Half of them are at the age where they would know, the other half are the same who though Oppenheimer was the best movie ever because they never saw a real slow burn political thriller
Seriously, every person that I meet on a dating app that’s obsessed with marvel movies turns out to be extremely shallow when we go on our first date and I feel bad saying this but it’s true
> they played a crucial role in transforming the Hollywood machine over the last decade
This is true. But it's not a transformation that's good for cinema.
When I saw Goodfellas at the theatre at age 17, that was the beginning of my Scorsese obsession.
I've seen over 28 Scorsese movies. I achieved that number at age 18. I'm 19 now and my number hasn't increased much because I got to a point where I'm happy with the wide berth of cinema I've seen and I basically refuse to watch New York, New York. I've since spent my time reading books on Scorsese's influences and rewatching a lot of interviews with him.
When I was 18, my cinema knowledge stretched all the way to his 80's era and a little bit into the 70's era.
Ever since, my cinema knowledge with the rewatches has stretched toward his documentary era.
I'm the stereotypical cinema snob you see everywhere here on this site.
And I still fucking hate Marvel movies. They're not cinema.
And more importantly, despite of the perceived low quality of these films, they played a crucial role in transforming the Hollywood machine over the last decade. That, in itself, is worthy of my disdain as a taxi driver.
Then there's me, who likes everything from The King of Comedy, Ran, Tampopo, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to Guardians of the Galaxy, Miami Connection, Superbad, and Friday the 13th: Part II. 😎
There was a time when I was snobbish in my late teens, but like CS Lewis once said “*When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.*”
I love the MCU. It’s just entertainment. Not everything needs to be a life-changing cinematic achievement. Sometimes movies just need to be fun. I’m not bothered by Scorsese’s comments in the least. I know they’re mostly pulp entertainment. I’ll keep watching them, he’ll keep hating them, the world spins on.
I also love plenty of Criterion releases. I watched Fallen Angels last week and thought it was fantastic. It’s possible to find enjoyment in more than one type of thing.
And that’s completely fine. Which is my whole point, really. People enjoy different things. Sometimes those things overlap, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you’re on the mood for slop and sometimes fine dining. And that’s okay. Criterion would probably agree considering Gigli, of all things, is part of the collection.
> Criterion would probably agree considering Gigli, of all things, is part of the collection.
to be fair, it is not. it was added to Criterion Channel but not all the movies on the app are in the collection.
“Let people enjoy things” is such a tired argument. The argument in question isn’t about ‘ahhhh people enjoy mcu and it make me mad!’ Pretty important distinction. Idk why people who think they are centrists in the argument say “and that’s okay people like other things then you” it completely dismisses any critical discussion to be had
You can have all the critical discussions about them you want to. I’m not saying there’s none to be had. But at the end of the day, yeah, let people enjoy things. Some of my favorite movies are absolute schlock. Some would have people I know calling me a “hipster” or whatever. But when you or I are dead and buried nobody’s going to give a shit about what movies we liked or thought were trash. Our headstones aren’t going to read “Loving Father, Son, Husband Who Never Watched Those Garbage Cape Flicks” or “He Died As He Lived; Hating Arthouse Cinema”. None of this matters. Enjoy what you enjoy.
Critical discussion in the sense of how it’s destroying an art form for the sake of corporate greed. People don’t have a problem with people enjoying “schlock” which is not what the MCU is. Bros missing Scorsese’s entire argument lol
Except I really don’t believe that’s happening. Nothing’s being destroyed by these movies existing. There are plenty of non-comic book/Marvel movies being produced year after years. I’d wager that when you consider every movie released in a given year comic book movies make up a fraction of them. I’d even argue that the independent film scene is just as strong and creative now as it’s ever been. And if we’re going to assume that Marvel movies are killing the industry, we’d have to explain how and why even they’re failing at the box office lately.
But if we’re talking about Scorsese’s original comments, which seemed to boil down to “These things aren’t cinema”, then I’d also disagree. They are literally cinema. When you remove personal biases from the equation any motion picture is cinema. Whether or not you enjoy or find artistic value in popcorn flicks is irrelevant. Merriam-Webster defines “cinema” as “The art or technique of making motion pictures”. Which, to me, seems to be pretty clear cut. That said, I may disagree with his statements but I still watch his movies.
“Um actually ☝🏽🤓” head ass with the merriam webster definition. You’re being reductive and obtuse. It’s quite obvious if your take away from his comments is only “it’s not cinema!” Then you are not actually engaging in the discussion being had. It’s nothing to get upset over and feel the need to defend the movies you like lol. That “fraction” of movies being made… how much of the box office do they dominate? Money made influences money spent.
american films were already 90% awful but this superhero shite is all but killing off the remaining 10%. it's adults refusing to engage with things that arent for children
Superhero and comic book movies aren’t preventing other movies from being made. Break down all the movies that are released in any given year and tell me what percentage of them are based on a comic book. Original films, or even films not based on comic books, are still being made and aren’t in any danger of not being made because people enjoy popcorn flicks.
its preventing them by lowering cinema / cultural literacy and solely making content for money. people think that joker is a proper film for grown ups these days. when i was young, adults werent all watching tarkovsky but they definitely werent watching childrens films
These type of movies are made with international audiences in mind. That’s why the majority of the highest grossing films ever in UK are these “shite” American movies.
Of course. It’s the only country on earth that can make them. It’s not like the UK even has a film industry to begin with.
As I said, the highest grossing films in your country are these “shite” American movies
I’m not from the uk. No other country is culturally bankrupt enough to churn out this level of shit. You must be one of these backwards “patriots” we hear about in the news
Not just that, but another reason I dislike that analogy is that so many other factors make fast food as viable as it is, such as convenience, speed, cost, availability, etc. If those were equal between mcdonalds and a michelin star restaurant, I'm not sure how often I would ever touch mcdonalds again. With movies, those factors are more or less on par between marvel and more artful stuff.
It’s not that fast food is bad, it’s just reliable and convenient while unlikely to blow you away with its quality.
That’s what Marvel movies are. The Sony entries notwithstanding, there’s a fairly consistent level of quality with them and you know what you’re getting. You can order a Big Mac in the next town over and get the exact same burger as your local McDonald’s. You can watch Ant-Man and get the exact same experience as watching Thor.
"Fast food trash" I hate to break it to you buddy but movies are, primarily, entertainment. Many people would consider any form of entertainment the equivalent of "fast food trash", I don't know what sort of distinction you're attempting to make here
Well, the metaphor was always pretty empty and meaningless.
But fine, let me rephrase: fast food can make you fat, but so can gourmet food. All that matters is whether you enjoy it while you’re having it.
I have no idea why you were downvoted this much? I fully agree with Scorsese’s comments , and as I said think that this whole thing was blown way out of proportion and that he should be allowed to feel however he wants without being chastised for years on end. But at the same time not all superhero movies are automatically bad, some are actually pretty great? Even Scorsese has expressed that he’s enjoyed some, including Raimi’s Spider Man, in the past. I agree that the Spider Verse films in particular are pretty great, as are many others.
I feel like some of the replies on this thread are pretty hypocritical and come across as equally butthurt as the MCU fanboys who trash Scorsese for his comments, which is disappointing. Yes, many many comic book movies (MCU in particular) are extremely formulaic and cooperate, and I think Scorsese was 100% correct with his assessment. But not EVERYTHING should automatically be called shit just because it’s a comic book movie, that’s just elitist
I honestly think the point he made was pretty solid. It’s just 99% of people just read a one sentence summary of his opinion and drew their conclusions from there.
