Let's hash this out (respectfully, of course), as every week seems to bring a new quote from a filmmaker complaining about the films of Marvel. Hollywood seems to have a love/hate relationship with the Marvel films, They bring in truckloads of money, but they're also accused of everything from killing film as we know it to the decline of Western civilization. There's this gem of a quote this week from Quentin Tarantino: "Quentin Tarantino Says Marvel Actors Aren’t Movie Stars: ‘Captain America Is the Star,’ Not Chris Evans" Quentin Tarantino Says Marvel Killed the Movie Star - Variety along with: “I do feel that ‘80s cinema is, along with the ‘50s, the worst era in Hollywood history… matched only by the current era” While there may be some merit to the claim that the Marvel characters are more of a draw than the actors playing them, as someone who grew up watching QT films (I saw Pulp Fiction in the theater first run at age 14) and also grew up reading Marvel & DC comics, I just want to say--Hey QT, maybe quit making wanky, ponderous, aimless movies with frequently long stretches of boring scenes, like you have the last 20+ years.
Those types of comments that I've read ring true to me. of course, these movies have their place and their devotees. As far as killing the movie star, I'd say there are other variables in play as well.
For sure, also namely the rise of YouTube, TikTok, reality TV and talent game shows. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these auteurs acknowledge that a lot of this deeper narrative storytelling we used to get in movies has shifted over premium cable series, either.
Given that a lot of art is reacting to trends, we should expect artist to rail against the status quo of anything. I don’t think it’s cynical. I think it’s about art that actually takes chances. You can’t do that with a $200m budget.
I guess he didn’t like Touch of Evil, Vertigo, Rear Window, etc. from the 1950’s nor the good to great noir movies. QT has an opinion. Many people do. I don’t care about his opinion. I enjoy the movies. He doesn’t? Don’t watch them. i don’t care about if they are ‘movie’ stars. Folks like Evans were well regarded performers before the role.
Yeah…I disagree. It’s about the intent and what the filmmakers want to do. For example, Captain America: Winter Soldier wasn’t your typical superhero fare.
This. Marvel don’t get any credit for taking chances with genre within their film projects, although at the end of the day they are merely movies about comic book characters. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a great example of Marvel doing something daring with one of their highest-grossing franchises, that of having an entire film revolve around the death in-story of their title character. When they could have easily recast the role with another up and coming actor.
On another note, I have enjoyed the era of 70’s auteurs (Coppola, Friedkin, Scorsese, Cassavettes and on and on) as well as indie film in general, and I can also enjoy the long-running narrative of the MCU and all they’ve accomplished with it. I can watch the modern-day Oscar bait films and enjoy them, and I can enjoy the latest Spider-Man or Thor romp for what they are. I will say the indie films are less and less likely to get me out to the theaters nowadays, which must be a big part of the complaints. A lot of this is gatekeeping and whining on the part of QT, Scorsese and others. The exact same claims about killing cinema were made by wags about Lucas’ original Star Wars way back in 1977.
I've seen maybe one out of three of such movies, eventually. Maybe one of two going back to the '70s Superman movies. Some I've really liked while some were more disappointing, but I don't get the emotion some seem to have one way or the other about them, and I've read stacks of the comics they are based on. If you want them to go away so badly make something better plus don't go see them? The X-Men movies had some big names for the first three plus Wolverine spin-offs. The third X-Men movie pretty much sucked yet had all the name actors you could want, while in contrast Robert Downey Jr. totally made Iron Man work. There have been movies that worked with no established name actors (at least to me) and duds with lots of names, it seems there's no connection to having big names or no big names, though maybe that is a bit like Tarantino was saying... except for Downey Jr. I think because of the people complaining about all the superheroes they are trying a bit too hard to make them less superheroic and more 'dark' and less colorful, supposedly mature, which the comics went through for quite awhile too. At their best however they are like the original Star Wars... colorful, fun, engrossing to a point if you want to live there in your imagination... and Star Wars started out as an idea to bring back Flash Gordon, a comic strip character. Maybe they need to create more original for film characters and stories?
Yeah, it used to be kids read comics growing up and stopped. Then you had a whole generation of creators in the 70’s and 80’s who were creating for an older audience that held on; hence leading to the ‘grim-dark’ nature of legendary comic works by Frank Miller and Alan Moore. Comics also got legitimized by award-winning graphic novels like Maus. Of course, Moore himself now rails against grown readers who never grew out of the capes and mask comics, just as much as he rails against Hollywood and their bloated, wasteful budgets for blockbusters—and doesn’t let them use his name for adaptations of his work like Watchmen or V For Vendetta. Entertainment in general is more siloed out and specialized than ever, leading to less consensus. People complain about the playlist mentality with popular music—the same could be observed of the watchlist / queue mentality of viewers and how they rarely stray from the their comfort zones.
It is a thing created for kids and not adults. I kind of feel like go all the way and be colorful and have the most way-out powers, but add a dose of reality in terms of human interest and personal drama. An R rated superhero comic or movie to me is more of an experiment, it might work, but seems like it could only have a limited lifespan and probably a very small audience... you likely wouldn't want kids to find some of it anyway, like the old underground comix which were extremely explicit and loaded with swear words. If they make them all like that they will have really killed the thing off. So the more adult maybe the best thing is to drop the code-names and costumes stuff, secret headquarters and total fantasy magical powers, which was what made it accessible and attractive to kids? Sort of the argument about fruit-flavored vapes? But then if you do have something to say to an adult audience what are the odds having superheroes in it is going to be required in any substantial way (or zombies, vampires, talking animals)? In 1963 Spider-Man and other Marvel characters brought a touch of horror/monsters plus a big scoop of soap-opera continuity to a fading genre and things perked up for a couple more decades or so... melodrama is no more an inferior brand of drama than tragedy or comedies... Shakespeare certainly wrote all sorts!
