Exactly out of all of his movies, no positive role or favorable outcome in that role for any black actor.
Film Debate: Martin Scorsese - Marvel Movies Are Just ‘Theme Parks’ more directors weigh in UPDATE: Oliver Stone joins in
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Exactly out of all of his movies, no positive role or favorable outcome in that role for any black actor.
Martin Scorsese Is just hating on Marvels success. His short sightedness just doesn't see It for what It really Is comic books were probably available when He....fuck that when we all were children, people grew up on that shit. Back then no major motion picture studio would even think about producing a movie with comic book material. Now that technology has advanced so far Its possible to bring to life what we all looked at as children and grew up with. Who doesn't want to see that? I'll bet you If Disney decided to give this fool some money to direct a marvel movie, He wouldn't turn It down. He probably feels the same way about George lucas and steven spielberg. Obviously some people go to the movies for escapism not to see a retelling of shit that happened years ago
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Robert Downey Jr. reacts to Martin Scorsese's Marvel criticism
By James Hibberd
October 08, 2019 at 10:10 AM EDT
FBTwitter
The Avengers continue to assemble in the wake of legendary director Martin Scorsese’s comments about Marvel movies.
Now it’s Robert Downey Jr.’s turn to defend the blockbuster franchise.
The former Iron Man was chatting with Howard Stern on Monday when the actor himself brought up the director’s “not cinema” diss.
“I didn’t expect it to become what it became and it is this very large multi-headed hydra at this point,” Downey Jr. said about the franchise. “I’ve always had other interests. And according to Scorsese, it’s ‘not cinema,’ I gotta take a look at that.”
Stern interjected: “But it is cinema isn’t it?”
“Well, it plays in theaters,” Downey Jr. said.
Stern asked: “But what did he mean by that?”
“I appreciate his opinion because we can come to center and move on,” Downey Jr. said.
Stern pressed: “But were you insulted when he said it’s not cinema?”
“Well, look, it’s like saying ‘Howard Stern isn’t radio,’ it makes no sense to say it.”
Stern: “Was he jealous of the success?”
“Of course not. He’s Martin Scorsese.”
Stern: “Then what did he mean by that?”
“In his view — and by the way, there’s a lot to be said for how these genre movies, and I was happy to be part of the problem if there is one — denigrated the art form of cinema,” Downey Jr. said. “When you come in like a stomping beast and you eliminate the competition in such a demonstrative way, it’s phenomenal.”
The chat follows Avengers franchise star Samuel L. Jackson also commenting on the matter. “That’s kind of like saying Bugs Bunny ain’t funny,” Jackson said. “Films are films. You know, everybody doesn’t like his stuff either. I mean, we happen to, but everybody doesn’t. There are a lot of Italian-Americans that don’t think he should be making films about them like that. Everybody’s got an opinion, so it’s okay. It’s not going to stop anyone from making movies.”
Marvel directors James Gunn and Joss Whedon have also defended Marvel movies in the wake of the famed director’s comments.
By James Hibberd
October 08, 2019 at 10:10 AM EDT
FBTwitter
The Avengers continue to assemble in the wake of legendary director Martin Scorsese’s comments about Marvel movies.
Now it’s Robert Downey Jr.’s turn to defend the blockbuster franchise.
The former Iron Man was chatting with Howard Stern on Monday when the actor himself brought up the director’s “not cinema” diss.
“I didn’t expect it to become what it became and it is this very large multi-headed hydra at this point,” Downey Jr. said about the franchise. “I’ve always had other interests. And according to Scorsese, it’s ‘not cinema,’ I gotta take a look at that.”
Stern interjected: “But it is cinema isn’t it?”
“Well, it plays in theaters,” Downey Jr. said.
Stern asked: “But what did he mean by that?”
“I appreciate his opinion because we can come to center and move on,” Downey Jr. said.
Stern pressed: “But were you insulted when he said it’s not cinema?”
“Well, look, it’s like saying ‘Howard Stern isn’t radio,’ it makes no sense to say it.”
Stern: “Was he jealous of the success?”
“Of course not. He’s Martin Scorsese.”
Stern: “Then what did he mean by that?”
“In his view — and by the way, there’s a lot to be said for how these genre movies, and I was happy to be part of the problem if there is one — denigrated the art form of cinema,” Downey Jr. said. “When you come in like a stomping beast and you eliminate the competition in such a demonstrative way, it’s phenomenal.”
The chat follows Avengers franchise star Samuel L. Jackson also commenting on the matter. “That’s kind of like saying Bugs Bunny ain’t funny,” Jackson said. “Films are films. You know, everybody doesn’t like his stuff either. I mean, we happen to, but everybody doesn’t. There are a lot of Italian-Americans that don’t think he should be making films about them like that. Everybody’s got an opinion, so it’s okay. It’s not going to stop anyone from making movies.”
Marvel directors James Gunn and Joss Whedon have also defended Marvel movies in the wake of the famed director’s comments.
Joss Whedon, James Gunn react to Martin Scorsese criticizing Marvel movies
By James Hibberd
October 04, 2019 at 02:15 PM EDT
Marvel directors are assembling in defense of their superhero movies after a bit of criticism from legendary director Martin Scorsese.
The Departed Oscar winner dismissed the MCU as “not cinema” during an interview while promoting his upcoming gangster epic The Irishman.
Asked if he’s watched the films, the director told Empire: “I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema. 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.”
The Avengers director Joss Whedon replied on Twitter that he sees Scorsese’s point, though also (rather humbly) noted Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn‘s work as an exception: “I first think of @JamesGunn, how his heart & guts are packed into GOTG. I revere Marty, & I do see his point, but… Well there’s a reason why ‘I’m always angry'” (the latter a reference to Bruce Banner’s famous Avengers line).
Gunn himself also had a response: “Martin Scorsese is one of my 5 favorite living filmmakers. I was outraged when people picketed The Last Temptation of Christ without having seen the film. I’m saddened that he’s now judging my films in the same way.”
The Last Temptation of Christ faced an enormous backlash and criticism from religious conservatives when it was released in 1988, and it seems like a bit of a stretch to compare Scorsese’s mild diss to that controversy, which was also pointed out to Gunn on social media.
“And I’m not saying religious zealotry is the same as not liking my movies, or in the same category,” Gunn responded on Twitter. “What I’m saying is I’m not fond of people judging things without actually seeing them, whether it’s a movie about Jesus or a genre.”
Representatives for Scorsese did not immediately reply to EW’s request for comment.
The back and forth is a bit reminiscent of other times celebrities have dared to criticize Marvel, such as director James Cameron criticizing The Avengers franchise in 2018 (“I’m hoping we’ll start getting Avenger fatigue here pretty soon. Not that I don’t love the movies. It’s just, come on guys, there are other stories to tell besides hyper-gonadal males without families doing death-defying things for two hours and wrecking cities in the process. It’s like, oy!”) and HBO late-night host Bill Maher slamming the films after Stan Lee‘s death that same year (“A culture that thinks that comic books and comic book movies are profound meditations on the human condition is a dumb f—ing culture. And for people to get mad at that just proves my point”).
As for Scorsese, The Irishman has racked up the best reviews of his career judging by Rotten Tomatoes scores (the film stands at 100 percent positive); it opens in theaters on Nov. 1 before debuting on Netflix on Nov. 27.
https://ew.com/movies/2019/10/04/martin-scorsese-criticizes-marvel-movies-reaction/
By James Hibberd
October 04, 2019 at 02:15 PM EDT
Marvel directors are assembling in defense of their superhero movies after a bit of criticism from legendary director Martin Scorsese.
The Departed Oscar winner dismissed the MCU as “not cinema” during an interview while promoting his upcoming gangster epic The Irishman.
