Film Martin Scorsese - Marvel movies are 'not cinema'

Vidyoyo said:
I've just had a look at his filmography and it's only Denzel Washington and Selma Hayek who seem to be non-white actors he's worked with in the past 20 years.
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Vidyoyo said:
@Sweet Square who's that? it's highly likely i missed something based on how little effort i put into that research
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Idris Elba. He is in American Gangster and Prometheus. A lot of Scott recent-ish movies have had a range of cast members from different backgrounds.

I have to remind myself this is from the same guy who made Blade Runner

 
Sweet Square said:
Joking aside, apart from the quality I don't see why Kurosawa Shakespeare epics are any different than Scott bible epics(And then add in Scott has said that without big hollywood white actors he couldn't get Exodus made). Also for what it's worth Scott has set a ''good'' example plenty of times before - Kingdom of Heaven which featured a range of actors from the middle east, Thelma and Louise, Bladerunner is still the peak of multicultural sci fi, Kingdom Of Heaven, American Gangster which I think was the first film about Frank Lucas, and here is Yaphet Kotto talking about the effects of Alien
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I mean, if you're going to make a movie about the Christian crusaders against the Muslim crusaders, I suppose the most basic part of that would be to have actors that, you know look the part? Just as if you're going to make a movie about Palestinians and Egyptians, it's probably sensible to have actors that look the part for that region of the world.

The Exodus not being made argument doesn't wash with me I'm afraid. Again, let's put Bale to one side. Are you saying that he had to cast Ben Mendelson as a Egyptian minister, Weaver and Turturro as Pharoah & Wife to get it made? Someone of Ridley's stature would have got the movie made even if he had less 'well known' actors who were more of a faithful representation of who they were playing.

The other movies you mention are all fair but not wholly relevant. Thelma & Louise, Bladerunner - the origins of the main players aren't really crucial to the story the way Exodus or KoH are.

Although imo it's not Scotts job to set a good example for any kinda of progressive representation/outlook. Scott role like everyone else working on the film is too channel his creative outlook and make the best film possible under the conditions.
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That's fair and I agree with that, but if this is the case he should say "I'm a creator and this is my outlook" rather than coming up with some BS to deflect the fact that he's just a whitewashing dinosaur. I'm really labouring the point here, but there really is no leg to stand on on having an all American white cast with a budget that he has to depict people in the Middle East. For reference, his budget for that movie was $140m.


Kaluuya was getting backlash from americans because he was taking a role ''away'' from potential black american actors. it was using the PoC have always had it harder in Hollywood argument but with an odd american nationalism. Why is Kaluuya playing Fred Hamption ok or a sign of progress but and Sigourney Weaver as Tuya is awful ? Not to get too wanky and serious about films but while I'm sympathetic to the progressive representation argument I do think it tends to favour a race conscious world view as the end goal, where everyone is aware of their own and other people races rather than the goal of a colour blind society(Yes we all do in fact live in a society). So we end up with this progressive type of outlook that puts people in very basic and american racial groups, that can't deal with other factors such as nationality, religion, gender, class, etc and goes against a more universal view of people and of art.

Also like even if the whitewashing stuff was all true about Scott, now what ? For me it wouldn't diminish any of his work(Mel Gibson is a piece of shit but doesn't get rid of the fact he is a great director and I will go to see his next movie).
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There's an obvious trade off between authentic representation and the universal view of people and art. But if we ignore representation and diversity then we get situations like this -

On Jan. 14, 2016, all 20 Oscar nominations in the acting categories went to white performers for the second year in a row, elevating the stature of #OscarsSoWhite. (The next morning,
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a front-page headline in The Los Angeles Times asked: “Where’s the Diversity?”) At an emergency meeting a week later, Hudson, Boone Isaacs and the academy’s board of governors approved ambitious targets for a membership initiative known as A2020, aiming to double the number of women and ethnically underrepresented members in four years.
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Taken from here - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/movies/oscarssowhite-history.html

That happened along with some boycotts from some famous stars.

It feels a bit odd to talk about this at length considering Exodus was released 7 years ago, and the OscarssoWhite hashtag was 6 years ago, but that's the sad end goal of directors that whitewash their movies. Talented PoC actors and actresses aren't given the opportunities or therefore accolades their white counterparts are. For me personally, the authentic representation and universal view of people and art go hand in hand and aren't mutually exclusive.
 
Sweet Square said:
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Reacting to trailers is so random. A movie I can 'just about' be onboard with, but trailers are like a minute or two tops designed to show you as little as possible while keeping you interest. What's there to discuss?
 
