Martin Scorsese: I Said Marvel Movies Aren’t Cinema. Let Me Explain

> In many places around this country and around the world, franchise films are now your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen. It’s a perilous time in film exhibition, and there are fewer independent theaters than ever.

I can't agree more with this. 5 years back I remember taking a chance with little known movies that was playing at the theatre near me, like Mr.Turner, watching it with my wife and walking out of the theatre completely moved by them. There is magic in that big screen format. But now all that runs at the theatres near me are one Marvel movie after another. They're not bad; but none of them are truly memorable. None of them leaves you with a sense of profundity that Scorsese or Clint Eastwood movie does.

Movies for the large audience must always entertain, but you can entertain different ways. It's hard to describe what the 'Cinema' way is but it's easy to recognize when it's absent.

Here is a short list of things that make blockbuster movies not Cinema:

1. CGI and the visuals are technically pretty, but coming from the same standard tooling or pipeline. You can recognize that it's just more of the same. Examples of something creative: The Fifth Element (1997), Immortal (2004), Sin City (2005), Tron, ..

2. Action scenes are made from standardized sequences, postures and phrases. 5 minutes of action rarely matters for the plot and it's not fun to watch.

3. Dialogue and characters are extremely stereotypical. Power fantasy with some jokes and funny lines.

Some movies are just a part of a format. It requires talent to stick into format and not bore the target audience. Just provide what they want better. Changing director does not change the overall format. Directors are the to perfect the execution, not create something new.

He talks about designing a film for the big screen experience but every film he mentioned except maybe "North by Northwest" is vastly superior in a good home theater. "Persona" by Ingmar Bergman is a wonderful film but would gain nothing on a modern digital screen with Atmos sound and speakers that can break windows. His preferred movies are intimate, patient and beautiful but do not in any way take advantage of the format. Many classic films are actual big-screen spectacles like "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", "Lawrence of Arabia", "Wizard of Oz", anything by Akira Kurosawa and hundreds of others but his tastes strike me as explicitly and decidedly "small-screen" and almost anti-cinema if you consider the "cinema" distinction primarily the larger format. Small, intimate movies are great but are sub-par experiences in a cinema next to popcorn munchers and mobile phones. I am a huge movie buff who actually had a Filmstruck subscription and still pay for MUBI. I love the movies he loves but they do not work well in theaters. I would much rather watch these at home. I'll go to the theater for Marvel because those movies are much better in a theater. This is simply not true for his tastes.

I've stopped going to theaters because the sound is often unbearably loud for me. These days a projector and sound system for use at home are quite affordable. A white wall at night works great for projection too, so you don't need a specifically designed room. At this point our cinema experience is the best it's ever been, watching whatever movies we like, without going to the theater at all.

We may never return to the ideal theater experience he wants but I actually think streaming and good projection technology are already delivering something better.

I’m so impressed that he took the route of doubling down on his “F you, you’re wrong” that made multiple generations of tasteless moviegoers irate. You don’t see enough of people standing up for their controversial opinions in the face of public backlash anymore, which made this a quite refreshing read.

On a slightly unrelated note, did anyone watch the new film Dolemite Is My Name? It celebrates a film financed by a single individual (sort of) that noone in the industry wanted to touch. It's important to recognise that even then (1970s) it was hard to pitch new ideas for films and get funding. That said, Dolemite would have been a tough sell for a newbie film producer.

Regular people are smarter and want more complexity than the film execs give them credit for. I have fond memories of going to the cinema and watching a lesser known or indie film, or going to Blockbuster and picking out strange unknown titles , and having an actual human experience, rather than just being entertained.

Sadly we have more "choice" with streaming, but a limited one. Only those sanctioned for our consumption. Sort of like an "any colour you like, but..." scenario.

I hope that those with big bold or different ideas can continue to create in the new paradigm. Good on Scorsese in making the Netflix deal and keeping his principles.

It's true, media and cinema have changed. Though it's through him and other directors of his generation (Lucas, Spielberg, Coppalla), the "Movie Brats" that helped change it. The old model, which he is being nostalgic for was failing. The Movie Brats came along and changed that, revitalizing the movie industry. Out with the old, in with the new. (New, lighter better film cameras in the 70s helped.)

And now, studio execs are geared towards profit. A franchise, big budget film is more likely to make a profit than a small film. So studios are less likely to fund small films.

Also, in the further pursuit of profits, studios take bigger profits for theater rights to show a film. Which is easier for big theater chains to do, and much more difficult for independent to do.

At the moment, there are very few solutions to these problems. Making small films are expensive. Independent film makers rarely make a profit.

There are some comments for this article in a post from 2 days ago [0], but this might deserve a second discussion.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21448601