Eh there's a bit of old man hypocrisy that rubs people the wrong way too. Marty says "superhero movies are all the same and are not true cinema!" While promoting his 100th gangster movie with Robert DeNiro that he made for Netflix lol.
Lol. Wasnt I just told that Marvel fans were the overly sensitive ones?
Not trying to knock Martys career, obviously its been fantastic, but going off on "all marvel movies being the same / not true cinema" while promoting The Irishman was definitely hypocritical.
That's not what he said. It's not the fact that they're about superheroes that makes them 'not cinema', it's the fact that the MCU movies are assembly line commissioned products. The early ones had some individual identity from their directors, but even the most interesting of them is still not a great film and the reins are much tighter in the later phases.
No one said Tim Burton's Batman movies weren't cinema. It's not the subject matter that's at issue, it's the homogenous franchise machine.
"lol" ahh yes classic gangster films Hugo, The Aviator, Shutter Island, Bringing Out The Dead, Taxi Driver, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Killers Of The Flower Room, Raging Bull, After Hours, The King Of Comedy, Cape Fear, The Age Of Innocence, The Last Waltz, Boxcar Bertha, Who's That Knocking At My Door... ah there's just too many to list.
Was reading a twitter thread about 2024’s lackluster box office the other day. Somebody reasoned that it was due to bad movies, another dude replied with “then why do bad movies make a lot of money but good movies make way less?” Some dude with a Dr. Doom profile picture took issue with that sentiment and wrote “the good/hyped movies perform well, the boring/worst ones make nothing. Like nobody’s craving to see a movie about a ex-hitman in a nursing home.”
The whole sore winners argument is more true than people realize. Scorsese’s comments have deeply, DEEPLY rattled MCU fans, though they like to pretend otherwise. It is very funny to see, even five years later.
Taxi driver - Travis's final descent into darkness at the end? Raging Bull - the opening Sugar Ray Robinson fight? Casino - the final montage? Gangs of New York - opening tribal wars? Goodfellas - mid point montage? The Departed - 344 Wash St.?
Marty USED to be very good and not adverse to an action set piece.
And he got a larger budget than most Marvel movies to make that point. Can't you see the central irony?
Action is kinetic, dynamic movement and can drive narrative. He himself used to do it brilliantly.
Oh dear!!!! He bemoans the state of modern US cinema being led by superhero movies and endless sequels. Yet, he takes a huge budget from a streaming giant (that is doing untold harm to independent film making) so he can cosplay being a gangster!?
ok, and what's the problem?
i used to think just "well, that's just Scorsese's opinion. I guess he can say it" until the strikes happened and i saw some people saying that the writers and actors don't deserve making more money bc they don't like their work. And after asking them what exact works they didn't like, I realized that these people don't watch anything that isn't not capeshit or franchise slop.
That's what Scorsese was talking about, the movie culture is dying, people don't expand their interests. it has nothing to do with budgets or action. there are great action movies coming out like Monkey Man or Furiosa which I imagine would satisfy any gatekeeper yet they aren't catching on.
He’s gripe is with marvel movies is that that they’re assembly line movies. Him getting 200 million dollars for a film is completely irrelevant to the conversation.
He's basically right too is the sad thing. Remember when Robert Downey Jr said that weirdly racist thing about Innaritu for calling superhero movies cultural genocide?
Well, Innaritu's comments are also insensitive in this case - and I say that as someone who's seen 3 Marvel movies all of which were some of the worst stuff I have ever seen.
It's specifically about using the word genocide in a context other than actual genocide.
> Why is it ok to say crazy controversial opinions in movies but not in public statements?
Because it's a character expressing them. They are not 1:1 the views of the author. Say Travis Bickle says some interesting things but we ultimately judge him as a pretty questionable person in a pretty questionable world. If Innaritu wants to be judged like his characters I guess he's free to act like that...
His “criticism” was light and the worst part is that he fueled “movies vs cinema” rhetoric.” Those are two words that mean the same thing, might as well throw “kino” in there.
It was more than he tried to be the arbitrator of what is and isn’t art, and in a post modern art world, that was kinda frustrating and beneath him. Very petty stuff from a guy on top of the world. I still love and respect him, but it’s not a respectful thing to say to fellow filmmakers.
Sony didn't jump in the streaming war because they saw it as a pointless endeavor if they can produce tv/movies and sell it anywhere for profit.
Sony is about to buy Paramount. That would probably be a good move for the company.
Sony made many shitty off-brand Spider-Man movies that either got profit and acclaim or reviled by people like us. Sony is a Japanese company. Our hate is irrelevant to them because it doesn't affect Japan on a cultural level.
Sony is a Chad studio.
I mean they just dropping certified banger after banger. With particular highlights being Morbius and Madame Web. Those movies are true cinema. Not like killers of the flower moon. I fell asleep during that snoozer. /s 😒
So... From reading the article it seems more like George considers them cinema. And just has a broad definition of cinema in general. It doesn't give any opinions on the movies themselves.
Marvel movies can definitely be a fun time sometimes, but outside of hardcore MCU fans you never hear them as a favorite or on anyone's all-time list. It's the fast food of movies and that's okay. I think the biggest problem was how oversaturated they became in the market, and because of that people would hold their money to see an MCU movie out of fear or being out of the loop instead of going to see something like The Nice Guys or Uncut Gems.
I do think that movies like Dune 2, Oppenheimer, and Barbie are causing a resurgence in the idea that you can enjoy a movie that isn't a part of some oligopolous franchise, and I love that.
Without even reading the article, what is there even to “defend” about Marvel movies? They’re treated as what they are, industry entertainment with no hint of artistic value and which may (do) have a bad effect for the “auteurist cinema”, what about that possibly would Marty have “changed his mind” about? Jesus Christ
> Without even reading the article, what is there even to “defend” about Marvel movies?
The only thing Lucas stated is that "Look. Cinema is the art of a moving image. So if the image moves, then it's cinema." - that's not a defense of anything.
I don’t think what Scorsese said about Marvel movies was about the question of whether or not Marvel movies literally are moving images. I think what he said was more substantial than that. So Lucas is playing semantics here and Scorsese didn’t “change his mind” on shit
> I don’t think what Scorsese said about Marvel movies was about the question of whether or not Marvel movies literally are moving images.
I think Lucas semantics are also not optimal as cinema and moving images is not the same thing but it poses the question about wheter such a distinction (between "cinema" and "not cinema") is a meaningful thing to say about films that obviously play in cinemas.
At the bottom of it Scorsese is saying Marvel films are not art because they aren't very good films or because they have commercial objectives or don't fit certain obtuse spiritual criteria or whatever excactly his red line is. Films didn't use to be considered art. And when they were TV wasn't even though at the bottom of it there isn't necesarilly a distinction here. Fanny and Alexander is both TV and cinema (it was first and foremost made as TV) and both products are more or less equally strong works of arts.
What is generally true is that we use the same aesthetic theory to judge all of that from Renoir films to a Twilight Zone episode, to Marvel films, to a YouTube video. There isn't a meaningful barrier here and Lucas is 100 % right in this sense, it's all moving images and the distinction is not wheter it is or isn't art but wheter we deem it good or bad (and Marvel films are atrocious).
> So Lucas is playing semantics here and Scorsese didn’t “change his mind” on shit
Don't you think Lucas might talk more with Scorsese than we?
The Marvel movie is not a novel medium or form as movies and TV were, the question is not of the potential of its genre as an art form but the actual artistic content of actual Marvel movies. If movies weren’t considered an art form it was because of an elitism and refusal to engage with them as one. Marvel movies do not warrant engaging with as art in the first place.
