First, let me nitpick the unnecessarily flowery writing style, because this sentence made me physically recoil: "There had been antecedents, of course. In hindsight, much of our fantasy culture...
Exemplary
First, let me nitpick the unnecessarily flowery writing style, because this sentence made me physically recoil: "There had been antecedents, of course. In hindsight, much of our fantasy culture sprung from the loins of J.R.R. Tolkien."
Ugh, loins? Of a man? Pretty sure he wasn't spraying anything out of his loins, gross.
Anyway, pointless rambling aside, the unnecessary opposition of "good cinema" and "comic book/videogame movies" (with a fometely unnecessary jab about how the latter are for children) greatly annoys me. Who said thar a videogame movie can't be "movies for adults, with supple scripts, great acting, and true human drama"?
Wouldn't THAT be a challenge for Scorsese and others in the I am an artiste, and the popular culture is trash and beyond me camp? Why don't you actually adapt a videogame or a comic movie and show everyone how it's done? Why won't you even try to try and lead the Marvel enjoying crowds towards what you consider more ambitious or artful?
It's easy to hurl critique down into the crowds from ivory towers, but I think maybe opening the doors and letting people peek inside may be a better solution...
I'll translate that into something that can actually be true: "it is not the kind of art which I believe is valuable". Conflating art with subjective notions of quality is a very common mistake....
Exemplary
It's OK if you like those movies. Nobody is insulting or denigrating you for it. It's just not art,
I'll translate that into something that can actually be true: "it is not the kind of art which I believe is valuable".
Conflating art with subjective notions of quality is a very common mistake.
And saying that what I enjoy is not art actually is not only lazy and incorrect, it is also inherently insulting and elitist.
You can probably make much of the same points without falling for that.
Even as someone who isn't enjoying these movies much anymore, the idea that "it's not art" is just absurd. Popular art is still art. Commercial art is still art. There's so much to criticize about...
Even as someone who isn't enjoying these movies much anymore, the idea that "it's not art" is just absurd. Popular art is still art. Commercial art is still art. There's so much to criticize about these movies, but that doesn't make them "not art" -- criticizing them is art criticism!
"What is art" is the corollary to Jacobellis v Ohio's "What is pornography" - "I know it when I see it." In college I took a philosophy class called Aesthetics where the entire point was to...
Exemplary
"What is art" is the corollary to Jacobellis v Ohio's "What is pornography" - "I know it when I see it."
In college I took a philosophy class called Aesthetics where the entire point was to explore answering the question of what is art. The answer is, of course, that there is no answer. If someone claims that something isn't art, they can usually be ignored. Most of the time, that sort of statement is just a gut-reaction snobby put down, and they don't really want to actually talk about what actually constitutes art.
Edit: there isn't really no answer; rather, there are a lot of ways to approach the question, and whether or not something qualifies as art for you will depend on how you approach the problem of aesthetics.
Your post certainly got me thinking one thing: why do the authors of articles like this even care if something is art or not? They insinuate that I am only allowed to watch art, and the very...
Your post certainly got me thinking one thing: why do the authors of articles like this even care if something is art or not? They insinuate that I am only allowed to watch art, and the very notion that calling something "not art" is an insult perpetuates that idea.
I don't actually care if it's art or not. I just want to be entertained for a little while with my friends and family. You may as well say that we can only drive cars that qualify as works of art, or that listen to things that are art. No, my car horn isn't art and the idea that it should be is absurd. They can be but that's not the purpose.
So, the thinking you've outlined here is exactly what the author is afraid of. You just want to be entertained. Which is obviously fine, that's why art exists. What I'm about to go into is not a...
Exemplary
So, the thinking you've outlined here is exactly what the author is afraid of. You just want to be entertained. Which is obviously fine, that's why art exists. What I'm about to go into is not a comment on any individual's priorities. The issue is: that is not why art is made. No person wants to spend time making something that nobody will remember an hour later. Not a screenwriter or director, not an actor, not an editor, not a painter, or a poet or comedian, none of them want to make things nobody cares about. You know who does? The publishers and production companies. Fungibility in product is necessary for a business to be safe from:
the changing styles of the times
the demands of a popular artist
ever having to take a risk with more than pocket change
There are, of course, millions of snobs happy to attack "low-quality" films as "not art". Your response is 100% fair to that. Fuck those people, I say as someone that most would label one of them.
The issue with the MCU is that each movie is not created by the people hired to make it. The screenwriters are handed a sheet with the arcs they need to hit, the director has Feige's hand on their shoulder the entire time, and the vision of the director and editors is always secondary to the marketing division's projections. That is almost as close as you can get to literal "not art". It still is art, but it's obviously made exclusively for profitability, and that's led to unpleasant outcomes for the sake of enjoyment already. People are pressured to see each one, or they won't be able to keep up with friends, let alone if they miss three, then they won't be able to even follow the next one in the theater. Disney loved the churn of the comics industry (which is sad enough, but at least those artists tend to have control since the actual investment is only really their salaries), and decided to impress that upon film. People were ridiculously excited for Love & Thunder after Ragnarok, and everyone's opinion I've heard on why that flopped came down to targeting 4 quadrants instead of just making something for the people who loved the "first" one.
You think it's ridiculous to demand our cars be art, I think that sounds pretty swell. I'd love for that market not to be left to the kinds of powers that gave us the 2010s Ford Fusion or the Kia/Hyundai immobilizer scandal. That's never going to happen, and that's why it's absurd to you. Why isn't it going to happen? Because cars are made of things, and there are clear and undeniable economies of scale that make a neighborhood custom car shop rare at best.
This doesn't apply to movies or any other form of art, really. Sure, CGI requires investment, but humans have been watching stage plays for millennia, we can tolerate less-than-entirely-CGI sets, and if you haven't seen the SFX for low budget movies lately, you might overestimate the floor there. We have millions of people who could be writing screenplays of similar-or-higher quality to the standard we demand. We have millions of people who could be pointing a camera, or cutting film, or directing. But we have this market that only admits the established, high-budget players. Even "indie" movies that make it to the theater are almost uniformly backed by a major distributor who's deeply ingrained in that studio system.