Asked if he’s watched the films, the director told Empire: “I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema. 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.”
The Avengers director Joss Whedon replied on Twitter that he sees Scorsese’s point, though also (rather humbly) noted Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn‘s work as an exception: “I first think of @JamesGunn, how his heart & guts are packed into GOTG. I revere Marty, & I do see his point, but… Well there’s a reason why ‘I’m always angry'” (the latter a reference to Bruce Banner’s famous Avengers line).
Gunn himself also had a response: “Martin Scorsese is one of my 5 favorite living filmmakers. I was outraged when people picketed The Last Temptation of Christ without having seen the film. I’m saddened that he’s now judging my films in the same way.”
The Last Temptation of Christ faced an enormous backlash and criticism from religious conservatives when it was released in 1988, and it seems like a bit of a stretch to compare Scorsese’s mild diss to that controversy, which was also pointed out to Gunn on social media.
“And I’m not saying religious zealotry is the same as not liking my movies, or in the same category,” Gunn responded on Twitter. “What I’m saying is I’m not fond of people judging things without actually seeing them, whether it’s a movie about Jesus or a genre.”
Representatives for Scorsese did not immediately reply to EW’s request for comment.
The back and forth is a bit reminiscent of other times celebrities have dared to criticize Marvel, such as director James Cameron criticizing The Avengers franchise in 2018 (“I’m hoping we’ll start getting Avenger fatigue here pretty soon. Not that I don’t love the movies. It’s just, come on guys, there are other stories to tell besides hyper-gonadal males without families doing death-defying things for two hours and wrecking cities in the process. It’s like, oy!”) and HBO late-night host Bill Maher slamming the films after Stan Lee‘s death that same year (“A culture that thinks that comic books and comic book movies are profound meditations on the human condition is a dumb f—ing culture. And for people to get mad at that just proves my point”).
As for Scorsese, The Irishman has racked up the best reviews of his career judging by Rotten Tomatoes scores (the film stands at 100 percent positive); it opens in theaters on Nov. 1 before debuting on Netflix on Nov. 27.
https://ew.com/movies/2019/10/04/martin-scorsese-criticizes-marvel-movies-reaction/
I feel what he's saying but there's room for all types of subject matter and genre's of films.
@largebillsonlyplease @ansatsusha_gouki @tallblacknyc @ViCiouS @slam @fonzerrillii @rage @godofwine @GAMBINO
ya'll go head...
I'll catch up.
@largebillsonlyplease @ansatsusha_gouki @tallblacknyc @ViCiouS @slam @fonzerrillii @rage @godofwine @GAMBINO
ya'll go head...
I'll catch up.
Martin Scorsese Doubles Down On Marvel Movie Critique: ‘We Shouldn’t Be Invaded by It’
By Halle Kiefer@hallekiefer
Photo: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images
Last week fans and filmmakers alike felt rubbed the wrong way when Martin Scorsese told Empire magazine that “theme park” movies like those in the Marvel Cinematic Universe were “not cinema.” So what’s another full week of hurt superhero feelings? “It’s not cinema. It’s something else,” the director said Sunday at a BFI London Film Festival press conference for his new film The Irishman, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “We shouldn’t be invaded by it. We need cinemas to step up and show films that are narrative films.”
His most recent critique follows other comments made Saturday, when Scorsese took part in the BAFTA’s David Lean Lecture, also in London.
“Theaters have become amusement parks. That is all fine and good but don’t invade everything else in that sense,” the director said. “That is fine and good for those who enjoy that type of film and, by the way, knowing what goes into them now, I admire what they do. It’s not my kind of thing, it simply is not. It’s creating another kind of audience that thinks cinema is that.” Hey, at least he admires how much work goes into making all these terrible “theme park” movies? That’s something, right?
Francis Ford Coppola Joins the Anti-Marvel Film Club
By Devon Ivie@devonsaysrelax
Photo: Arnold JEROCKI/Getty Images
Earlier this month, our honorary nonno, Martin Scorsese, decided to wage a war of words against the Marvel Cinematic Universe: He declared the franchise as being “not cinema” and nothing more than “theme parks,” and also encouraged cinemas to prevent being “invaded” by them in the future. Now, his buddy Francis Ford Coppola is busting out some even saltier anti-Marvel rhetoric. As reported by Yahoo! News at the annual Lumière Festival, the director, while accepting a lifetime-achievement award, wanted the record to show that Iron Man 3 is no Patton. Or that Thor: Ragnarok is no The Godfather Part II. “When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right, because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration. I don’t know that anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again,” Coppola explained. “Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is.” Mic drop, Matera style.
Update, Saturday evening: James Gunn, who directed two Guardians of the Galaxy movies, came to the defense of the MCU in a heartfelt post on social media. Although he didn’t directly name Coppola (or Scorsese, for the matter), his message was strong. “Many of our grandfathers thought all gangster movies were the same, often calling them ‘despicable.’ Some of our great grandfathers thought the same of westerns, and believed the films of John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, and Sergio Leone were all exactly the same,” he wrote, in part. “Superheroes are simply today’s gangsters-cowboys-outer space adventurers. Some superhero films are awful, some are beautiful. Like westerns and gangster movies (and before that, just movies), not everyone will be able to appreciate them, even some geniuses. And that’s okay.”
By Devon Ivie@devonsaysrelax
Photo: Arnold JEROCKI/Getty Images
Earlier this month, our honorary nonno, Martin Scorsese, decided to wage a war of words against the Marvel Cinematic Universe: He declared the franchise as being “not cinema” and nothing more than “theme parks,” and also encouraged cinemas to prevent being “invaded” by them in the future. Now, his buddy Francis Ford Coppola is busting out some even saltier anti-Marvel rhetoric. As reported by Yahoo! News at the annual Lumière Festival, the director, while accepting a lifetime-achievement award, wanted the record to show that Iron Man 3 is no Patton. Or that Thor: Ragnarok is no The Godfather Part II. “When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right, because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration. I don’t know that anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again,” Coppola explained. “Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is.” Mic drop, Matera style.
Update, Saturday evening: James Gunn, who directed two Guardians of the Galaxy movies, came to the defense of the MCU in a heartfelt post on social media. Although he didn’t directly name Coppola (or Scorsese, for the matter), his message was strong. “Many of our grandfathers thought all gangster movies were the same, often calling them ‘despicable.’ Some of our great grandfathers thought the same of westerns, and believed the films of John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, and Sergio Leone were all exactly the same,” he wrote, in part. “Superheroes are simply today’s gangsters-cowboys-outer space adventurers. Some superhero films are awful, some are beautiful. Like westerns and gangster movies (and before that, just movies), not everyone will be able to appreciate them, even some geniuses. And that’s okay.”
Pure jealousy
They are well made films that have pushed the technology of film making all while bringing millions of people to the theater.
They are well made films that have pushed the technology of film making all while bringing millions of people to the theater.
You know whats funny....10 years ago Spike Lee said this very type of thing about Tyler Perry movies and EVERYONE HERE agreed...
NOW that the shoe is on the other foot and a great director is trashing movies YOU like... you all dismiss it as so much haterade...
NOW that the shoe is on the other foot and a great director is trashing movies YOU like... you all dismiss it as so much haterade...
Okay, Fine, Let’s Talk About Marvel
By Bilge Ebiri
What is the Justice League of Aging Auteurs really rebelling against? Photo: Marvel Studios
So, I guess this is our new reality, in which every director of a certain age must be asked for their thoughts on Marvel. The current wave of interrogations started earlier this month, when Martin Scorsese, currently doing press for his Netflix release The Irishman, opined that Marvel movies were not cinema. “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,” he said, in words that have since been echoed in every corner of the internet. “It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.” The whole thing might have quickly blown over, but then Scorsese was asked to offer his opinion again, and he doubled and tripled down. “We shouldn’t be invaded by it,” he later explained of the superhero-movie subgenre. “We need cinemas to step up and show films that are narrative films.”
