(by Aman Basha)
Last year, Martin Scorsese provoked controversy, conversation, thought pieces, reactions and discussions when he called the Marvel series as not cinema, but theme parks. Scorsese later clarified his statement with a lengthy article which I haven’t read, but later gathered that he felt these movies had a sameness and lacked emotional connect. This statement has been supported and attacked equally. It left me to wonder whether a successful attempt to create a whole universe through movies similar to the ones presented in comics and literature didn’t warrant the tag of an artistic experience?
Scorsese and most of Marvel’s detractors are right on some counts, the movies have an overwhelming sameness and seem to play too safe and by-the-numbers. Yet the point that commentators miss is that these aspects are deliberate and by design. When one looks at pieces from a puzzle, they don’t make much of an impression. It is only in coming together that their true purpose unfolds in front of us.
To examine Marvel and assess it, the most appropriate place would be its conclusion, the culmination of 10 years and 22 films:
Avengers Endgame
Just as the MCU kickstarted in 2008 with Iron Man, transforming a talented but troubled actor into a star with the role of a lifetime, Endgame too appropriately begins with Iron Man stuck in space and rescued by the newest member to join the club and the first female lead, Captain Marvel.
The movie returns back to Earth, familar characters all still processing their round defeat, sour memories as Stark angrily lashes at good ole Captain America, who’s back with a shave, blaming their conflict depicted in Captain America: Civil War, a movie that shows the ramifications of the destruction left behind by superheroes and the conflict between superheroes in a much stronger way than Batman V. Superman, which, in its conflict between being “cinema” and being a part of a “franchise” fell flat, not doing adequate justice to neither unlike Captain America: Civil War, whose fresh character introductions were far more organic than BvS’s trailer showreel.
As they find Thanos and Thor finally goes to the head, we are witness to a great storytelling decision of fast forward 5 years, depicting how the world still has holes and did not heal from the loss. Characters try their best to move on, yet still struggle, even the eternal optimist Cap admits to be unable to. Antman magically reappears to tearfully reunite with his teenager daughter who he last saw as a child and pitches his mad time travel plan, we see what happened to all our favorites.
Iron Man has a happy family, the daughter he had dreamed of, this is a life he is unwilling to risk yet he cannot rest with the possibility that he may bring them all back, the protege who pleaded in his arms to save him too. Mark Ruffalo pops in, with a hilarious transformation that combines the geek Banner and brawny Hulk concluding the struggle between the geeky Banner and brawny Hulk. It paves way to a laugh out loud scene where Banner has to recreate Hulk’s destructive rampage. To top it all is Thor’s turn, from the royal princeling to a depressed, overweight alcoholic. He becomes the center of most of the film’s jokes and digs yet still has a very real PTSD. Hawkeye transforms into a vengeful vigilante who’s offered by the same Black Widow who he had helped at some point.
Within the spectrum of the film, every character is given his moment to shine, every previous film is referenced and elevated, even Thor; Dark World, widely considered as one of the weaker films gets greater weight and feeling. There are loopholes, but given Marvel, they’re cleverly using it as a way to bring back and explore, in greater detail, fan favorite Loki in a series.
Endgame is the best of Marvel, a monument constructed as a tribute and love letter to its fans. Moments echo brilliantly from earlier films and arcs that began long ago find a beautiful touching end. I seem to be out of control and babbling, but how do I describe the satisfaction of watching lovers seperated by time reunite, a selfish genius sacrificing himself to save all, a selfless soldier finally living the life he deserved, the villain and his cohorts, hyped and shown from a decade finally getting their end. People finally coming to terms and making peace with their past, their parents and their regrets.
It might be misconstrued as a greatest hits parade only serving its fans, but this too is exceptionally difficult, given how Game Of Thrones, with a whole season and Star Wars with far lesser characters failed to give the satisfactory payoff to all the buildup and myth making it conveyed.
The debate still continues; yet I don’t seem to care, all that I wrote, I wrote with the joyful memories it gave me, the heart it had, it may be cinema or a theme park ride, but I love it and so did the audience, they love you 2.8 billion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Madan
May 19, 2020
Reproducing a comment I left on YT on this topic with small edits for context:
One way to think about this debate is this. How many Marvel fans would be prepared to wipe out the entire history of cinema in exchange for nothing but Marvel universe films? Yes, only Marvel, not even DC. OTOH, are there a lot of moviegoers who can go without watching Marvel films? Yes. This may sound inconceivable if you are firmly ensconced in the Marvel bubble but such people do exist and I am one of them. And I am not some art movie snob who sneers at the idea of making movies out of comic books, I just didn’t grow up on a Captain America diet.