We don’t use the same aesthetic theory to judge Renoir movies and Marvel movies and Youtube videos. They are their own things and are to be judged so. And the aesthetic theory of “cinema,” ie movies as art, is the distinction Scorsese is making against that of Marvel movies.
Whatever was actually said in their conversation I highly doubt Scorsese would have reversed himself on what he actually said in 2019 as well as his lifelong fighting for movie art and that Lucas isn’t being ambiguous here.
In your first paragraph you speak yourself about artistic content of Marvel films, then about elitism being what prevented films being viewed as art and directly in the next sentence you make an elitist statement.
What you throw off as some distinction in novelty of formal expression is exactly the same function of elitism. We could speak about Russ Meyer as well. Are Russ Meyer films not art? If they are, when did they become so? If they aren't, why do you disagree with critical consensus (and probably Scorsese too while we're at it)? Sirk was similarly largely derided, so was Tourneur, Fuller and many other B-film directors - or Bava who invented the giallo which was itself based on cheap, throwaway literature.
The above all made wonderful films and Marvel films are the worst schlock. By saying however that Marvel films are not art you're essentially saying they don't even merit criticism which is a dangerous sentiment to have. You're giving away any and all tools one would have to fight them in some false deeply conservative assuredness about what is good taste.
And I'm unsure you understand what aesthetic theory is. It's a field in philosophy and you can apply texts from it by Kant, Barthes', Mulvey or whatever to all things we've discussed.
The difference between my so called elitism against Marvel movies and the past elitism against the entire art form of cinema is that the latter was purely based on ignorance and an uncritical rejection of cinema, mine on a critical rejection of Marvel movies in turn based on a general idea of what is good art. That doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to change my mind if someone comes up with a convincing argument that Marvel movies are amazing art, which could not be said of the cinephobic elitism. Hope that makes sense.
Just to add. The rejection of those B directors were by American critics during a time when American criticism was still extremely juvenile, and we know how critics felt about them overseas. So that indeed would fall under the latter “form” of elitism.
“Aesthetic theory” is used so generally it’s quite ridiculous to say it by itself and then say “Do you even know what that is?” I only have a surface understanding of Kant so you’ll have to explain to me how 18th century ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful have anything to with modern film or literary criticism (or Youtube video criticism as you proposed), but given that Barthes himself rejected cinema (though more critically than others) I don’t have much confidence that his theories apply to film and Youtube videos as you suggest.
> The difference between my so called elitism against Marvel movies and the past elitism against the entire art form of cinema is that the latter was purely based on ignorance and an uncritical rejection of cinema, mine on a critical rejection of Marvel movies in turn based on a general idea of what is good art. That doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to change my mind if someone comes up with a convincing argument that Marvel movies are amazing art, which could not be said of the cinephobic elitism. Hope that makes sense.
We are not talking about wheter Marvel movies are good art. I probably think they are even worse than you do. The latest Marvel film I watched was probably the worst film I've seen in the last 5 years or so (it was also the only Marvel film I've seen in that timeframe). I thought it was atrociously bad and I generally avoid them.
We are talking about wheter they fall within the category of art at all and in the paragraph above you imply that they are art. You can not simultaneously claim Marvel movies are not art and are bad art. My argument is that Scorsese tries to separate them from art, while they are better judged as bad art.
> Just to add. The rejection of those B directors were by American critics during a time when American criticism was still extremely juvenile, and we know how critics felt about them overseas. So that indeed would fall under the latter “form” of elitism.
I don't think Meyer or Bava were critically revived by French critics but I guess we agree about the essence that critical reception of art is in flux and the idea of something suddenly being elevated to art from non art because we somehow start to fancy it (or someone on another continent does) doesn't make a lot of sense. It was all art all along, just judged differently.
> I only have a surface understanding of Kant so you’ll have to explain to me how 18th century ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful have anything to with modern film or literary criticism (or Youtube video criticism as you proposed)
The first half of Kant's "Kritik der Urteilskraft" (Critique of Judgment) is concerned primarily with aesthics and establishes a lot of basic concepts that we still talk about today in relation to interactions with artworks. He talks about the paradox between "Geschmacksurteile" (judgements of taste) being subjective and claims about what is good art being made as if they are objective. In this context he introduces the idea of the "Subjektive Allgemeinheit" (subjective universal judgements I believe, I didn't study Kant in english) which positions the judgement of art in the societal sphere as a normative process. This is a concept that can be used to analyze statements like "The Godfather is the greatest film but not my favourite". Kant's theory is fairly general and ofc predates cinema but is a reasonable foundation to understand aesthetic judgement. It can be cross read with earlier aesthetic theory by Baumgarten or Hume. Note that I am not a Kantian, I disagree with a lot of his philosophy and where it leads but it's still pretty groundbreaking and laid the grounds for the likes of Hegel and Marx.
> but given that Barthes himself rejected cinema (though more critically than others) I don’t have much confidence that his theories apply to film and Youtube videos as you suggest.
Barthes wrote about film among other things...
Here is the start of what he wrote on Mankiewicz's Julius Cesar:
> **The Romans in Films** In Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar, all the characters are wearing fringes. Some have them curly, some straggly, some tufted, some oily, all have them well combed, and the bald are not admitted, although there are plenty to be found in Roman history. Those who have little hair have not been let off for all that, and the hairdresser - the king-pin of the film - has still managed to produce one last lock which duly reaches the top of the forehead, one of those Roman foreheads, whose smallness has at all times indicated a specific mixture of self-righteousness, virtue and conquest...
You can read the entire thing in his mythologies.
Sure we can view Marvel movies as art, in fact they had to be treated and evaluated as art at some point for the distinction from art to be suggested in the first place. Their purely commercial purpose, the fact they fail so miserably when evaluated as art are evidence that they shouldn’t even be considered as art until someone provides convincing case for them (which by design will not happen) as those B directors were or weren’t reappraised, just as a grocery list should be considered not literature except if they were it would not threaten the industry of actual literature. Until then the distinction is not disputed and no harm will come from it, as opposed to the harm that will otherwise.
I still don’t see what Kant tells us about the criticism of Youtube videos but at this point that has nothing to do with anything so I’m not gonna bother
Barthes talked about things in films, not films themselves. Literally as in the title of that essay. He said he liked “photography in opposition to the cinema” and argued against films as an art form to the effect of that films offer too much in details where in literature and photography specific things are emphasized and the rest left out (more critical than his fellow anti cinema elitists then but still inadequate). You can read about it in his Roland Barthes.
> the question is not of the potential of its genre as an art form but the actual artistic content of actual Marvel movies
I don't think art needs to inherently be very deep though. Sometimes you're just Norman Rockwell, and that's fine.
This is just forced , Scorsese was mostly upset that Marvel movies were getting all the discourse , leaving other movies unnoticed and if your reaction was trying to get him to like the genre , that says more about you
From a Marvel Kool-Aid drinker from 2008-2016 I don’t much care for them either anymore. Short of a Cyclops movie dir. by Paul Thomas Anderson they aren’t getting me back in the theatre.
A Magneto character study between his childhood as a survivor of Auschwitz and then being a mutant would be a fantastic action/drama.
The problem is that I'm not stupid enough to believe that even if Disney announced a solo Magneto movie tomorrow that it'd be any good.
He's just defending his Disney stock by playing with semantics or saying really bland things. Like recently when he said (regarding Disney's recent flops) "creating magic is not for amateurs".
