Scorsese explains why he thinks Marvel movies aren't cinema

[Scott Taylor]

That's astute. The MCU creates safe movies that are sure-sells, and the audience is conditioned that these movies are sure-buys.

So ... the MCU is the opium of the people?

People in this thread have also compared Disney to chattel slave owners, implied being an MCU fan makes you race blind, and linking blockbusters to climate change. I find those less hilarious and more unnerving. As unlike just getting ruffled over Scorsese's statements and criticizing him, believing those things can cause someone to consider others as bad people for being on the other side of the debate.

FWIW, I'm sure you are good people! Anyone who can write as concisely as you just did is ok in my book.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

"Hugo"? The movie Scorcese made as a ode to George Melies, the film maker whose movies where all spectacle with little or no storytelling and character development. That "Hugo"?
Maybe he should rethink his definition of what "cinema" is?

Melies actually created a whole bunch of films. Including docudramas. He made documentary recreations of events like the Dreyfus affair which was incredibly bold for him to have done so given the heavy anti semitism of France at the time.

Melies was also an independent filmmaker whose career was crushed by corporations, bad deals with Edison and ultimately found his type of movies had been marginalised by society. So he would not be on the Disney marvel side of this by any means.

And in any case the idea of Melies being an ancestor to mcu and so on is a huge stretch and wishful thinking at best.

So ... the MCU is the opium of the people?
.

The opioid crisis being what it is, I think opium is the opium of the people.


Anyway it just feeds to Scorsese’s point that the more you show one kind of movie the more audiences are discouraged from seeing anything else. It’s chicken and egg as he said.

[Kirby101]

As opposed to what contemporary director of his?

DW Griffith. Erich von Stroheim

[WebLurker]

"Hugo"? The movie Scorcese made as a ode to George Melies, the film maker whose movies where all spectacle with little or no storytelling and character development. That "Hugo"?
Maybe he should rethink his definition of what "cinema" is?

To be fair, Melies was a pioneer in the industry and producing content at a time when expectation, standards, and feasibility were much different. The movie Hugo itself was pretty good, too.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

DW Griffith. Erich von Stroheim

Melies was already finished when DWG started out and well before birth of a nation made him renowned. Stroheim didn’t make it until 1919.

Melies contemporaries were the Lumieres, Louis Feuillade, Edwin S. Porter and other filmmakers whose works have been lost.

[DT Winslow]

Scorsese can’t even shine the shoes of the Coen Brothers. O Brother Where Art Thou is better than anything he could ever hope to make. Scorsese cannot be mentioned in the same breath as No Country For Old Men.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Scorsese can’t even shine the shoes of the Coen Brothers. O Brother Where Art Thou is better than anything he could ever hope to make. Scorsese cannot be mentioned in the same breath as No Country For Old Men.

So what is your opinion on Scorsese’s criticism of the MCU

[Kirby101]

To be fair, Melies was a pioneer in the industry and producing content at a time when expectation, standards, and feasibility were much different. The movie Hugo itself was pretty good, too.

I think Melies was a genius. I am not belittling his work. Just holding it to Scorcese's standards.

[DT Winslow]

So what is your opinion on Scorsese’s criticism of the MCU

So what is your opinion on Scorsese’s criticism of the MCU

He’s directed movies, some well received, some not. I don’t believe he, let alone anyone else, has the right to say what is or isn’t art. Chris Evans’ response was best. ‘It’s like saying [rap music] isn’t music. Who are you to say that?’

People work hard on these movies. Yes there have been steps that weren’t done for artistic purposes. No one can deny that. But to deny that there are no themes, no rich characters, or no risk, is inane. You’ve complained about the director. Before, which is baffling. Phase one had Jon Favreau, Kenneth Branagh and Joe Johnston. Phase two had Shane Black, James Gunn and the Russo Brothers, not to mention Peyton Reed, who is well thought of. Phase three gets us Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler, both directors making risky interesting films inside the MCU and out. Half Nelson by Fleck and Biden is a great movie and they’re making movies that challenge people and wanted to make a movie in the MCU. The only paint by numbers director in the MCU so far is Alan Taylor. If you need a middling director who will do what you tell him and you need it fast, he’s your guy.

There are intentional stylistic choices, specifically the color grading you mentioned. Like I said it is a specific and intentional choice that some people don’t like.

I feel that there is something to be said for larger films, the blockbusters, pushing out smaller films. But I run a business. I know not to spend more than I think I can get in return. Which is what studios are doing. The audience conditioned the studios and the studios conditioned the audiences. However, that’s been an issue in the industry for as long as we’ve had an industry.

At the end of the day, not every thing is for every person. But when this franchise has grossed over 22 billion dollars, there are a lot of people who like them.

We all know Sturgeons Law, right? 98% of everything is crap. But that number, even its opposite, they are different for everyone of us. My 2% good things is probably different from your 2%. And that’s okay. But if you understand that it’s different for everyone, nothing else matters. You enjoy what you enjoy and you don’t give a damn what other people think of you or what you love.

[The Cool Thatguy]

I've enjoyed virtually every MCU movie, but I still find myself annoyed by the shade they catch.

IMO, MCU are unique in that they are action movies that offer diverse protagonists (a CEO in armor, a God, a king, etc). I mean, 95% of action heroes are either cops or military. They're all burn outs, one day away from being fired, etc. No wonder people have jumped at something that's actually new. For all the complaints about too many hero movies, they haven't been around half as long as those old archtypes.

