(by Alex John)
“Some films are slices of cake. Mine are slices of cake” Hitchcock once famously said.
He was elucidating the fact that even his classics were of the most elementary fashion, cheerfully pulpy and crowd pleasing. Have we seen any film that is subtly dumber that North by northwest? Hitchcock knew inducing too much real life will knock the signature flamboyance out of his movies. He knew Cinema, at heart, is spectacle no matter how it evolved to be. Now, what am I getting at? Am I trying to write something down about Cinema that Francis Ford Coppola doesn’t know? Well, speak of the unthinkable. He’s the master and we are just mortals, but then there’s that mistake these immortal geniuses make, to ignore the showbiz nature of Cinema that makes it breathe to this date(somebody ask him if he likes DC films).
And what has come of it? See what happened to the film industries of the places from western Europe to Japan, and from Russia to Bengal, where fiefdoms of auteurs who “knew” what people should see ended up being invaded by other popular movie industries. They turned their backs to the commercialism and indulged in their neo-noir fantasies only to see their market possibilities dwindle and audience migrate to bigger&better sources of entertainment. I know, by no means Coppola’s films are pretentious box office poison-in fact he has made a few of the biggest hits in the industry if the box office results are adjusted for inflation-yet it is an irrefutable fact that the films of such kind are not prolific enough to sustain a multi-billion dollar industry. And that is a necessity because the mainstream industry must thrive if you need the one parallel to it. See how many films of the Godfather’s scale were made by Coppola himself in his near 6 decades old career. Yes, you could use your fingers to count them. So you need this ‘despicable’ mega-flicks if you need your ‘good films’ to survive. Yes, even in the online-streaming days of today.
I’m no digger of Marvel movies myself. I find Thor: Ragnarok and Captain America: Civil War to be the only marvel flicks that have truly thrilled me. Their films have a dissuasive infantility that makes the adult in you cringe sometimes-there is no denial of that. But I don’t think they are despicable either. They are spectacles on a larger scale- no brain food here-and the pun and sarcasm just add to it, kind of watering down the squirminess. Not great fun always, at least my idea of it, but it is presents me with the jaw-dropping technical advancement cinema has accomplished. Yes, the cognitive evolution of films are something we all are proud of, but we shan’t forget the idea of films is not just to make us think, but sometimes to make us stop thinking about the chores life. I think that was Lumiere brothers reflecting on whilst the exhibition of that train pulling into the station. No, Marvel films are not despicable. Not at all; they’re just mediocrities we can’t do away with.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Madan
October 28, 2019
Nice. I was planning to write one about this myself just to start a convo about it here. It would have been more interesting had you also included and discussed Scorsese’s quotes as he tried to define what HE regards as cinema and not wave off the Marvel films dismissively as despicable in the way that FFC did.
It is interesting to look at what Scorsese says. He says there is a lack of psychological and emotional exploration (I am paraphrasing and not quoting verbatim here) in these films. Having not watched any of them attentively, I have no clue how true this claim is. However, there is one aspect that does seem to differentiate these films from even an actual theme park based film like Jurassic Park. In the latter film, a bunch of ordinary people find themselves trapped in this park full of dinosaurs in the midst of a power sabotage. That T Rex entry scene is particularly memorable because it captures the pure terror they feel in a Hitchcockian way. That is, Spielberg, even when he makes a film about dinosaurs, plays broad and not narrow and focused. In ET too, we see a suburban home reacting to and eventually interacting with this alien. When we come to Marvel though, it is essentially a bunch of superhero or villain characters interacting with each other. This already plants the movies several feet above the clouds and requires a greater suspension of disbelief to invest in. This was, incidentally, my problem with Avatar or Star Wars. I find I encounter this issue less in Batman because of the uncanny similarity Gotham City has with NYC. Particularly, Burton’s Batman Returns did exactly what Scorsese demands – investigate the psychological motivations of these characters and also establish the class and caste system of the city, wherein Oswald for instance is the outcast of the sewers. To go back to your Hitchcock quote, the other extreme of making cinema resemble life too much is to have it not resemble life AT ALL.
But I have a bigger issue with the Marvel or DC films. They presuppose interest in and knowledge of the various superhero universes. But what if I am not interested? See, where I lived, we didn’t used to find Captain America comic books. It was just Phantom, Mandrake, Batman, Superman and Spiderman. It’s not a given that everyone has read the Marvel series comics so someone like me, and there are many of us, simply doesn’t have the emotional investment in this universe that Marvel fans have. And from my point of view, Bollywood still has some way to go before reaching saturation. So I don’t HAVE to stretch and watch a Marvel flick (especially considering it is a theme park film as Scorsese dubs it) when I have plenty other content to watch. And this isn’t about me. While the studios are roaring all the way to the bank today, they have simultaneously excluded many of us from Hollywood. The alternative, again, to Marvel flicks isn’t distant noir films crafted by auteurs. It can be a drama like Star Is Born, which happened to do very well at the BO. My fear is between Oscar bait films, biopics and Marvel/DC, Hollywood will have no incentive anymore to make films about interesting, real world characters. The death of fiction for the sake of fiction, in other words. We are kind of already seeing that as TV series push past Hollywood in terms of taking on interesting content and plots. Unfortunately, TV series will always suffer in terms of at least the background score if not also the cinematography. If people were no longer interested in a cinematic experience, it would be one thing. But they are. And the studios insist instead on serving them only the spread that makes the most money. It’s like the splendid buffet at Juhu Marriot being replaced overnight by a gigantic McDs.
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brangan
October 28, 2019
The author brings up an excellent point — that the countries with only “auteurs” (in the art-house sense) have paid the price by being swallowed up by Hollywood. 90 per cent of audiences all over the world are the same. They want to be “stimulated” — which means they want comedies they can laugh at, tragedies that can make them cry, thrillers that thrill them, etc.
The small 10 per cent that likes “cinema as cinema” will watch the “auteur” film (even if it’s more mainstream, like IRISHMAN) at festivals or at home.
This is the change we are seeing, with people making a clear demarcation between what they will go to theatres for and what they will wait to watch at home. Because with streaming, you don’t even have ads (like on TV).
And fortunately or unfortunately, the rare ROMA apart (it did decently in theatres), audiences worldwide have voted yes for the Marvel films as a theatre experience. Maybe they could be better — but they are the films that keep the business going so that “auteurs” get the money to make THEIR films.