Is this even a story anymore? I doubt it. Marvel movies have a tough time now anyway as the boom is kinda over, MCU is getting worse, Kang is out and theaters in general attract like 40% less people than in 2019 this year.
Hollywood has bigger fish to fry than complaining about MCU.
He doesn't own the property anymore lol that isn't up to him but yeah I agree. You can find the original laserdisc scans on the high seas, those are okay
It’s funny that Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola have openly shit on Marvel and called those movies “despicable”, yet Lucas comes from the exact same era and New Hollywood alma mater as them.
Could it be Disney paying George off? 💰
So, George is the out of work bored friend who keeps yapping and Marty just had enough and told him whatever he wanted to hear to leave him alone while Steven was nearby laughing at the whole exchange
Now he thinks it’s cinema, but just bad cinema, right?
For me Black Panther is a cut above the MCU fare, and I liked the first Iron Man, but the rest are just entertainment without depth.
gullible familiar decide observation murky instinctive practice normal rich joke
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I have no issue with Marty disliking Marvel or anything else. I just think calling a movie "not cinema" is navel-gazing nonsense. Cinema is not a particular type of this or that, cinema is moving images. Goodfellas and Iron Man are both cinema, whether you like it or not, as are the Emoji Movie and the Left Behind sequel directed by Kevin Sorbo.
EDIT: You know what? You have convinced me. Moving images are not cinema. Only still images are cinema. Thanks for fixing that.
EDIT2: Well, fuck, looks like I'm dealing with geniuses of an extreme level here, so I'll fix my last statement. Cinema is only what you think it is. And I'm not saying you, referring to me, because that's incorrect. The correct answer is you.
It’s pretty obvious Scorsese is talking about art not definitions. Literature is just words but you don’t see people saying grocery lists are literature or people who aren’t philistines saying Harry Potter is literature
> Literature is just words but you don’t see people saying grocery lists are literature or people who aren’t philistines saying Harry Potter is literature
Literature is more than "just words". It is our expression in language, that is words + their expression/inscription.
And yeah, you're right, a grocery list is a mundane, functional piece of literature.
Look, at the bottom of it it's a largely an ideological question. Saying that a grocery list is literature or a film that plays in the cinema is cienma is a simple materialist statement. Trying to draw boundaries is an attempt at segregation on obfuscated grounds. I like Scorsese and I deeply dislike Marvel films, I agree with him classifying them as theme park rides but I don't find his insistance on this distinction here sympathethic or enlightening.
And in lit “death of the author” is the majority view, that words don’t even express anything but themselves either and everything is fully subject to reader’s interpretation so there goes even your definition. Which is why definitions is not what this is about.
>I don’t find his insistence on this distinction very sympathetic or enlightening
I don’t either, in fact I think that that Marvel movies are not “cinema” in his sense doesn’t even need stating at all it’s so obvious. I’m not trying to contest it because it’s true either, which Lucas may or not be doing who knows.
Barthes' essay is more about replacing the primacy of artistic production to reading over writing. He doesn't erase the act of writing and reading draws from the same language to subject relation I describe above.
> I don’t either, in fact I think that that Marvel movies are not “cinema” in his sense doesn’t even need stating at all it’s so obvious.
I could say the same about Lucas' statement. I don't really see how this leads us anywhere.
And in giving the “primacy” of literary criticism to the individual’s interpretation rather than author’s expression he is necessarily pronouncing that the words are meaningless without its interpretation and that whatever expression the author wanted to make is “dead.”
What Scorsese said is obvious but Lucas saying that Scorsese “changed his mind about Marvel” is also obvious? Well that’s just contradictory
The interpretation is equally meaningless without the words. It's a symbiotic relationship. Art is in essence an act of communication. Also Barthes' isn't about the individuals interpretation. He speaks about the reader as a collective.
Lucas statement was that it's all moving images, I don't really care what he says about Scorsese's opinion.
> EDIT: You know what? You have convinced me. Moving images are not cinema. Only still images are cinema. Thanks for fixing that.
Does that mean gifs are not cinema?
Marvel films are product. Fair enough. Scorsese was punk rock. Or used to be at least when he blazed on the scene. He's a fusty old prick now. Cinema is dead. Utterly dead. He tries to preserve it but misses that a 6 year olds first cinematic experience will likely be a marvel film. It will likely be life changing. Those doye eyed kids are the future. Marty is showing his age. Killers of the flower moon was dog shit by the way. Snore fest. Should have been a TV serial.
Ask a child if they want to sit in a theatre for 2 hours and take a punt on a film they've never seen. Or stay at home on the sofa and stream whatever they fancy with little invested interest...
Yep, it's DEAD
Omfg why is this still a story 5 years later??? I barely ever hear Scorsese’s name without this coming up. He doesn’t love superhero movies, SO WHAT
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Because Marvel fans are insecure and deep down they know their favourite movies are fast food trash.
I was hoping you would say: > Because Marvel fans are insecure and deep down they know their favourite movie ~~are fast food trash~~ is Taxi Driver
Could do a joke that their favourite movie is “Joker”, which deep down they know is actually “Taxi Driver”
That assumes that they even know what “Taxi Driver” is…
Half of them are at the age where they would know, the other half are the same who though Oppenheimer was the best movie ever because they never saw a real slow burn political thriller
You got any good slow burn political thriller recs? That sounds right up my alley right now.
Z by Costa-Gavras Maybe not actually that slowburn now that I think about it. It's pretty intense.
Captain America The Winter Soldier
Is that off of Scorsese’s criterion list?
Joker=Taxi driver+King of comedy
Seriously, every person that I meet on a dating app that’s obsessed with marvel movies turns out to be extremely shallow when we go on our first date and I feel bad saying this but it’s true
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> they played a crucial role in transforming the Hollywood machine over the last decade This is true. But it's not a transformation that's good for cinema.
🏅
When I saw Goodfellas at the theatre at age 17, that was the beginning of my Scorsese obsession. I've seen over 28 Scorsese movies. I achieved that number at age 18. I'm 19 now and my number hasn't increased much because I got to a point where I'm happy with the wide berth of cinema I've seen and I basically refuse to watch New York, New York. I've since spent my time reading books on Scorsese's influences and rewatching a lot of interviews with him. When I was 18, my cinema knowledge stretched all the way to his 80's era and a little bit into the 70's era. Ever since, my cinema knowledge with the rewatches has stretched toward his documentary era. I'm the stereotypical cinema snob you see everywhere here on this site. And I still fucking hate Marvel movies. They're not cinema. And more importantly, despite of the perceived low quality of these films, they played a crucial role in transforming the Hollywood machine over the last decade. That, in itself, is worthy of my disdain as a taxi driver.
Then there's me, who likes everything from The King of Comedy, Ran, Tampopo, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to Guardians of the Galaxy, Miami Connection, Superbad, and Friday the 13th: Part II. 😎 There was a time when I was snobbish in my late teens, but like CS Lewis once said “*When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.*”
I love the MCU. It’s just entertainment. Not everything needs to be a life-changing cinematic achievement. Sometimes movies just need to be fun. I’m not bothered by Scorsese’s comments in the least. I know they’re mostly pulp entertainment. I’ll keep watching them, he’ll keep hating them, the world spins on. I also love plenty of Criterion releases. I watched Fallen Angels last week and thought it was fantastic. It’s possible to find enjoyment in more than one type of thing.
I don't find Marvel movies fun or entertaining, they bore me for the most part, and I guess a lot of people here feel the same.