More than that, MCU movies come with plotting and acting that's damned good. I've seen better dramatic acting in some MCU movies, than regular dramatic movies. Chris Evans' Cap was always amazing.

Facial expression, and emoting is a rarity in most movies. Hell, most actors play themselves, more often than not.

Maybe instead of pissing and moaning about the success of others, they ought to up their game.

[Farealmer]

Maybe instead of pissing and moaning about the success of others, they ought to up their game.

Well said. It's the job of anyone trying for fame or fortune to reach their audience, not the audiences job to reach them. No one is owed a place on the big screen.

[Lee Stone]

If people didn't like them, they'd flop and we wouldn't see anymore.

While I don't agree with Scorsese, I can see the path he took to get to that reasoning.
It's the same one that I've taken with tv and its fascination with reality shows and CSINCIS (and further back, Law & Order/Homicide).
Obviously, he just doesn't care for the movies or the genre and feels stuff that he would rather see is getting overlooked or ignored by the studios.

If Scorsese wants to see a change, he needs to do what every other creator in books, comics, movies and tv has done when they felt something was missing or wanted to see something different: make it himself.

[WebLurker]

I think Melies was a genius. I am not belittling his work. Just holding it to Scorcese's standards.

Ah.

10char

[Revolutionary_Jack]

People work hard on these movies.

People work hard on every movie. That's never come in the way of making criticism before. I mean Michael Bay works hard but people don't hold back criticizing him or you know Zack Snyder's movies. And you know I actually wonder about Disney-Marvel. With that much money, and that much resources available to make reshoots and so on, it's kind of like they are making movies with a safety cushion as opposed to most movies where you really do have to get it right during the main shoot since it costs too much to bring actors back and so on.

Half Nelson by Fleck and Biden is a great movie and they’re making movies that challenge people and wanted to make a movie in the MCU.

Yeah but at the end of the day Half Nelson will be considered their best film by those who care about them as artists, while Captain Marvel will be the movie of theirs most people will have seen, and Captain Marvel will not bring new eyes to their solo work. Look at Shane Black, he made excellent films like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and then he made Iron Man 3, and after that he made a wonderful movie The Nice Guys which flopped (and which also introduced Angourie Rice who played Betty Brant in the MCU movies). Go back to Sam Raimi, compare the movies he made before Spider-Man and the ones he made after Spider-Man 3. Those movies took years out of his life and left him with fewer means to do anything else. Nolan's an exception but in general it seems Raimi's experience is the norm.

We all know Sturgeons Law, right? 98% of everything is crap.

If you were to say the percentage of westerns, musicals, war movies, crime movies and so on that have been great movies, and compare that to superheroes as a genre as a whole...I don't think that would be a very high percentage. People keep talking about superhero movies having themes...I don't think there's a superhero movie with the thematic density of say Casablanca, or Star Wars A New Hope, or The Godfather, or to name more recent movies, There Will be Blood, Grand Budapest Hotel, or as you point out No Country for Old Men.

IMO, MCU are unique in that they are action movies that offer diverse protagonists (a CEO in armor, a God, a king, etc). I mean, 95% of action heroes are either cops or military. They're all burn outs, one day away from being fired, etc.

So rather than stereotypes about professions that are nonetheless grounded in a reality about dealing with violence semi-regularly, we want movies that don't make any attempts to say anything about violence? I mean that's one of the main problems with superheroes in terms of genre...as stories all of them glorify violence. Stories one after another present punching and beating people as the main and best solution to problems and the stories don't really deal with this.

Okay Iron Man has PTSD after dealing with the Chitauri in The Avengers. Okay, why didn't he have PTSD in Iron Man 1, and obviously he's been active betwen IM-1 and IM-2 where he privatized world peace so how come he doesn't have PTSD then? Stark being exposed to the Chitauri makes sense in a Lovecraftian, normal rational man exposed to the cosmos and insignificance of earth sciences and ideas in the face of that...but it's not a believable look at PTSD. Someone like Thor who is a god doesn't have PTSD about violence. He has issues of guilt, worrying about his brother and other family issues, but violence isn't a problem with him at all. That's true of most MCU characters.

If Scorsese wants to see a change, he needs to do what every other creator in books, comics, movies and tv has done when they felt something was missing or wanted to see something different: make it himself.

He HAS done that countless times across his career, he has repeatedly made movies that overturned narrative conventions, challenged traditional ideas, and featured complicated moral questions. Time and time again.

If you mean Scorsese should show people how to do a superheroes right, well Alan Moore did that and look what happened to him.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I think Melies was a genius. I am not belittling his work. Just holding it to Scorcese's standards.

"I am not a corporation; I am an independent producer."
-- Georges Méliès.

Méliès wrote/directed/produced/created his movies and put forth his own unique aesthetic which was and remains very influential. Those movies he made had emotional stakes, and risks, and pushed cinema forward. By Scorsese's standards they are definitely not safe movies, not committee movies, and they certainly aren't theme parks. In terms of style, he's worlds and universes apart from the MCU. Even in terms of content, I really don't see what a bunch of short movies that were usually comedies with a science-fiction theme and idea (i.e. people travelling to a moon by shooting a canon into its eye, a train that took you to the sun, and digging a tunnel across the channel) have anything to do with superheroes.

If you want...you can compare the movies of Louis Feuillade his contemporary who made silent serials about Judex, Fantomas, Les Vampires which trafficked in ideas of a masked vigilante (Judex even has an early version of the Batcave), supervillains and so on to the MCU. Those movies are usually seen as great movies and classics and were also highly innovative in terms of location shooting and other stylistic effects.