Are Marvel Movies Cinema?

Yeah, I'm taking it to mean that he doesn't think they're artistic, but we know that's not true.

I disagree, I would put forward Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame as examples of the high end of Marvel movies, some might argue that Ragnarok was up there artistically?

I think you could definitely argue in some respects the current environment is actually more favourable to lower budget art cinema than it has been since the 60's. You have funding and distribution networks in place for such cinema that didn't really exist to the same degree in the past. The current environment in cinema actually reminds me quite a lot of the situation in the music business in the 80's with a very two tier approach between the money making megaliths and the alternative music scene.

Again to me the problem seems more that the middle of the market is being squeezed out. Theres such a gulf between the two worlds and honestly I think Marty's post millennium films almost show you the problem, shifting into $100 million+ budgeted monsters and having to shift towards the conventional as a result.

What I'd like to see more of is your Paul Thomas Anderson level cinema, budgets decent enough to not being limited massively in scale without being so vast they limit ambition.

The problem being that even the "high end" of Marvel still falls way short of what the cinematic medium can accomplish as an art form. Scorsese used the phrase "cinema of human beings" as his standard because Marvel hardly deals in anything more complex than the heroes fighting villains over MacGuffins and maybe learning some very straightforward lessons along the way, whereas the kind of films that Scorsese talks about deal with much more complicated subjects and don't settle for simple solutions to simple problems. Even Marvel's own attempts at complexity have their problems, especially when it comes to making deeper villains that either make too good a point for the heroes to truly argue with (Killmonger/Vulture) or whose thoroughly villainous plans are hardly challenged on their own merits and thus engender an unwarranted level of sympathy (Thanos). Infinity War and Endgame in particular just amount to a bunch of characters fighting over who gets to keep some magic rocks - the level of artistry involved in that is definitely questionable.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

This. It's very questionable. In my opinion it have none. But the movie could be seen as an analogy to the current situation of our planet Earth. Our planet doesn't produce enough resources to the overpopulation we have, and we are destroying the planet and also having populations with difficulties. We have this character Thanos making a sacrifice out of love, according to him, to save our way of life and remove suffering, disease and famine, trying to keep a balance. Obviously none of the characters could have empathy, it's a comic book movie after all, but I had empathy with the character, and I believe other people also had. I mean, some director out there could have made some dramatic movie with the same subject, more shuttle, and many would call it art.

I agree with the sentiment of what Scorsese is saying, in that I don't enjoy Marvel films really. In my opinion they are bad cinema.

Funny how everyone is acting as if Scorsese represents the highest moral authority on all things cinema, like he is the all knowing genius whose opinions can't be challenged. As Iro has mentioned, his films are pretty straightforward themselves. In terms of being cinematic they are hardly revolutionary or inventive. A lot of them are very enjoyable but there are many many filmmakers past and present who I think are more interesting cinematically than Martin Scorsese.

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Thanos isn't sympathetic he's empathetic big difference. Marvel is telling serialized story over the course of years and multiple films, each installment is it's own entity can also be viewed as a whole. One of the quotes I always remember about Scorsese is that cinema and film is about shared emotions the commonality of us as people.



That is an engaged audience that feels something. You have a point in Avengers Endgame when all the female characters lined up, many small characters that really weren't built up or lead their own films. In the theater women cheered when they saw that, this was a moment when a film gave them a sense of esteem and that has value.


Martin Scorsese is a great film maker but a great artist isn't necessarily a great critic, and we all have things that we like.


https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/ma...es/8-1-2-1963/

Cool motive, still murder (and also that kind of kill-humans-save-planet motive dates all the way back to Moore-era Bond movies). I don't think he ever does anything to truly deserve anyone's empathy and even moments like his "sacrifice" are affecting less because of what they mean to him specifically than because of what it means for actual sympathetic characters. Likewise, there's the obvious flaw in that he thinks the solution to overpopulation is to cull the population instead of increase resources so his plan is insane from the jump (and not surprising given that he's a lifelong warrior who has known nothing but death so more death is what seems like a reasonable solution to him).

Where did I say that?

You're right, I meant empathetic. My point still stands.

It has been interesting to note how that particular all-woman shot has at once been seen as a cool moment but has also drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle for how it is kind of an empty contrivance due to most of the characters not having any established relationships with one another or how they all happened to be in such close proximity. Again, the question of how much substance you can sacrifice for a simple crowd-pleasing moment and whether or not that kind of fan service is an adequate substitute for quote-unquote Cinema, especially since you need to have seen another 20-odd movies for it to have any significant impact.