I get that this doesn’t have to be zero-sum, either-or. But we are also fooling ourselves if we think we can have it all. We can’t and we aren’t. More and more capital and power is concentrated in the hands of Disney which means more and more Marvel and more and more Disney classic remakes. This was already the case before covid and now the smaller production houses may well go out of business. But yes, Marty being ‘so offensive’ after making the body of work that he has, is the real problem, totally.
And I will add, in the article, he made clear his concerns were precisely about the economics and about Marvel crowding out other films.
I have been unsympathetic even in the past towards the typical free market argument to this: “oh, don’t worry, cinema will take care of itself.” After seeing ‘how well’ capitalism has responded to covid, I am even more skeptical of such arguments. No, the folks who pull the strings don’t care about cinema so why would anybody think they will save films? They will just save whatever makes money for them. And what makes money is not a straightforward game of box office returns but also about the marketing and promotion that goes behind putting a big film way ahead of a smaller film in the game.
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abishekspeare
May 19, 2020
Totally agree with this piece
BR, I’m having a problem visiting the ReelTwo blog. It’s saying that permission is being denied. I tried from different accounts. Can you please look it up?
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Anu Warrier
May 19, 2020
Count me in as one person who didn’t grow up on a Captain America universe and couldn’t be engaged enough with Marvel’s created universe enough to care if there was a universe or not. I do have the same fears about these mega-movies that spin out franchises as I do about all media power being concentrated (at least in the US) in the hands of exactly 5 (now 4. I think) companies – the slow strangulation of all independent thought and film.
Scorsese’s criticism of Marvel was reduced to an absurdism. I agree with Madan – the argument was about economics of scale.
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Aman Basha
May 19, 2020
@Madan: Most of the MCU’s fans (myself included) have no experience with the comics. In fact, the only comics I’ve read are the Dark Knight Returns. The movies are vastly different from the comics. Take Spiderman. Anyone would have groaned if there was another iteration of Uncle Ben. But they cleverly insert the character into the Universe’s mainframe by placing Tony Stark himself as Peter’s mentor, and having a sequel for both him and the fans to process the aftereffects of his death. If you watch the movies, you’d have a complete understanding of the movie imo.
@abhishekpeare: I’m not satisfied with this piece, the idea was to catch all the references and moments from previous movies to expand on the Universe. Unfortunately, it became far too long and I didn’t expand on all the other awesome moments XD
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Madan
May 20, 2020
” Most of the MCU’s fans (myself included) have no experience with the comics.” – You can’t be sure of this. In discussions on Marvel films, MCU fans definitely discuss how the comic book characters have been portrayed on film. I am not saying it is impossible to like these movies without first absorbing the comic books but the fact that there is a huge contingent of Marvel comics fans already assures the makers of a certain minimum number of footfalls in the theaters. This is the advantage comic book movies have always had compared to, well, a ‘normal’ fan that has to take a risk with new characters that the audience will meet for the first time in the film; only utter stinkers like Catwoman or Batman Forever have failed in this space. This is the risk Marty also referred to. A normal film expects you to take the risk of engaging with and investing in a character you have never met and who has been made up for the film. In MCU, the chief actors of the stage are already laid out by the books.
And to your suggestion, yes, I tried watching Marvel films and long before Scorsese issued this barb. I watched all of X Men First Class and whenever other films have come on TV, have tried getting into them but I do not see them as a different animal from the general fantasy with fx space. I can entirely see why such films would be successful at the BO because the Jurassic Park or Terminator series were too back in the day. But they do not comprise an alternative to other kinds of cinema to me. Unfortunately, the fact that Marvel films succeed in spite or even because of the frequency with which they are unleashed at the BO does pit them against other films in the battle for resources and this is a battle that Marvel will win, easily.
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Amit Joki
May 20, 2020
I feel Marvel’s movies have emotions. Just that, they are painted very broadly and superficially. It helps that the actors are all excellent and the superficial emotions still churn something in us.
For me, the Nolan’s trilogy came closest to perfecting the Comic/Cinema fusion without pandering to the audience.
All said, I found the Endgame to be far greater in emotional/cinematic experience than Infinity War.
