Op-Ed: Martin Scorsese May Have Just Started A Cinematic Revolution

It was a long time coming, but a universally loved and legendary filmmaker like Martin Scorsese finally came out against Marvel and superhero culture, causing a domino effect, as Francis Ford Coppola followed suit, with many more to follow I’m sure (you can almost certainly bet on that happening as now every single important director will be asked the “Marvel question.”).

In other words, it took someone of Scorsese’s ilk to finally shake things up.

Scorsese’s criticisms of Marvel are actually much more important than many are giving them credit for. In fact, what Scorsese has started is damn-near close to a cinematic revolution.

It’s been 11 years now that many film critics, the media and audiences alike succumbed to the “holier-than-thou” billion-dollar-making Disney machine and its grandiose enterprise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Kick-started by a well-made and highly entertaining “Iron Man” in 2008, which paved the way for one of the great acting comebacks of our times (Robert Downey Jr.), and ending in grandiose fashion with this past year’s “Avengers: Endgame,” the MCU stamped its name on this cinematic decade and thus had every major studio in the industry trying to copy its superhero/reboot/sequel/origin story blueprint.

When all is said and done, and film historians start to look back at the 2010s many years from now, they will notice that corporate greed manifestly overpowered risk-taking at the movies these last 10 years. One cannot necessarily blame Disney for having studios copy their blueprint. This all came at a time when movie audiences chose hibernation at home with Netflix and company instead of opting to go out and pay $40 for two movie tickets. And yet, the mouse house found a way to create a record-breaking movie formula.

But the monopolization of cinema in recent years also led the media to tell us that superhero epics mattered in ways they should have never been credited for. As Bilge Ebiri so eloquently stated in his excellent think-piece on Scorsese/Marvel:

“There is a belief, parroted by fans and filmmakers and corporate honchos alike, that superhero epics and space-war movies and adventure fantasies matter in ways they never quite mattered before. “

Of course, it took a tragedy as impactful as 9/11 to get the ball rolling. The persistent message delivered by the Bush and, even, the Obama administration of good vs evil resulted in comfort food for mass movie audiences. Our society was begging for it.

The rise of superhero and fantasy movies of the post-9/11 era indeed felt like fast food to cure the anxiety of a new world being created before our very eyes (both organically and by governmental entities trying to strip our rights away for the sake of “national security”). The battle between good and evil was all over “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” when both franchises entered the fray in December of 2001. A year later, the Sam Raimi-directed ”Spider-Man” ended with the hero defeating villainous forces and celebrating atop the Empire State Building with the American flag blatantly waving behind him. We needed heroes, we needed to know that in the battle of good vs. evil, the hero would always prevail. We accepted the mundane to satisfy our anxieties.

It didn’t help that various media monopolies consistently celebrated and praised the Marvel Comics Universe headed by MCU creative head Kevin Feige, which was an achievement in its own right. We can’t deny the brevity and scope in the way Disney and Marvel put together this universe of 21 movies in a span of just over 10 years. It had a ripple effect on the industry, to the point where the WB tried to copy its blueprint with the DCEU but failed to achieve the success the Mouse House brought to the MCU.

However, the fact of the matter is this: these movies have creative handicaps in them that prevent plenty of cinephiles from fully embracing them as ”serious art”. They have to adhere to conventional rules that were laid out to them some 50-60 years ago by comic book artists whose targeted readership was 12-year-old boys. It doesn’t help that the predictable mise-en-scene was encompassed by an even more predictable outcome in almost every movie: the hero had to prevail, good had to win over evil … and then we were off to the next installment. Such predictability is counterintuitive to what cinema was and always will be about: the notion of the unknown and how that unknown can create a world to get sucked into with the mindset of expecting the unexpected. In the MCU there is none of that; it’s all part of a well-fabricated, consumer-friendly playbook that goes in directions you can quite clearly see coming in a narrative point-of-view.

And so, as audiences are being fed fast food at the movies, our world has become increasingly more complicated and unsettling — the films we consume have become ever more infantilizing. Escapism was now the norm at the movies, unlike the ‘70s, where, as immaculate changes were happening around the country, directors such as Coppola and Scorsese were breaking the mold. The 2010s ended up infantilizing movie audiences, no doubt due to many factors, including media monopolies forming before our very eyes, which ended up feeding bottom-line corporate biases left and right.

Yes, Scorsese started the conversation, but Francis Ford Coppola sealed it in more openly truthful terms. If Scorsese seemed hesitant to go too far when talking about the MCU, Coppola didn’t hold back by calling Marvel movies “despicable,” but, more intriguingly, adding that these movies lacked “storytelling diversity.” That, in essence, is why I tend to be bored by many MCU movies—they are formulaically driven by a predictably delivered three-act structure. The fact of the matter is that these movies are based on comic books, which handicaps them to fully embrace the creative freedom of a free-flowing narrative (unless you tackle the more adult-oriented graphic novels).

There are of course exceptions to the rule, and not all 21 movies within the MCU should be written off, but even the above-average movies (”The Winter Soldier,” “Iron Man,“ “Thor: Ragnarok,” ”Avengers: Endgame,” “Guardians of the Galaxy”) still felt like by-products of a bigger, more devious picture at hand, a consumerist mindset whose sole mission was to make you buy a ticket for the next installment and then the next one and then the next one…

Famous film critic Roger Ebert, who managed to watch 6 MCU films before his tragic dearh in 2014, saw it coming. Take a look at his 3-star review of “The Avengers” back in 2012. In it he describes the infamous narrative blueprint that seems to be followed in every Marvel movie:

”These films are all more or less similar, and "The Avengers" gives us much, much more of the same.” He claimed, adding that in these movies “there must be a threat. The heroes must be enlisted. The villain must be dramatized. Some personality defects are probed. And then the last hour or so consists of special effects in which large mechanical objects engage in combat that results in deafening crashes and explosions and great balls of fire.”

"Comic-Con nerds will have multiple orgasms," predicted critic David Edelstein in New York magazine, confirming something I had vaguely suspected about them. If he is correct, it's time for desperately needed movies to re-educate nerds in the joys of sex. "The Avengers" is done well by Joss Whedon, with style and energy. It provides its fans with exactly what they desire. Whether it is exactly what they deserve is arguable.“

The derivative nature of these films started to nag Ebert. And he'd probably have agreed with Scorsese to a point. Remember that Robert Ebert loved film and cinema, and superhero films were pushing most dramas and thrillers that would have had theatrical releases ten years ago out of theaters. That's something he'd have issues with.

And so, in the context of having legends like Coppola and Scorsese being denounced as old men screaming at clouds, they do have a point. The dangers of Marvel movies is just how seriously they are being greeted by not only mass audiences, but many reputable critics as well. So yeah, maybe it’s time to call these movies out, maybe it’s time to stop pretending this is actually art.

The post 9/11 world shook us to our core, many reverted to their safe spaces and just wanted to see Captain America defeating Thanos. That’s fine, but the actors, directors, and writers behind these films must have surely known that what they are delivering to the masses is nothing more than a McDonalized version of cinema, a way to present dumbed-down comfort food that could hit as many demographic groups as possible. What Scorsese, Coppola and many others see in these films is a lack of advancement to the art form, and just pure greed. It’s about time Scorsese called them out on it.