Why is our society pouring so much money into individual projects that are "marketable to everyone" when we could instead have more niche works that better entertain their target audience? It always comes back to the first-mover advantage.
That dynamic, and the fact that more and more resources are being funneled into Disney in particular, is why the art of it all matters. If the actual artists (from the director to the extras to the set designers and gaffers) are entirely interchangeable, like it's clear Disney would prefer, then there's no art that actually moves people, and nobody will be interested in it for reasons outside of profit. Personally, that sounds bad. I don't care if 99% of movies are "lower quality" than I prefer, what I care about is that anybody in the world cares about them. Otherwise we're just wasting time and giving our money to Disney for the pleasure.
I absolutely love how well thought out your response to my comment is. I agree with you for a good chunk your response, but I also think you may be sidestepping the point of what I was driving at....
You think it's ridiculous to demand our cars be art, I think that sounds pretty swell.
I absolutely love how well thought out your response to my comment is. I agree with you for a good chunk your response, but I also think you may be sidestepping the point of what I was driving at. It's not entirely that I think it's ridiculous to demand our cars be art, it's that it is an unrealistic standard, decreed from on high. One that the average person can not aspire to in their daily life. At the end of the day, our cars have to get us from point A to point B safely, and quickly, and that's really all. If they can not do that, then they are not cars. They can be works of art. There are also old cars that do not function as vehicles that are in museums, and other cars that have been decorated to become new works of art having little to do with their creation as cars, but none of those things are mutually exclusive.
More simply, my driving force for a response is this: Are movies inherently art? Not in and of themselves, no. No medium is always art, and no medium can only be used for art, and trying to claim that it must be, or should be, or even that it is better as art, is not helpful to the medium. Are all things made of wood art? Are all things put to paper with a pencil art? No, they are not. Can Art be made as a movie? Of course it can! Literally anything can be a form of art. But that is entirely up to the creator, in my opinion. And, oftentimes, the audience as well.
I would argue instead that everything we make is inherently art, and it's only when we systematize processes and assert a correct method or result in service of a practical purpose that it becomes...
I would argue instead that everything we make is inherently art, and it's only when we systematize processes and assert a correct method or result in service of a practical purpose that it becomes "craft". That's why I walked through how the limitations of the craft of filmmaking are hardly a limiting factor. The definition of art you're working on is the one I attempted to build off. Fundamentally, the work of a film is to entertain, and the more you care about a film, the more entertaining it can be. If you don't care at all, there's no suspension of disbelief, there's no weight of the story, the characters may as well be sparkly sockpuppets. At that point, why aren't we just sitting around making shadow theater at home?
They care because they're gatekeeping art, because art is elevated and prestigious and worthy, while mere craft is low and common and can only be critiqued on its objective, functional qualities....
They care because they're gatekeeping art, because art is elevated and prestigious and worthy, while mere craft is low and common and can only be critiqued on its objective, functional qualities.
Your perspective is where most people should stand. You watch a movie to be entertained, you choose a painting for your wall because it's pretty, you listen to a song because it's catchy - your media choice makes you feel something. Doesn't really matter if it's the Mona Lisa or the photo that came in the frame.
I would argue that nowadays the broad notion of "art" is largely useless, and only tend to surface on exclusionary discourse. I simply avoid using the word.
I would argue that nowadays the broad notion of "art" is largely useless, and only tend to surface on exclusionary discourse. I simply avoid using the word.
They all may be art by some definition, but what's become harder for me to ignore is how each of these movies act as a "product". Yes, the motivation to produce any movie or tv show or other media...
They all may be art by some definition, but what's become harder for me to ignore is how each of these movies act as a "product".
Yes, the motivation to produce any movie or tv show or other media thing is to make money, but there are ways of doing this without leaving a terrible, artificial taste in my mouth. A movie should feel like a story worth telling, not a 90-minute advertisement for t-shirts and Funko Pops. Of course, media franchises have been trying to balance this since before I was born, but it's not my fault if I'm getting off-put by the last few years of Marvel.
I'm not disputing the fact that it's hard to ignore the way these movies are products, and I too have been off-put by the last few years of Marvel. But there is no coherent definition of art that...
I'm not disputing the fact that it's hard to ignore the way these movies are products, and I too have been off-put by the last few years of Marvel. But there is no coherent definition of art that excludes "movies that feel too commercial". Criticizing them for feeling like advertisements is valid -- but it's valid art criticism.
Yes, but what I'm trying to say is that they don't HAVE to be. Just like a burger can be both a cheap fastfood junk food and a gourmet, Michelin-starred meal, I think we can have ambitious, artful...
These movies, in almost every case, are crafted to draw in the largest possible audience. That is the very reason they are so milquetoast and have little artistry.
Yes, but what I'm trying to say is that they don't HAVE to be. Just like a burger can be both a cheap fastfood junk food and a gourmet, Michelin-starred meal, I think we can have ambitious, artful and complicated movies in any genre. I see no reason why human drama couldn't be shown alongside advanced CGI, or as a cartoon. In fact, I thing it would be an interesting experiment, and if love to see it on the big screen. Multiple times, probably, because thoughtful complicated movies often get even better with repeated viewings.
I do not feel insulted or slighted in any way - just as I can have instant noodles for lunch and then go to a Michelin starred restaurant for dinner (and enjoy both in their own way) or read both comic books and Dostoyevsky, I can enjoy both art cinema and superhero romps. The only thing that annoys me is when fans of "high" culture shit on the mass market one without offering any solutions apart from "either join me on my high horse, or stay in the mud with the rest of the unwashed masses."
