Scorsese: No revelation, mystery or emotional danger in MCU films

Expanding on his criticism of Marvel Cinematic Universe, Martin Scorsese has said while se films were me by people of considerable talent and artistry, re is an absence of "revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger" in m. multiple Oscar-winning director gives an insight into his comments that sparked a controversy between all or films and Marvel in early October, after he branded superhero films as "me park experience" and "t cinema".

In a New York Times op-ed, titled "I Said Marvel Movies Aren't Cinema. Let Me Explain", Scorsese wrote,

"Many franchise films are me by people of considerable talent and artistry. You can see it on screen. fact that films mselves don't interest me is a matter of personal taste and temperament. I kw that if I were younger, if I'd come of at a later time, I might have been excited by se pictures and maybe even wanted to make one myself. But I grew up when I did and I developed a sense of movies  of what y were and what y could be  that was as far from Marvel universe as we on Earth are from Alpha Centauri."

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director argued for masters who influenced his craft, his contemporaries and him, making movies was about aestic, emotional and spiritual revelation. 

"It was about characters   complexity of people and ir contrictory and sometimes paroxical natures, way y can hurt one ar and love one ar and suddenly come face to face with mselves," he wrote.

Scorsese, 76, wrote MCU films were everything films of Paul Thomas Anderson, Claire Denis, Spike Lee, Ari Aster, Kathryn Bigelow or Wes Anderson are t.

"When I watch a movie by any of those filmmakers, I kw I'm going to see something absolutely new and be taken to unexpected and maybe even unnameable areas of experience. My sense of what is possible in telling stories with moving ims and sounds is going to be expanded."

Where Marvel lacked was re was "thing at risk" in its movies, he argued.

"Many of elements that define cinema as I kw it are re in Marvel pictures. What's t re is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. thing is at risk. pictures are me to satisfy a specific set of demands, and y are designed as variations on a finite number of mes."

Scorsese took case of commoditisation of cinema at hands of big studios like Marvel, saying ir films were "sequels in name but y are remakes in spirit".

"... and everything in m is officially sanctioned because it can't really be any or way. That's nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until y're rey for consumption."

He called " grual but stey elimination of risk" as most omius change that has happened stealthily.

"Many of m are well me by teams of talented individuals. All same, y lack something essential to cinema: unifying vision of an individual artist. Because, of course, individual artist is riskiest factor of all."

filmmaker rued it was a "perilous time" in film exhibition. Franchise films were primary choice for a big-screen experience and for indie films was shrinking.

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equation has flipped and streaming has become primary delivery system, Scorsese wrote, ding he was speaking as someone who just completed highly anticipated " Irishman" for Netflix.

"(Netflix) and it alone, allowed us to make ' Irishman' way we needed to, and for that I'll always be thankful. We have a atrical window, which is great. Would I like picture to play on more big screens for longer periods of time? Of course I would. But matter whom you make your movie with, fact is that screens in most multiplexes are crowded with franchise pictures."

He furr refused to agree that it was a matter of supply and demand, dubbing it "chicken-and-egg issue".

"If people are given only one kind of thing and endlessly sold only one kind of thing, of course y're going to want more of that one kind of thing."

Scorsese furr ded that he was t implying that cinema should be a subsidised art form.

Recalling era when Hollywood studio machinery was alive and kicking, director wrote tension between artists and makers was "constant and intense", but friction was "productive" that churned some of greatest films ever.

"Today, that tension is gone, and re are some in business with absolute indifference to very question of art and an attitude toward history of cinema that is both dismissive and proprietary  a lethal combination.  situation, sly, is that we w have two separate fields: re's worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and re's cinema. y still overlap from time to time, but that's becoming increasingly rare. And I fear that financial dominance of one is being used to marginalise and even belittle existence of or," he concluded in a cautionary mess.

Post Scorsese's initial criticism, many MCU names including Robert Downey Jr, Samuel L Jackson, Natalie Portman, James Gunn, Jon Favreau and veteran filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola and Ken Loach have weighed in on debate.

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