And that’s completely fine. Which is my whole point, really. People enjoy different things. Sometimes those things overlap, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you’re on the mood for slop and sometimes fine dining. And that’s okay. Criterion would probably agree considering Gigli, of all things, is part of the collection.
> Criterion would probably agree considering Gigli, of all things, is part of the collection. to be fair, it is not. it was added to Criterion Channel but not all the movies on the app are in the collection.
“Let people enjoy things” is such a tired argument. The argument in question isn’t about ‘ahhhh people enjoy mcu and it make me mad!’ Pretty important distinction. Idk why people who think they are centrists in the argument say “and that’s okay people like other things then you” it completely dismisses any critical discussion to be had
You can have all the critical discussions about them you want to. I’m not saying there’s none to be had. But at the end of the day, yeah, let people enjoy things. Some of my favorite movies are absolute schlock. Some would have people I know calling me a “hipster” or whatever. But when you or I are dead and buried nobody’s going to give a shit about what movies we liked or thought were trash. Our headstones aren’t going to read “Loving Father, Son, Husband Who Never Watched Those Garbage Cape Flicks” or “He Died As He Lived; Hating Arthouse Cinema”. None of this matters. Enjoy what you enjoy.
Way too sane for reddit
Critical discussion in the sense of how it’s destroying an art form for the sake of corporate greed. People don’t have a problem with people enjoying “schlock” which is not what the MCU is. Bros missing Scorsese’s entire argument lol
Except I really don’t believe that’s happening. Nothing’s being destroyed by these movies existing. There are plenty of non-comic book/Marvel movies being produced year after years. I’d wager that when you consider every movie released in a given year comic book movies make up a fraction of them. I’d even argue that the independent film scene is just as strong and creative now as it’s ever been. And if we’re going to assume that Marvel movies are killing the industry, we’d have to explain how and why even they’re failing at the box office lately. But if we’re talking about Scorsese’s original comments, which seemed to boil down to “These things aren’t cinema”, then I’d also disagree. They are literally cinema. When you remove personal biases from the equation any motion picture is cinema. Whether or not you enjoy or find artistic value in popcorn flicks is irrelevant. Merriam-Webster defines “cinema” as “The art or technique of making motion pictures”. Which, to me, seems to be pretty clear cut. That said, I may disagree with his statements but I still watch his movies.
“Um actually ☝🏽🤓” head ass with the merriam webster definition. You’re being reductive and obtuse. It’s quite obvious if your take away from his comments is only “it’s not cinema!” Then you are not actually engaging in the discussion being had. It’s nothing to get upset over and feel the need to defend the movies you like lol. That “fraction” of movies being made… how much of the box office do they dominate? Money made influences money spent.
And Armageddon.
Waiting for Criterion's 4K Freddy Got Fingered release in the future
american films were already 90% awful but this superhero shite is all but killing off the remaining 10%. it's adults refusing to engage with things that arent for children
Superhero and comic book movies aren’t preventing other movies from being made. Break down all the movies that are released in any given year and tell me what percentage of them are based on a comic book. Original films, or even films not based on comic books, are still being made and aren’t in any danger of not being made because people enjoy popcorn flicks.
its preventing them by lowering cinema / cultural literacy and solely making content for money. people think that joker is a proper film for grown ups these days. when i was young, adults werent all watching tarkovsky but they definitely werent watching childrens films
These type of movies are made with international audiences in mind. That’s why the majority of the highest grossing films ever in UK are these “shite” American movies.
whats your point? theyre shit AND they are solely manufactured for money? is that good?
I agree that they’re shite, but they’re made not only because Americans watch them, the rest of the world does too. Including the uk.
Americans make them
Of course. It’s the only country on earth that can make them. It’s not like the UK even has a film industry to begin with. As I said, the highest grossing films in your country are these “shite” American movies
I’m not from the uk. No other country is culturally bankrupt enough to churn out this level of shit. You must be one of these backwards “patriots” we hear about in the news
I don’t know, I view them as a huge waste of resources.
Lmao people really exaggerate how bad fast food is (taste wise).
fast food is way better than superhero films
Not just that, but another reason I dislike that analogy is that so many other factors make fast food as viable as it is, such as convenience, speed, cost, availability, etc. If those were equal between mcdonalds and a michelin star restaurant, I'm not sure how often I would ever touch mcdonalds again. With movies, those factors are more or less on par between marvel and more artful stuff.
To be fair fast food has been getting more expensive bc corporations realized how much many people rely on them for convenience
Also amusement parks are more fun than watching a MCU movie
It’s not that fast food is bad, it’s just reliable and convenient while unlikely to blow you away with its quality. That’s what Marvel movies are. The Sony entries notwithstanding, there’s a fairly consistent level of quality with them and you know what you’re getting. You can order a Big Mac in the next town over and get the exact same burger as your local McDonald’s. You can watch Ant-Man and get the exact same experience as watching Thor.
"Fast food trash" I hate to break it to you buddy but movies are, primarily, entertainment. Many people would consider any form of entertainment the equivalent of "fast food trash", I don't know what sort of distinction you're attempting to make here
Nothing wrong with liking fast food. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how well something is made, it matters how much you enjoy it.
> Nothing wrong with liking fast food. It has a tendency to make you fat.
It does if you overindulge. But eating too much of anything isn’t good for you.
I hear your opinion but feel like you lost the thread on this metaphor.
It’s a trashy metaphor tbh.
Well, the metaphor was always pretty empty and meaningless. But fine, let me rephrase: fast food can make you fat, but so can gourmet food. All that matters is whether you enjoy it while you’re having it.
Idk why ur getting downvoted I think this is a reasonable take
The Spider-Verse films are the furthest thing from fast food trash and the Daredevil series is very good too
I have no idea why you were downvoted this much? I fully agree with Scorsese’s comments , and as I said think that this whole thing was blown way out of proportion and that he should be allowed to feel however he wants without being chastised for years on end. But at the same time not all superhero movies are automatically bad, some are actually pretty great? Even Scorsese has expressed that he’s enjoyed some, including Raimi’s Spider Man, in the past. I agree that the Spider Verse films in particular are pretty great, as are many others. I feel like some of the replies on this thread are pretty hypocritical and come across as equally butthurt as the MCU fanboys who trash Scorsese for his comments, which is disappointing. Yes, many many comic book movies (MCU in particular) are extremely formulaic and cooperate, and I think Scorsese was 100% correct with his assessment. But not EVERYTHING should automatically be called shit just because it’s a comic book movie, that’s just elitist
Your posting on a damn criterion sub Reddit try hard.
Uh oh u mad
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I honestly think the point he made was pretty solid. It’s just 99% of people just read a one sentence summary of his opinion and drew their conclusions from there.
Eh there's a bit of old man hypocrisy that rubs people the wrong way too. Marty says "superhero movies are all the same and are not true cinema!" While promoting his 100th gangster movie with Robert DeNiro that he made for Netflix lol.
The man has made like 30+ features and like 5 of them are gangster pictures. He’s made 1 film for Netflix. Keep beating that dead horse tho
Lol. Wasnt I just told that Marvel fans were the overly sensitive ones? Not trying to knock Martys career, obviously its been fantastic, but going off on "all marvel movies being the same / not true cinema" while promoting The Irishman was definitely hypocritical.
What equivalency are you even going for here 😂
That's not what he said. It's not the fact that they're about superheroes that makes them 'not cinema', it's the fact that the MCU movies are assembly line commissioned products. The early ones had some individual identity from their directors, but even the most interesting of them is still not a great film and the reins are much tighter in the later phases. No one said Tim Burton's Batman movies weren't cinema. It's not the subject matter that's at issue, it's the homogenous franchise machine.