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Madan
October 28, 2019
BR: Since you bring up Irishman, I have a different problem with Scorsese too. That it is not 1990s and I don’t want to watch DeNiro in mafia films all over again. That tone has been done to death. It was great but it’s over. For a while, Scorsese had teamed up with Leo which brought a different flavour to his films. I don’t know what is the particular reason why he has gone back to DeNiro but he isn’t helping his cause from my point of view. By going back to his mafia comfort zone, he looks very much like the has been he has either already been or will be accused of being for making that Marvel comment.
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therag
October 28, 2019
You can find the same dynamic at play even in India. Malayalam makes some of the best mainstream films in India, and for some reason Vijay’s films are big blockbusters in Kerala. At least the Marvel films are mounted on a big scale and have great production value.
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Sriram G
October 28, 2019
Sorry Marty, but Captain America is daring, serious art
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/oct/27/captain-america-art-marvel-blockbusters-scorsese-coppola?CMP=Share_AndroidAp
Saw this piece in The Guardian.
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Madan
October 29, 2019
Sriram G: Thanks for sharing.
Wow, just wow. Way to spin Marty’s exploration of moral ambiguity. I am guessing she took Leo’s little speech at the end of Wolf of Wall Street as ‘taunting’ teachers and policemen too?
As to what’s wrong with looking at the word as a battle between good and evil, looks like somebody has forgotten George Bush’s infamous, “In the war against terror, you’re either with us or against us. ”
Altogether, all too predictable coming from Guardian and even more so that they would start out by discussing Black Panther as if that is the typical Marvel Universe movie.
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MANK
October 29, 2019
And fortunately or unfortunately, the rare ROMA apart (it did decently in theatres), audiences worldwide have voted yes for the Marvel films as a theatre experience. Maybe they could be better — but they are the films that keep the business going so that “auteurs” get the money to make THEIR films.
I disagree with the last part of that comment. Marvel studios is not like Paramount or Warners who are making an eclectic slate of pictures. Marvel movies feed only into marvel films. Disney make only Disney type films. they are doing nothing for the auteurs
That’s the reason why there is so much resentment against marvel, not just the fact that they are thought of as mainly inferior cinema. 20 years ago or even 15 years ago, the auteurs use to get money to make their movies alongside blockbusters. If warners made DC films, they also financed Eastwood and scorsese and supported them in making a Mystic river , Million dollar baby or The departed. That’s all gone now. Scorsese hates netflix and what it stands for, but he had no option but to go them to make Irishman because no other studio would allow him to make it. I htink he hates himself for it, especially with Spielberg and others crusading against netflix films not to be counted at oscars.
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MANK
October 29, 2019
Madan , that’s right, Guardian publish a lot of garbage. I dont know what they mean by Scorsese-like gangsters running the world. 🙂
It would have been more interesting had you also included and discussed Scorsese’s quotes as he tried to define what HE regards as cinema and not wave off the Marvel films dismissively as despicable in the way that FFC did
What he said exactly was that making the same film again and again is despicable, which i must say it is. and that’s what he considers Marvel is doing. Even during the time of 80’s and 90’s when there were big blockbusters , they had a lot of variety. But i just don’t see that now.
The problem with FFC is that he never understood the movie business. For him it has always been all art. he owned his own studio, which went bankrupt, because he never was a good businessman,ie, when it comes to films i mean , he is now close to a billionaire thanks to the wine business. he has been bitter throughout his life that he never had the career he intended, that of an experimental filmmaker Because of his success with Godfather and several bankruptcies and the atmosphere in the industry , which never supported him in making experimental films because of their obsession with blockbusters. , he had to take a commercial route as a filmmaker. Also he’s 80 plus now and not a player in current Hollywood , so you can understand a lot of things he says is not necessarily fully thought out,
But i disagree with Scorsese’s assessment as to what constitutes cinema. A film like Raiders of the lost Ark or Die Hard does not exactly correspond to Scorsese’s definition of cinema. But i consider them to be good cinema
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MANK
October 29, 2019
The alternative, again, to Marvel flicks isn’t distant noir films crafted by auteurs
Ah! you had to say this , just when i had celebrated 45 years of Chinatown 🙂
Actually noir films can be great fun. Chinatown is very entertaining. So are a lot of them like The Maltese Falcon , The Big Sleep or Double Indemnity.I find them much more fun and much more entertaining than any of the current so called fun blockbusters.
And what you said about TV series is bang on. Chinatown , today , would be turned into a TV series. The film has a certain scale and style that can only be enjoyed as a cinematic experience.
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Madan
October 29, 2019
MANK: Correct and also because WB didn’t just make DC films, these films were spread out and didn’t saturate the Hollywood ecosystem in the way Marvel has. Marvel is a new animal and an 800 pound gorilla at that. It’s a juggernaut. It may be harmless to watch but its effects on Hollywood are not going to be so harmless.
What is my point? Nothing. Nothing will change in essence to stop this process. Maybe nostalgia cinema will emerge to get Baby Boomers or aging Gen Xers into theaters but it won’t be a substitute for new cinema with new characters. So, yeah, nothing, no point, venting just feels good.
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Madan
October 29, 2019
“I dont know what they mean by Scorsese-like gangsters running the world.” – I know, my jaw dropped. I was like WTF did I read. Even by Guardian standards, this was exceptional. Exceptionally bad. And has she never seen Age of Innocence? Where are the ‘Scorcese-like gangsters’ in that film? And what part of the morality of Cape Fear isn’t clear to her? Seriously, way to dismiss and make light of a legendary director’s range. Thank God she didn’t also call him a racist and a bigot while she was at it.
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Madan
October 29, 2019
MANK: I am sure noir films can be fun too. My point was more that it isn’t a binary choice. Note that the author was referring more to European or Bengali auteurs. It’s not like we have to only choose between fast food and austerity. There is plenty of range in the middle. Heck, I wrote up on Pretty Woman today and I would take THAT over much of the mainstream fare today. What Scorsese said in essence is that he would like to see wholesome characters in cinema. And that I agree with. It is possible to make a great film WITHOUT that but you’re also kind of limiting your range when you don’t. By taking the time to acquaint you with its chief characters, Pretty Woman rises above the general rom-com level. This is another aspect that gets difficult in superhero films (and more so with the hero than the villain) because comicbook fans already know the backstory and want the chase. Tim Burton’s Batman Returns was criticised and Batman fans prefer the Nolan approach but Burton actually took time to develop the characters and rooted them in a context that could be related to a big city’s class and caste system. Doing that makes a film memorable. But in today’s fast moving world, memorability doesn’t count. FOMO reigns over appreciating a thing of beauty at leisure.