This is a tough conversation for me. I know that the MCU has a hand in the cesspool that cinema has become but at the same time I couldn't say that a Marvel movie is not a movie. Scorsese calls them amusement parks but aren't films supposed to be amusing? There's nothing wrong with a film that doesn't star a crime boss or blah blah blahs about some issue in America. However, at the same time, I know that his problem is the quantity of it. If someone is fed an insane amount of junk food, they're not going to be able to sit down to enjoy and appreciate nourishment. But the problem is also that in this case of constant junk, yelling isn't going to help. I too found Taxi Driver boring but that wasn't because there wasn't action or a missing plot, it's just a really tired concept. Oh, society. Oh, rich people. It gets old after the 50,000,000th time. Why don't these guys just get together and stop feeding us WW2 rations with our countless pounds of candy and make something nutritious and delicious? (I'm tired sorry)

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Ami-Scythe

I'm just happy to see someone not praising Thanos.

Authority? What do you mean? Just because I don't have an official title that states I am a film critic doesn't mean I can not voice an opinion, nor does it mean that opinion is any more or less important.

I have actually read what he most recently said, where he states that Marvel films are "a new form of art" and that "It's something different from films that are shown normally in theaters, that's all".

First off, art is subjective so there is no point even discussing that (the ugly Wolf of Wallstreet would not be art in my estimation) but the second comment is the most bizarre. Theme park cinema, as he calls it is the norm and always has been. The first films were not conveyors of plot but of audio/visual design, created to excite and entice. Throughout the so called golden age of Hollywood, it was always about big, expensive, visually stunning productions. The changes that occurred in the 60s and most importantly in the 70s and early 80s were not the norm but the exception.

Cinema has come full circle to having these big, tent pole pieces that are now available almost all year round. I don't like all of them myself but you know what I can do? I can refuse to go see them (as I did with Black Panther, Antman, Captain Marvel etc). But do deny they are "cinema" is crazy, to deny they are art is subjective.

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Avengers Endgame made nearly $2.8 billion worldwide, and when adjusted for inflation would be the 4th biggest worldwide.

Somebody out there likes them.

What sort of an authority does anyone need to have an opinion?

I do disagree. To me art and entertainment are practically synonymous. I don't personally like majority of Marvel films but that doesn't mean I don't consider them art (or entertainment) - they're just subjectively bad art (or entertainment).

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To me they’re practically opposites.

So the greatest works of art are the ones that you hate the most to watch/hear/read? And vice versa, everything you enjoy is just crap?

Entertainment is to satisfy monotony, that's what strikes me when someone says entertainment. I think art is a way of reaching maximum empathy in some way, but you can still like something you can't have empathy with. From an artist standpoint, art is a way of expressing, can be love, hate or none of those, but it's something he thinks he must do. Other way might be not doing it, and no one would understand why he does what he does and thinks what he thinks, and that would be alright anyway.

entertainment
/ɛntəˈteɪnm(ə)nt/
noun
the action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment.

amusement
/əˈmjuːzm(ə)nt/
noun
the state or experience of finding something funny.

I strongly agree with the artists interpretation of what is art. That is to say that if I put a bunch of old newspapers down the toilet, take a photo of it and call it an art installation - then it IS. No matter the quality.

Comic book movies don't interest me in the slightest. They are formulaic trash that value money making above any sort of integrity and almost everything else. But they are cinema. I'd rather my children get into movies through the superhero route than not at all.

If art is something to be entertaining, and by definition amuse you, make you laugh, "happy" in other words, let's assume in motion pictures that is what we're talking here, what would we say about Bergman for instance. I, and many others are more depressed after they watch one of his movies, and we still enjoy the artistic magnitude of his work.

I love how you're cherry picking even the very definition you gave earlier in order to twist my words to something you can more easily debate against.

So "by definition" entertaining doesn't need to amuse or make you laugh. It can also provide enjoyment like you mention in regards to Bergman. With the definition you provide Bergman is as much art as it's entertainment.

Art, for me, is not expressing how you see the world, many people do that and call it art, that's banal, it's ordinary, it's what commercial movies do all along, most Marvel movies are so crappy they don't even do that, an artist show is private world, and that's why I give importance to art, might be one of the only things I actually give importance to, because we all know we are here for a short period and every action we take is based on that. I don't give any importance to my opinion, or your opinion, or how you see the world, I give importance on how you make me see your private world. When we say the word "world" we are expressing our opinion on what we believe the world is, that's the same with the word reality, when we want to say everything without formulating an opinion about it, we say universe. Art is not entertainment to me, if it's for you, you have a different perspective on what art is, and that's okay.