Of course, popular culture or food will by definition always be enjoyed by more people than their revised counterparts, but there's no reason why it needs to be this polarized, and combining the two could offer a gateway for people from the popular end of the spectrum that have been misled to think that anything more high class is boring, pretentious and bland, and the ones on the opposite end that are equally misled to consider anything less than high concept art to automatically be pedestrian, simplistic and unworthy to meet somewhere in between and maybe even enjoy some things together...
Intentional or not, you are. You're creating a subjective definition of art, adding value to that definition and then drawing a line between what is art and what is subpar for those who enjoy a...
Nobody is insulting or denigrating you
Intentional or not, you are. You're creating a subjective definition of art, adding value to that definition and then drawing a line between what is art and what is subpar for those who enjoy a bit of cinematic onanism.
I'm not defending MCU/Disney/Lucasfilms/etc (I've been burnt out for a long time, even as someone who grew up loving comic books) but at the same time, I'm finding it hard to believe that the existence of these franchises and powerhouses are some how interfering with the ability for people like Scorsese and Nolan to make "art films".
Whatever definition one uses for "art film", there clearly is an audience. Look at the reception for and financial success of recent movies like Everything Everywhere All At Once, Coda, Nomadland, Sound of Metal, Power of the Dog, etc. With streaming, I no longer have to find a random indie theater to watch some of these films. It's not to say certain types of films aren't dying, I think of French arthouse films but to whenever someone like Scorsese complains about Marvel et al, it feels more like general old man whinging about the "dumbing of America" , which... whatever. No one is stopping Scorsese from putting out 4 hr long movies and audiences are watching his films.
"Art film" is essentially defined by some quality which is in opposition to "commercial film". So, while it is not a traditional genre, it is a genre nonetheless. It is an "oppositional genre"....
"Art film" is essentially defined by some quality which is in opposition to "commercial film". So, while it is not a traditional genre, it is a genre nonetheless. It is an "oppositional genre". For example, in 1951 western was commercial junk. Nowadays, it is "art".
A good rule of thumb is that mainstream film historically evolved to a lower ASL (average shot length), while "art film" often poses a very clear distinction by maintaining a much higher ASL. So art films tend to feel "slow" and contemplative.
But if Scorcese and Nolan and a handful of other established directors are the only ones making these types of films, what happens when they retire or pass away? They aren't letting new directors...
But if Scorcese and Nolan and a handful of other established directors are the only ones making these types of films, what happens when they retire or pass away?
They aren't letting new directors try these things. There aren't any rising artist directors. Everyone you could consider this style of director has been making films for decades and rather than take a risk on new artists and ideas, the studios would rather make something safe to guarantee their money back (or at least they think will guarantee it).
In 20-30 years there won't be anymore art films being made because the only people allowed will be dead or retired and no one new is being allowed that leniency because it's a risk and the studios don't care as long as they make their money.
Yes they are, and yes there is. Nicolas Winding Refn, Denis Villeneuve, Robert Eggers, Darren Aronofsky, Alejandro Inarritu, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jordan Peele, David Lowery, Bong Joon-ho... the...
They aren't letting new directors try these things. There aren't any rising artist directors.
Yes they are, and yes there is. Nicolas Winding Refn, Denis Villeneuve, Robert Eggers, Darren Aronofsky, Alejandro Inarritu, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jordan Peele, David Lowery, Bong Joon-ho... the list goes on and on, often with A24, IFC Films, Magnolia Pictures, Bleecker Street, Criterion Collection / Janus Films, Blumhouse, and a bunch of other smaller or foreign distributors/production companies leading the way.
IMO the only people who think classic auteur director cinema is dying, and there are no upcoming artist directors, are people who only watch big studio produced movies, and don't actually watch many arthouse or foreign films so are totally out of touch with that more creative and flourishing side of the industry. We're currently in a mid-budget arthouse and foreign film renaissance, so all the negativity coming from the likes of Scorsese et al. genuinely pisses me off. It's so insanely out of touch with what is actually happening in the overarching filmmaking landscape.
Wait what, really? Do the Daniels not exist? Lulu Wang? Chloe Zhao? Sian Hader? Cooper Raff? Charlotte Wells? Kogonada? These are all directors telling new stories and are arguably rising. Even...
Wait what, really? Do the Daniels not exist? Lulu Wang? Chloe Zhao? Sian Hader? Cooper Raff? Charlotte Wells? Kogonada? These are all directors telling new stories and are arguably rising.
Even more established directors like Denis Villeneuve, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, Taika Waititi, Ryan Coogler, Barry Jenkins, Bong Joon-ho, Darren Aronofsky, handsome man Bradley Cooper, George Miller, Alex Garland, Edgar Wright, Jordan Peele, Greta Gerwig, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Fucking Anderson, etc.
I've seen films from every single one of these directors in the past few years and each of them have released some absolute bangers that have been incredibly well received and broadly speaking, they all fit the mold of art films and hugely creative endeavors.
Where is this idea that "they" arent' letting new directors try these things? They may not be making movies you are familiar with or you typically enjoy but one simply has to look at nominees during award season to see just how many up and coming directors are telling fantastic new stories.
I agree with you, just to be clear. But that part there, what I've found is the people who rail against populist fare often, somehow, somewhere in themselves, feel that if the "populist crap" they...
hard to believe that the existence of these franchises and powerhouses are some how interfering with the ability for people like Scorsese and Nolan to make "art films"
I agree with you, just to be clear. But that part there, what I've found is the people who rail against populist fare often, somehow, somewhere in themselves, feel that if the "populist crap" they despise so much could be made to cease to exist, all the resources required to produce it would be immediately funneled into projects they love.
In other words, they often tend to assume destroying what they hate will lift up what they love. By waving a wand and wisking Marvel out of existence, a legion of art house directors will suddenly be handed dream budgets for their dream projects. A thought that tends to make the anti-populists quite dreamy.