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Madan
May 20, 2020
“For me, the Nolan’s trilogy came closest to perfecting the Comic/Cinema fusion without pandering to the audience.” – Agreed, particularly Dark Knight. But DKR too evoked parallels to the real world without the metaphors being too specific or hinting at a particular political agenda.
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Aman Basha
May 20, 2020
“there is a huge contingent of Marvel comics fans already assures the makers of a certain minimum number of footfalls in the theaters”
Excuse me, but doesn’t that argument apply to every big star movie, where a Rajni FDFS will rake more moolah than the lifetime BO of many other very good movies combined? Where normal audiences would find a movie less enjoyable than the fans who salivate over every reference and allusion to the star and his elevation even at the expense of narrative integrity. When it comes to superhero movies, it’s the characters that are the BO draws. Even Scorsese’s Irishman, regardless of how excellent the movie was, couldn’t warrant a $160 million investment from a studio. Instead of DeNiro and Pacino, if he had cast DiCaprio and Damon, he wouldn’t have gone to Netflix which he hates as it is opposed to everything he stands for.
“I do not see them as a different animal from the general fantasy with fx space”
The M.C.U. hasn’t been at the forefront of breaking ground VFX although the deaging technology used in The Irishman seems to have been used in Marvel earlier. Their true achievement is adapting the TV serial episodic format of storytelling to cinema. And it isn’t as easy as it looks, Marvel’s most popular characters in comics were Spidey, X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Sold to other studios for funds, the remaining characters weren’t exactly popular enough to guarantee BB status. It’s a testament to Kevin Feige’s vision that he pulled it off and also explains why all the directors of the Avengers movies (Joss Whedon, the Russos) have their backgrounds in TV. This plan was set long before Disney bought them and I don’t really see the interference of the Disney board on them. It’s still Feige’s baby.
It’s the way this Cinematic Universe was constructed and given a fitting end with Endgame that created the mania and @AmitJoki is right, the cast is excellent, what with RDJ, Ruffalo, Johannson, Samuel Jackson and many other talented actors.
The whole controversy spiraled out due to Disney’s monopoly over Hollywood, with Disney+ now threatening Netflix and Prime. It is unfair that almost 40% of domestic box office is from Disney and I’m surprised it hasn’t been challenged by anti-Monopoly laws. The worst that they’ve done are those classic remakes, which are truly shameless cash grabs. It’s this general sentiment that popped up after Endgame to attack Disney’s crown jewel, since even Star Wars faltered with Solo and the sequel trilogy. Other companies too made attempts to create their own Universes but the DCEU stumbled big time with JL, the Dark Universe with far bigger stars than MCU flopped, the Monsterverse has seen a setback with the Godzilla sequel. Attempts to emulate Marvel will mostly fail, and even Marvel is wisely taking a decentralized approach in its next phase.
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Madan
May 20, 2020
“but doesn’t that argument apply to every big star movie, where a Rajni FDFS will rake more moolah than the lifetime BO of many other very good movies combined? ” – Yes and I don’t remember arguing that Rajni domination is a good thing for Tamil cinema either. We are not talking about Tamil cinema here anyway, so this is a meaningless whataboutism.
But no, films with DeNiro or Pacino in them have tanked so their pull on the BO is nowhere comparable to either Rajni or Marvel (or to Tom Cruise for that matter).
“This plan was set long before Disney bought them and I don’t really see the interference of the Disney board on them. ” – And I didn’t say that either. But Feige also cannot pull this off as an indie director. It’s Disney’s capital – or even Marvel Studios’ own not insignificant financial clout – that enables him to make so many films with all of them having star casts. Nowhere have I said the vision of MCU is in some way crass commercial. I am just objecting to the notion that there is any level playing field between MCU and an independent film. There isn’t. It’s not even close.
” The worst that they’ve done are those classic remakes, which are truly shameless cash grabs.” – No argument on that, Lion King was a waste of Favreu’s talent. You almost don’t need a director for such scene-by-scene remakes.
” It’s this general sentiment that popped up after Endgame to attack Disney’s crown jewel,” – The sentiment may have grown stronger since then but I and others I know have voiced this sentiment before as well. Concentration of power in conglomerates is bad anywhere and it’s particularly bad in the arts.