Then Francis Ford Coppola chimed in, ratcheting up the rhetoric by calling the Marvel movies “despicable.” Then somebody asked Ken Loach about them – because why the hell not? – and, in what surely came as a huge shock to everybody, the director of such anti-capitalist masterpieces as Riff-Raff and Land and Freedom deemed the candy-colored movies about Übermenschen repeatedly saving the galaxy, produced by one of the planet’s biggest corporations, “a market exercise.” Fernando Meirelles, he of City of God and The Two Popes, was next, with Wim Wenders and Wong Kar-wai presumably to follow. Pedro Almodóvar was characteristically ahead of this current debate when he told us earlier this year that he thought superheroes were “neutered.” (Though he may yet chime in again; he’s doing press for a new release, after all, and the hustle is the hustle.) Hell, Jodie Foster beat them all to the punch when she said, two years ago, that “going to the movies has become like a theme park,” and compared empty-calorie blockbusters to something akin to “fracking — you get the best return right now but you wreck the earth.”
Naturally, each round of the latest criticism has brought forth waves of Marvel fans, and even a few Marvel directors (and, oh look, Disney head Bob Iger has now chimed in as well), not just defending the comic-book movies but, in some cases, declaring that their elders’ inability to worship these movies without reservation constitutes some sort of moral failing. And the cycle of mass hysteria gets repeated all over again as soon as another director chimes in. It’s like an international reply-all catastrophe. It’s exhausting, and it’s not over yet.
I say bring it on. Keep the takes coming. Let’s have this fucking debate.
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LEARN MORE »I sound like a hostage grateful that my captors occasionally let me eat a nice meal.
I’ve been writing about comic-book and superhero and franchise films for decades now. I’ve had to watch and rewatch them, as a writer, a fan, a parent. I don’t entirely agree with our greatest auteurs’ dismissal of them; I’ve enjoyed my share of comic-book movies, and I’d even include a couple of them among their respective decades’ best. As industrial phenomena, they’ve allowed some directors to gain the clout to go on and make smaller, presumably more personal pictures, as Taika Waititi did when he recently followed up Thor: Ragnarok with Jojo Rabbit. (Directors are always saying they’re going to follow up their big blockbusters with something smaller and more intimate, but rarely do they actually do it. We’ve been waiting for George Lucas’s “experimental” movies for four decades now.) And I’ve been impressed with the occasional subtlety these films have provided, particularly in the way they … GAH!
You see what’s happening here? I sound like a hostage grateful that my captors occasionally let me eat a nice meal. It’s the Stockholm syndrome writ large, across an entire cultural industry and its consumers. And I think that this might be what the Justice League of Aging Auteurs is really rebelling against.
Scorsese and Coppola and Loach and that ghost of Sam Peckinpah I recently interviewed during a séance might find Marvel lacking in artistry and soul, but I suspect that what they’re really responding to is the underlying reason why they were asked about Marvel movies in the first place — the superhero (and, more generally, the IP-driven blockbuster) subgenre’s complete and utter dominance of today’s cinematic landscape. These are not filmmakers given to outrageous pronouncements. They continue to function in an industry alongside craftspeople and actors who have probably worked on, or hope to work on, a blockbuster or two. (A Spider-Man was the star of Scorsese’s last picture; his co-stars were Kylo Ren and Qui-Gon Jinn. The one before that co-starred Harley Quinn. His latest co-stars Rogue.) If these directors are speaking up, that probably means they’re feeling a certain alarm on their end — a growing sense that the things that made their chosen art form what it was are dying, replaced by something ominous and totalizing.
There’s one thing Scorsese said that really sticks out: Speaking of Marvel movies, he said they were “creating another kind of audience that thinks cinema is that.” All great films create their own audience, in a sense; you can’t really broaden the art form’s range of expression without teaching your audience new ways to experience and think and feel about what’s onscreen and, by extension, the universe beyond the frame. Citizen Kane does this; Rashomon does this; 2001 does this; Jeanne Dielman does this; Do the Right Thing does this. (And it’s not just the capital-M Masterpieces that do it, either. Anna Rose Holmer’s The Fits does this; Chloé Zhao’s The Rider does this; Robert Greene’s Actress does this. I could go on, but we’d be here all day.)
Superhero movies have done this to some extent, too — in sci-fi-thriller parlance, they’ve terraformed their own audience — but they haven’t really expanded our capacity for feeling. If anything, they’ve limited it, delivering tales of moral clarity, with ready-made, mix-and-match character interactions. There are occasional exceptions. (Black Panther’s Killmonger might technically be a bad guy, but he’s a deeply moving one. And Thanos is the saddest villain, like, ever. And can Captain America’s BFF the Winter Soldier still be an okay guy if he also killed Iron Man’s parents? Well, he was brainwashed at the time, so …) But by and large, in these movies, nuance is an occasional grace note, not the norm. It’s understandable that Coppola and Scorsese might be somewhat alarmed and dispirited by all this, especially since their work has always been about dubious people. Scorsese’s characters are, among other things, killers and abusive lunatics — and he makes us care about them, even find them charismatic. In these works, nuance and discomfort are the norm, and it’s moral clarity that’s rare; of all the many people killed in Coppola’s first two Godfather movies, only like two of them probably deserve it.
Admittedly, action-adventures have rarely been known for their complexity. This was true in the Golden Age of Hollywood, it was true in the ’70s, and it’s true now. But the tentpolization of cinema in recent years has also been accompanied by a certain self-inflation — a belief, parroted by fans and filmmakers and corporate honchos alike, that superhero epics and space-war movies and adventure fantasies matter in ways they never quite mattered before. We hear it every year when we wonder if that year’s big superhero hit might get nominated for Best Picture. Indeed, self-importance lies at the heart of these movies’ complete takeover of the industry.
Well, partly. The fact that Hollywood and film culture in general have over the years become beholden to a few serial megatitles at the expense of almost everything else is the kind of topic books have and will be written about. And it happened not because the people who made these pictures were evil (they weren’t, or at least most of them weren’t) but because of a confluence of somewhat understandable reasons. The films were, by and large, well-made and exciting. (That they were capable of earning tons of money even when they were lousy, as with the loathsome Iron Man 2, certainly didn’t hurt.) And people were willing to go to them even as other parts of the theatrical market were suffering.
Indeed, self-importance lies at the heart of these movies’ complete takeover of the industry.
But conceptually, these movies also presented clear images of good and evil at a time when our society was begging for it. The rise of superhero movies, and other IP-based fantasy and sci-fi action spectacles, broadly coincided with the post-9/11 era. The first Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings titles came out in late 2001. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man opened the following year, after having to write the Twin Towers out of its plot and its marketing. The first X-Men and the first Star Wars prequel had arrived a couple of years earlier, but their sequels came post-9/11, with a newfound political charge. We needed heroes, we needed battles between good and evil, and we needed the lines drawn clearly for us.
At least, we thought we needed them. Comic books and cartoons provide children with simple tales to help them make sense of what looks to them like a complicated world. And as our world has become increasingly more complicated and unsettling — or, perhaps more accurately, as we’ve become increasingly aware of how complicated and unsettling our world has always been — the films we consume have become ever more infantilizing. That’s not necessarily the fault of the films themselves; it’s the world that reduced us to fearful children again, not comic-book movies. Comic-book movies understandably, maybe even unwittingly, maybe even thankfully, took advantage of this circumstance and gave us what we wanted.
