Martin Scorsese is not letting this Marvel thing go.
'The Irishman' director initially made headlines last month when he said Marvel movies were "not cinema" and compared them to theme parks. Since then, Scorsese somewhat backtracked his comments, calling them "enjoyable", and a "new art form."
But that proved to not be enough.
Now he's penned an op-ed essay for New York Times titled 'I Said Marvel Movies Aren’t Cinema. Let Me Explain.' because he felt the need to expand on this comments - without retracting them.
In the piece, he writes of the technical accomplishments of blockbusters produced by the MCU, but says they don't have any personal appeal for him:
"Many franchise films are made by people of considerable talent and artistry. You can see it on the screen. The fact that the films themselves don’t interest me is a matter of personal taste and temperament."
He understands the influence of nostalgia on these films saying "if [he] were younger", he might understand the fascination.
Scorsese also that that cinema is about "revelation, aesthetic, emotional and spiritual". He said it's about "characters — the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures, the way they can hurt one another and love one another and suddenly come face to face with themselves."
For him, MCU productions are lacking in these qualities. He found they lack "revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger."
He was also frustrated by the corporate production of Marvel movies, saying "there's worldwide audio-visual entertainment, and there's cinema":
"That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they’re ready for consumption.
"I fear that the financial dominance of one is being used to marginalize and even belittle the existence of the other. For anyone who dreams of making movies or who is just starting out, the situation at this moment is brutal and inhospitable to art. And the act of simply writing those words fills me with terrible sadness."