” Other companies too made attempts to create their own Universes but the DCEU stumbled big time with JL, the Dark Universe with far bigger stars than MCU flopped, the Monsterverse has seen a setback with the Godzilla sequel. ” – Well, as far as I am concerned, I am not backing some other universe against MCU and would simply rather want to see them pour the money from these immensely successful projects into making interesting ‘normal’ cinema as well. No, they don’t have an obligation to but they are now deeply entrenched in cinema and should nurture it. I have a particular dislike for Disney only because they have been in this biz for a long time and they are simply killing the golden goose. They don’t realise it but that’s what they’re doing it. One day MCU will hit saturation and that day shouldn’t be a day when other studios have wound up and it’s a Disney monopoly. We need for there to be many successful studios making a diverse bouquet of films.
It’s a real pity that Weinstein was such a monster (for which he was rightfully sentenced) for he had great taste in cinema and showed how it could still be possible to make great cinema that could also succeed at the BO. From the time Miramax got gobbled up, conglomerate control of Hollywood has grown and along with, the increasing franchization of movies. I appreciate that Disney is so woke and all that but they could also use some of Harvey’s taste in cinema.
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Santa
May 20, 2020
A.O.Scott of the New York Times had this to say about Marvel and Endgame:
The intersecting axes of time and money are what this franchise is all about.
Any single film can serve as a point of entry, and insider status is easy enough to obtain. There has never been anything difficult or challenging, which is a limitation as well as a selling point.
None of the 22 films in this cycle are likely to be remembered as great works of cinema, because none have really tried.
And most fittingly:
“Endgame” is a monument to adequacy, a fitting capstone to an enterprise that figured out how to be good enough for enough people enough of the time.
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Aman Basha
May 20, 2020
@Madan: I used the Rajni comparison to indicate how despite the dominance of a behemoth at the BO, many good films are being made in TN. Even big stars, like Rajni himself and franchises fail if their product is not up to the mark. The present fear is that Hollywood would end up at some point like Tollywood was earlier, with only one particular type of film being churned out regularly, the superhero tentpoles in the former and the mass movies in the latter. There are good movies being made in Hollywood even now, it’s just that given Disney’s onslaught (which is weird, since US is supposed to have anti monopoly laws) buying up studios everywhere and just dominating the market in such a manner that there are no visible alternatives for movie goers is a horrific prospect. Agreed, but I do think it’s unfair to blame Marvel for this, since they pulled off what they wanted to very successfully and it’s natural and unfortunate that everyone else wanted such a mega franchise universe in their kitty.
Now, this depends on your response to Marvel and if you aren’t a taker, it’s easier to blame them. But I view Feige and Marvel as semi independent within Disney, given how it was Disney executives who drove Star Wars to the ground, divided its fanbase and pissed pretty much everyone with either the Last Jedi or Rise Of Skywalker. I hate Disney and what they’ve been doing with their remakes and so forth like pretty much everyone else and I do hope one of these remakes will prompt rejection from the audience ending this nonsense once and for all.
@Santa: This response may apply to both @Madan and AO Scott’s comments, but the MCU hasn’t been done with pure commercial purpose. Prior to 2008, none of the MCU’s characters were popular and it was visionary to have a cinematic universe with characters crossing over from vastly varying settings and even coming together in movies. None of these 22 works may be considered cinema, but these 22 movies together represent an important juncture in the history of cinema, this isn’t easy or purely about money. No one else earlier had this idea or when even Disney itself tried to replicate this with Star Wars and those spin offs, it failed. The ramifications of Marvel’s success may or most probably will not be the “Death Of Cinema”. My post was entirely about how Marvel, which has been commercial, themepark and so on, evoked a emotional response and defending it. I haven’t spoken about its implications at all, purely its artistic merit.
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KayKay
May 20, 2020
Great post Aman.
And agree with all your points.
Endgame is that terrific Series Finale to the Most Expensive TV Show ever made and absolutely DEMANDS your complete investment in the 21 preceding films for any of it’s “mass” moments and emotional pay-offs to register.
The Hammer flying over Thor and landing in Cap’s hands requires you paying attention to the otherwise disappointing Age of Ultron
Stark’s daughter asking for cheeseburgers only packs an emotional wallop if you still remember Iron Man
And I can name a dozen more of such moments.
It’s a triumph of cinematic world-building, something which avid comic book readers (count yours truly as one) usually take for granted on the page but an absolute revelation on celluloid.
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Madan
May 20, 2020
” But I view Feige and Marvel as semi independent within Disney, given how it was Disney executives who drove Star Wars to the ground, divided its fanbase and pissed pretty much everyone with either the Last Jedi or Rise Of Skywalker.” – This much I agree with but again, the implications of this only matter to Marvel fans themselves. It does not matter to anyone not invested in the franchise. The fact that MCU may be better than Disney ruining Star Wars or its own animated classics doesn’t move the needle unless you’re already a Marvel fan.