Action blockbusters have always been successful, and the industry’s more independent-minded artists have always struggled to get around the financial imperatives of what is, after all, a business. But the last 15 or so years have seen rapid monopolization across many industries, and these types of releases have become dominant in what is increasingly looking like a zero-sum game. While lots of other films get made — more, in fact, than have ever been produced before — all the oxygen in the room gets sucked out by the big ones, leaving the smaller ones to choke.
A treatment can become a dependency; a symptom can become a cause. And many of us who welcomed these movies with open arms may now find ourselves trapped in a tiresome world of absolutes — and not just cinematic ones. We might even be able to trace some of the intolerance of our disagreements in the real world, where opposing views become unacceptable and we live through constant, numbing cycles of hyperbole and constant accusation, to the fact that the stories we tell each other — the cultural products that are supposed to both shape and reflect our experiences — are mostly made up of simple narratives, simple quandaries, simple resolutions. To put it another way: People who are genuinely upset by Scorsese’s comments should ask themselves why they’re so upset by them, and whether their response, in its own way, proves his point.
By Bilge Ebiri
What is the Justice League of Aging Auteurs really rebelling against? Photo: Marvel Studios
So, I guess this is our new reality, in which every director of a certain age must be asked for their thoughts on Marvel. The current wave of interrogations started earlier this month, when Martin Scorsese, currently doing press for his Netflix release The Irishman, opined that Marvel movies were not cinema. “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,” he said, in words that have since been echoed in every corner of the internet. “It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.” The whole thing might have quickly blown over, but then Scorsese was asked to offer his opinion again, and he doubled and tripled down. “We shouldn’t be invaded by it,” he later explained of the superhero-movie subgenre. “We need cinemas to step up and show films that are narrative films.”
Then Francis Ford Coppola chimed in, ratcheting up the rhetoric by calling the Marvel movies “despicable.” Then somebody asked Ken Loach about them – because why the hell not? – and, in what surely came as a huge shock to everybody, the director of such anti-capitalist masterpieces as Riff-Raff and Land and Freedom deemed the candy-colored movies about Übermenschen repeatedly saving the galaxy, produced by one of the planet’s biggest corporations, “a market exercise.” Fernando Meirelles, he of City of God and The Two Popes, was next, with Wim Wenders and Wong Kar-wai presumably to follow. Pedro Almodóvar was characteristically ahead of this current debate when he told us earlier this year that he thought superheroes were “neutered.” (Though he may yet chime in again; he’s doing press for a new release, after all, and the hustle is the hustle.) Hell, Jodie Foster beat them all to the punch when she said, two years ago, that “going to the movies has become like a theme park,” and compared empty-calorie blockbusters to something akin to “fracking — you get the best return right now but you wreck the earth.”
Naturally, each round of the latest criticism has brought forth waves of Marvel fans, and even a few Marvel directors (and, oh look, Disney head Bob Iger has now chimed in as well), not just defending the comic-book movies but, in some cases, declaring that their elders’ inability to worship these movies without reservation constitutes some sort of moral failing. And the cycle of mass hysteria gets repeated all over again as soon as another director chimes in. It’s like an international reply-all catastrophe. It’s exhausting, and it’s not over yet.
I say bring it on. Keep the takes coming. Let’s have this fucking debate.
Get unlimited access to Vulture and everything else New York
LEARN MORE »I sound like a hostage grateful that my captors occasionally let me eat a nice meal.
I’ve been writing about comic-book and superhero and franchise films for decades now. I’ve had to watch and rewatch them, as a writer, a fan, a parent. I don’t entirely agree with our greatest auteurs’ dismissal of them; I’ve enjoyed my share of comic-book movies, and I’d even include a couple of them among their respective decades’ best. As industrial phenomena, they’ve allowed some directors to gain the clout to go on and make smaller, presumably more personal pictures, as Taika Waititi did when he recently followed up Thor: Ragnarok with Jojo Rabbit. (Directors are always saying they’re going to follow up their big blockbusters with something smaller and more intimate, but rarely do they actually do it. We’ve been waiting for George Lucas’s “experimental” movies for four decades now.) And I’ve been impressed with the occasional subtlety these films have provided, particularly in the way they … GAH!
You see what’s happening here? I sound like a hostage grateful that my captors occasionally let me eat a nice meal. It’s the Stockholm syndrome writ large, across an entire cultural industry and its consumers. And I think that this might be what the Justice League of Aging Auteurs is really rebelling against.
Scorsese and Coppola and Loach and that ghost of Sam Peckinpah I recently interviewed during a séance might find Marvel lacking in artistry and soul, but I suspect that what they’re really responding to is the underlying reason why they were asked about Marvel movies in the first place — the superhero (and, more generally, the IP-driven blockbuster) subgenre’s complete and utter dominance of today’s cinematic landscape. These are not filmmakers given to outrageous pronouncements. They continue to function in an industry alongside craftspeople and actors who have probably worked on, or hope to work on, a blockbuster or two. (A Spider-Man was the star of Scorsese’s last picture; his co-stars were Kylo Ren and Qui-Gon Jinn. The one before that co-starred Harley Quinn. His latest co-stars Rogue.) If these directors are speaking up, that probably means they’re feeling a certain alarm on their end — a growing sense that the things that made their chosen art form what it was are dying, replaced by something ominous and totalizing.
There’s one thing Scorsese said that really sticks out: Speaking of Marvel movies, he said they were “creating another kind of audience that thinks cinema is that.” All great films create their own audience, in a sense; you can’t really broaden the art form’s range of expression without teaching your audience new ways to experience and think and feel about what’s onscreen and, by extension, the universe beyond the frame. Citizen Kane does this; Rashomon does this; 2001 does this; Jeanne Dielman does this; Do the Right Thing does this. (And it’s not just the capital-M Masterpieces that do it, either. Anna Rose Holmer’s The Fits does this; Chloé Zhao’s The Rider does this; Robert Greene’s Actress does this. I could go on, but we’d be here all day.)
Superhero movies have done this to some extent, too — in sci-fi-thriller parlance, they’ve terraformed their own audience — but they haven’t really expanded our capacity for feeling. If anything, they’ve limited it, delivering tales of moral clarity, with ready-made, mix-and-match character interactions. There are occasional exceptions. (Black Panther’s Killmonger might technically be a bad guy, but he’s a deeply moving one. And Thanos is the saddest villain, like, ever. And can Captain America’s BFF the Winter Soldier still be an okay guy if he also killed Iron Man’s parents? Well, he was brainwashed at the time, so …) But by and large, in these movies, nuance is an occasional grace note, not the norm. It’s understandable that Coppola and Scorsese might be somewhat alarmed and dispirited by all this, especially since their work has always been about dubious people. Scorsese’s characters are, among other things, killers and abusive lunatics — and he makes us care about them, even find them charismatic. In these works, nuance and discomfort are the norm, and it’s moral clarity that’s rare; of all the many people killed in Coppola’s first two Godfather movies, only like two of them probably deserve it.
Admittedly, action-adventures have rarely been known for their complexity. This was true in the Golden Age of Hollywood, it was true in the ’70s, and it’s true now. But the tentpolization of cinema in recent years has also been accompanied by a certain self-inflation — a belief, parroted by fans and filmmakers and corporate honchos alike, that superhero epics and space-war movies and adventure fantasies matter in ways they never quite mattered before. We hear it every year when we wonder if that year’s big superhero hit might get nominated for Best Picture. Indeed, self-importance lies at the heart of these movies’ complete takeover of the industry.
Well, partly. The fact that Hollywood and film culture in general have over the years become beholden to a few serial megatitles at the expense of almost everything else is the kind of topic books have and will be written about. And it happened not because the people who made these pictures were evil (they weren’t, or at least most of them weren’t) but because of a confluence of somewhat understandable reasons. The films were, by and large, well-made and exciting. (That they were capable of earning tons of money even when they were lousy, as with the loathsome Iron Man 2, certainly didn’t hurt.) And people were willing to go to them even as other parts of the theatrical market were suffering.
