In 2019, Martin Scorsese was promoting The Irishman, and he was asked several times about the state of cinema today. Marty lamented the dominance of Marvel movies and superhero movies in general, equating them to “theme parks” which “don’t have mystery or genuine emotional danger.” Chaos ensued. I was sort of shocked by how many younger industry people were seemingly incapable of shrugging off Scorsese’s criticisms or even acknowledging that he may have a point. Instead, people chose to disrespect their elders and yell at Scorsese about how he knows nothing of cinematic drama or the depth of human emotion within Marvel movies. At some point, Francis Ford Coppola stepped in and added his voice in defense of Scorsese. Coppola called Marvel movies “despicable” and he said studios don’t value art anymore. Well, Coppola has more to say:
Speaking to GQ magazine in a recent interview, Coppola again lamented over the state of Hollywood studio films and Marvel’s monotony.
“There used to be studio films,” Coppola said. “Now there are Marvel pictures. And what is a Marvel picture? A Marvel picture is one prototype movie that is made over and over and over and over and over again to look different.”
“The talented people — you could take ‘Dune,’ made by Denis Villeneuve, an extremely talented, gifted artist, and you could take ‘No Time to Die,’ directed by…Cary Fukunaga — extremely gifted, talented, beautiful artists, and you could take both those movies, and you and I could go and pull the same sequence out of both of them and put them together. The same sequence where the cars all crash into each other.” Coppola added. “They all have that stuff in it, and they almost have to have it, if they’re going to justify their budget. And that’s the good films, and the talented filmmakers.”
In his original comments from 2019, Coppola took aim at the “lack of risk” that exists in Hollywood film production these days. “Marty Scorsese says that the Marvel picture is not cinema, he’s right because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration,” the director said. “Arguably, I don’t know that anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again, which is the Marvel movies. A thing that has no risk to it.”
[From Variety]
The day the original GQ article came out, people were once again disrespecting their elders. That’s the thing that bugs me about all of this. Scorsese and Coppola came up together and they have these incredible CVs full of classic, important films. Important to other filmmakers, important culturally, important for their impact on the history of cinema. They have both been filmmakers for over FIFTY years. Even if you disagree with what they’re saying, maybe just chill out and acknowledge their well-earned right to their opinions? Or perhaps even acknowledge that Marvel and Disney have fundamentally changed what “cinema” is at this point?
— Zach Baron (@zachbaron) February 17, 2022
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Source: Read Full Article