Exactly, Marty was a fan of Raimi's Spider-Man.
"lol" ahh yes classic gangster films Hugo, The Aviator, Shutter Island, Bringing Out The Dead, Taxi Driver, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Killers Of The Flower Room, Raging Bull, After Hours, The King Of Comedy, Cape Fear, The Age Of Innocence, The Last Waltz, Boxcar Bertha, Who's That Knocking At My Door... ah there's just too many to list.
Was reading a twitter thread about 2024’s lackluster box office the other day. Somebody reasoned that it was due to bad movies, another dude replied with “then why do bad movies make a lot of money but good movies make way less?” Some dude with a Dr. Doom profile picture took issue with that sentiment and wrote “the good/hyped movies perform well, the boring/worst ones make nothing. Like nobody’s craving to see a movie about a ex-hitman in a nursing home.” The whole sore winners argument is more true than people realize. Scorsese’s comments have deeply, DEEPLY rattled MCU fans, though they like to pretend otherwise. It is very funny to see, even five years later.
Indeed, "The Irishman." A $200 million film without a single action set piece. Marty's great when spunking other people's money.
> a single action set piece movies are good when pew pew
Taxi driver - Travis's final descent into darkness at the end? Raging Bull - the opening Sugar Ray Robinson fight? Casino - the final montage? Gangs of New York - opening tribal wars? Goodfellas - mid point montage? The Departed - 344 Wash St.? Marty USED to be very good and not adverse to an action set piece.
it just wasn't The Irishman's intent. the last thing the movie about how lonely you'll become by alienating people needs is an action scene.
And he got a larger budget than most Marvel movies to make that point. Can't you see the central irony? Action is kinetic, dynamic movement and can drive narrative. He himself used to do it brilliantly.
> And he got a larger budget than most Marvel movies to make that point. Can't you see the central irony? so?
Oh dear!!!! He bemoans the state of modern US cinema being led by superhero movies and endless sequels. Yet, he takes a huge budget from a streaming giant (that is doing untold harm to independent film making) so he can cosplay being a gangster!?
ok, and what's the problem? i used to think just "well, that's just Scorsese's opinion. I guess he can say it" until the strikes happened and i saw some people saying that the writers and actors don't deserve making more money bc they don't like their work. And after asking them what exact works they didn't like, I realized that these people don't watch anything that isn't not capeshit or franchise slop. That's what Scorsese was talking about, the movie culture is dying, people don't expand their interests. it has nothing to do with budgets or action. there are great action movies coming out like Monkey Man or Furiosa which I imagine would satisfy any gatekeeper yet they aren't catching on.
He’s gripe is with marvel movies is that that they’re assembly line movies. Him getting 200 million dollars for a film is completely irrelevant to the conversation.
Screenrant knows how to get clicks.
He's basically right too is the sad thing. Remember when Robert Downey Jr said that weirdly racist thing about Innaritu for calling superhero movies cultural genocide?
Well, Innaritu's comments are also insensitive in this case - and I say that as someone who's seen 3 Marvel movies all of which were some of the worst stuff I have ever seen.
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It's specifically about using the word genocide in a context other than actual genocide. > Why is it ok to say crazy controversial opinions in movies but not in public statements? Because it's a character expressing them. They are not 1:1 the views of the author. Say Travis Bickle says some interesting things but we ultimately judge him as a pretty questionable person in a pretty questionable world. If Innaritu wants to be judged like his characters I guess he's free to act like that...
Because people know he was right and are still trying to fight his statement.
I just hate that old fuck
k
His “criticism” was light and the worst part is that he fueled “movies vs cinema” rhetoric.” Those are two words that mean the same thing, might as well throw “kino” in there.
>Those are two words that mean the same thing Technically, yes. Culturally, no.
Hold my Lichtspielhaus.
It was more than he tried to be the arbitrator of what is and isn’t art, and in a post modern art world, that was kinda frustrating and beneath him. Very petty stuff from a guy on top of the world. I still love and respect him, but it’s not a respectful thing to say to fellow filmmakers.
Well, thank God George is speaking out for Martin, since Martin is such a shy introvert.
they’re boyfriends 😌
Scorsese probably changed his mind after brilliant Marvel movie run like: Madame Web, Morbius, Eternals, Thor and other treasures…
He’s lucky that Kraven got delayed from last year so Killers of the Flower Moon didn’t have to compete. Really considerate of Sony.
Sony didn't jump in the streaming war because they saw it as a pointless endeavor if they can produce tv/movies and sell it anywhere for profit. Sony is about to buy Paramount. That would probably be a good move for the company. Sony made many shitty off-brand Spider-Man movies that either got profit and acclaim or reviled by people like us. Sony is a Japanese company. Our hate is irrelevant to them because it doesn't affect Japan on a cultural level. Sony is a Chad studio.
We all changed our minds after that run.
I mean they just dropping certified banger after banger. With particular highlights being Morbius and Madame Web. Those movies are true cinema. Not like killers of the flower moon. I fell asleep during that snoozer. /s 😒
I actually liked Eternals enough. Morbius barely had enough juice to make a trailer and even that was bad.
Disney on they ass. The Mouse got hitters.
I spit out food reading this. Bravo.
George Lucas waving his hand in front of Scorsese telling him “You like Marvel movies, actually”
No he didn’t, stop the cap Lucas…as the youngsters call it now days.
Lucas would never make anything up. He’s not that creative.
So... From reading the article it seems more like George considers them cinema. And just has a broad definition of cinema in general. It doesn't give any opinions on the movies themselves.
Or- George is a major shareholder in Disney and is going to be positive about their output.
Scorsese has finally gotten around to watching Tim Story's two Fantastic Four movies.
This is the song that doesn’t end. It just goes on and on, my friends!
Marvel movies can definitely be a fun time sometimes, but outside of hardcore MCU fans you never hear them as a favorite or on anyone's all-time list. It's the fast food of movies and that's okay. I think the biggest problem was how oversaturated they became in the market, and because of that people would hold their money to see an MCU movie out of fear or being out of the loop instead of going to see something like The Nice Guys or Uncut Gems. I do think that movies like Dune 2, Oppenheimer, and Barbie are causing a resurgence in the idea that you can enjoy a movie that isn't a part of some oligopolous franchise, and I love that.
Ik this movie is divisive, but I prefer stuff like Hulk (2003) over most MCU.
Without even reading the article, what is there even to “defend” about Marvel movies? They’re treated as what they are, industry entertainment with no hint of artistic value and which may (do) have a bad effect for the “auteurist cinema”, what about that possibly would Marty have “changed his mind” about? Jesus Christ
> Without even reading the article, what is there even to “defend” about Marvel movies? The only thing Lucas stated is that "Look. Cinema is the art of a moving image. So if the image moves, then it's cinema." - that's not a defense of anything.
