Martin Scorsese Compares Marvel Superhero Films to "Theme Park Rides"

That quote about comic book movies doesn't seem all that crazy to me.

 

Maybe everybody is crazy, and the comic book movies are sane?

 

Now the crap that he said about anarchy was out there...

 

I don't know if that's Marty you hate....Its pretty straight forward....no trademark shots, no fast cuts. basically clear uninterrupted performances by the the Band? Dylan...Neil Young....Van Morrison....with a couple interview segments.

 

Alan Moore is a brilliant writer but he’s had comsiderable emotional damage in his career as well. I think that’s also influenced some of his opinions.

That said, he’s right about SOME people but it’s a generalization. As such, it’s not always true. It’s the cliche of c9mic fans and nothing more.

For me, I enjoy these much as I would watching a film based on Greek or Roman mythology; I’ve argued for years that, aside from the Wild Wesr, we as a culture don’t have enough of own myths and writers (either novelist or comic book writer/artist) has taken the material from other cultures to create our own version of mythology on a contemporary level.

So, yeah Alan’s a little right but he’s also mostly wrong. That’s his perspective based on deal8ng with fandom but doesn’t look at the broader audience. One could argue this about any genre fiction, films, etc. particularly if one dislikes a genre. It’s not the material. It’s what the writer, directors, etc. BRING to the material just like any genre. The Marvel films—the best ones— deal with some interesting themes. They don’t have to be deep nor do they necessarily want to be. That doesn’t diminish the best of these films. Moore can think what he likes. He’s well respected and smart BUT he can be wrong like anyone else.

As to Alan’s observation about the origin of characters in masks and capes, etc. it’s a potent comment perhaps accurate to a degree but it ignores how superhero’s evolved from biblical and mythological origin.

 

“Cultural stasis”? What on earth is that? And what does Birth of a Nation have to do with anything? This guy must be a loon! One of those intellectual types. I’m gonna go watch the 8th generation Spider-Man reboot.

 

I like to see shots of the musicians' hands on their instruments, plying their trade. This one didn't have much of that because, well, the original soundtrack sucked because the band sucked. So you hear Rick Danko playing all this articulate stuff, while his hand is really sliding around sloppily on a FRETLESS bass like a band might have done in those early 60's TV show appearances where they are not even trying to look like they are really playing. It just didn't feel at all real.

And the interviews with the band only embarrassed me for them.

I confess that this may not all be on the director, but it does go down as one of his works. And when I put together his body of work in my head, I realize it's kinda like putting Whoopie Goldberg's body of work together. They thought she was going to be something amazing, but take away sister act and, well, you've got a Star Trek bit part (which made no sense unless one views it as a Weinstein type setup for a friend) and The View, both of which are an embarrassment.

Haven't you ever suddenly realized you had way too much respect (or too little) for a band or person and wonder what caused your original perspective to be formed in the first place?

 

You bought a blu-ray of a film you never saw? Is there a typo in your handle?

 

I got it for five bucks.

 

For the most part, yes.

But there are a few that merit attention, including any with the very troubled Bryan Singer's involvement.

And I was shocked at how fun - and moving - that Avengers Ultron movie was.

But the thing with the raccoon? And Thor? And the Captain America movies? Kee-rap.

And then again, the movie about Ant-Man was fun, and Spider-Man 3 with the crazy spidey suit!

It's a genre with good & mostly bad & sometimes great iterations.

Singer's Superman Returns a masterpiece of type for instance.

It's kind of like horror; who foresaw a flick as good as It Follows happening?

 

I like many of the individual performances on Last Waltz, particularly Joni's Coyote. I am a Scorsese fan. But I fully agree with you on Irishman. It was a chore to watch, the digitized younger faces really bothered me and as I've said before it was antithetic to cinema and theater to go that route instead of finding younger actors. Scorsese wasn't on top of his game. I've soured a lot on De Niro in recent years. But the bottom line is that the story was not compelling and the climax was anti-climactic. It then dragged on needlessly with his character in an old folks' home in an attempt to be more of an epic type of character study about how he lost the love of his daughter. I had been enthused to buy the blu-ray, but glad I didn't. MCU movies are much more in the spirit of traditional theater.