Every single time you see someone bitching about a segment of the creative industry, a genre or whatever, you can always, always, always boil their complaints down to include this key conclusion they're drawing. Even if they don't admit it, or try to talk around it.
Namely, that they want more stuff they personally like and approve of made. Some people have gone to film school, or studied critique academically, or have otherwise figured out how to dress their "arguments" up to sound learned. But when you look, you can usually see how they really just want more of their shit, which usually means (in their minds) less of other shit has to be made.
Creativity, even creativity funded by ticket sales which will always lean heavily on the taste of the ticket-buying public, is not zero sum. If multiple "good" movies come out, people just watch them in sequence. Movies that get buzz usually rise out of the background noise. That's why we say they have buzz. It pisses anti-populists off that narrowly crafted, audience limited stories don't have broader appeal.
Which is funny, if you think about it, because so many anti-populists love to play the "I'm smarter than you" card. So you'd think they'd understand that creating stories with a limited appeal ... limits how many people might be willing to pay for them. I know, rocket science right?
Oh yea, 100% understand this and probably propagated a lot of "anti-populist" thinking and rage particularly when it comes to music. Like why isn't this 90s alt rock/shoegaze revival band more...
Oh yea, 100% understand this and probably propagated a lot of "anti-populist" thinking and rage particularly when it comes to music. Like why isn't this 90s alt rock/shoegaze revival band more popular than Taylor Swift or Ice Spice !?!? WHAT'S WRONG WITH SOCIETY????
But as I've grown older I've intentionally tried to tamp down that thinking, especially given how accessible music has become. No more days of sitting by the radio listening to college radio hoping to hear a song I love or pirating some unknown file off Napster. I think the same thing can be said for movies : is "Fast 15 : Family Reunion" or "Avengers : The Revenging Pt 2 Book 1" really bothering me when I'm trying to watch "Past Lives"? Not really and honestly, I'll probably check out some of these movies and like let people have their fun, it detracts nothing from what I enjoy.
Like you said, creativity isn't zero sum and the accessibility of fantastic films for narrowly crafted audiences are more plentiful and easily accessible than what we had years ago.
I was going to make the same argument, but, curiously, the part I disagree with you was the basis of mine. I believe the problem is that people don't really watch multiple good movies in sequence....
I was going to make the same argument, but, curiously, the part I disagree with you was the basis of mine. I believe the problem is that people don't really watch multiple good movies in sequence. And, given the option, they will go with what's familiar.
Maybe, part of the issue is the high praise for a mega franchise affects their identities. For instance, when I see someone saying Endgame is the best movie of all time, I really get confused. Any other movie before wouldn't bother me, but I just can't understand the thought. Then you have these people that dedicated their lives to the craft and now have to deal with a cultural shift nobody expected. Other parts are elitism and their egos getting hurt, and the media exposing personal opinions as grand declarations.
That's a unique definition for "art". But I feel that's exactly why Civil War and Infinity War were some of the most well resonated marvel films, given the subject of critique here. Civil war had...
It's just not art, and that's what we're concerned about—the ability for artists to make truly meaningful experiences for mature audiences
That's a unique definition for "art".
But I feel that's exactly why Civil War and Infinity War were some of the most well resonated marvel films, given the subject of critique here. Civil war had two understandable philosophies butting heads and Infinity war had a more traditional "human vs villian" arc that was slowly torn apart by various factors instead of coming together to overcome evil. I don't know if they are "art" because I feel we'll never align on such a definition, but I'd say there were definitely a few meaningful experiences within that very franchise.
Can you offer a reason why we shouldn't speak up about the slow death of art films (and other media) at the hand of corporate boards who only care about the bottom line?
I feel this and their point aren't orthogonal. I see no reason to treat it as an opposiing point. The ability to reach out to specific audiences (in this case, an older one) and the ability to tell "hard" stories are both quashed for the same reason you describe. It's a shame that many in media treat them as such .
Postal. Yes, it's directed by Uwe Boll, and yes, the plot leaves something to be desired, but milquetoast it is most definitely not. Enjoy.
These movies, in almost every case, are crafted to draw in the largest possible audience. That is the very reason they are so milquetoast and have little artistry.
Postal. Yes, it's directed by Uwe Boll, and yes, the plot leaves something to be desired, but milquetoast it is most definitely not. Enjoy.
I watched the first few minutes of it. Funnyish. It seemed familiar, so maybe I have seen it before. By coincidence, earlier I watched AD/BC by Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade. They seemed to have a...
I watched the first few minutes of it. Funnyish. It seemed familiar, so maybe I have seen it before.
By coincidence, earlier I watched AD/BC by Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade. They seemed to have a very similar energy
This remains one of my top ten movies, mostly because Zach Ward absolutely hams it up as the Postal Dude. It is the weirdest, strangest, most out there translation of a video game to the big...
This remains one of my top ten movies, mostly because Zach Ward absolutely hams it up as the Postal Dude.
It is the weirdest, strangest, most out there translation of a video game to the big screen I have ever watched. It's grotesque, gratuitous and goddamn hilarious when you realise the atmosphere it was written and produced in (2006/2007).
The game is such a sardonic slog that rips into just about every aspect of 2000s culture. The movie taps into it in such a glorious way to the point of ramping it up to eleven in at least two instances that make you wide-eyed go "Fuck me" and laugh.
I would love to see that but I'm assuming the likes of Marvel and DC are far too interested in maintaining close to 100% creative control over their products, and someone like Scorsese would...
Wouldn't THAT be a challenge for Scorsese and others in the I am an artiste, and the popular culture is trash and beyond me camp? Why don't you actually adapt a videogame or a comic movie and show everyone how it's done? Why won't you even try to try and lead the Marvel enjoying crowds towards what you consider more ambitious or artful?
I would love to see that but I'm assuming the likes of Marvel and DC are far too interested in maintaining close to 100% creative control over their products, and someone like Scorsese would (rightly) insist on getting to do whatever he wants.