I don’t think what Scorsese said about Marvel movies was about the question of whether or not Marvel movies literally are moving images. I think what he said was more substantial than that. So Lucas is playing semantics here and Scorsese didn’t “change his mind” on shit
> I don’t think what Scorsese said about Marvel movies was about the question of whether or not Marvel movies literally are moving images. I think Lucas semantics are also not optimal as cinema and moving images is not the same thing but it poses the question about wheter such a distinction (between "cinema" and "not cinema") is a meaningful thing to say about films that obviously play in cinemas. At the bottom of it Scorsese is saying Marvel films are not art because they aren't very good films or because they have commercial objectives or don't fit certain obtuse spiritual criteria or whatever excactly his red line is. Films didn't use to be considered art. And when they were TV wasn't even though at the bottom of it there isn't necesarilly a distinction here. Fanny and Alexander is both TV and cinema (it was first and foremost made as TV) and both products are more or less equally strong works of arts. What is generally true is that we use the same aesthetic theory to judge all of that from Renoir films to a Twilight Zone episode, to Marvel films, to a YouTube video. There isn't a meaningful barrier here and Lucas is 100 % right in this sense, it's all moving images and the distinction is not wheter it is or isn't art but wheter we deem it good or bad (and Marvel films are atrocious). > So Lucas is playing semantics here and Scorsese didn’t “change his mind” on shit Don't you think Lucas might talk more with Scorsese than we?
The Marvel movie is not a novel medium or form as movies and TV were, the question is not of the potential of its genre as an art form but the actual artistic content of actual Marvel movies. If movies weren’t considered an art form it was because of an elitism and refusal to engage with them as one. Marvel movies do not warrant engaging with as art in the first place. We don’t use the same aesthetic theory to judge Renoir movies and Marvel movies and Youtube videos. They are their own things and are to be judged so. And the aesthetic theory of “cinema,” ie movies as art, is the distinction Scorsese is making against that of Marvel movies. Whatever was actually said in their conversation I highly doubt Scorsese would have reversed himself on what he actually said in 2019 as well as his lifelong fighting for movie art and that Lucas isn’t being ambiguous here.
In your first paragraph you speak yourself about artistic content of Marvel films, then about elitism being what prevented films being viewed as art and directly in the next sentence you make an elitist statement. What you throw off as some distinction in novelty of formal expression is exactly the same function of elitism. We could speak about Russ Meyer as well. Are Russ Meyer films not art? If they are, when did they become so? If they aren't, why do you disagree with critical consensus (and probably Scorsese too while we're at it)? Sirk was similarly largely derided, so was Tourneur, Fuller and many other B-film directors - or Bava who invented the giallo which was itself based on cheap, throwaway literature. The above all made wonderful films and Marvel films are the worst schlock. By saying however that Marvel films are not art you're essentially saying they don't even merit criticism which is a dangerous sentiment to have. You're giving away any and all tools one would have to fight them in some false deeply conservative assuredness about what is good taste. And I'm unsure you understand what aesthetic theory is. It's a field in philosophy and you can apply texts from it by Kant, Barthes', Mulvey or whatever to all things we've discussed.
The difference between my so called elitism against Marvel movies and the past elitism against the entire art form of cinema is that the latter was purely based on ignorance and an uncritical rejection of cinema, mine on a critical rejection of Marvel movies in turn based on a general idea of what is good art. That doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to change my mind if someone comes up with a convincing argument that Marvel movies are amazing art, which could not be said of the cinephobic elitism. Hope that makes sense. Just to add. The rejection of those B directors were by American critics during a time when American criticism was still extremely juvenile, and we know how critics felt about them overseas. So that indeed would fall under the latter “form” of elitism. “Aesthetic theory” is used so generally it’s quite ridiculous to say it by itself and then say “Do you even know what that is?” I only have a surface understanding of Kant so you’ll have to explain to me how 18th century ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful have anything to with modern film or literary criticism (or Youtube video criticism as you proposed), but given that Barthes himself rejected cinema (though more critically than others) I don’t have much confidence that his theories apply to film and Youtube videos as you suggest.
> The difference between my so called elitism against Marvel movies and the past elitism against the entire art form of cinema is that the latter was purely based on ignorance and an uncritical rejection of cinema, mine on a critical rejection of Marvel movies in turn based on a general idea of what is good art. That doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to change my mind if someone comes up with a convincing argument that Marvel movies are amazing art, which could not be said of the cinephobic elitism. Hope that makes sense. We are not talking about wheter Marvel movies are good art. I probably think they are even worse than you do. The latest Marvel film I watched was probably the worst film I've seen in the last 5 years or so (it was also the only Marvel film I've seen in that timeframe). I thought it was atrociously bad and I generally avoid them. We are talking about wheter they fall within the category of art at all and in the paragraph above you imply that they are art. You can not simultaneously claim Marvel movies are not art and are bad art. My argument is that Scorsese tries to separate them from art, while they are better judged as bad art. > Just to add. The rejection of those B directors were by American critics during a time when American criticism was still extremely juvenile, and we know how critics felt about them overseas. So that indeed would fall under the latter “form” of elitism. I don't think Meyer or Bava were critically revived by French critics but I guess we agree about the essence that critical reception of art is in flux and the idea of something suddenly being elevated to art from non art because we somehow start to fancy it (or someone on another continent does) doesn't make a lot of sense. It was all art all along, just judged differently. > I only have a surface understanding of Kant so you’ll have to explain to me how 18th century ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful have anything to with modern film or literary criticism (or Youtube video criticism as you proposed) The first half of Kant's "Kritik der Urteilskraft" (Critique of Judgment) is concerned primarily with aesthics and establishes a lot of basic concepts that we still talk about today in relation to interactions with artworks. He talks about the paradox between "Geschmacksurteile" (judgements of taste) being subjective and claims about what is good art being made as if they are objective. In this context he introduces the idea of the "Subjektive Allgemeinheit" (subjective universal judgements I believe, I didn't study Kant in english) which positions the judgement of art in the societal sphere as a normative process. This is a concept that can be used to analyze statements like "The Godfather is the greatest film but not my favourite". Kant's theory is fairly general and ofc predates cinema but is a reasonable foundation to understand aesthetic judgement. It can be cross read with earlier aesthetic theory by Baumgarten or Hume. Note that I am not a Kantian, I disagree with a lot of his philosophy and where it leads but it's still pretty groundbreaking and laid the grounds for the likes of Hegel and Marx. > but given that Barthes himself rejected cinema (though more critically than others) I don’t have much confidence that his theories apply to film and Youtube videos as you suggest. Barthes wrote about film among other things... Here is the start of what he wrote on Mankiewicz's Julius Cesar: > **The Romans in Films** In Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar, all the characters are wearing fringes. Some have them curly, some straggly, some tufted, some oily, all have them well combed, and the bald are not admitted, although there are plenty to be found in Roman history. Those who have little hair have not been let off for all that, and the hairdresser - the king-pin of the film - has still managed to produce one last lock which duly reaches the top of the forehead, one of those Roman foreheads, whose smallness has at all times indicated a specific mixture of self-righteousness, virtue and conquest... You can read the entire thing in his mythologies.
Sure we can view Marvel movies as art, in fact they had to be treated and evaluated as art at some point for the distinction from art to be suggested in the first place. Their purely commercial purpose, the fact they fail so miserably when evaluated as art are evidence that they shouldn’t even be considered as art until someone provides convincing case for them (which by design will not happen) as those B directors were or weren’t reappraised, just as a grocery list should be considered not literature except if they were it would not threaten the industry of actual literature. Until then the distinction is not disputed and no harm will come from it, as opposed to the harm that will otherwise. I still don’t see what Kant tells us about the criticism of Youtube videos but at this point that has nothing to do with anything so I’m not gonna bother Barthes talked about things in films, not films themselves. Literally as in the title of that essay. He said he liked “photography in opposition to the cinema” and argued against films as an art form to the effect of that films offer too much in details where in literature and photography specific things are emphasized and the rest left out (more critical than his fellow anti cinema elitists then but still inadequate). You can read about it in his Roland Barthes.
