Just recently, Martin Scorsese made a few disparaging comments, including doubling down on his opinion that superhero movies were not cinema. Now, another veteran filmmaker has come out with less-than-kind words regarding Marvel. Yahoo News published that this time it was ‘The Godfather’ director Francis Ford Coppola. While in France, having just received the Prix Lumiere award, Coppola expanded on Scorcese’s remarks.
“When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration.”
Depending on how you experience a film, this can be very true. The filmgoing experience is subjective, though. Coppola could have left it there, but he continued one step beyond Scorsese’s assessment of this genre:
“Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is.”
‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and ‘The Suicide Squad’ director James Gunn didn’t take these statements lying down. Cinemablend relayed that on his Instagram, Gunn made the following statement:
“Many of our grandfathers thought all gangster movies were the same, often calling them “despicable”. Some of our great grandfathers thought the same of westerns, and believed the films of John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, and Sergio Leone were all exactly the same. I remember a great uncle to whom I was raving about Star Wars. He responded by saying, “I saw that when it was called 2001, and, boy, was it boring!” Superheroes are simply today’s gangsters/cowboys/outer space adventurers. Some superhero films are awful, some are beautiful. Like westerns and gangster movies (and before that, just MOVIES), not everyone will be able to appreciate them, even some geniuses. And that’s okay.”
An interesting response, no doubt. What do you think about this ongoing feud between the newcomers and the old guard?
