Comic book movie fans can often be an opinionated bunch, but the internet was sent into a frenzy recently when no less of a name than Martin Scorsese derided the superhero blockbusters made by the likes of Marvel, claiming that they weren’t really cinema at all and more like a theme park ride.
Some people saw where the legendary director was coming from, claiming that the point he was making was that the emotional connection between a filmmaker and the audience has been lost in the age of CGI bombast, while others derided the 76 year-old for being out of touch with what has proven to be the most lucrative and bankable genre in the industry for well over a decade.
People like James Gunn have already voiced their feelings on Scorsese’s comments, and it was only a matter of time before Kevin Smith, one of popular culture’s most knowledgeable voices, offered up his two cents on the Raging Bull and Goodfellas director’s attack on superhero movies.
“My feeling is, Martin Scorsese never sat in a movie theater with his dad and watched the movies of Steven Spielberg in the early 80s or George Lucas in the late 70s. He didn’t feel that sense of magic and wonder. I can still step into one of those comic book movies, divorce myself of the fact that I do this for a living, release, and may dead dad is back for a minute, for two hours. And it’s personal for a lot of the audience. You know, and we’re not arguing whether or not it counts as cinema”
Smith makes it sound like a generational thing, and that Scorsese starting his career just as effects-heavy blockbusters were becoming hot property means he doesn’t have the same kind of connection to these movies that other audiences do. The View Askewniverse creator then offered up another analogy that doubles down on the idea of it being based on Scorsese’s cinematic influences as a youngster.
“I guarantee you there’s something he enjoyed with his parents, like a musical. I bet you some cats would say, ‘A musical is not really cinema’, but Martin Scorsese grew up on musicals, and I bet they mean a lot to him. These Marvel movies come from a core. They come from a happy childhood. And they’re reflections of a happy childhood. He’s not wrong, but at the same time, neither are we for loving those movies. And they are cinema.”
Smith makes some great points here, and seems to understand both sides of the argument. Obviously, when you’re Martin Scorsese you can pretty much say and do whatever you want because it isn’t like he hasn’t earned the right to comment on the state of modern cinema. However, it isn’t as though he sees the genre as being beneath him either, having toyed with the idea of producing Todd Phillips’ Joker.