I would actually point to Blade Runner 2049 as an example of it being done right. It's not a comic or videogame movie of course, but I feel like it's close enough in terms of genre - if that makes sense? Anyway as great an auteur Villeneuve is, it flopped at the box office and I imagine the likes of Disney look to movies like that and think that well, there's no point trying to make an actually good movie when audiences are still coming to watch the next installment of Ant-Man (or whatever) that made almost half a billion dollars worldwide
I rightly think this is the real issue here. There's nothing inherent about superhero films or comic book movies or videogame movies that make them incapable of being amazing movies. The problem...
I rightly think this is the real issue here. There's nothing inherent about superhero films or comic book movies or videogame movies that make them incapable of being amazing movies. The problem is that the owners of the intellectual property are prioritizing safe, inoffensive content that appeals to the broadest possible audience over taking artistic risks. This is inevitable with most commercial art, but it's becmoe particularly grating with the sheer number of quite-similar Marvel movies and the way they subsume the occasional interesting directoral decision into the rest of the series by rule afterwards.
God I wish we'd get more movies like Blade Runner 2049. Such a great movie.
Indeed, we've already seen other major directors get dropped from MCU and Star Wars movies over creative differences (Edgar Wright, Lord & Miller), and other directors and actors expressed...
Indeed, we've already seen other major directors get dropped from MCU and Star Wars movies over creative differences (Edgar Wright, Lord & Miller), and other directors and actors expressed hesitancy or a reluctance to work under such conditions. Even Chris Evans, in a recent GQ interview, alluded to it (in a very genial and diplomatic way).
But even if this wasn't a factor, there doesn't seem to be much guarantee that the kinds of audiences who go for MCU movies would 100% go for something more artful. That just doesn't seem to be the kind of movie that audience wants, and a lot of the audience responses to MCU movies reflects that. And if the test is something a bit more artful but from a similar source, we can look at Villenueve's latest, Dune. That one was a big box office success, based off a classic sci-fi book, and done in an artful way that eschews a lot of blockbuster expectations and construction. But did it snatch the MCU audience? It grossed as much as the Eternals, the MCU's worst performing movie, so probably not.
There is clearly a change in the general audience taste in movies. Blockbusters have always been blockbusters but I remember in the 90s that everyone wanted to see the new movie by David Fincher...
There is clearly a change in the general audience taste in movies. Blockbusters have always been blockbusters but I remember in the 90s that everyone wanted to see the new movie by David Fincher for example. Now I how to find an arthouse cinema to see his latest film. A director name on the poster doesn't sell tickets anymore - with a few exceptions like Nolan. There is a space between arthouse indie films and massive blockbusters that seems to have shrunk in size in recent years. The habits of going to the theater has simply changed, so I don't think anything will replace the ticket sales of MCU movies. There will likely just be fewer tickets sold overall.
Was going to hope The Last Airbender can dash those doubts away. Instead it's more or less the poster child for why people are so afraid of adapting comic/anime stuff into live action. But if you...
Who said thar a videogame movie can't be "movies for adults, with supple scripts, great acting, and true human drama"?
Was going to hope The Last Airbender can dash those doubts away. Instead it's more or less the poster child for why people are so afraid of adapting comic/anime stuff into live action.
But if you want a wonderful deep dive into how this potential "market" was squandered decades ago, there was a good deep dive I need to dig up on it. The short of it is: The X rating and Comic Code Authority initiatives killed the few successful pieces of adult animated cinema in the 70's and then the Simpsons and (later) Family Guy/South Park set the tone for adult TV animation to be comedic instead of earnest.
This feels kind of like that time a pirate movie flopped in the 90s and every studio swore they were unpopular and unfilmable, and then Pirates of the Caribbean came out. The Last Airbender was a...
This feels kind of like that time a pirate movie flopped in the 90s and every studio swore they were unpopular and unfilmable, and then Pirates of the Caribbean came out.
The Last Airbender was a problem because it was basically a bad clip show that fundamentally misunderstood or ignored the appeal and world-crafting of the series it drew from. I'd argue it's more the poster child for trying to find a project you think will be popular instead of one you care about.
Yes 'failed' adaptations to live action are a dime a dozen, from books or from comics/anime. But that doesn't mean there aren't or can't be great adaptations like Lord of the Rings or Dredd or One Piece.
I think it definitely went further than simply misunderstanding. They couldn't even bother to get the pronunciations of the characters' names right, or find appropriate actors to properly...
I think it definitely went further than simply misunderstanding. They couldn't even bother to get the pronunciations of the characters' names right, or find appropriate actors to properly represent their ethnicities... that's how little of a shit they gave about the actual source material. I still cringe every time I think about them repeatedly calling the lead character "Ohng" instead of "Aang". Like, how did a serious filmmaker like Shyamalan manage to fuck up something that simple (and fundamental) about the lead character in their adaptation? It's truly mind-boggling how horrible that movie was, especially given its $150M budget.
Calm your ass down. This is probably the most arrogant and pretentious piece of writing about the MCU I've read in a while. He's acting as if the MCU and whatever boogeyman comes after it will...
The real problem isn’t, and never has been, “the junk that Hollywood makes” (as if we were all being force-fed). It’s the junk that Hollywood makes because audiences vote for those movies with their ticket dollars.... Can movies back off not just from comic books but from the narcotic lure of compulsive fantasy, and return to something that looks more like the real world?
Calm your ass down. This is probably the most arrogant and pretentious piece of writing about the MCU I've read in a while. He's acting as if the MCU and whatever boogeyman comes after it will destroy movies as "he knows it" while completely ignoring that distributor/production houses like A24, Searchlight, Annapurna, etc. are putting out absolute cinematic bangers over the exact same period that MCU has dominated popular culture. He's acting as if a producer went up to Scorsese was like, "Marty, listen, you can't make your next 4 hr long movie because we need to film a 4th Incredible Hulk reboot".