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KK
October 29, 2019
Okay, I don’t agree with any of the comments. First of all, some marvel movies are good but some are not. And what marvel movies did is to create a universe where each story can go on its own until they coalesce into something more. And then they branch off again. This was new even by Hollywood standards. And for a lot of the technical achievement civil war, black panther, iron man one and the infinity war provided much food for thought if you look beyond the visuals. There is no definite way to make a movie and certainly none for a good movie. These types of comments/criticism also came for the harry potter franchise and the Baradwaj Rangan said that he didn’t watch HP series for intellectual stimulation. And there too look beyond the magic and you find a lot of relevance. And when star wars came it also received the same criticism. But the issues it dealt with remain relevant even to this day. So I don’t think to dismiss an entire set of movies is sensible.
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therag
October 30, 2019
The critics had a part in this Marvel-mania. For some reason the Marvel films have consistently played well with the critics and I’ve never figured out why. All the elements of craft that they find lacking in other films are not a problem when it comes to Marvel, because it is some harmless fun?
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Santa
October 30, 2019
I get it that studios need to earn money from blockbusters in order to finance more niche/artistic/creative endeavours.
Having said that I personally can’t stand most of the Marvel movies (wouldn’t go so far as to call them despicable though). It’s not that they are bad in any particular sense. It’s that all of them are so eminently forgettable. Its hard to recall any standout moment, memorable character, or a quotable line, even just a few weeks after the movie. Hell, even the special effects seem completely average and forgettable (not the actual quality or the graphics/rendering, which are undoubtedly eye-popping, but what is actually done with it).
The whole enterprise comes across as a precisely calculated effort to be just the right amount of mediocre in all aspects (writing, script, acting, characters, etc.).
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Madan
October 30, 2019
therag: same, this has puzzled me too. I am not saying they shouldn’t but critics used to treat action or superhero flicks with disdain before. Don’t know what’s changed with Marvel.
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Amit Joki
October 30, 2019
Well, Marvel may not be a “arthouse” cinema, but it is cinema nonetheless. Every story is a story. There’s no arthouse story, or a blockbuster story. It is the treatment that varies.
The one thing these auteurs are failing to notice is that, the attention span of the current and upcoming generations is goind to be very very minute. To be honest, every classic movie I’ve watched till data, (I’ve even watched the lengthy Schindler’s List), I sat through the 20-30 minutes which were agonizingly boring and I watched through it because I knew it is a classic, things must be good and yes, they turn out to be good indeed.
But that initial 20-30 minutes where the setup is painstakingly laid out, the world sinking in, is actually boring if there’s no interesting logline.
This is where the blockbusters come in. Marvel is like the comfort food. I can watch a Marvel movie any time and it also has great repeat value.
It is no mean feat that Marvel had the audience connected to it for 23 films long culminating in the death of RDJ. The characters are great and quirky and have their ownness.
It is just that the characteristics are broadly stroked as opposed to intricate character study. But the former works.
We know Cap is untiring and of a formidable will power through one dialog – “I can do this all day”. Ironman’s entire character arc from a spoilt rich kid to guilty of killing people to seeking redemption to acting like the godfather of the whole crew and making sure nothing happens to them. Ironman is in agony and finally the arc ends beautifully, nothing out of place.
Hulk’s psychological barrier after getting beaten by Thanos is relatabale no? An extrovert kid when bullied mmay go silent.
There’s a daughter seeking the father’s approval in Nebula, there’s a adopted daughter who is in two minds about her father figure.
The interactions are consistent of the characters and feel real. In art house films, the conflict is man-sized and so the character study is intricate and what not.
But when the conflict is of an epic proportions and there’s just so much content, the characters get painted in the broadest of the brushes.
And Marvel has been doing it good. It is no formula mind you. Yes you have all these stock options, but you still have to get them in a coherent story.
DC is equally culpable if FFC or Martin Scorcese blame Marvel. It is just that DC sucks balls and so they are given a leash. It is not wrong to be successful.
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Madan
October 30, 2019
Amit Joki: This attention span argument has been doing the rounds for a while. But it doesn’t consider that say Badla did good business having only two characters interacting – with lots of dialogue – in most scenes. People have enormous patience these days with Nolan’s convoluted concepts. I mean, I may not like them but it does show the audience is prepared to persevere. There isn’t even a monolithic audience. As one section of the mainstream becomes video game like in a desperate bid to pander to tastes, they will leave out a substantial section of the audience that wants a different experience. And in the absence of more mainstream options, they will be open minded in taking chances with demanding material. That is exactly what happened with Badla. No way a film like that would have done over 100 cr in the past, not even with Big B in the cast.
There is no shortage of audience. Marvel just made its own market and is now riding roughshod over the competition. You are correct in observing that DC could have done this and didn’t. So, as a film, there is no fault of the Marvel films if they do well. But as a business product, its success has profound implications for the industry because of the prevalent short termism in Hollywood. They have so many lazy options now that they are going to take fewer and fewer risks. I am not even talking about taking risks with an autuer but simply taking modest risks with a successful model. They won’t even do that now. Lion King was virtually a scene by scene remake of the old movie. Disney has actually managed to go where even Bollywood or Kollywood haven’t. Financial imperative has trumped adventure to the point where they will simply make the same movie all over again, knowing it will succeed.
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Amit Joki
October 30, 2019
Madan: My only point is that Marvel cinema isn’t any lesser cinema. All this hue and cry about Marvel only came after the Endgame managed to dethrone an equally lesser cinema “Avatar”.
Also, I didn’t say “DC could have done this and didn’t”, I said DC lacks the chops to put an ensemble. DC films suck big time and most of their films designed to compete with Marvel were utter flops Justice League, Batman vs Superman and the recent Batman movies are shit except the Nolan ones, which brings me to the point that dishing out blockbusters isn’t an easy thing.
Also, if people cannot come up with a way to swim against the tide, it is their incompetency, which I am sure will not be the case.
Marvel puts in gargantuan amount of money and it is a risk always, sometimes it pays off. All the Marvel characters are its rights and the only other competitor is DC.