Indeed, self-importance lies at the heart of these movies’ complete takeover of the industry.
But conceptually, these movies also presented clear images of good and evil at a time when our society was begging for it. The rise of superhero movies, and other IP-based fantasy and sci-fi action spectacles, broadly coincided with the post-9/11 era. The first Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings titles came out in late 2001. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man opened the following year, after having to write the Twin Towers out of its plot and its marketing. The first X-Men and the first Star Wars prequel had arrived a couple of years earlier, but their sequels came post-9/11, with a newfound political charge. We needed heroes, we needed battles between good and evil, and we needed the lines drawn clearly for us.
At least, we thought we needed them. Comic books and cartoons provide children with simple tales to help them make sense of what looks to them like a complicated world. And as our world has become increasingly more complicated and unsettling — or, perhaps more accurately, as we’ve become increasingly aware of how complicated and unsettling our world has always been — the films we consume have become ever more infantilizing. That’s not necessarily the fault of the films themselves; it’s the world that reduced us to fearful children again, not comic-book movies. Comic-book movies understandably, maybe even unwittingly, maybe even thankfully, took advantage of this circumstance and gave us what we wanted.
Action blockbusters have always been successful, and the industry’s more independent-minded artists have always struggled to get around the financial imperatives of what is, after all, a business. But the last 15 or so years have seen rapid monopolization across many industries, and these types of releases have become dominant in what is increasingly looking like a zero-sum game. While lots of other films get made — more, in fact, than have ever been produced before — all the oxygen in the room gets sucked out by the big ones, leaving the smaller ones to choke.
A treatment can become a dependency; a symptom can become a cause. And many of us who welcomed these movies with open arms may now find ourselves trapped in a tiresome world of absolutes — and not just cinematic ones. We might even be able to trace some of the intolerance of our disagreements in the real world, where opposing views become unacceptable and we live through constant, numbing cycles of hyperbole and constant accusation, to the fact that the stories we tell each other — the cultural products that are supposed to both shape and reflect our experiences — are mostly made up of simple narratives, simple quandaries, simple resolutions. To put it another way: People who are genuinely upset by Scorsese’s comments should ask themselves why they’re so upset by them, and whether their response, in its own way, proves his point.
Bob Iger Says Directors Are Entitled to ‘Bitch’ About Marvel Movies
By Jordan Crucchiola@jorcru
Bob Iger. Photo: Martina Albertazzi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Since the move du jour is asking very famous directors what they think of superhero movies, a reporter at the WSJ Tech Live event asked Disney CEO Robert Iger what he thinks about the likes of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola speaking ill of movies like his big Marvel tentpoles. “It doesn’t bother me, except I’m bothered on behalf of the people who work on those movies,” Iger told the moderator of his in conversation event. “They’re entitled to their own opinions. Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese are two people I hold in the highest regard in terms of the films they’ve made, the films I like, the films that we’ve all watched. But when Francis uses the words, ‘Those films are despicable,’ I reserve the word despicable for someone who committed mass murder. These are movies.”
While Coppola has called superhero movies “despicable,” Scorsese compared them to amusement-park rides. Iger wondered which Disney-employed filmmakers the cinema legends were referring to — Ryan Coogler? Taika Waititi? Kevin Feige? “I think I’ve maybe sounded a little bit more defensive than I wanted to be. I don’t really feel a need to defend what we’re doing,” Iger continued. “If they want to bitch about movies it’s certainly their right. I just don’t understand. It seems so disrespectful to all the people who work on those films, who are working just as hard as the people who work on their films. They’re putting their creative souls on the line just like they are. You’re telling me Ryan Coogler making Black Panther is doing something that is somehow less than what Marty Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola have ever done on one of their movies? Come on!” So, Iger didn’t want to sound defensive, but he did kind of want to say, Come through, Marty and Francis! Following light applause from the crowd, the Disney chief put a point on the matter by adding, “I said it!”
By Jordan Crucchiola@jorcru
Bob Iger. Photo: Martina Albertazzi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Since the move du jour is asking very famous directors what they think of superhero movies, a reporter at the WSJ Tech Live event asked Disney CEO Robert Iger what he thinks about the likes of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola speaking ill of movies like his big Marvel tentpoles. “It doesn’t bother me, except I’m bothered on behalf of the people who work on those movies,” Iger told the moderator of his in conversation event. “They’re entitled to their own opinions. Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese are two people I hold in the highest regard in terms of the films they’ve made, the films I like, the films that we’ve all watched. But when Francis uses the words, ‘Those films are despicable,’ I reserve the word despicable for someone who committed mass murder. These are movies.”
While Coppola has called superhero movies “despicable,” Scorsese compared them to amusement-park rides. Iger wondered which Disney-employed filmmakers the cinema legends were referring to — Ryan Coogler? Taika Waititi? Kevin Feige? “I think I’ve maybe sounded a little bit more defensive than I wanted to be. I don’t really feel a need to defend what we’re doing,” Iger continued. “If they want to bitch about movies it’s certainly their right. I just don’t understand. It seems so disrespectful to all the people who work on those films, who are working just as hard as the people who work on their films. They’re putting their creative souls on the line just like they are. You’re telling me Ryan Coogler making Black Panther is doing something that is somehow less than what Marty Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola have ever done on one of their movies? Come on!” So, Iger didn’t want to sound defensive, but he did kind of want to say, Come through, Marty and Francis! Following light applause from the crowd, the Disney chief put a point on the matter by adding, “I said it!”
Here's what Marvel directors and stars are saying about Martin Scorsese's MCU criticism
By Rosy Cordero
October 22, 2019 at 04:18 PM EDT
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In the wake of acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese saying that Marvel movies are “not cinema,” directors and stars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are responding to his remarks, and in some cases pushing back in defense of the mega-franchise. With Scorsese’s fellow auteur Francis Ford Coppola echoing his sentiments — the Godfather director recently called Marvel movies “despicable” — this debate could be far from over.
ZADE ROSENTHAL/MARVEL; MARVEL STUDIOS/KOBAL/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK; FRANCOIS DUHAMEL/MARVEL
Jon Favreau, who helped launch the MCU by directing Iron Man and Iron Man 2, shared his thoughts about Scorsese and Coppola’s comments during an interview with CNBC Tuesday.
“These two guys are my heroes, and they have earned the right to express their opinions,” Favreau said while promoting his Star Wars series The Mandalorian. “I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if they didn’t carve the way. They served as a source of inspiration; you can go all the way back to Swingers… They can express whatever opinion they like.”
Taika Waititi, who directed Thor: Ragnarok and is returning for the next installment, Thor: Love and Thunder, debated Scorsese’s comments during an interview with the Associated Press.
“Of course it’s cinema! It’s at the movies. It’s in cinemas…” he said while pointing at the camera, “near you!”
94 people are talking about this
Natalie Portman, who plays Jane Foster in the Thor movies, told The Hollywood Reporter on Saturday that “there’s not one way to make art,” and that she thinks “there’s room for all types of cinema.”
She added, “I think that Marvel films are so popular because they’re really entertaining and people desire entertainment when they have their special time after work, after dealing with their hardships in real life.”
MCU star Sebastian Stan weighed in on Scorsese’s comments while speaking at Houston’s Fandemic Tour.
“He’s one of my heroes and I was listening to him and meanwhile, I just spent the day with all of you,” Stan said, according to ComicBook.com. “People have been going up to me like, ‘Thank you so much for this character,’ ‘This movie helped me out so much,’ ‘This movie inspired me. Now I feel better. Now I feel less alone,’ so how can you say these movies are not helping people?”