Vidyoyo said:
Reacting to movies is what people with no discernible talent who want to be YouTubers do. It's the low-hanging fruit of organic content.

That said, the people who actually watch them are 10x worse.
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I think it can be fun to watch professionals react to movies and TV shows where their profession/talent is highly relevant.

Watching complete randoms with no talent overreact and provide their shitty takes on the other hand...
 
Vidyoyo said:
Reacting to movies is what people with no discernible talent who want to be YouTubers do. It's the low-hanging fruit of organic content.

That said, the people who actually watch them are 10x worse.
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God you sound miserable.
 
Vidyoyo said:
I think you're taking my comment a little seriously there. This is the thread where we LARP about hating Marvel for no particularly good reason.

That said, you're fine to call me miserable. I'm not Stanley Road levels of misanthropy but I am miserable.
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Fair play.
 
The Corinthian said:
Someone of Ridley's stature would have got the movie made even if he had less 'well known' actors who were more of a faithful representation of who they were playing.
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This was the line of argument used against Kaluuya for playing Fred Hampton. Why pick a British actor when they could of got an african american actor who could of given a more ''faithful''
representation of who they were playing. I'm not sure how you can be alright with Kaluuya as Hampton but also annoyed a Scott casting choices(While I disagree with these people they had more grounds than the complaints against Exodus as Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Panty are still in living memory. No actor on the planet where ever they are from can give a ''faithful'' representation of the Pharaoh or Moses). And imo I find faithful representation in art to be kind of reactionary. If some tory cnut said there should only be white men performing the plays of William Shakespeare because it's a faithful representation of the original work, what would you say to him ?

The Corinthian said:
It feels a bit odd to talk about this at length considering Exodus was released 7 years ago, and the OscarssoWhite hashtag was 6 years ago, but that's the sad end goal of directors that whitewash their movies. Talented PoC actors and actresses aren't given the opportunities or therefore accolades their white counterparts are
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I'm pretty sure the only person of colour nominated for an oscar in 2008 was Ruby Dee for her role in American Gangster
 
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Sweet Square said:
This was the line of argument used against Kaluuya for playing Fred Hampton. Why pick a British actor when they could of got an african american actor who could of given a more ''faithful''
representation of who they were playing. I'm not sure how you can be alright with Kaluuya as Hampton but also annoyed a Scott casting choices(While I disagree with these people they had more grounds than the complaints against Exodus as Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Panty are still in living memory. No actor on the planet where ever they are from can give a ''faithful'' representation of the Pharaoh or Moses). And imo I find faithful representation in art to be kind of reactionary. If some tory cnut said there should only be white men performing the plays of William Shakespeare because it's a faithful representation of the original work, what would you say to him ?
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The faithful representation is more about giving the role to ME/Egypt actors to play people from there rather than white European/Americans.

On the hypothetical - Shakespeare's works have been widely adapted, and thankfully, hasn't been constrained to be only adapted by white Westerners. If it's an all white cast because some weirdo wants it to be so, so be it, but at least we still have other adaptations from diverse backgrounds and diverse actors. My point has never been only people from the location should play that role per se. It's just if we're going to have a movie (such as Exodus) which is localised to a region in the Middle East, and it's a big Hollywood production, and it has someone of Ridley Scott's stature attached to it, would it be too much to ask him to cast some diverse actors in the role?

Whilst we're on it, there's an excellent adaptation of Hamlet done by Indian cinema (it was on Netflix not too long ago). It's set amongst the backdrop of the turmoil in Kashmir. It's called Haider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haider_(film) - you should check it out. The director has done an Indian adaptation of a Shakespeare trilogy (Maqbool - Macbeth, Omkara - Othello, and Haider - Hamlet). I've only seen Hamlet, but a couple star Irrfan Khan in some capacity who is a phenomenal actor.
 
The Corinthian said:
You both make fair points. However, on this movie in particular, I'm just going to reiterate where Ridley Scott went with some of his choices. I can maybe make an exception for Bale as he's the headliner, but look at some of these other choices.

Joel Egderton as Ramses
Sigourney Weaver as Tuya (mother of Ramses)
Ben Mendelson as an Egyptian minister
John Tuturro as Pharoah

I mean, are you seriously saying he's unable to get actual ME/Egyptian or otherwise actor for those roles? The actual Egyptian/black actors in this movies are not even your secondary characters, but the background extras type. It's a bit of a slap in the face considering the spotlight being on the whitewashing of Hollywood long before this.