Before, it was a slew of sequels, prequels, Star Wars and Star Trek films that raked in money, weren’t there other cinema? Now it is the Marvel and DC that rakes in money, but as you said, there’s a huge audience and all kinds of cinema will prevail.
Take the case of Kollywood for instance, there have been numerous new producers who are producing fresh content which the traditional production houses wouldn’t have even taken a peek into.
Every Rajini/Ajith/Vijay films first day collections are the life time collections of some films, but aren’t there a new wave of cinema we are witnessing right now? Films made with heart and low budget that have gone on to make big buck?
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Madan
October 30, 2019
Amit Joki: For what it’s worth, I regard Avatar as the biggest theme park of all time. That film literally has nothing going for it behind novelty value. Best part is, it wasn’t even as original as people may think. The landscape and particularly the shades used were very similar to the artwork created by Roger Dean for 70s rock albums. He even criticised James Cameron for it, I believe. If that is the hump Marvel must jump over, that’s not much.
The reason, again, that people ignored things like Avatar or Star Wars (which I agree are all iterations of the Marvel formula in essence) was simply that there never were so many of those films within such a short span of time. I have stopped keeping track but it feels like there is a half a dozen new Marvel films each year. Competence isn’t enough to fight against it. Did Whatsapp ‘lose’ to FB because of incompetence? No, FB just used it’s financial muscle to buy out a competitor. In the same way, a small, independent studio cannot fight Marvel or WB or Disney, no chance. What we are seeing is the corporate conglomeratisation of cinema. And it’s also happening in television via the streaming revolution. It may feel good for now but the endgame is unlikely to be very edifying.
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brangan
October 30, 2019
Oh man, I just do not like AVATAR.
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MANK
October 30, 2019
Avatar is a great light and sound show. Alas, all created in the computer, hence pretty dated now
And as for the 4 or 5 Avatar sequels in the works, all i can say is Yaaaawn!
I would give anything to see James Cameron return to those hardcore action pictures like The Abyss, Terminator and True Lies. Nobody shoots action like Cameron
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brangan
October 30, 2019
Here’s my AVATAR review:
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brangan
October 30, 2019
I seem to remember writing a piece about how James Cameron — till TRUE LIES — was one of the greatest B-movie makers of all time, but then he changed tracks and… we know the rest.
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KayKay
October 30, 2019
“Every Rajini/Ajith/Vijay films first day collections are the life time collections of some films, but aren’t there a new wave of cinema we are witnessing right now? Films made with heart and low budget that have gone on to make big buck?”
Well said, Amit. And that’s why methinks, in the words of Star Lord, certain people, and that includes legendary auteurs who have left their indelible mark on celluloid, need to chill the eff out.
Would it be a wrist-slashingly depressing experience to stroll into a multiplex and have your only viewing choices be the 11th Transformers,the 12th Fast & Furious, the 24th MCU, 8th DCEU and a reboot/remake of [insert name of an 80s or 90s hit]? Hell yeah! But that’s not really the case is it? Or, to be a little more accurate, that not SOLELY the case.
There’s no denying that at this stage, Disney’s IP is the 500 pound gorilla in the box office stakes. And methinks much of the resentment stems from the their utter domination of the box office these last few years. And yeah, I do miss the VARIETY of escapist entertainment that was available for you to get your monthly or weekly dose of “leave brains at home” fare.
But make no mistake. Your typical summer blockbuster has always been largely escapist fare.
Don’t like what you’re seeing in cinemas these days? Let’s go back 10 years and see what dominated the US box-office in 2009 (All examples which follow are of Hollywood movies. I relate better to them as my cinematic diet has largely been more Holly than Bolly or Kolly. Plus, if we are to address Scorcese and Coppola’s rants, then we need to start from an obvious position that they are largely bemoaning the state of AMERICAN cinema)
A sampling of the Top 10 in 2009 would yield Transformer 2, Harry Potter 6 , Twilight 3, an Alvin & The Chipmunks flick, the 1st Hangover, the Star Trek reboot and Dances With Wolves….In Outer Space with Blue Cat People. And ironically the only Disney offering in that list was the wonderful Up. You could consider most of them, in the words of Scorcese “theme park rides”
Now let’s go back another 10 years.
1999…ah! Now this was a pretty rocking cinematic year. The Top 10 had The Matrix, Sixth Sense and the even better Toy Story 2. But they were all dwarfed by the still still-mediocre Phantom Menace which occupied the Number 1 slot. Plus yet another shitty Adam Sandler comedy, the entertaining Indiana Jones-like The Mummy, the second and lesser Gere-Roberts pairing of Runaway Bride, Disney’s middling animated Tarzan, and the second Austin Powers movie also wormed it’s way into the Top 10. Not to mention The Blair Witch Project, trend-setter for a type of movie I personally hate, the Found Footage genre. Not exactly cerebral fare.
Look, even with Disney’s dominance, this year still had Jordan Peele’s doppelganger suspense horror Us and QT’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood grossing above 100m. And even within the supposedly “death of Cinema” superhero genre, we had interesting takes like Night Shyamalan’s conclusion to his own superhero universe Glass and DC’s one-off Joker all becoming hits. And next year brings on the new Nolan flick Tenet which pretty much no one outside of it’s maker knows what it’s about but you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll be an original.
So, yes, as Hollywood becomes increasingly risk-averse we’ll see a cinematic landscape littered increasingly with remakes and reboots and Marvels IPs, but we’re from the Filmic Dystopia so many enjoy prognosticating. It’s a lament that frankly speaking, is becoming as tiresome as that half-deaf, half-senile uncle at family gatherings who insists on telling you how HIS generation had more respect for their elders.
The birth of the modern blockbuster like Star Wars and Jaws supposedly heralded the end of “edgy” cinema in the 70s, never mind the 70s like every decade preceding and following it, had it’s share of shitty flicks and popcorn crowd-pleasers.
It’s an argument that circles around every few decades and in the MCU, it’s just found it’s latest whipping boy.
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Madan
October 30, 2019
BR: That was a terrific review of Avatar. All the more because you were going against the grain then.
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KayKay
October 30, 2019
BTW, thanks to Alex John for a short and sweet piece which I mostly agree with.
And for sparking the types of conversations around these parts which i really dig and some of which I’ll respond to.
