re: Martin Scorsese Doesn't Think Marvel Movies Are Cinema (updated)

quote:

---

He's right you know .... and he's being kind in his wording. They are fun movies but they are not great cinema,

---

If he had simply said they weren’t great cinema, I’d agree with him with certain exceptions.

He said they weren’t cinema at all, as if he is the gatekeeper of such things. I disagree with that.

quote:

---

I can’t wait until the comic book phase is dead

---

Why? There were dozens of great films this year that had nothing to do with comic books.

quote:

---

It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”

---

Wow, what a load of conceited horseshite.

Sure, there's a ton of fun theme-park action in the MCU. But, I mean, my God, look at Tony Stark.

Lazy billionaire genius forced to confront the industry he rules, the military complex and weapons industry. Uses his genius to save his life, has an epiphany, and funnels all his energy to saving people.
And then, it's not enough. He clings to the billionaire playboy lifestyle, but truth is he's driven to do better at saving. And still not enough. Has a little psychotic break because things aren't perfect. Starts giving away personal freedoms in order to save even more. Keeps going back to the well, doing even more and more, causing bad stuff to happen.
Keeps failing, no matter how much better he makes things.
He's the one Avenger that walks away from the IW fallout in a better place, has his wife and family.
Walks away from that, and ultimately sacrifices his own life, to make things better... for everyone else. He accepts his penance.

You could write all the action out, keep the themes driving him, and it would be a compelling and poignant tale.

Well, that settles it. I'll never go watch another Marvel film now. Scorsese's opinion is what matters to me.

Of course he doesn't think people standing in front of green screens and CGI are cinema.

Cinema is the art of the camera.

They're movies, motion pictures because they move but nobody ever says, "hey did you see that new Marvel film?"

Is this any different than a noted author saying that certain novels are not “literature?”

I like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but I also like the Matt Scudder books by Lawrence Block. I do not care that the former are considered “literature” and that the latter are not. I read each for very different reasons, just like I watch different films for different reasons.

Is it?

They call them comic-book movies for a reason.

They don't call them comic-book films.


Movie: "a story or event recorded by a camera as a set of moving images and shown in a theater or on television; a motion picture."

Cinema: "the production of movies as an art or industry."

I mean, everyone has an opinion. His definition of "cinema" is different from others. To me, cinema is not necessarily realism or effective drama (which I think there is effective drama in some Marvel movies). It's to be entertained. Some are entertained in different ways.