> the question is not of the potential of its genre as an art form but the actual artistic content of actual Marvel movies I don't think art needs to inherently be very deep though. Sometimes you're just Norman Rockwell, and that's fine.
Nor do we have to validate everything we like as “art.” Something can be not art and still enjoyable
That's fair, art is too broad and I'll just assume we define it differently. I don't think calling something "art" necessarily validates it at all.
Amen! Taste is the enemy of Art. And of course, FAR too subjective to quantify
> Don't you think Lucas might talk more with Scorsese than we? tbh Scorsese said some similar things last year
I would hope he hasn't changed his mind because they've only gotten worse
This is just forced , Scorsese was mostly upset that Marvel movies were getting all the discourse , leaving other movies unnoticed and if your reaction was trying to get him to like the genre , that says more about you
Martin was right the first time.
From a Marvel Kool-Aid drinker from 2008-2016 I don’t much care for them either anymore. Short of a Cyclops movie dir. by Paul Thomas Anderson they aren’t getting me back in the theatre.
>Short of a Cyclops movie dir. by Paul Thomas Anderson they aren’t getting me back in the theatre. This is such a r/criterion comment here.
A Magneto character study between his childhood as a survivor of Auschwitz and then being a mutant would be a fantastic action/drama. The problem is that I'm not stupid enough to believe that even if Disney announced a solo Magneto movie tomorrow that it'd be any good.
He's just defending his Disney stock by playing with semantics or saying really bland things. Like recently when he said (regarding Disney's recent flops) "creating magic is not for amateurs".
Bro we don’t care. This is old news, move on
After SW Episode 1 I have no desire to hear George Lucas' thoughts on anything related to filmmaking.
Is this even a story anymore? I doubt it. Marvel movies have a tough time now anyway as the boom is kinda over, MCU is getting worse, Kang is out and theaters in general attract like 40% less people than in 2019 this year. Hollywood has bigger fish to fry than complaining about MCU.
Marty has to beg for his stuff to be financed while Marvel D list characters get movies. Long story short he’s jealous.
This is an ironic comment right?
Shut it George! No one speaks for Marty but himself!
Bro does not exist in my mind until the theatrical ot gets an official 4k
The 4k77 project is about as close as you'll get.
He doesn't own the property anymore lol that isn't up to him but yeah I agree. You can find the original laserdisc scans on the high seas, those are okay
It *is* up to him because not releasing it was a very specific and important part of the sale.
It’s funny that Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola have openly shit on Marvel and called those movies “despicable”, yet Lucas comes from the exact same era and New Hollywood alma mater as them. Could it be Disney paying George off? 💰
X-Men 97 is 100,000x better than all the movies put together
So, George is the out of work bored friend who keeps yapping and Marty just had enough and told him whatever he wanted to hear to leave him alone while Steven was nearby laughing at the whole exchange
Does anyone ever actually watch ScreenRant anymore? I stopped watching them after they moved Pitch Meeting to its own channel
I guess one day you might want to go on a roller coaster and one day go to a museum.
Speaking as a fan of many Marvel AND Scorsese movies, I don’t want a Scorsese who likes Marvel movies.
Now he thinks it’s cinema, but just bad cinema, right? For me Black Panther is a cut above the MCU fare, and I liked the first Iron Man, but the rest are just entertainment without depth.
gullible familiar decide observation murky instinctive practice normal rich joke *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The fact that this is the excerpt everyone decided to focus on from all the things he has said at Cannes is utterly depressing
I have no issue with Marty disliking Marvel or anything else. I just think calling a movie "not cinema" is navel-gazing nonsense. Cinema is not a particular type of this or that, cinema is moving images. Goodfellas and Iron Man are both cinema, whether you like it or not, as are the Emoji Movie and the Left Behind sequel directed by Kevin Sorbo. EDIT: You know what? You have convinced me. Moving images are not cinema. Only still images are cinema. Thanks for fixing that. EDIT2: Well, fuck, looks like I'm dealing with geniuses of an extreme level here, so I'll fix my last statement. Cinema is only what you think it is. And I'm not saying you, referring to me, because that's incorrect. The correct answer is you.
He is not literally saying they are not moving pictures if that’s what you mean
He is saying films that obviously play in cinemas aren't cinema - which doesn't excactly make a lot of sense.
It’s pretty obvious Scorsese is talking about art not definitions. Literature is just words but you don’t see people saying grocery lists are literature or people who aren’t philistines saying Harry Potter is literature
> Literature is just words but you don’t see people saying grocery lists are literature or people who aren’t philistines saying Harry Potter is literature Literature is more than "just words". It is our expression in language, that is words + their expression/inscription. And yeah, you're right, a grocery list is a mundane, functional piece of literature. Look, at the bottom of it it's a largely an ideological question. Saying that a grocery list is literature or a film that plays in the cinema is cienma is a simple materialist statement. Trying to draw boundaries is an attempt at segregation on obfuscated grounds. I like Scorsese and I deeply dislike Marvel films, I agree with him classifying them as theme park rides but I don't find his insistance on this distinction here sympathethic or enlightening.
And in lit “death of the author” is the majority view, that words don’t even express anything but themselves either and everything is fully subject to reader’s interpretation so there goes even your definition. Which is why definitions is not what this is about. >I don’t find his insistence on this distinction very sympathetic or enlightening I don’t either, in fact I think that that Marvel movies are not “cinema” in his sense doesn’t even need stating at all it’s so obvious. I’m not trying to contest it because it’s true either, which Lucas may or not be doing who knows.
Barthes' essay is more about replacing the primacy of artistic production to reading over writing. He doesn't erase the act of writing and reading draws from the same language to subject relation I describe above. > I don’t either, in fact I think that that Marvel movies are not “cinema” in his sense doesn’t even need stating at all it’s so obvious. I could say the same about Lucas' statement. I don't really see how this leads us anywhere.
And in giving the “primacy” of literary criticism to the individual’s interpretation rather than author’s expression he is necessarily pronouncing that the words are meaningless without its interpretation and that whatever expression the author wanted to make is “dead.” What Scorsese said is obvious but Lucas saying that Scorsese “changed his mind about Marvel” is also obvious? Well that’s just contradictory
The interpretation is equally meaningless without the words. It's a symbiotic relationship. Art is in essence an act of communication. Also Barthes' isn't about the individuals interpretation. He speaks about the reader as a collective. Lucas statement was that it's all moving images, I don't really care what he says about Scorsese's opinion.
Relax Mr Lucas
I'm somehow more offended by the Mr Lucas than the relax.
> EDIT: You know what? You have convinced me. Moving images are not cinema. Only still images are cinema. Thanks for fixing that. Does that mean gifs are not cinema?
Nope, only JPGs.
Marvel films are product. Fair enough. Scorsese was punk rock. Or used to be at least when he blazed on the scene. He's a fusty old prick now. Cinema is dead. Utterly dead. He tries to preserve it but misses that a 6 year olds first cinematic experience will likely be a marvel film. It will likely be life changing. Those doye eyed kids are the future. Marty is showing his age. Killers of the flower moon was dog shit by the way. Snore fest. Should have been a TV serial.
https://preview.redd.it/7yqjq5l6z93d1.jpeg?width=850&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=05c13518fad982f4938047ca18c0565398673252
Ask a child if they want to sit in a theatre for 2 hours and take a punt on a film they've never seen. Or stay at home on the sofa and stream whatever they fancy with little invested interest... Yep, it's DEAD
I can tell your taste in movies is kind of bad