Like I'm 100% burned out with all the MCU/Disney pablum and the fact that so many other companies are trying to establish cinematic universes. But I feel I've seen more great movies more easily that "look like the real world" in the age of MCU than ever before. Like there's enough of hunger for both : just let people have their fun, it's not hurting anyone.
I think like everything, you have to dig. Corporate investment vehicles don't take risks A video game, a movie, a book, it'll be good, not great. For something that is great for me it has a strong...
I think like everything, you have to dig. Corporate investment vehicles don't take risks A video game, a movie, a book, it'll be good, not great. For something that is great for me it has a strong potential to be repulsive to another person. Good is good for all, which is why it can't be great. Great is weird and different but if it is the right weird and different it'll live in your mind for life, but it'll also send ppl off to so something else just as fast. That is why they don't ever go for great, they want return in investment.
But it is easier than ever to record and distribute a movie, the whole making money and getting people to wqech part is the hard part. I have more skin in the video game market personally but I see this kind of stuff there too. Big studio looks amazing but is boring almost always. Small indy teams are interesting but hard to wade through the trash and they won't ever have the production of a big studio. There are game types that onlyive in indie space and they will never have a triple a glean on them. I imagine movies are the same, the unique are there but hard to find and won't have the production of a big studio.
I think it just is the way it is, corporations don't make art, they make money. If they do make art, an artist snuck in under the radar and tricked them into it. Lord of the rings is the perfect example. Original trilogy was kinda doing its own thing, makes a near perfect trilogy (imho) then exploded in money making. Result is the shit show that was the hobbit trilogy as it has visibility and people expect it to make money.
I don't honestly see a solution besides being lucky enough for a corporate project maker to have a passion for making art and still have creative control. That's a rare case and they are usually home grown from indie to rich person before that happens.
I think it's easy to forget that we're already in the midst of a major change in cinema. People aren't as interested in going to a theater as they used to be. The wait between a movie being...
I think it's easy to forget that we're already in the midst of a major change in cinema. People aren't as interested in going to a theater as they used to be.
The wait between a movie being released in the theater and being available on my TV has been drastically reduced. COVID really sped this along when studios felt forced to make their films available over streaming. The multi year wait to see a movie for cheap is gone. Most movies are available to rent for ~$20 within a week of their release. That's less than the price of two tickets in a first run theater where I live, and it won't be long before you can rent it for less than $5.
This has pushed the big movie houses to prioritize what they see as sure things to make lots of money. While a few films do force a longer wait before streaming, they're now the outliers.
At the same time, the streaming services are now paying decent prices for independent work. SAG has a framework for making low budget movies. Canada will throw money at anyone who wants to make a film that qualifies as a "Canadian Production". Some US cities have similar programs, though with smaller budgets. Anyone can make a film with a phone and some friends. The horror themed 48 hour film fest in my city filled completely up in early September. I've been to a lot of them, there are always 2-3 that are quite good.
There are a lot of films out there whose main problems are marketing and that their only available platform is YouTube. A24 is a great example of an organization giving previously unknown creaters a wide audience, I'm hopeful more companies like that will come along.
I'm not sure I fully agree. I agree that making "great for all" is extremely hard and the number of examples in history can be counted on your hands. But good and great aren't necessarily...
Good is good for all, which is why it can't be great
I'm not sure I fully agree. I agree that making "great for all" is extremely hard and the number of examples in history can be counted on your hands. But good and great aren't necessarily exclusionary.
I don't honestly see a solution besides being lucky enough for a corporate project maker to have a passion for making art and still have creative control
eccentric billionaire are even rarer but exist. In a few decades' time millenials will retire and those will be ones that grew up with video games, saw the rise of the internet as a young adult, and enjoyed a variety of different media (anime, Interactive Fiction/Visual Novels, MUDs, MMOs/social games) compared to the previous Gen X/boomer generation. It'll be interesting to see what influences such talent as time goes on.
While I think this is important and interesting to discuss the future for cinema, this "article" doesn't really add anything substantial insight to this topic. It is nothing more than a rant...
While I think this is important and interesting to discuss the future for cinema, this "article" doesn't really add anything substantial insight to this topic. It is nothing more than a rant without any clear direction.
I also think these debates also often misses the mark and becomes an unproductive argument on who has the better taste in movies. There is nothing wrong with Marvel movies in itself. There are not better or worse movies as such, and I think that is also the point Scorsese has - though he seems to be either misquoted or he poorly explains himself. The problem is not with the movies themselves, but the entire industry around it that pushes other types of movies out. It has been said a hundred times before, but the midtier/midbudget movies are the losers in this. Small indie and arthouse studios are actually thriving in my opinion, and tons of interesting things is happening in that space. But the industry around the cinematic universes productions takes up a ton of money and people, which makes it harder for up and coming directors to take risks and try something new within a decently sized production. Movies like Fight Club, Forrest Gump or Apocalypse Now could be examples of such movies, and I don't see much room for those kind of productions.
Also with the last 10 years of cinematic blockbusters, the industry has created sort of expectation that going to theaters should be a 3 hour action spectacle. What happens if those kind of movies don't draw the same audience anymore? Will people go back to watching regular 2 hour drama movies in theaters again? There is little room for new directors to develop their craft in this production heavy system where the industry doesn't want to take any risk because they need a proper ROI on their massive budgets.
Wow, this is such a selective and biased view of the cinema landscape. It's a screed written for people who judge storytelling by genre rather than quality of content or realization. As it...
Wow, this is such a selective and biased view of the cinema landscape. It's a screed written for people who judge storytelling by genre rather than quality of content or realization.
As it happens, we just re-watched Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse as a prelude to Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse. Spouse was never a comics fan, and he's now determined to slow-watch the whole thing frame-by-frame the next time I'm on the road. I'm by no means an expert on the whole gamut of the Spandex-and-capes legacy, but even I'm sitting there going "Was that Bill Sienkiewicz?" and losing the thought a second later when there's another arresting visual/action/dialogue/drama moment.