” And what marvel movies did is to create a universe where each story can go on its own until they coalesce into something more. And then they branch off again. This was new even by Hollywood standards”…yup agree with you there not least because we could sure use a another KK in these parts:-)
It’s the long-form storytelling adapted successfully to cinema. What we’re getting for better or worse, with the MCU is the world’s most expensive television show which rewards your immersion as characters, story arcs and visual cues carry on into several movies. Endgame was the finale of that addictive soap opera you watched devotedly for 10 years.
Which may, in part explain their enormous popularity. I know why I like them, thanks to a wasted childhood devouring Marvel and DC comics. These movies hit my Nerd sweet spots, being the cinematic realization of something comic book fans have known for decades: that superheroes inhabit a shared universe. It’s that tingle you feel when you pick up that Fantastic Four comic where The Thing is imprisoned and reads about his arrest on the Daily Bugle, where a certain intrepid Wall Crawler part-times as a photographer and when Mr. Ben Grimm is brought to trial he’s defended by a blind attorney named Matt Murdock aka Daredevil.
But it doesn’t explain why so many other non-comic book readers have embraced them. (while we geeks like to think of ourselves as an influencing demographic, truth is we don’t have the numbers we THINK we have). Maybe there’s something appealing about this long form storytelling approach.
“By taking the time to acquaint you with its chief characters, Pretty Woman rises above the general rom-com level. ”
Madan, you do realize that in essence is what the MCU did and why Endgame became the gazillion grossing hit it is? You had 23 movies and 10 years to get acquainted with them. It’s what lent so much power to Engame’s “masala” moments. Yes! I’ll shout it from the rooftops especially to those around these parts who extol the virtues of masala films that Endgame is one of the best Masala movies of the year! But the caveat is it ONLY works as one if you’ve invested in the preceding movies. Superpowered human beings locked in a titanic war against a megalomaniacal baddie, daddy issues, emotional heart-string tuggers (like the death of TWO of the MCU’s popular heroes, c’mon! if “I love you 3000” doesn’t produce the smallest of lumps in your throat, you’re probably in cryo-sleep awaiting a thaw in the year 2095. ) and the best 2 word punch line of the year, Cap’s clarion call of “Avengers! Assemble!!” with the entire MCU battalion of heroes behind him and THAT moment when Thor faces certain annihilation, calls out for his hammer, and it whizzes past him….into Cap’s hands. Take away the sci-fi space age and comic book elements, center the story in an Indian Metropolis, toss in 3 hip-shaking item numbers and the above wouldn’t be out of place in your standard Vijay potboiler.
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rsylviana
October 30, 2019
All this hue and cry about Marvel only came after the Endgame managed to dethrone an equally lesser cinema “Avatar”.
@Amit : This is what I thought too. Marvel has been dishing out 2-3 films a year for about a decade now but the sudden furore seems to have been triggered more by the humongous hype and collection reports of Avengers : Endgame than by the concern that this would mean the death of meaningful cinema and its audience.
You echo my thoughts about MCU bearing the wrath of auteurs and cinema-lovers while DCEU seems to be sitting pretty on top of its own mediocrity in terms of entertainment or cinema-value(barring of course the occasional capers of the Caped Crusader) .
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KayKay
October 30, 2019
I seem to remember writing a piece about how James Cameron — till TRUE LIES — was one of the greatest B-movie makers of all time
I’d argue Cameron is the second greatest. For my money, Paul Verhoeven is truly one of the GREATEST B-movie and pulpy film-makers. But his Euro-sensibilities, satirical bent and snarky skewering of the excesses of American culture coupled with a penchant for explicit sex and violence tends to scare away the largely staid American audience. With respect to using cutting edge special effects and shooting amazing action, the man is Cameron’s equal.
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KayKay
October 30, 2019
“Avatar is a great light and sound show. Alas, all created in the computer, hence pretty dated now”
Brother MANK I’d argue that since Avatar NO film has TOPPED it in terms of innovation with regards to either an immersive 3-D experience or advances in photo-realistic motion capture (although Caesar in the Planet of The Apes reboot movies and Thanos from the MCU come close) . If the bar is to be set a notch higher, it’s Cameron who’ll most likely to do it with the Avatar sequels although, like you I’m not exactly looking forward to them.
“I would give anything to see James Cameron return to those hardcore action pictures like The Abyss, Terminator and True Lies. Nobody shoots action like Cameron”
Same here. It’s the same lament I have for Cameron’s ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, a masterful action director in her own right. I long for her to return to the style of her earlier action movies like Near Dark, Blue Steel and Point Break but she’s most likely stuck on her current mode of political hot button action dramas (Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, Detroit)
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Rahini David
October 30, 2019
BR: I strongly suggest you lift KayKay’s comment and make a “Reader’s write in” out of it
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therag
October 31, 2019
@kayKay. Ah come on. Your analysis is unfair. No one said anything about cerebral fare. It’s all about variety which you brushed aside.
Let’s take 2018. The top 10 films are Avengers:Infinity War, Black Panther, Jurassic World:Fallen Kingdom, Incredibles 2, Aquaman, Bohemian Rhapsody, Venom, MI:Fallout, Deadpool 2, Fantastic Beasts.
6 comic book movies (not all the same franchise but still not all that different – Aquaman would probably have fit in the MCU), 1 money-grab HP spin-off, 1 dinosaur movie, a polarising musical and an action film sequel. Quentin Tarantino is a brand now so OUATIH grossing 100m is not surprising at all.
The top 10 in 1999 and 2009 may have been equally trashy or trashier than the 2018 list but there was some variety in the trash. And at least you didn’t have to watch the twenty previous trashy flicks to understand the 21st trashy flick. The top 10 any year is bound to be made up of popcorn entertainment but it’s not the same when 5 or 6 out of the 10 films and 80% of the profits is made by the same company delivering the same kind of films.
As much as I blame the audiences for making this happen, a Disney monopoly is very bad for filmmakers. The filmmakers are complaining because the system that relied on tentpoles to fund the smaller/mid-budget films has now changed to one that makes tentpoles and pipes the profits towards more tentpoles and theme park rides. Netflix has stepped in and filled the gap but for how long? Netflix is using all its capital to stem the flow of users to the other new streaming services (hello Disney+) so I expect the lavish spending on original adult content to be temporary. In any case, even their top 10 is mostly trash.
