In one of his interviews, filmmaker Martin Scorsese states that Marvel movies are not cinema. He goes on to provide a few arguments why he thinks this way. Here is one of his claims: “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. I know that if I were younger, if I’d come of age at a later time, I might have been excited by these pictures and maybe even wanted to make one myself. But I grew up when I did and I developed a sense of movies — of what they were and what they could be — that was as far from the Marvel universe as we on Earth are from Alpha Centauri.” In other words, Martin Scorsese is trying to convey that movies nowadays are different from the concept he has developed about them, and these differences may have come due to time. Movies of 2010’s are not produced with the same perspectives that movies of the 1980’s were. He admits that if he was younger, he would have a better opinion about Marvel productions, but he comes from a different era of movies and this plays a huge role on his points of view. However, even though they are different from former film forms, Marvel movies have a great significance in the American cinema. They generate about $4 billion and attract over 100 million viewers. Marvel Studios have settled new styles of films, which include sci-fi, action, and superhero genres. (Dewan, 2020)
Another argument of Martin Scorsese is: “For me, for the filmmakers I came to love and respect, for my friends who started making movies around the same time that I did, cinema was about revelation — aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation. It was 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.” Here, Martin Scorses is trying to point out an element that he thinks is absent in Marvel movies: the paradoxical nature of characters. He sees many elements of cinema in Marvel movies, but what’s missing is spiritual revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nevertheless, this can be seen in Marvel pictures. Marvel has given a type of humanity and sensitivity to their characters who seem to be exceptional to possess such feelings. This feature can be noticed in the heroes and villains as well. “We see the fury and the betrayal behind Killmonger in Black Panther, a longing for acceptance and control in Loki, and the distorted perceptions of saving the universe in Thanos, and for a moment we sympathize with them. We understand them, albeit in disagreement, but their motives are clear and for some, it is not pure evil.” (Kaity, 2019)
Dewan, Rohan. “Sorry Scorsese, Marvel Movies Are Cinema.” The Tide, thermtide.com/9777/popular/sorry-scorsese-marvel-movies-are-cinema/.
/* inline tdc_css att */.tdi_107{padding-right:10px !important;}/* custom css */.tdb-post-meta{ margin-bottom: 16px; color: #444; font-family: ‘Open Sans’, et al. “Why Marvel Superhero Movies Are Important.” Nerds and Beyond, 28 Jan. 2021, www.nerdsandbeyond.com/2019/10/28/why-marvel-superhero-movies-are-important/.