Scorsese and this whole Marvel bollocks

Today Martin Scorsese, the film director behind some of my favourite films of all time, a well respected filmmaker and, long before show-off Tarantino, was the encyclopedic authority on all things movies - As likely to show up on a documentary about Bergman or Truffaut as Larry Cohen - had an op-ed piece published in the New York Times “explaining” his “Marvel films are not cinema” comment.

The reason this article even exists, as he acknowledges in the second paragraph, is because a, probably smaller than we think, bunch of hysterical tweeters went mental about it and the “news” outlets, in their unwavering desire to fan the flames of idiocy and outrage, encouraged this rampantly stupid behaviour and dragged this bollocks out to the point where grown ass filmmakers, who have worked for Marvel, were making themselves look like morons on social media with a lot of “I respect Scorsese but…” tweets and Scorsese, a 76 year old man, had to try and defend his opinion about films that, if he and we are all honest, just don’t really float his boat that much.

The whole thing is fucking ridiculous.

But here I am wading in and giving my two cents like some hack journalist, imagining anything I have to say will make an iota of difference and filling a small void in this endless cycle of content and madness that we now call modern living and, if truth be told, a slightly larger void in the core of my being that feeds off attention and self importance.

hmmmm… ok then… tell me more

Most people with even a shred of common sense (a number dwindling by the day apparently) knew exactly what Scorsese meant by “I don’t think Marvel movies are Cinema, they’re more like theme parks”. It’s an inelegant way to say they’re more spectacle than substance - something which has been an endless, endless debate about art in general forever.

So, what is art? what is cinema?

Well I am not sure how equipped I am to answer the “art” thing as, for me, art, creativity and opinion are intertwined and what I consider art may, quite reasonably, not be for someone else. I once heard an artist say, with all seriousness, “if I am an artist and I make a cup of tea then that cup of tea is art” - no it’s not, you pretentious twazzock, it’s a cup of fucking tea and you need to sit down before someone slaps you down, also don’t ever refer to yourself as an artist for fuck’s sake. For me, art is created for a purpose - To be beautiful, to be a learning experience, to express an emotion, to illicit an emotion, to tell a story, to bring people together, or just for the burning need to create something out of nothing (and many, many other reasons). It’s music, it’s movies, photography, painting, sculpture, books, design, fashion, costumes, architecture and, yes, even podcasts! (shock! Gasp!) It’s not a cup of tea though. As delightful as a cup of tea is, it’s just a cup of fucking tea. The teapot, however, could, quite reasonably, be considered art.

As for “what is cinema?” - well, this, for me, is a little easier. In the simplest terms, if it's a movie - edited, scored, written, acted and projected on a screen - then it's cinema. Cinema is entertainment, art and business all at once and it always has been. To demand more from it is ridiculous and pretentious. To separate films and movies, low from high, A from B etc. - except merely as an identifier or a descriptor - is a fool’s errand and can be disproven so many which ways as to not even be funny.

Just look at the number of so-called “artists” who have used so-called lowly “genre pictures” as avenues to express the sort of “aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation” and to examine “the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures”, as Scorsese talks about in his article. Are Ganja & Hess, The Addiction and Only Lovers Left Alive more relevant, more artistic or more cinematic than Nosferatu 1922, Dracula 1931, Hammer Horror’s Dracula, Bram Stoker's Dracula (Directed by one of those friends Scorsese talks about in his article, Francis Ford Coppola), The Lost Boys, From Dusk Till Dawn or even Dracula: Dead and Loving It for fucks sake!? Where do you draw the line? Why do you draw a line? Who does that benefit?

Dreaming is the true cinema

What’s weird about his article is that in the same paragraph that he acknowledges that Marvel movies are made by people of talent, show much artistry on the screen and admits that age, his youthful experience with film and, overall opinion play into his statement about Marvel, he then says that the films he grew up with were as far from Marvel movies as the earth is from Alpha Centauri. He goes on to list a variety of films and talk at length about Alfred Hitchcock but culminates by basically saying that while, sure, some of these were made as entertainment, they contain “painful emotions at the center of the story” and that Marvel films do not have “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.”

I would just like to point out that in his last sentence there - “The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes” - he is actually describing all of literature and script writing forever and ever. Every story is written to satisfy someone’s specific set of demands and every story ever written is designed as a variation on a finite number of themes, otherwise every story would be about everything all the time. There is literally a “seven basic plots” theory of writing that describes them as: overcoming the monster; rags to riches; the quest; voyage and return; comedy; tragedy; rebirth. These have also been boiled down to: Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Himself.

Now let me quickly say: I am no rampant fan of Marvel movies. This article is not designed to hold them aloft as above everything else or to say that every time out the gate Marvel makes films full of depth and complexity but to say there is no revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger is just plain false. One of the reasons I have continued to watch and discuss Marvel movies over their DC counterparts is because of exactly that reason. The characters, the world, the interplay, the relationships etc. are pretty well drawn, in some cases, very well acted and often exceptionally written. I could go on about the cinematography, the costumes, the effects, the scores and a lot of other aspects that, hands down, make these films incredibly artistic but I really shouldn’t need to.

Also, interesting that Scorsese took aim at Marvel over DC. I would actually like to know how many Marvel films he’s watched all the way through, versus just lumping all summer-blockbuster-effects-heavy-tent-pole pics under the convenient Marvel umbrella.

Can’t we all just get along?