Since you brought up “Tenet”, do you think Disney would have produced an “Inception”, a “Mad Max Fury Road” or a “Kingsman” ? Obviously not because it is against the company’s ethos. A market for mid-budget original adult films exists and someone is going to fulfill that but in the interim, the filmmakers are going to suffer.
I don’t want low-budget films with heart and soul and whatever that will be screened at Cannes. I want a David Fincher to get 150m to make an R-rated World War Z sequel. Extending the analogy to Tamil Cinema, an industry dominated by the likes of Vijay/Ajith/Rajini cannot support Kamal’s Marudhanaayam, or even a Vishwaroopam. Enthiran was only possible because of the then ruling party’s excess. Now it is back to the same-old same-old of template driven star films.
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Madan
October 31, 2019
Kaykay : If you look at the classics the 70s produced – in terms of the number of such movies – vis a vis the subsequent decades, there HAS been a drop of such movies and also a narrowing of the variety of genres explored. So the prediction isn’t wrong, it’s just early. And it’s also that 20th century distribution models allowed smaller studios to keep fighting back. As we move more and more to digital distribution, only the financially strongest will survive. And financial strength doesn’t beget creativity. If anything, it works against it. You have correctly diagnosed the problem anyway, which is of risk aversion. And it is difficult to see how that could be a good thing for artists. From my perspective of watching Bollywood in the 90s, risk aversion is a bad thing. That was a different model – underworld financing combined with single screen theaters – that produced a similarly undesirable result.
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Santa
October 31, 2019
Madan: I would not lump Star Wars into the same bucket as MCU for a few reasons:
(1) Almost complete lack of memorable moments in MCU (which I have mentioned in an earlier comment). One cannot fault SW (at least the original trilogy, and even the sequels to a certain extent) for lacking in those. More generally, my gripe against MCU is not that it is escapist fare. The problem is it is unremarkable escapist fare.
(2) Visuals: The visuals of SW were genuinely path-breaking for its time. Even after all these years, the visuals of the original movies do not seem that dated. And that’s because the visuals were not intended merely as a spectacle but actually for the creation of a new world. And what does MCU do with all the compute power at their disposal? People hurling things at each other in outer space and shooting colorful beams.
(3) Character overcrowding in MCU: This is not about the lack of character development, but simply the fact that it’s hard to really care about any particular character if only 10 minutes of screen-time is devoted to him/her. The climax in Infinity Wars should have felt like a gut-punch. Instead, it simply felt meh.
As you might have gathered, I am a bit of a Star Wars fan 🙂 But I believe anyone who has viewed both franchises would tend to agree with the points above.
PS: Fully agree about Avatar. I have to say though, 3D was the rage at that time and Avatar did 3D really well.
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Amit Joki
October 31, 2019
KayKay: I wanted to dig in the stats too, but didn’t have the conviction to state the same because I wasn’t a part of it when it all released.
Also, in the age of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and what not, only these mega blockbusters or “theme park rides” keep the people flocking to theatres.
Accept it, the art house cinema are best appreciated on the full resolution with headphones on and no cellphone ringing, live tweeting and all that shit.
The main reason of going to theatres is for the atmosphere, to being bedazzled and theme park films provide just what is needed. They keep the theatres alive.
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Madan
October 31, 2019
Amit Joki: Every time I watched a drama in a cinema hall, the experience was far superior to watching at home. While that is subjective, I want to point out that I have NEVER seen live tweeting in the Hollywood arthouse movies I have watched in theater. And at least in India, the people who turn up to watch a Hollywood art house flick already have modicum of respect for the movie watching experience. Just saying, whatever applies to the experience of watching Marvel or Rajni or Ajith films in a theater doesn’t when you watch a Hollywood art film.
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Madan
October 31, 2019
Santa: Sure, I am not saying SW and MCU are similar in all ways. The main similarity is in developing a loyal fan base which, as I said elsewhere, creates a situation where a non fan going to watch such a film feels like being a neutral visitor to an English league football game. These films all have a polarizing effect on the audience that a theme park like Avatar doesn’t because there is no question of divided loyalties.
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Ravi K
November 1, 2019
This is a good interview with Coppola, and puts the “despicable” comment in context
https://deadline.com/2019/10/francis-coppola-superhero-comments-walked-back-robert-evans-martin-scorsese-1202770932/?fbclid=IwAR3mgVPe6rTRq5UiMS1gFRUEbubXcZUNethSBVZY6Nb7o0SX9WtCmZedQUM
Santa wrote: “I get it that studios need to earn money from blockbusters in order to finance more niche/artistic/creative endeavours.”
This isn’t happening, though. Not anymore. The big studios are not using blockbusters to fund smaller films. They pretty much ONLY want the big blockbusters that can gross $1 billion worldwide and earn far more than that in merchandise sales. Disney especially is only interested in that kind of thing, and their hegemony over the industry is dangerous. The kind of mainstream, yet non-blockbustery stuff that the studios used to produce as movies has moved to TV and streaming, and we have to rely on A24 and Annapurna, and a few other smaller companies for niche/artistic films.
Amit Joki wrote: “DC is equally culpable if FFC or Martin Scorcese blame Marvel. It is just that DC sucks balls and so they are given a leash. It is not wrong to be successful.”
I think in this case “Marvel movie” is a catch-all term for the kind of big blockbusters that are dominant. It is not laying the blame solely at Marvel’s feet.
I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, but the SW films feel more cinematic than Marvel’s movies, which, with their flat, middle-of-the-road visual style (or non-style) and unremarkable action sequences and scores, feel to me more like big TV episodes than like movies.
One of the best superhero movies I’ve seen is “Into the Spider-verse.” With a distinct, boundlessly creative and exciting visual style, it feels like a comic book brought to life. I wish the Disney Marvel films were nearly as exciting. But people seem to want even their popcorn movies to have a middling style that doesn’t take too many leaps.
The blockbusters from the past 20 years or so are B-movies with A-movie budgets. Superheroes, dinosaurs, monsters, space operas, etc. In the 1950s and 1960s these would have been cheap, disposable content, largely viewed as being for children. Marvel has in a way brought back the serial roots of these stories in film, with their “cinematic universe.” Every movie is basically there to drive you to the next one, and so on, and so on. From a marketing/business standpoint it’s brilliant.
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KayKay
November 1, 2019
“It’s all about variety which you brushed aside.”
therag: No I didn’t. Maybe you missed this statement “And yeah, I do miss the VARIETY of escapist entertainment that was available for you to get your monthly or weekly dose of “leave brains at home” fare.”