 

I’ll be getting the dvd. Seen the film in the cinema. The “deaging” what deaging ., actors looked the same .. olde dyed hair trick. I will say Al Pacino moved faster.

 

Martin's off on this one, folks get tired of gangster films too!

 

I loved it, and thought that the plastic look of their younger selves served the underlying theme - that you don't really see yourself as you are

 

Yes!

 

I thought it served to deny talented younger actors the chance to have the baton handed down, which could just as effectively served the theme. And by the way, that was how De Niro became a household name--by studying Brando and playing a younger Vito Corleone. So how did movie stars and directors as important as De Niro and Scorsese become so self-centered as to deny younger actors that important opportunity for a changing of the guard? They got theirs.

 

I'm aware of De Niro's history, I'm also aware of Scorsese' (it's not like he's never cast young actors in any of his movies) In this case, giving a younger actor the role would not have reflected the theme in the same way - the movie is about not seeing yourself properly, the things you lose as you age and how you reckon with you your life in the approach of death - the final third is the most important part. These characters become more 'real' as they approach the present day and there is (by no accident) a distance and veil created over their young selves, in part achieved by the CGI. A younger actor would have required make-up or CGI to age them significantly up in the later parts of the movie, meaning they'd have seemed more 'real' in the early parts of the movie rather than the later - the precise opposite of the thematic intention. I hate de-aging in films usually I've never seen an example where it hasn't fallen in to uncanny valley (including every marvel movie that uses it), but this was a movie where I felt it was used for a good, and thematically important, reason. We sand off the edges of our history in our memories, which are incomplete, the same way the edges have been sanded off by the CGI

 

Making it a bit personal. Old actors/directors need jobs too. I think there’s plenty of other movies and streaming shows that offer opportunity for the young actors of the world.

 

is there anyone on earth that does not know how each and every superhero movie will end?

 

With the copyright year of production?

 

In essence the film was about what happened to Hoffa and the mafia assassin who killed him. It was conceived from the outset as a vehicle for De Niro, Pesci and Pacino and set up so as to require CGI. But it could just as easily have been set up to cast younger actors in the scenes taking place decades earlier, and they still could have belabored the bit about self perception. And by the way, that theme of mafia figures justifying murder by seeing themselves as dedicated to family is beyond cliche now, so why belabor it? The unique thing about this film: it was supposed to tell the story of Jimmy Hoffa's assassination. Couldn't have been more anticlimactic.

I don't buy it and neither did any of the studios, which is why it ended up with Netflix. Even if we agree that the film required a different stylistic treatment for characters in the earlier scenes (I don't agree), it could have been done by traditional cinematography methods without having to rely on CGI so that the same actors we've been watching for decades could parade around as younger men. It just looked wrong. Also, actors such as Domenick Lombardozzi were heavily digitized so as to be barely recognizable in a later scene when, according to you, the characters were becoming more "real"... why not just cast more appropriate actors like a proper theatrical production? The CGI approach was out of control simply to justify more screen time and greater salary for established actors. The approach was simply antithetic to theatrical production and had nothing to do with "becoming more real as they approach the present day."

That's quite a stretch to convince yourself to like this film. In MCU, CGI is critically important to support sci fi underpinnings of the films, so going the small step of altering faces is more understandable. Totally different genre. One of the greatest things about Scorsese's body of work is that it showcases his dedication and mastery of past traditions in theater and film, where Scorsese commands a unique expertise and sensibility. He stepped away from that to give De Niro what he wanted in The Irishman, and the film suffered because of it.

 

Watch enough movies and TV and you'll eventually figure out how just about every story ends.

Ending Tropes - TV Tropes

 

I guess we’ll agree to disagree. I thought it was a beautiful movie - and I don’t think it was at all about the mafia justifying murder by because they’re family men, which I agree is a cliche, but I think it is about (at least in part) the crumbling of those traditions that Scorsese has spent a lifetime mastering. This movie was the first in a long tome to move me to tears - it completely upended my expectations

I don’t think cgi de-aging in marvel is any more justifiable in any way - at least with Scorsese I can see a thematic reason.

 

Except that wasn’t the intention. At all.

 

You’re basing that on what? Your personal interpretation?