Sure, but it’s also bound by the laws of the universe Marvel has created, including content. I enjoy these films greatly, but I see the limits of the genre. I think Marvel is trying to challenge that a little, but it’s slow going.
No doubt but all 0ne has to do is to look at She-Hulk, Loki and others to see them pushing the boundaries even within the formula in addition to some of the films. I have no issue with popcorn movies and deeper films. They can co-exist. Not everything has to be heavy drama. The same idea was used to dismiss Hitchcock and other film directors who worked within genres vs. ‘real’ films made by ‘artists’. It’s total hokum designed to elevate one sort of filmmaker at the expense of another. Horror films and other genres faced the same criticism. It’s whst you do with the genre not the genre your working in. QT needs to stop it. He made films that work within pre-established genres and traditions. Like “Captain America: Winter Soldier” challenged the confines of the genre. The Russo’s did some very good work within the genre.
Both X-Men-adjacent Deadpool films were R-rated, a bit hard R at that--and both did bang-up business. Disney are actually making and releasing the third, and still apparently R. One positive about Disney piloting Marvel so far--they know not to mess around with a good thing (like keeping the casting of Charlie Cox as Daredevil from the Netflix show).
I don't think anything you say here accurately represents what He was saying about Hollywood the industry, as quoted in the article.
When Midnight Cowboy came out in 1969, established Hollywood royalty John Wayne and Jerry Lewis called the film vile, pornographic trash. Lewis went on to open a line of movie houses ("Jerry Lewis Cinemas") to ENSURE that families could go to these theaters and see wholesome entertainment. Those theaters eventually went under by the late 70's, with the company filing for bankruptcy in 1980. There's only so many times you can show The Apple Dumpling Gang. Old men living in the past bitching at clouds. Nothing new to see here.
Absurd. Quent has lost the plot. Tell me about it. The Hateful Eight was a chore to wade through. Such a waste of production funds, time and talent. The Basterds movie wasn't all that, either. I haven't bothered with OUATIH.
I actually enjoyed all 3, though H8 the least. Too many long interminable stretches in his movies since the Kill Bill movies.
Tarantino’s take that the 50s was one of the worst decades for film emanating from Hollywood is quite an opinion. It is arguably the best decade for Hollywood film. I assume he wasn’t including world cinema. IMO, both the Tarantino universe and MCU are overrated. Are Tarantino’s films not, at least partially, comic book adjacent ? Of course they are. His films are essentially exploitive pulp. He does have a point about the movie star, or lack thereof, aspect of MCU.
I was responding to his comment, not the article. I'd suggest reading he said/I said to get the full context of why I said what I did. I stand by it. These are genre films. No different from Noir, Horror, Science Fiction, Suspense thrillers, etc. in terms of working within the confines of the genre but they've also pushed the boundaries of the very genre they've defined. I'm not going to claim it makes great art, but they are entertaining, well-made films. They aren't killing cinema as Scorsese claims (the same claims were made about a variety of genre films that became popular at a given period of time) and I find his original comments rather ironic because he admires, enjoys some of the genre films and their directors that were accused or looked down upon for the very same reason in the past. Some of them CAN approach creating great cinematic art but not all of them are going to be great. There have always been lots of junk films out there or films that fail to live up to their potential (even if it is a meager potential). What's often regarded as classics now or even cult classics, were looked down on back in the day.
No, he needs to continue to be a film commentator because he’s so good at it. Do I disagree with his opinions? Sure sometimes, but at the very least he usually brings a lot of intelligence and examples to the table. Asking him about Marvel is just low hanging fruit though, because the answer is obvious. What interests he has reflect who he is as a critic and a filmmaker. He values transgressions and how far cinema can go in whatever direction it chooses. That’s not what these Marvel movies are or do. They are intended as mass entertainment. I wouldn’t expect a guy who loves bloody rape revenge films to dig something like Iron Man 3 or Thor Love and Thunder. But these movies were never made for someone like him.
If Tarantino doesn't like the Marvel films (neither do I) then he should just stick to those obscure 1970'a Kung Fu flick that no one else has seen that he likes to rip off for his own films. I didn't read the interview but did he promise to retire after his tenth film again? At this point I wish he would make it and the go away.
I've seen Lady Snowblood etc. and I wish he'd do something that isn't so dependent on '70s genre exploito hipster type films/culture, because I think he could have a wider repertoire (and audience) than he's shown. A lot of the problems such as they are with current film and television is that a lot of the producers and directors come from a very fannish devotee type of background rather than having truly read or at least viewed widely, which you could say about many of the best in the past. So I agree that his pulpy usually violent subjects are hardly a stone's throw removed from comic book superheroes... more like samurai manga. I did really enjoy Once Upon A Time In Hollywood though, great feel good picture while still fully geeking out in a slightly wider scope. Find a story worth telling, and there are infinite kinds of stories possible, and tell it as well as it can be told... like Till. That's the next thing I want to see! I think when they fail the Marvel movies like the comics are too much only a piece of a story.
QT, Scorsese and Coppola's comments disparaging the Marvel movies or comic book films in general smack just a bit of gatekeeping elitism. They're not film. It's the same highbrow vs lowbrow art form argument that you would think we are long past by now. Hey, I knew who Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans and Scarlett Johanssen are, before they even took on their MCU roles (QT used Margot Robbie who also stars as Harley Quinn in DC's films). At least I know who they are--who are these actors?:
Fair points. His comments still smack of elitism to me. I enjoy his films but, like Scorsese’s comments, take them with a grain of salt. I’m sure there is someone somewhere that says the same thing about QT’s films. Folks somewhere said the same thing about Scorsese’s films.