” My post was entirely about how Marvel, which has been commercial, themepark and so on, evoked a emotional response and defending it. I haven’t spoken about its implications at all, purely its artistic merit.” – And my point to you is Scorsese did elaborate on his remarks so when you say right at the outset of your post that you did not read his article, it’s like you want to hold him to its initial response and the fact that he chose to take the pains to clarify his stance does not matter. He said many complimentary things also about Marvel in his op-ed.
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Aman Basha
May 20, 2020
@Madan: Problem is, I don’t have a NYTimes subscription 😉
@KayKay: Not to mention, Captain America saying Hail Hydra wasn’t just a subversion of Winter Soldier’s famous elevator fight but also apparently referenced a comic where Captain America briefly turned into a Hydra agent. All the female Avengers teaming up together in a cool shot, Cap finally screaming Avengers Assemble in a battle cry, and Thor’s cry of delight when he first sees Thunder Cap, “I knew it!” reflecting the nerdgasm on the other side. I was about to complain that Cap got all the cool scenes till Iron Man evened it with one snap and bit of dialogue. And even showing the kid from Iron Man 3 in Tony’s funeral was a nice bit of keeping the fans guessing and shocking em with unexpected nostalgia. Even the famously confusing dreams in Age Of Ultron fulfill themselves with Thor causing Ragnarok, Cap getting Peggy, Natasha and Tony sacrifice themselves where Stark reverses his dream. You keep digging and there’s still going to be shiny gems around in analyzing
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Madan
May 21, 2020
I am going to build on the point I made of the fanboy effect propelling MCU films even when the films don’t fare so well with critics or general audience opinion.
Wolverine has a 6.6 rating on IMDB, 5.3 on Rotten Tomatoes and Stuckmann actually devoted a Hilarocity segment to it. How much did it make? $373 mn.
Likewise with X Men Apocalypse. Middling ratings, box office gold at an even higher $543 mn.
Ultron made $1.4 billion and has a 7.3 on IMDB. Which looks great until you consider that Dark Knight is a 9. I mean, that’s the fanboy inflation effect on the rating, so a really great comic book film gets elevated to all time masterpiece status.
On the IMDB list, only three MCU films make it to the all time top 100 – Infinity War, Spider-Man- Spider Verse and Endgame.
https://www.imdb.com/chart/top/?ref_=nv_mv_250
Lest you think IMDB is somehow unfair to Marvel films, Metacritic doesn’t have a single Marvel film in the top 100.
https://www.metacritic.com/browse/movies/score/metascore/all/filtered?sort=desc
When you stack these up against Scorsese’s critique, is it really so unfair? I understand that there is an audience for every kind of film. But the point he addressed is exactly that a genre film universe cannot become the entirety of Hollywood.
And while it may be true that in absolute numbers, many more non franchise films are made each year than the franchise ones, there’s no doubt about who’s winning the BO war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_2019
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Madan
May 21, 2020
Great discussion, at least what I have been able to watch so far with intermittent net issues.
Marty giving a great history lesson on the Apocalypse Now-Raging Bull-Heavens Gate triple whammy around the 14-15 min mark. As MANK has said before, Heavens Gate finished off auteurs for a while. Miramax, Lionsgate and other so-called ‘mini major’ studios brought back narrative driven cinema but it looks like it’s becoming a losing game again:
I am thinking too, about Parasite winning Best Picture and that coinciding with Korea, Taiwan and Japan handling the covid outbreak brilliantly while US and some of Western Europe tripped over their own tremendous hubris. Maybe this is also symptomatic of where America’s at. Half of revenues of a typical Hollywood blockbuster come from North America and the other half overseas. If franchises are what they want, what Marty or other auteurs say isn’t going to matter and we will have to turn to other markets where making great films without it having to be about a franchise thing still pays.
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Aman Basha
May 21, 2020
@Madan: I think you’re misinterpreting the BO results of the above mentioned movies. It’s a common mistake everyone makes when we look at Hollywood Blockbusters. Their accounting system is quite complicated and without delving into those finer details though a certain website called Deadline might help, I think a film is considered financially successful if it grosses a good amount of money higher than the movie’s budget at the domestic US BO and if not, balancing it with a higher proportion Overseas. From Wikepedia:
X Men Apocalypse
Budget: $178 million
Domestic BO: $155.4 million
Coupling it with the Overseas, it was slightly average.
