Comic Book fans this is a post that i've been sitting on who a few days now because I wanted it to really sink in and give myself time to find away to put it into words. I did tweet about this situation a few days ago and yes I will be included the tweets which i've learnt to edit for this post (guess who learned to screen shot on a computer) and so even you don't like the MCU here is my take on the whole situation.
For those that don't know on October 4th directing legend Martin Scorsese gave an interview to Empire Magazine which I cannot find on Empire's website but it was picked up by pretty much every news site over the next few days. He was asked by the interviewer if he had seen a Marvel movie (why he was asked that I don't know) and he gave the response "I tried, you know? but that’s not cinema.”.
He would also go on to compare them to theme park attractions by saying “Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.” Which I feel is a fair statement since comic book movies aren't for everyone just like theme park rides aren't for everyone.
This is wear the "controversy" really kicked into high gear because Francis Ford Coppola got involved and he said something which not only made and possibly hundreds of fans he called them despicable. His full actual quote is "Martin was kind when he said it's not cinema. He didn't say it's despicable, which I just say it is." and that right there is something that not only myself but a ton of other fans take issue with.
Since while Marvel movies are not great cinema by any stretch of the imagination they are still movies and not every movie is going to be great cinema Denis Villeneuve's 2016 film Arrival is an underrated film. While Francis just like everyone else is entitled to their own opinion to out right say that they are despicable to me says that your someone who is stuck in there ways and believes that certain things need to do certain things (notice how ironic his statement sounds with a picture of him from Comic-Con 2011).
When the news broke of what Francis said as you can see in the above pictures I went on a Twitter rant which is something I never do let alone then go on to bookmark them so I can use them in a future post. However I want to hit home some things the kind of cinema that Martin , Francis and now Ken Loach like can still be found in cinema's because they like the kind of films that make you think well as you can see in this post there was one of those in 2016 and I think 2018 when the Blade Runner sequel came out.
So those types of films are still being shown and are still being made for cinema's and you don't even have to look hard for them because they get a wide release alot of the time. I do admit that comic book movies are now pretty much the norm that's not due to Marvel that's due to the fact that the directors were fans of what ever comic book there adapting for the screen and they nine times out of ten do a good job because there fans and they know how to adapt these characters and still keep them true to their comic book counterparts.
Coppola's most famous work is The Godfather well here's something that make his comment seem even more ironic because for a long time gangster films were seen as despicable. So what does Francis do he makes what many consider the best gangster film of all time and so I have to wonder why he's calling Marvel movies despicable when the genre he helped popularise the gangster was also seen as such.
Every single genre from drama to horror will at some point be seen as despicable but you know what neither a drama nor a horror movie has even come close to making me cry. You know what did a superhero movie more specifically 2014's Guardians Of The Galaxy that help made me care for a tree and it came close to making cry when Groot sacrificed himself for his friends and the same goes for Endgame I cried during that film.
Now I mentioned him very briefly before but director Ken Loach has now come out and added in his two cents or in his case two pounds. He said "They’re made as commodities like hamburgers, and it’s not about communicating and it’s not about sharing our imagination, It’s about making a commodity which will make a profit for a big corporation – they’re a cynical exercise. They’re market exercise and it has nothing to do with the art of cinema. William Blake said ‘when money is discussed – art is impossible’.”.
He would go on further to say "I think reflecting the world we know can make beautiful cinema because it can celebrate who we are. It can laugh with us, it can cry with us, it can learn about our deepest feelings and what it is to be human – you find that in the everyday” I want to say that what Ken is possibly trying to say is that he doesn't like superhero films which is fair enough there not for everyone but to call Marvel movies cynical when that might even be the case isn't good at all.
To say that you can only make beautiful cinema by reflecting what's going on in the real world also doesn't make sense. Since there was a beautiful film out four years ago which didn't reflect the real world at all and if you've seen any my reviews for Makoko Shinkai film's you'll know that his film's don't reflect the world world at all and there beautiful so the fact that Marvel films don't reflect the real world is a none issue.
Every superhero movie just like any movie could be seen as a work of art literally the only thing that changes is the medium in which that art is presented. In stereotypical art it would be on a piece of paper well here the canvas is the location with the camera and the actors being the pencil or whatever art tool you want with the artist being the director or directors and while some pieces of art are better then others it doesn't mean that it's not art
Logan and Avengers: Endgame could be seen as art just like any other art piece as could any of the films that these directors made but for some reason these guys are choosing to act like snobby art critics. By that I mean that instead of seeing films like Logan or Avengers: Endgame as a work of art they are seeing them as nothing more then a piece of film that will be forgotten about and while some of these Marvel films will indeed be forgotten about that doesn't mean that there not a piece of art and should be treated as such.
Steven Spielberg once said that superhero movies will go the way of the western and by that he means they'll be forgotten about and very few will get made. What he and many of the older directors fail to realise is Marvel movies already started out like that like think about prior to X-Men being released in 2000 there were very few Marvel movies being made and now they are more popular then every before so it's a reverse of the western genre which started out popular and then faded when the opposite happened here.
The one thing that all great films should be able regardless if you consider them great cinema or not is they should be able to make you feel something be it joy , sadness or anger. They should be able to make you feel something just like a painting should be able to do and i'm using the art analogy because to me that's what film is it's art and regardless of the genre it is something to be admired and without Marvel movies being as popular as they are that now means that we now could have more film makers being inspired to make there own films and that can only be a good thing.
Like i've said i'm not going to pretend and say that these films are great cinema because that would be stupid but what they do is they make you believe in the impossible. These films are also a great way to escape the problems of the real world and honestly sometimes that's more important then being a truly great piece of cinema because do need to escape from the real world from time to time and what better way to do that then putting on a Marvel or DC Movie.