star Wars: The Last Jedi | Disney | 2017 | $620.181 M |
| 8 | Incredibles 2 | Disney | 2018 | $608.582 M |
| 9 | The Lion King |
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Now I want a documentary where a guy has to watch nothing but marvel movies for a month and then is told to stop for health reasons.@Sweet Square
I think it can be summarized like this:
Marvel = McDonald's.
Scorsese films = an Italian restaurant with surprisingly reasonable prices that is nonetheless run by a master chef.
Both are technically restaurants
Superhero Me
Not these days a lot of movies seem to be inserting post credit scenes or similar as set up for a future movie. Though its a trend that Marvel definitely made popular.
Though I've never really understood the criticism of marvel films being adverts for their next movie. They are a series of interconnected movies in a shared universe so it shouldn't surprise anyone that one of their movies sets up the next one to some extent. Even if at times it is to the detriment of the current movie.
I think it can be boiled down to two reasons:
1. Unless a movie is part of a planned trilogy like LOTR for instance, then the movie itself should be good as a conclusive standalone. When they made The Terminator in the 80's, it was more than good enough as a standalone film. There was not any real need for a Terminator 2, even though that movie arguably is better and does in no way ruin the first film. Marvel is essentially trying to keep people hooked indefinitely. Some of their films feel like long chapters in an ongoing comic book series.
2. It really screams "we have feck you money" when a studio can "predict" the future. Before, when an original blockbuster with sequel potential was released, studios generally wanted to see how well it does before committing to a sequel. Adding a bunch of stuff to an already expensive movie that only makes sense if there's a sequel was probably considered a bad decision. But Marvel are so confident in their success that they can commit to this. It's as if failure isn't even considered to be an option. And in their defence: they are right!
I think it can be boiled down to two reasons:
1. Unless a movie is part of a planned trilogy like LOTR for instance, then the movie itself should be good as a conclusive standalone. When they made The Terminator in the 80's, it was more than good enough as a standalone film. There was not any real need for a Terminator 2, even though that movie arguably is better and does in no way ruin the first film. Marvel is essentially trying to keep people hooked indefinitely. Some of their films feel like long chapters in an ongoing comic book series.
2. It really screams "we have feck you money" when a studio can "predict" the future. Before, when an original blockbuster with sequel potential was released, studios generally wanted to see how well it does before committing to a sequel. Adding a bunch of stuff to an already expensive movie that only makes sense if there's a sequel was probably considered a bad decision. But Marvel are so confident in their success that they can commit to this. It's as if failure isn't even considered to be an option. And in their defence: they are right!
Well to be fair they are part of a planned ongoing series of movies. While shared universes are not a thing Marvel invented they were probably the first to start out with a plan on having an ongoing story over 10+ movies.
On the second point it might seem like that now but before the Disney buy out Marvel basically risked everything trying to start a shared universe of movies. I think they had released 4-5 movies before Disney bought them. I remember reading they financed the first movies through a $500-600m loan using all their rights as collateral. Had those first few bombed Marvel Studios probably wouldn't be a thing anymore, all their characters would be owned by other studios.
And while Marvels movies are obviously not to the tastes of everyone other studios with more famous characters like WB and Universal have shown that creating a cohesive story over multiple movies that are financially successful enough to warrant it continuing isn't exactly an easy task. Yeah with this approach no doubt the directors lose some independence and creativity being more like the Directors on a TV show where they come in and are given a general outline of what is expected of them. I've never read comics myself but for the medium of comic book characters I imagine it's the best approach for bringing them to the big screen as that's how the comics were so successful. Presenting a group of characters in an ongoing story.
To an extent these Marvel movies are something new, they are more like a massive budget TV show dressed up as Movies. So I can see where Scorsese is coming from to be honest, I don't think he meant his comments to be as critical as a lot of people interpreted them.
Bingo.
Whether that is a bad thing is purely subjective. But no one can deny that it's very different from how movies used to be. People aren't primarily drawn in by the directors, actors or word of mouth. In some cases they aren't even drawn in the comic book characters themselves. I doubt most people were hyped about Ant Man or Thor. The Marvel logo is the many cases the main draw. It's what makes people go from "what is this bullshit" to "oh, it's Marvel! Then it's worth a shot!".
The same could of course be said of Disney and Pixar animations, but the difference is that most of these films are stand-alone films with the odd sequel(that often also works well as a stand-alone).
It's the nature of the internet these days. People need to freak out over something. Any statement will be twisted into the most mean-spirited interpretation possible.