The second part of his op-ed changes tack somewhat and appears to blame, what he now starts to call “superhero films and other franchise films” - which, if the truth be told, is what he meant all along - for a “perilous time in film exhibition”, and the fact that he claims “there are fewer independent theaters than ever”. Well, I don’t know about the last part. I, like Scorsese when he grew up, live in New York and while 42nd street might not be lined with cinemas any more, there are plenty of indie theatres here, with more opening, expanding and updating all the time. Across the country there are film festivals, conventions, the Landmark cinema chain, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema chain and plenty of retro houses and drive-ins still chugging along… maybe not as many in their heyday but is that really due to Marvel or the economic realities of the business of running a movie theatre? Also, now every home has a TV that, if someone so wishes, can get streaming services that offer horror, action, African American films, the Criterion Collection and more. It’s the same bollocks we hear about physical media being dead when vinyl out sells digital downloads and there are more boutique blu-ray distributors than ever before. It’s a perception thing not born out by facts or people’s experience.

Also, what about multiplexes right now? as he mentions those as being a problem too. Fathom Events are bringing more and more classic films, operas, theatre, live music events, special experiences, indie films and more to audiences at every AMC and Regal cinema in America. I have an AMC Stubs card and have gone to the cinema most weeks in 2019 and far from always seeing “franchise films” I have been able to see films of every genre and damn near every budget. AMC theares are showing The Lighthouse right now - a black and white film starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson about two lighthouse keepers in 1890. In his very article he mentions filmmakers like “Paul Thomas Anderson or Claire Denis or Spike Lee or Ari Aster or Kathryn Bigelow or Wes Anderson” - All of whom have had their films show in multiplexes and continue to do so. Spike Lee had his second biggest hit of his career last year with BlacKkKlansman is that Marvel’s fault too? What about the rise of smaller distribution houses like Blumhouse, A24, Roadside Attractions etc?
I mean, I could go on…

As for the “perilous time in film exhibition” well, I don’t know as I am not “in the biz”, it could well be. I, honestly, don’t think any capitalistic system - that you’ve happily benefited from, by the way, Marty - is perfect and every situation, no matter which way you slice it, would probably leave out a few films we should be seeing. Foreign films, subtitled films and art house films have always got the short end of the stick, not to mention truly independent, self financed films made in people’s back yards - do you care about those guys too?

None of these people have ever made a purely commercial, blockbuster or franchise film…

When Roger Corman (who helped Scorsese and practically every other filmmaker you love, get a career - by making tons of franchise films by the way - know how many Bloodfist, Watchers or Deathstalker films there are Marty?) wanted to see more art or foreign films being distributed, he put his money where his mouth was. He either made them himself, help finance others to make them or paid for “important” foreign films to be distributed in the United States. Of course, now Corman has come out and called Marvel storylines “simplistic” - lots of depth of human emotion in “Private Duty Nurses” is there Rog?

Also it’s always been this way - the popular films were always the genre, spectacle films. The fact that the film noir era of the 40s and 50s are now hailed as classics doesn’t take away from the fact that a lot of them were cheap gangster pics based on cheaper pulp novels. If you’re going to argue that MGM musicals have more depth of character and exploration of deep human themes than Marvel movies, then I am going to call you a liar. What about the fact that there are a bazillion Godzilla movies and the original was made in 1954? Is that a bad “franchise picture” too? is Godzilla not cinema? What about King Kong?

If everyone was railing against Disney for removing 20th Century Fox films from distribution or AT&T for destroying Warner Archive and Filmstruck then I would be right there with them but blaming “franchise films” for removing diverse content from the eyeballs of kids growing up in the midwest… There’s no such evidence for that.

Audiences tend to find what they want to watch in some way or other… want to know how many bit-torrents of obscure films from the 70s are doing the rounds out there? what about the rise of VHS collecting? It can’t just be me and the handful of movie nerd friends I have.

Scorsese doesn’t like our films? ooooh I am so angry! how will we continue?

Ultimately, what Scorsese is talking about is a time where physical film projection in a theatre building was, just about, the only game in town. Where people had to get their fill of all genres, all styles and their predominant cultural content from the movie screen. It’s why films were cheaper to see then, it’s why early morning cartoons, matinees and double bills were a thing and it’s why we needed so many cinemas everywhere because we needed different places for different audiences and different films. It’s all there was and needs and demands were met as best as they could be. That’s not the case anymore and hasn’t been since the advent of cable. the addition of a multitude of cable channels and, eventually VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray and now streaming.

I have been really invigorated by the incredible amount of great stuff I have seen in 2019, stuff that most definitely is not franchise or blockbuster filmmaking - Here’s a list - and still a lot more to come before the end of the year. I think we’re coming to a place where content, in general, is more widely available than ever, in a multitude of formats and, while there are some unforgivable gaps in streaming services when it comes to older films or foreign cinema, in general, though, it’s an audiences world and we have, for the moment, the right to choose.

Not The Guardians of the Galaxy… the Guardians of True Cinema

The world is a divided place right now and I understand that, in an ageing society, we’ve reached peak saturation of “I’m a grumpy old man and I don’t recognise the world around me anymore” syndrome - blame medical advances and religious governements for not allowing euthanasia before you blame Marvel movies - and, make no mistake, with Spielberg saying recently that movies made by Netflix are not real movies and Scorsese and others saying Marvel is not cinema, all you’re experiencing are those parents who, upon hearing loud, strange music emanating from the bedroom of their teenage child, shout up the stairs and say "that's not real music! turn that rubbish down!"

At the end of the day, it’s all just humanity - we’ve never been able to handle our own evolution - someone, somewhere will still think the world is flat.

Also… none of this, none of this matters at all…

P.S. I am really excited to see The Irishman this weekend.