Director James Gunn has been outspoken about the comments from Scorsese and Coppola against comic book films — including his two Guardians of the Galaxy movies (with a third on the way). He shared his thoughts via Instagram on Sunday.
“Many of our grandfathers thought all gangster movies were the same, often calling them ‘despicable,’” he wrote alongside a photo of Guardians characters Groot and Rocket. “Some of our great grandfathers thought the same of westerns, and believed the films of John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, and Sergio Leone were all exactly the same. I remember a great uncle to whom I was raving about Star Wars. He responded by saying, ‘I saw that when it was called 2001, and, boy, was it boring!’ Superheroes are simply today’s gangsters/cowboys/outer space adventurers. Some superhero films are awful, some are beautiful. Like westerns and gangster movies (and before that, just MOVIES), not everyone will be able to appreciate them, even some geniuses. And that’s okay.”
Avengers and Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon singled out Gunn’s work when responding to Scorsese earlier this month. He tweeted, “I first think of @JamesGunn, how his heart & guts are packed into GOTG. I revere Marty, & I do see his point, but… Well there’s a reason why ‘I’m always angry’” (the latter quote being a Hulk reference).
1,525 people are talking about this
Robert Downey Jr., who played Iron Man/Tony Stark in multiple MCU projects, spoke to Howard Stern when the controversy over Scorsese’s comments first erupted.
“It is this very large, multiheaded hydra at this point,” he told Stern. As to whether Marvel movies are cinema, he said, “I mean, it plays in theaters. I appreciate [Scorsese’s] opinion. I think it’s like anything where we need all of the different perspectives so we can come to center and move on.”
Samuel L. Jackson also shared his respect for the Raging Bull director during an interview in early October, though he agreed to disagree on the topic.
“That’s kind of like saying Bugs Bunny ain’t funny,” Jackson told Variety. “Films are films. You know, everybody doesn’t like his stuff either. I mean, we happen to, but everybody doesn’t. There are a lot of Italian-Americans that don’t think he should be making films about them like that. Everybody’s got an opinion, so it’s okay. It’s not going to stop anyone from making movies.”
Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger addressed the controversial comments by Scorsese and Coppola on Wednesday during an interview with Wall Street Journal. Expressing that their commentary doesn’t bother him, but it does bother him on behalf of those that worked on the films.
“They don’t see how audiences are reacting to them,” Iger said when asked what the pair don’t see in the MCU. “They’re entitled to their opinions. Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese are two people I hold in the highest regard in terms of the films they’ve made, the films I’ve liked, the films we’ve all watched. But when Francis uses the words ‘those films are despicable,’ I’d reserve the word ‘despicable’ for someone who had committed mass murder—these are movies.”
He added, “I don’t get what they’re trying to criticize us for when we’re making films that people are obviously enjoying going to and they’re doing so by the millions.”
Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Doctor Strange in multiple Marvel movies, also made a statement in support of the MCU. He spoke to Jenny McCarthy on her SiriusXM podcast released on Wednesday.
“I know there’s been a lot of debate about this recently, but very fine filmmakers coming to the fore saying that these film franchises are taking over everything but luckiest actors who get to do both kinds of variety at either polarity of budgeting. And I agree, we don’t one King to rule them all and have kind of a monopoly. Hopefully, that’s not the case and we should really look into continuing to support all filmmakers at every level.”
By Rosy Cordero
October 22, 2019 at 04:18 PM EDT
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In the wake of acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese saying that Marvel movies are “not cinema,” directors and stars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are responding to his remarks, and in some cases pushing back in defense of the mega-franchise. With Scorsese’s fellow auteur Francis Ford Coppola echoing his sentiments — the Godfather director recently called Marvel movies “despicable” — this debate could be far from over.
ZADE ROSENTHAL/MARVEL; MARVEL STUDIOS/KOBAL/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK; FRANCOIS DUHAMEL/MARVEL
Jon Favreau, who helped launch the MCU by directing Iron Man and Iron Man 2, shared his thoughts about Scorsese and Coppola’s comments during an interview with CNBC Tuesday.
“These two guys are my heroes, and they have earned the right to express their opinions,” Favreau said while promoting his Star Wars series The Mandalorian. “I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if they didn’t carve the way. They served as a source of inspiration; you can go all the way back to Swingers… They can express whatever opinion they like.”
Taika Waititi, who directed Thor: Ragnarok and is returning for the next installment, Thor: Love and Thunder, debated Scorsese’s comments during an interview with the Associated Press.
“Of course it’s cinema! It’s at the movies. It’s in cinemas…” he said while pointing at the camera, “near you!”
94 people are talking about this
Natalie Portman, who plays Jane Foster in the Thor movies, told The Hollywood Reporter on Saturday that “there’s not one way to make art,” and that she thinks “there’s room for all types of cinema.”
She added, “I think that Marvel films are so popular because they’re really entertaining and people desire entertainment when they have their special time after work, after dealing with their hardships in real life.”
MCU star Sebastian Stan weighed in on Scorsese’s comments while speaking at Houston’s Fandemic Tour.
“He’s one of my heroes and I was listening to him and meanwhile, I just spent the day with all of you,” Stan said, according to ComicBook.com. “People have been going up to me like, ‘Thank you so much for this character,’ ‘This movie helped me out so much,’ ‘This movie inspired me. Now I feel better. Now I feel less alone,’ so how can you say these movies are not helping people?”
Director James Gunn has been outspoken about the comments from Scorsese and Coppola against comic book films — including his two Guardians of the Galaxy movies (with a third on the way). He shared his thoughts via Instagram on Sunday.
“Many of our grandfathers thought all gangster movies were the same, often calling them ‘despicable,’” he wrote alongside a photo of Guardians characters Groot and Rocket. “Some of our great grandfathers thought the same of westerns, and believed the films of John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, and Sergio Leone were all exactly the same. I remember a great uncle to whom I was raving about Star Wars. He responded by saying, ‘I saw that when it was called 2001, and, boy, was it boring!’ Superheroes are simply today’s gangsters/cowboys/outer space adventurers. Some superhero films are awful, some are beautiful. Like westerns and gangster movies (and before that, just MOVIES), not everyone will be able to appreciate them, even some geniuses. And that’s okay.”
Avengers and Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon singled out Gunn’s work when responding to Scorsese earlier this month. He tweeted, “I first think of @JamesGunn, how his heart & guts are packed into GOTG. I revere Marty, & I do see his point, but… Well there’s a reason why ‘I’m always angry’” (the latter quote being a Hulk reference).
1,525 people are talking about this
Robert Downey Jr., who played Iron Man/Tony Stark in multiple MCU projects, spoke to Howard Stern when the controversy over Scorsese’s comments first erupted.
“It is this very large, multiheaded hydra at this point,” he told Stern. As to whether Marvel movies are cinema, he said, “I mean, it plays in theaters. I appreciate [Scorsese’s] opinion. I think it’s like anything where we need all of the different perspectives so we can come to center and move on.”
Samuel L. Jackson also shared his respect for the Raging Bull director during an interview in early October, though he agreed to disagree on the topic.
“That’s kind of like saying Bugs Bunny ain’t funny,” Jackson told Variety. “Films are films. You know, everybody doesn’t like his stuff either. I mean, we happen to, but everybody doesn’t. There are a lot of Italian-Americans that don’t think he should be making films about them like that. Everybody’s got an opinion, so it’s okay. It’s not going to stop anyone from making movies.”
Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger addressed the controversial comments by Scorsese and Coppola on Wednesday during an interview with Wall Street Journal. Expressing that their commentary doesn’t bother him, but it does bother him on behalf of those that worked on the films.