I specifically picked the Top 10 of those years to address Scorcese’s very specific comment likening the Marvel movies to “Theme Parks”. My point was that box office money spinners have ALWAYS been “Theme Parks”to some degree or other. I’m trying to get to the heart of Scorcese and Coppola’s rant:
If they’re lamenting that cinema’s all about big budget effects driven behemoths now, then that’s a little rich coming from Scorcese, whose The Irishman will be making extensive use of the de-aging tech applied to great effect on the Marvel movies. And both his Wolf of Wall Street and Silence (one of his most complex and masterful narratives on faith) were financed by independent studios. The man’s a brand name like Tarantino with the added bonus of being his generation’s most compelling film-maker so he’s not exactly being cast out onto the wilderness here. As for Coppola, well….the man has given us 4 magnificent movies (Godfathers 1&2, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now) and a whole lot of middling stuff after that (lesser Scorcese is for me a more compelling watch than lesser Coppola) and the man himself has been focusing more on his vineyards rather than movies and most likely resurfaced to give his cinematic compadre a boost. Add to that his long gestating project Megalopolis is finally moving ahead most likely financed by himself or an independent studio, so I’d hold off on ringing the death knell for Original Content from Visionary Film Makers.
“Quentin Tarantino is a brand now so OUATIH grossing 100m is not surprising at all”
True, but you cherry-picked my comments and pulled QT out as an outlier because of his brand name recognition, ignoring the fact that this year also gave us Us and Glass, decidedly non-Disney hits. And last year we had A Quiet Place, a movie that relied on SILENCE to drive the narrative and generate suspense and featured characters who mostly communicated using sign language. US Gross: 188 million. And in 2017, Colombia Pictures and SONY spent 150 MILLION dollars on Blade Runner 2049, a sequel to a cult sci fi film which actually FLOPPED on release.
So, I’m not really seeing this parched arid dystopia where Disney rules Imorton Joe like controlling the supply chain, dictating the type of content to be released to the thirsty masses.
Since you brought up “Tenet”, do you think Disney would have produced an “Inception”, a “Mad Max Fury Road” or a “Kingsman” ?
No and they don’t need to. Last I checked Paramount,Sony and Colombia aren’t Disney-owned and smaller studios like Blumhouse and Platinum Dunes are producing a shit ton of original content.
As a film-lover, we’re residing in as close to an Utopian ideal in terms of accessibility to movies, and how’s that a bad thing? Goddammit, if you have a Netflix subscription, this month, you’ll have the opportunity to catch a spanking new Scorcese 3 hour gangster epic featuring Robert Freaking De Niro, Al Freaking Pacino and Joe Freaking Pesci! As far as I’m concerned I’m pretty darned close to Viewer Heaven. I see the Pearly Gates and can hear the twang of harps.
“And at least you didn’t have to watch the twenty previous trashy flicks to understand the 21st trashy flick”
Ah! Your bias is showing there, Sunshine. Ok, you don’t dig the Marvel movies or the TV episode like format they’ve so successfully transposed onto the big screen. That’s fine. I’m saying there are still choices aplenty for the non-tights non-capes demographic.
“The filmmakers are complaining because the system that relied on tentpoles to fund the smaller/mid-budget films has now changed to one that makes tentpoles and pipes the profits towards more tentpoles and theme park rides”
Mountain, says you. Molehill, says I.
There’s an evolving eco-system that’s addressing this. Like I said, independent studios are till making original fare. Streaming services are picking up the slack. To paraphrase Ian Malcolm, “cinema will find a way”.
Until Disney becomes the Umbrella Corporation or Omni Consumer Products of Hollywood, I’ll hang on to my little ray of hope, thank you very much.
Jesus, this has been a long-ass post. Sorry!
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Madan
November 1, 2019
Oh dear, if Kingsman be our saviour, then we are truly scraping the bottom of the barrel. Unless I am thinking of a different film. It was at best a slightly refined version of Johnny English and not necessarily better for it because Colin Firth’s stiffness wasn’t endearing in the way Rowan Atkinson’s clumsiness was. In a way, Kingsman is exactly the kind of comfortable comedy that works in these times. Neither slapstick nor dark, just middle of the road, like mostly everything else. Birdman was brilliant. There hasn’t been much else that blew my mind in terms of experimentation. Some great films with great stories to tell but there are going to be fewer and fewer Clockworks or Networks or Groundhog Days.
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therag
November 1, 2019
@KayKay, You are making the same point as I. All the examples you cited are smaller films by smaller studios. I didn’t pick Us and Glass because in any good year, there are a few 20m-40m films making 200m+. They are not in the same segment as 150m+ tentpoles or even 50-100m mid-budgeters. They’re cheap and they’ll get made by independents if not the studios.
Same with Blumhouse, renowned for producing cheap horror films on micro/mini budgets.
“That’s fine. I’m saying there are still choices aplenty for the non-tights non-capes demographic.”
The alternative to 200m superhero soap-operas is not micro budget horror.
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KayKay
November 1, 2019
Ooooo Boy! So you dislike Kingsman as well, Madan? You must be thinking of a different film.It is neither comfortable nor middle of the road. What’s middle of the road is a PG-13 rated glossy entertainer with franchise-spawning legs, leached of excessive violence, sex or profanity to hit the widest possible demographic, drained of narrative nuance and complexity so you can tweet and check messages in between without missing anything and carefully avoids any culture-specific subtext so it plays well equally with John Smith in Seattle and John Chen in Shanghai.
Kingsman is far edgier R Rated fare while still playing within the comic book sandbox (it’s based off a Mark Millar graphic novel I really enjoyed). It’s a spiritual cousin to Matthew Vaughn’s earlier Kick-Ass with the same cheeky irreverence of Deadpool while staying clear of the dystopian bleakness of Watchmen.
It’s a tongue-in-cheek take on James Bond, unashamedly English (especially in it’s commentary on class), cheerfully violent, with a terrific Colin Firth (imagine a Darcy who can kick ass and take names), and engaging Taron Egerton.
Its starts with Dire Strait’s Money For Nothing and ends with the promise of anal sex, and in between is a cheerfully lisping Sam Jackson, a female and far deadlier version of Oscar Pistorious and a brutal massacre of civilians inside a church. What’s not to like? 🙂
Absurd? Yes. Over-The Top? Definitely. Middle of the road? Absolutely not!