Wolverine
Budget: $150 million
Domestic BO: $179 million
Coupling with Overseas, it isn’t exactly profitable either.
Not every superhero movie or pre existing property based tentpole is sure shot success. They follow the same system as our star driven movies do. Even in the Top 10 of 2019, it’s worrying that Disney has such absolute domination that the family and kids audience have no other sizable options than its remakes. Toy Story 4 once again restored faith among Pixar fans, the Toy Story franchise must be one of the rarest franchises where all the movies are almost equally great. The cornering of most of the big BO gross has made Disney Emperor Supreme but we had a pretty good year otherwise as well, Olivia Wilde,best known for House MD, directed Booksmart, a coming of age movie receiving just as acclaim as Lady Bird, though not the same BO, for action aficionados and Keanu fans, John Wick 3 Parabellum, which after Toy Story 4, Always Be My Maybe and that game conference officially proved Neo was the Internet’s new boyfriend and greenlit Matrix 4.
Takita Watiti who reinvented Thor in Ragnarok was director and played Hitler in a anti war satire Jojo Rabbit which also had Black Widow Johansson as a German widow. Knives Out, the acclaimed murder mystery which also had social commentary starred Bond, Captain America and was directed by the maker of The Last Jedi, Greta Gerwig, darling of indies made Little Women which grossed more than 200 million and was led mainly by women, Ford V Ferrari and Richard Jewell were both very well made and crafted based on true life movies by James Mangold and Clint Eastwood. There was another addition to Tom Hanks’ roster of great American figures with A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, JLo, still stunning and sexy made a great BO comeback with Hustlers and surprisingly so did Eddie Murphy with Dolemite. Even the superhero genre was played around with in both Glass and Brightburn. Joker, being a R rated movie, grossed $1 billion. What did I miss? Once Upon A Time In Hollywood?
The only unfairness is how Disney cornered the kids/family market ans did nothing original. I mean the Snyder Cut is coming on HBO Max and Tom Cruise is probably planning the first movie to be shot in outer space. This isn’t the Death Of Cinema, it’s more like the Evolution.
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Madan
May 21, 2020
“Greta Gerwig, darling of indies made Little Women which grossed more than 200 million and was led mainly by women” – Which has been remade for the nth time now. This is the problem, as I mentioned above. The problem is that America lives in the past, which is why they seek out cultural artifacts that bring back memories of the old. There are many tales to be told of today’s America but whether it is because contemporary makers are so out of touch or because studios won’t greenlight such films, you won’t see them in Hollywood. And yes, in this regard, there is actually no difference between Marvel and Scorsese. After his exciting collaborations with Leo, what does he do? He gets Pacino, DeNiro and Pesci together and makes a mafia movie all over again. No change even in the tone. He himself says in the Directors’ Roundtable that this is the tone he feels comfortable in now. Is it any wonder then that the very comforting and aptly titled Norman Fucking Rockwell was one of the most acclaimed pop albums of last year? Maybe comforting movies and soundtracks help get through the spectacle of an empire collapsing on itself, or something like that.
They could of course give a shot to black or Hispanic artists to let them make films about THEIR reality which isn’t something white people see too often in cinema halls but I guess it would be a problem if white people see a black dude jogging on the screen and take out conceal-and-carry arms to shoot at the screen. 😉 I am kidding but the blindsiding is astonishing.
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Cholan Raje
May 25, 2020
The MCU is like Harris Jayaraj, and Scorsese and his band of art-film directors are like Mozart.
The former has nothing groundbreaking or innovative to offer. Critics scoff at it, locals call it “soulless” and “lazy,” and I’m told that the latter is far more likable.
And yet, the former is where I see actual soul. I never shed a tear or felt my heart drop or jump while watching The Godfather or one of Scorsese’s cold, impersonal films, but I spent days emotionally bobbing up and down as I thought about Stark– about how Stark’s desires shrank in scale as his life went on, and once they became as small as they could, encompassing nothing beyond his wife and child, he sacrificed them to resurrect a universe. I laughed with the Avengers. I cried with them. I felt their emotions. I felt like I was one of them. Innovation is pivotal to good filmmaking, don’t get me wrong– and that’s where the MCU indeed suffers. But at the end of the day, what makes the most memorable films are how human their characters feel, and how much you care about what happens to them.
This is why the MCU will always be better than The Godfather, or Moonlight, or Whiplash. This is why the MCU will always be better than anything I’ve seen from Scorsese.
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