“They don’t see how audiences are reacting to them,” Iger said when asked what the pair don’t see in the MCU. “They’re entitled to their opinions. Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese are two people I hold in the highest regard in terms of the films they’ve made, the films I’ve liked, the films we’ve all watched. But when Francis uses the words ‘those films are despicable,’ I’d reserve the word ‘despicable’ for someone who had committed mass murder—these are movies.”
He added, “I don’t get what they’re trying to criticize us for when we’re making films that people are obviously enjoying going to and they’re doing so by the millions.”
Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Doctor Strange in multiple Marvel movies, also made a statement in support of the MCU. He spoke to Jenny McCarthy on her SiriusXM podcast released on Wednesday.
“I know there’s been a lot of debate about this recently, but very fine filmmakers coming to the fore saying that these film franchises are taking over everything but luckiest actors who get to do both kinds of variety at either polarity of budgeting. And I agree, we don’t one King to rule them all and have kind of a monopoly. Hopefully, that’s not the case and we should really look into continuing to support all filmmakers at every level.”
Disney’s Bob Iger on Martin Scorsese Criticism: “I Don’t Think He’s Ever Seen a Marvel Film”
Walt Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger in a BBC Radio interview commented on Martin Scorsese's criticism of Marvel films, saying he admires the filmmaker but believes he has never seen a Marvel movie. He also said about the Star Wars movie franchise that he feels that "less is more."
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Because the last 20 sucked. And half these so called super fans got their comic book knowledge from superhero movies and not the actual comic. Hollywood cant make big blockbuster hits anymore. So they rely on Marvel and Disney to save them with hyped up trash.
Scorsese also offered a cautionary message about the current state of exhibition, and Hollywood’s emphasis on tentpole output that, he believes, is suffocating genuine artistic vision. “If people are given only one kind of thing and endlessly sold only one kind of thing, of course they’re going to want more of that one kind of thing.”
this was the same exact thing said about perry films....
For Scorsese, that is all absent in the MCU. He wrote that while “many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures,” ultimately “what’s not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes.”
www.indiewire.com
so whats the difference NOW??? its about movies YOU like....
this was the same exact thing said about perry films....
For Scorsese, that is all absent in the MCU. He wrote that while “many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures,” ultimately “what’s not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes.”
Martin Scorsese Defends Marvel Comments in New York Times Op-Ed: These Films Have No Mystery or Risk
Scorsese unpacks his controversial comments in a new opinion piece, but isn't backing down from his prior claims, either.
www.indiewire.com
so whats the difference NOW??? its about movies YOU like....
Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans Want Their Marvel Movies With a Side of Auteur Projects
By Justin Curto
These people know a thing or two about Marvel movies. Photo: Marvel/Disney/Kobal/Shutterstock
This Oscar season, those of us at Vulture are ready for every actor, director, and anyone else within spitting distance of a nomination to be asked to give their opinion on the matter of Scorsese v. Marvel (2019). At least Variety tapped two experts on the matter for its first “Actors on Actors”
conversation: Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit Oscar-chaser Scarlett Johansson, a.k.a. Black Widow, and Knives Out bad boy Chris Evans, a.k.a. Captain America. Johansson first brought up the controversy, which “seems kind of old-fashioned.” (Old-fashioned? Don’t tell Marty!) “Somebody had to explain it to me because it seemed so disappointing and sad in a way. They said, ‘I think what these people are saying is that at the actual theater, there’s not a lot of room for different kinds of movies, or smaller movies, because the theater is taken up by huge blockbusters,’” she told Evans. “It made me think about how people consume content now, and how there’s been this huge sea change with their viewing experience.”
Evans replied, “I think original content inspires creative content. I think new stuff is what keeps the creative wheel rolling. I just believe there’s room at the table for all of it.” And for his part, Evans has gone outside the film industry for “new stuff,” starring in the short-lived 2018 Broadway revival of Kenneth Lonergan’s play Lobby Hero. “You’re so good,” Johansson told him of the performance. “It’s like you’re my only actor friend that actually came to see the play,” Evans responded. But it wasn’t a Marvel role, so can we blame them? [Wink.]
By Justin Curto
These people know a thing or two about Marvel movies. Photo: Marvel/Disney/Kobal/Shutterstock
This Oscar season, those of us at Vulture are ready for every actor, director, and anyone else within spitting distance of a nomination to be asked to give their opinion on the matter of Scorsese v. Marvel (2019). At least Variety tapped two experts on the matter for its first “Actors on Actors”
conversation: Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit Oscar-chaser Scarlett Johansson, a.k.a. Black Widow, and Knives Out bad boy Chris Evans, a.k.a. Captain America. Johansson first brought up the controversy, which “seems kind of old-fashioned.” (Old-fashioned? Don’t tell Marty!) “Somebody had to explain it to me because it seemed so disappointing and sad in a way. They said, ‘I think what these people are saying is that at the actual theater, there’s not a lot of room for different kinds of movies, or smaller movies, because the theater is taken up by huge blockbusters,’” she told Evans. “It made me think about how people consume content now, and how there’s been this huge sea change with their viewing experience.”
Evans replied, “I think original content inspires creative content. I think new stuff is what keeps the creative wheel rolling. I just believe there’s room at the table for all of it.” And for his part, Evans has gone outside the film industry for “new stuff,” starring in the short-lived 2018 Broadway revival of Kenneth Lonergan’s play Lobby Hero. “You’re so good,” Johansson told him of the performance. “It’s like you’re my only actor friend that actually came to see the play,” Evans responded. But it wasn’t a Marvel role, so can we blame them? [Wink.]
Menace to Society >>> all this CAC's gangster movies
Fuck him.
O-Dog >>> any Joe/Robert cac gangster
Fuck him.
O-Dog >>> any Joe/Robert cac gangster
‘Avengers’ Directors on ’21 Bridges’ and Scorsese Attack: “Nobody Owns Cinema”
'Avengers: Endgame' directors Joe and Anthony Russo wade into the debate over the merits of Marvel movies: "We define cinema as a film that can bring people together to have a shared, emotional experience."
www.hollywoodreporter.com
You know whats funny....10 years ago Spike Lee said this very type of thing about Tyler Perry movies and EVERYONE HERE agreed...
NOW that the shoe is on the other foot and a great director is trashing movies YOU like... you all dismiss it as so much haterade...
Madea still suck!
Movie Biz Debate: Jodie Foster Says Superhero Blockbusters Are Ruining Moviegoing
Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster says big budget blockbuster superhero movies are “ruining the viewing habits of moviegoers” in the U.S. and abroad. Without question, Foster has one of the most successful longstanding careers in Hollywood, having appeared on such iconic TV series as Gunsmoke...
www.bgol.us
Movie Debate: Steven Spielberg Thinks Netflix Films Don’t Deserve Oscars
http://www.vulture.com/2018/03/steven-spielberg-thinks-netflix-films-dont-deserve-oscars.html Steven Spielberg Thinks Netflix Films Are Nothing More Than TV Movies That Don’t Deserve Oscars In recent years, Netflix has found a decent amount of success by diversifying and expanding its...
www.bgol.us
Apparently this sentiment is NOT new at all.
Disney CEO Bob Iger seeking to meet with Martin Scorsese after Marvel criticisms
By Tyler Aquilina
December 12, 2019 at 05:18 PM EST
FBTwitterMore
JEFF KRAVITZ/FILMMAGIC; MARILLA SICILIA/ARCHIVIO MARILLA SICILIA/MONDADORI PORTFOLIO VIA GETTY IMAGES
Bob Iger wants a sit-down to make peace with Martin Scorsese — a sentence which vaguely suggests the mob world of Scorsese’s The Irishman and Goodfellas. (One could almost imagine the pair as dons of the film sphere: Iger the Disney Mafia kingpin, Scorsese the head of the Art-House Family. Anyway.)