But Spiderverse is also an example of a potentially threatening trend both in film-making and the real world. There's less apparent space for auteurs, for singular pure visions that are the products of one person's ego-drive. Spiderverse was the effort of a very big team. Invention in science, technology, and the arts, has almost always been the result of teamwork and accumulated discovery. Singular auteurs are losing their value as brands for marketing purposes - "Scorcese" really is competing with "Marvel". Team creativity doesn't have to be a series of bland compromises, a gaggle of people digging shallow holes because they don't have a mad dictator demanding they go deeper.
Gotta stop and go to work, but cogitate on this take and LMK if I'm on to something or just overcaffeinated.
First, let me nitpick the unnecessarily flowery writing style, because this sentence made me physically recoil:
"There had been antecedents, of course. In hindsight, much of our fantasy culture sprung from the loins of J.R.R. Tolkien."
Ugh, loins? Of a man? Pretty sure he wasn't spraying anything out of his loins, gross.
Anyway, pointless rambling aside, the unnecessary opposition of "good cinema" and "comic book/videogame movies" (with a fometely unnecessary jab about how the latter are for children) greatly annoys me. Who said thar a videogame movie can't be "movies for adults, with supple scripts, great acting, and true human drama"?
Wouldn't THAT be a challenge for Scorsese and others in the I am an artiste, and the popular culture is trash and beyond me camp? Why don't you actually adapt a videogame or a comic movie and show everyone how it's done? Why won't you even try to try and lead the Marvel enjoying crowds towards what you consider more ambitious or artful?
It's easy to hurl critique down into the crowds from ivory towers, but I think maybe opening the doors and letting people peek inside may be a better solution...
I'll translate that into something that can actually be true: "it is not the kind of art which I believe is valuable".
Conflating art with subjective notions of quality is a very common mistake.
And saying that what I enjoy is not art actually is not only lazy and incorrect, it is also inherently insulting and elitist.
You can probably make much of the same points without falling for that.
Even as someone who isn't enjoying these movies much anymore, the idea that "it's not art" is just absurd. Popular art is still art. Commercial art is still art. There's so much to criticize about these movies, but that doesn't make them "not art" -- criticizing them is art criticism!
"What is art" is the corollary to Jacobellis v Ohio's "What is pornography" - "I know it when I see it."
In college I took a philosophy class called Aesthetics where the entire point was to explore answering the question of what is art. The answer is, of course, that there is no answer. If someone claims that something isn't art, they can usually be ignored. Most of the time, that sort of statement is just a gut-reaction snobby put down, and they don't really want to actually talk about what actually constitutes art.
Edit: there isn't really no answer; rather, there are a lot of ways to approach the question, and whether or not something qualifies as art for you will depend on how you approach the problem of aesthetics.
Your post certainly got me thinking one thing: why do the authors of articles like this even care if something is art or not? They insinuate that I am only allowed to watch art, and the very notion that calling something "not art" is an insult perpetuates that idea.
I don't actually care if it's art or not. I just want to be entertained for a little while with my friends and family. You may as well say that we can only drive cars that qualify as works of art, or that listen to things that are art. No, my car horn isn't art and the idea that it should be is absurd. They can be but that's not the purpose.
So, the thinking you've outlined here is exactly what the author is afraid of. You just want to be entertained. Which is obviously fine, that's why art exists. What I'm about to go into is not a comment on any individual's priorities. The issue is: that is not why art is made. No person wants to spend time making something that nobody will remember an hour later. Not a screenwriter or director, not an actor, not an editor, not a painter, or a poet or comedian, none of them want to make things nobody cares about. You know who does? The publishers and production companies. Fungibility in product is necessary for a business to be safe from:
There are, of course, millions of snobs happy to attack "low-quality" films as "not art". Your response is 100% fair to that. Fuck those people, I say as someone that most would label one of them.
The issue with the MCU is that each movie is not created by the people hired to make it. The screenwriters are handed a sheet with the arcs they need to hit, the director has Feige's hand on their shoulder the entire time, and the vision of the director and editors is always secondary to the marketing division's projections. That is almost as close as you can get to literal "not art". It still is art, but it's obviously made exclusively for profitability, and that's led to unpleasant outcomes for the sake of enjoyment already. People are pressured to see each one, or they won't be able to keep up with friends, let alone if they miss three, then they won't be able to even follow the next one in the theater. Disney loved the churn of the comics industry (which is sad enough, but at least those artists tend to have control since the actual investment is only really their salaries), and decided to impress that upon film. People were ridiculously excited for Love & Thunder after Ragnarok, and everyone's opinion I've heard on why that flopped came down to targeting 4 quadrants instead of just making something for the people who loved the "first" one.
You think it's ridiculous to demand our cars be art, I think that sounds pretty swell. I'd love for that market not to be left to the kinds of powers that gave us the 2010s Ford Fusion or the Kia/Hyundai immobilizer scandal. That's never going to happen, and that's why it's absurd to you. Why isn't it going to happen? Because cars are made of things, and there are clear and undeniable economies of scale that make a neighborhood custom car shop rare at best.
This doesn't apply to movies or any other form of art, really. Sure, CGI requires investment, but humans have been watching stage plays for millennia, we can tolerate less-than-entirely-CGI sets, and if you haven't seen the SFX for low budget movies lately, you might overestimate the floor there. We have millions of people who could be writing screenplays of similar-or-higher quality to the standard we demand. We have millions of people who could be pointing a camera, or cutting film, or directing. But we have this market that only admits the established, high-budget players. Even "indie" movies that make it to the theater are almost uniformly backed by a major distributor who's deeply ingrained in that studio system.
Why is our society pouring so much money into individual projects that are "marketable to everyone" when we could instead have more niche works that better entertain their target audience? It always comes back to the first-mover advantage.