There's a few other things about Ridley Scott's comments that irk me as well. He gave Weaver, an unheard of name at the time, the lead in Alien (nothing wrong with that of course, and no issues re funding and creditors [but I do think would he have done that if Weaver wasn't a white woman?]). In the years gone by, Ridley Scott is as big as you can get when it comes to reputation in Hollywood - surely now is the time for him to set good examples. His name attached to any movie is going to gain traction, more so than a new director starting out. Why wouldn't he use his reach and power now to actually give PoC good roles in big Hollywood productions?

Also - @Sweet Square you mention Denzel as Macbeth, Kaluuya as Hampton and I'll even mention Dev Patel playing an Arthurian legend as well. I don't have a problem with any of these, because unlike white actors, PoC have always had it harder in Hollywood for these types of roles. And secondly, the casts of Macbeth isn't full of just black actors. The Green Knight isn't just asian actors. Exodus is only full of white American/European actors.
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You know who could come to your rescue here? Mel Gibson. Isnt that ironic :lol:
 
The Corinthian said:
The faithful representation is more about giving the role to ME/Egypt actors to play people from there rather than white European/Americans.

On the hypothetical - Shakespeare's works have been widely adapted, and thankfully, hasn't been constrained to be only adapted by white Westerners. If it's an all white cast because some weirdo wants it to be so, so be it, but at least we still have other adaptations from diverse backgrounds and diverse actors. My point has never been only people from the location should play that role per se. It's just if we're going to have a movie (such as Exodus) which is localised to a region in the Middle East, and it's a big Hollywood production, and it has someone of Ridley Scott's stature attached to it, would it be too much to ask him to cast some diverse actors in the role?
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Fair enough. I wouldn't really disagree with a lot of this tbh.

The Corinthian said:
Whilst we're on it, there's an excellent adaptation of Hamlet done by Indian cinema (it was on Netflix not too long ago). It's set amongst the backdrop of the turmoil in Kashmir. It's called Haider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haider_(film) - you should check it out. The director has done an Indian adaptation of a Shakespeare trilogy (Maqbool - Macbeth, Omkara - Othello, and Haider - Hamlet). I've only seen Hamlet, but a couple star Irrfan Khan in some capacity who is a phenomenal actor.
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Cheers will check this out. Always looking for new takes on Shakespeare.
 
lsd said:
This means what as regards the thread,?
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It remind of Scorsese now view on content

Flash forward to the present day, as the art of cinema is being systematically devalued, sidelined, demeaned, and reduced to its lowest common denominator, “content.”

As recently as fifteen years ago, the term “content” was heard only when people were discussing the cinema on a serious level, and it was contrasted with and measured against “form.” Then, gradually, it was used more and more by the people who took over media companies, most of whom knew nothing about the history of the art form, or even cared enough to think that they should. “Content” became a business term for all moving images: a David Lean movie, a cat video, a Super Bowl commercial, a superhero sequel, a series episode. It was linked, of course, not to the theatrical experience but to home viewing, on the streaming platforms that have come to overtake the moviegoing experience, just as Amazon overtook physical stores. On the one hand, this has been good for filmmakers, myself included. On the other hand, it has created a situation in which everything is presented to the viewer on a level playing field, which sounds democratic but isn’t. If further viewing is “suggested” by algorithms based on what you’ve already seen, and the suggestions are based only on subject matter or genre, then what does that do to the art of cinema?
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Red Notice is a film striped of all artistic value and designed for algorithms.
 
https://variety.com/2021/film/news/ridley-scott-blames-millennials-last-duel-flop-1235117654/

“No. Disney did a fantastic promotion job,” Scott said when Maron implied the company may have been the reason for “The Last Duel’s” low performance. “The bosses loved the movie — because I was concerned it was not for them — but they really liked the movie, so their advertising, publicity, et cetera, was excellent.”

“I think what it boils down to — what we’ve got today [are] the audiences who were brought up on these fecking cell phones. The millennian do not ever want to be taught anything unless you are told it on the cell phone,” Scott continued. “This is a broad stroke, but I think we’re dealing with it right now with Facebook. There is a misdirection that has happened where it’s given the wrong kind of confidence to this latest generation, I think.”
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Damn millenians and their cell phones and facebook
 
OleBoiii said:
I was about to call him a boomer, but he's actually 8-9 years older than the oldest boomers :eek:

Anyways, he peaked in 1979 with Alien.
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Yeah his age shocked me, which it shouldn't considering the date of a lot of his works, but the man looks damn good.
I actually really enjoyed the film, but I watch virtually no films or even shows anymore, so my opinion and taste is incredibly questionable, and I am a sucker for the setting. I haven't liked many of his films for a long time though so my expectations were probably a little lowered.

Sweet Square said:
Redemption
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That's a decent bounce back to be fair, I absolutely love using wanker
 
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