Speaking to Time magazine after being named its Businessperson of the Year for 2019, the Disney CEO again addressed Scorsese’s criticisms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and said he is arranging to meet with the filmmaker. This extended brouhaha began in October, when the legendary director said Marvel movies are “not cinema” and compared them to theme parks, criticisms he reiterated multiple times, including in a New York Times op-ed.
“Many films today are perfect products manufactured for immediate consumption. Many of them are well made by teams of talented individuals. All the same, they lack something essential to cinema: the unifying vision of an individual artist,” Scorsese wrote in the Times, adding that the dominance of franchise films at the multiplex (in which, of course, Disney has played a major part) “is brutal and inhospitable to art.”
Speaking to Time, Iger largely brushed off the comments, calling them “nasty” and “not fair to the people who are making the movies.” “If Marty Scorsese wants to be in the business of taking artistic risk, all power to him,” he added. “It doesn’t mean that what we’re doing isn’t art.”
Then, the article noted: “Iger says his people and Marty’s people are arranging a get-together.”
One can only assume the director’s Marvel comments would come up at such a get-together, so at the very least the two will potentially have a chance to meet face-to-face and clear the air. Perhaps Iger will offer Scorsese a chance to produce a gritty Thanos origin story that riffs on one of his classic films? (Seems crazy, we know. Where would anyone get an idea like that?)
The Time article, incidentally, also sheds some light on the dearth of currently available Baby Yoda merchandise in the marketplace. Iger apparently decided to delay merchandising until after Disney+ had launched and The Mandalorian premiered along with it, so as not to spoil the premiere episode’s big reveal. He also compared seeing the cuddly creature for the first time to “when he was running ABC’s prime-time TV division and 16-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio showed up on Growing Pains.” We’ll let you make of that what you will.
@ViCiouS
@fonzerrillii
@largebillsonlyplease
WOW...
Marty must have a touch a MAJOR nerve that they STILL mad about this.
By Tyler Aquilina
December 12, 2019 at 05:18 PM EST
FBTwitterMore
JEFF KRAVITZ/FILMMAGIC; MARILLA SICILIA/ARCHIVIO MARILLA SICILIA/MONDADORI PORTFOLIO VIA GETTY IMAGES
Bob Iger wants a sit-down to make peace with Martin Scorsese — a sentence which vaguely suggests the mob world of Scorsese’s The Irishman and Goodfellas. (One could almost imagine the pair as dons of the film sphere: Iger the Disney Mafia kingpin, Scorsese the head of the Art-House Family. Anyway.)
Speaking to Time magazine after being named its Businessperson of the Year for 2019, the Disney CEO again addressed Scorsese’s criticisms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and said he is arranging to meet with the filmmaker. This extended brouhaha began in October, when the legendary director said Marvel movies are “not cinema” and compared them to theme parks, criticisms he reiterated multiple times, including in a New York Times op-ed.
“Many films today are perfect products manufactured for immediate consumption. Many of them are well made by teams of talented individuals. All the same, they lack something essential to cinema: the unifying vision of an individual artist,” Scorsese wrote in the Times, adding that the dominance of franchise films at the multiplex (in which, of course, Disney has played a major part) “is brutal and inhospitable to art.”
Speaking to Time, Iger largely brushed off the comments, calling them “nasty” and “not fair to the people who are making the movies.” “If Marty Scorsese wants to be in the business of taking artistic risk, all power to him,” he added. “It doesn’t mean that what we’re doing isn’t art.”
Then, the article noted: “Iger says his people and Marty’s people are arranging a get-together.”
One can only assume the director’s Marvel comments would come up at such a get-together, so at the very least the two will potentially have a chance to meet face-to-face and clear the air. Perhaps Iger will offer Scorsese a chance to produce a gritty Thanos origin story that riffs on one of his classic films? (Seems crazy, we know. Where would anyone get an idea like that?)
The Time article, incidentally, also sheds some light on the dearth of currently available Baby Yoda merchandise in the marketplace. Iger apparently decided to delay merchandising until after Disney+ had launched and The Mandalorian premiered along with it, so as not to spoil the premiere episode’s big reveal. He also compared seeing the cuddly creature for the first time to “when he was running ABC’s prime-time TV division and 16-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio showed up on Growing Pains.” We’ll let you make of that what you will.
@ViCiouS
@fonzerrillii
@largebillsonlyplease
WOW...
Marty must have a touch a MAJOR nerve that they STILL mad about this.
The "hate" is no different than the "hate" mush mouth rappers who flood the market and suppress other content receive.
Why meet with the dude saying get off my lawn?
Art is subjective
The people who love the films love the films the people who don't don't
there is no monolith on what is and isn't worthy
Martin fucked up trying to be the gatekeeper. The point of view he has is one that can be respected but still is just his opinion.
He can't tell you how to make Avengers or Get Out in the same way that they can't tell him how to make Casino or Taxi.
Art is subjective
The people who love the films love the films the people who don't don't
there is no monolith on what is and isn't worthy
Martin fucked up trying to be the gatekeeper. The point of view he has is one that can be respected but still is just his opinion.
He can't tell you how to make Avengers or Get Out in the same way that they can't tell him how to make Casino or Taxi.
Disney CEO Bob Iger seeking to meet with Martin Scorsese after Marvel criticisms
By Tyler Aquilina
December 12, 2019 at 05:18 PM EST
FBTwitterMore
JEFF KRAVITZ/FILMMAGIC; MARILLA SICILIA/ARCHIVIO MARILLA SICILIA/MONDADORI PORTFOLIO VIA GETTY IMAGES
Bob Iger wants a sit-down to make peace with Martin Scorsese — a sentence which vaguely suggests the mob world of Scorsese’s The Irishman and Goodfellas. (One could almost imagine the pair as dons of the film sphere: Iger the Disney Mafia kingpin, Scorsese the head of the Art-House Family. Anyway.)
Speaking to Time magazine after being named its Businessperson of the Year for 2019, the Disney CEO again addressed Scorsese’s criticisms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and said he is arranging to meet with the filmmaker. This extended brouhaha began in October, when the legendary director said Marvel movies are “not cinema” and compared them to theme parks, criticisms he reiterated multiple times, including in a New York Times op-ed.
“Many films today are perfect products manufactured for immediate consumption. Many of them are well made by teams of talented individuals. All the same, they lack something essential to cinema: the unifying vision of an individual artist,” Scorsese wrote in the Times, adding that the dominance of franchise films at the multiplex (in which, of course, Disney has played a major part) “is brutal and inhospitable to art.”
Speaking to Time, Iger largely brushed off the comments, calling them “nasty” and “not fair to the people who are making the movies.” “If Marty Scorsese wants to be in the business of taking artistic risk, all power to him,” he added. “It doesn’t mean that what we’re doing isn’t art.”
Then, the article noted: “Iger says his people and Marty’s people are arranging a get-together.”
One can only assume the director’s Marvel comments would come up at such a get-together, so at the very least the two will potentially have a chance to meet face-to-face and clear the air. Perhaps Iger will offer Scorsese a chance to produce a gritty Thanos origin story that riffs on one of his classic films? (Seems crazy, we know. Where would anyone get an idea like that?)
The Time article, incidentally, also sheds some light on the dearth of currently available Baby Yoda merchandise in the marketplace. Iger apparently decided to delay merchandising until after Disney+ had launched and The Mandalorian premiered along with it, so as not to spoil the premiere episode’s big reveal. He also compared seeing the cuddly creature for the first time to “when he was running ABC’s prime-time TV division and 16-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio showed up on Growing Pains.” We’ll let you make of that what you will.
@ViCiouS
@fonzerrillii
@largebillsonlyplease
WOW...
Marty must have a touch a MAJOR nerve that they STILL mad about this.
They shouldn't be mad the response should be that's his opinion we respect him and disagree with him fully.