So we should maybe not look for a Marvel movie directed by Martin Scorsese. While Kevin Feige has done a damn good job of attracting some of the screen’s greatest actors and filmmakers to be part of the MCU, look…superheroes just aren’t everybody’s bag. Consider Scorsese part of that camp if his comments to Empire are anything to go by.
Scorsese, who has The Irishman on the way and is a heavy influence on Todd Phillips’ Joker film, pulled a Frank Sheeran on the MCU when asked about it…
“I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”
Ok, I get the whole “theme park’ shit, right? Big colors, dudes and gals in silly costumes and funny names, fights with like 50 of these bammas fighting all at once. I get it. But saying they’re “not cinema” is a bit much. Whether he likes it or not, and obviously he doesn’t, Marvel’s cultural impact is deep and sometimes so is it emotionally. Just ask anybody who wept at Tony Stark’s sacrifice. It’s not on him to judge those who would rather watch Ant-Man than dare try and slog through Silence or something.
The broad sweep of his statements aren’t going to win him any new fans, that’s for sure. And as we saw in the generous adopting of his style and themes in Joker, his approach may not be so incompatible with superheroes movies.