But it’s absolutely your prerogative not to like it. So the only thing I’m going to give you a hard time over is dragging the execrable Johnny English movies into the conversation. 10 minutes of classic Bean had more laughs than the whole 2 hours of this dreadfully unfunny travesty.
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KayKay
November 1, 2019
@therag: I am merely rebutting the bleak view that the dominance of 100m tentpoles means the gradual edging out of movies with original content. That’s clearly not the case.
“The alternative to 200m superhero soap-operas is not micro budget horror.”
Actually, it’s any damn thing you want it to be.
If I felt Endgame represented the absolute nadir of cinema, as an action junkie, I got John Wick 3 Parabellum, as a horror movie buff I got IT Chapter 2 and the upcoming Doctor Sleep (which are NOT micro budget), if I dig war movies, there’s Roland Emmerich’s upcoming Midway to look forward too (although Emmerich rings the same alarm bells in me as does Michael Bay), as a lover of rom-coms there was Danny Boyle’s charming Yesterday (with an Indian lead who isn’t Dev Patel for once!) and for chuckles there was the Seth Rogen-Charlize Theron comedy Long Shot.
Sure, none of them are mega-budget tentpoles (although Midway’s and John Wick’s 75m price tag isn’t exactly small change) and they’re not YOUR preferred tentpoles, but that wasn’t my point anyway.
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KayKay
November 1, 2019
Santa, you must be viewing Star Wars through a nostalgia-laced gauze of the Lucas years.
Disney has botched Star Wars as spectacularly as they made Marvel a mega-success.
If I were to enumerate all the things wrong with The Last Jedi, the length of my post would tax even B’s legendary patience! And the least said about the spin-offs Rogue One and Solo, the better
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KayKay
November 1, 2019
“Accept it, the art house cinema are best appreciated on the full resolution with headphones on and no cellphone ringing, live tweeting and all that shit.
The main reason of going to theatres is for the atmosphere, to being bedazzled and theme park films provide just what is needed. They keep the theatres alive.”
Amit my man, you’re preaching to the choir. Couldn’t agree with you more!
My rant on imbecilic movie goers have been heard many times around these parts. I reserve the cinema for spectacle and the comfort of my living room for substance.
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Madan
November 2, 2019
“So you dislike Kingsman as well, Madan?” – Never did say I dislike it. It is ‘good’, for what it’s worth. Timepass one time watch. I just don’t find it to be a sort of apothesis or exemplar of contemporary cinema in the way you described it. Even our descriptions of the movie aren’t different:
“It’s a tongue-in-cheek take on James Bond, unashamedly English” – Exactly, so that’s really not poles apart from Johnny English (to be clear, I am referring to the original JE film in the 90s, bad reviews discouraged me from going for the sequel or whatever that came out recently). The only difference is Johnny English was outright slapstick while this is neither full blown satire nor slapstick. In essence, it’s a take on Bond that makes you chuckle. In your world, that might be awesome. For me, that’s meh. I really would like to see Firth utilised in better projects like his essay of Bill Haydon in Tinker Tailor (that Ian Richardson outshined him in the same role in the TV series is a different matter). You and I obviously have different ways of looking at films. For eg:
“Goddammit, if you have a Netflix subscription, this month, you’ll have the opportunity to catch a spanking new Scorcese 3 hour gangster epic featuring Robert Freaking De Niro, Al Freaking Pacino and Joe Freaking Pesci! As far as I’m concerned I’m pretty darned close to Viewer Heaven.” – Marty is my favourite director and I really couldn’t be less enthused about Irishman and I don’t even mind him being relegated to Netflix for this because he really ought to give us something else at this point. I love all three actors and especially in that genre, but how many more times do I have to see them in gangster films? That tone is done to death. I don’t know why the Marty-Leo partnership ended but it brought something fresh to his films. Whatever else Irishman delivers, it won’t be THAT. See, because I may defend the POINT Marty or Coppola are making doesn’t mean I want has been directors to get big budgets to flop at the BO. I am far more interested in what Inarritu or Damien Chazelle have to offer. Even Fincher probably has a few tricks left up his sleeve. The emerging business models will push new directors in the mould of the above to TV series imo, because they will be ambitious and want to see some return on investment rather than having to run around hawking their concepts to myopic studios. We may or may not agree on that but:
“Until Disney becomes the Umbrella Corporation or Omni Consumer Products of Hollywood, I’ll hang on to my little ray of hope” – You are entitled to your optimism but in the same vein, we are too to our pessimism because our priorities are different. The fact that you enjoy Marvel films makes you far more comfortable with the current equilibrium than myself or therag. That is a fundamental difference that is going to affect how the two sides look at the situation.
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Santa
November 2, 2019
KayKay, I would genuinely love to hear your take on the Last Jedi as I know it seriously turned-off a large section of the fan base.
FWIW, it is one of my favorites in the SW saga, even considering the original trilogy. In fact, were it not for a healthy dose of nostalgia for the originals, TLJ would perhaps be my favorite.
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therag
November 2, 2019
@KayKay, “Actually, it’s any damn thing you want it to be.”
And I want it to be non-superhero 200m tentpoles. To be honest, I have nothing against superhero films although I’ve not read many comic books. It was fine as long as Singer, Nolan, Snyder, Raimi et al were making them. Not all of them were great, some were even bad, but I’ll take it fwiw. I just don’t care for Disney-Marvel made-by-committee films. Unfortunately I don’t have any nostalgia or love for the characters to tide me over the blandness and sameness of the films.
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Alex John
November 5, 2019
Delighted to see the ways this conversation meanders through. Nice to see a relatively longer line of comments too.
@BR We are on the same page when it comes to the dislike for Avatar. BTW, isn’t the distance between Titanic and Avatar almost the same as the distance between the first two Terminator films and the rest of the franchise? I mean the superficiality and the lack of visceral experience?
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Senthil S
November 5, 2019
Santa, you’re not alone. I truly believe that TLJ is one of the few mainstream blockbusters that doesn’t feel corporate at all. It has a lot to say about its characters and the universe, and the reason fans hate it so much is because it is not some cookie cutter fan pleasing film like The Force Awakens.
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Kaushik Bhattacharya
November 9, 2019
I truly don’t understand some of the comments on this thread. Some of the folks seem to have found the Marvel films truly objectionable and yet watched most/all of them. Why? Never heard of choice?
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