That dynamic, and the fact that more and more resources are being funneled into Disney in particular, is why the art of it all matters. If the actual artists (from the director to the extras to the set designers and gaffers) are entirely interchangeable, like it's clear Disney would prefer, then there's no art that actually moves people, and nobody will be interested in it for reasons outside of profit. Personally, that sounds bad. I don't care if 99% of movies are "lower quality" than I prefer, what I care about is that anybody in the world cares about them. Otherwise we're just wasting time and giving our money to Disney for the pleasure.
I absolutely love how well thought out your response to my comment is. I agree with you for a good chunk your response, but I also think you may be sidestepping the point of what I was driving at. It's not entirely that I think it's ridiculous to demand our cars be art, it's that it is an unrealistic standard, decreed from on high. One that the average person can not aspire to in their daily life. At the end of the day, our cars have to get us from point A to point B safely, and quickly, and that's really all. If they can not do that, then they are not cars. They can be works of art. There are also old cars that do not function as vehicles that are in museums, and other cars that have been decorated to become new works of art having little to do with their creation as cars, but none of those things are mutually exclusive.
More simply, my driving force for a response is this: Are movies inherently art? Not in and of themselves, no. No medium is always art, and no medium can only be used for art, and trying to claim that it must be, or should be, or even that it is better as art, is not helpful to the medium. Are all things made of wood art? Are all things put to paper with a pencil art? No, they are not. Can Art be made as a movie? Of course it can! Literally anything can be a form of art. But that is entirely up to the creator, in my opinion. And, oftentimes, the audience as well.
I would argue instead that everything we make is inherently art, and it's only when we systematize processes and assert a correct method or result in service of a practical purpose that it becomes "craft". That's why I walked through how the limitations of the craft of filmmaking are hardly a limiting factor. The definition of art you're working on is the one I attempted to build off. Fundamentally, the work of a film is to entertain, and the more you care about a film, the more entertaining it can be. If you don't care at all, there's no suspension of disbelief, there's no weight of the story, the characters may as well be sparkly sockpuppets. At that point, why aren't we just sitting around making shadow theater at home?
They care because they're gatekeeping art, because art is elevated and prestigious and worthy, while mere craft is low and common and can only be critiqued on its objective, functional qualities.
Your perspective is where most people should stand. You watch a movie to be entertained, you choose a painting for your wall because it's pretty, you listen to a song because it's catchy - your media choice makes you feel something. Doesn't really matter if it's the Mona Lisa or the photo that came in the frame.
I would argue that nowadays the broad notion of "art" is largely useless, and only tend to surface on exclusionary discourse. I simply avoid using the word.
Minor nitpick: “I know it when I see it” comes from Jacobellis v. Ohio, not the Miller case.
Oops! Thanks for the correction!
They all may be art by some definition, but what's become harder for me to ignore is how each of these movies act as a "product".
Yes, the motivation to produce any movie or tv show or other media thing is to make money, but there are ways of doing this without leaving a terrible, artificial taste in my mouth. A movie should feel like a story worth telling, not a 90-minute advertisement for t-shirts and Funko Pops. Of course, media franchises have been trying to balance this since before I was born, but it's not my fault if I'm getting off-put by the last few years of Marvel.
I'm not disputing the fact that it's hard to ignore the way these movies are products, and I too have been off-put by the last few years of Marvel. But there is no coherent definition of art that excludes "movies that feel too commercial". Criticizing them for feeling like advertisements is valid -- but it's valid art criticism.
It's not valuable though. It's forgettable, paint-by-numbers pabulum.
Yes, but what I'm trying to say is that they don't HAVE to be. Just like a burger can be both a cheap fastfood junk food and a gourmet, Michelin-starred meal, I think we can have ambitious, artful and complicated movies in any genre. I see no reason why human drama couldn't be shown alongside advanced CGI, or as a cartoon. In fact, I thing it would be an interesting experiment, and if love to see it on the big screen. Multiple times, probably, because thoughtful complicated movies often get even better with repeated viewings.
I do not feel insulted or slighted in any way - just as I can have instant noodles for lunch and then go to a Michelin starred restaurant for dinner (and enjoy both in their own way) or read both comic books and Dostoyevsky, I can enjoy both art cinema and superhero romps. The only thing that annoys me is when fans of "high" culture shit on the mass market one without offering any solutions apart from "either join me on my high horse, or stay in the mud with the rest of the unwashed masses."
Of course, popular culture or food will by definition always be enjoyed by more people than their revised counterparts, but there's no reason why it needs to be this polarized, and combining the two could offer a gateway for people from the popular end of the spectrum that have been misled to think that anything more high class is boring, pretentious and bland, and the ones on the opposite end that are equally misled to consider anything less than high concept art to automatically be pedestrian, simplistic and unworthy to meet somewhere in between and maybe even enjoy some things together...
Intentional or not, you are. You're creating a subjective definition of art, adding value to that definition and then drawing a line between what is art and what is subpar for those who enjoy a bit of cinematic onanism.
I'm not defending MCU/Disney/Lucasfilms/etc (I've been burnt out for a long time, even as someone who grew up loving comic books) but at the same time, I'm finding it hard to believe that the existence of these franchises and powerhouses are some how interfering with the ability for people like Scorsese and Nolan to make "art films".
Whatever definition one uses for "art film", there clearly is an audience. Look at the reception for and financial success of recent movies like Everything Everywhere All At Once, Coda, Nomadland, Sound of Metal, Power of the Dog, etc. With streaming, I no longer have to find a random indie theater to watch some of these films. It's not to say certain types of films aren't dying, I think of French arthouse films but to whenever someone like Scorsese complains about Marvel et al, it feels more like general old man whinging about the "dumbing of America" , which... whatever. No one is stopping Scorsese from putting out 4 hr long movies and audiences are watching his films.
"Art film" is essentially defined by some quality which is in opposition to "commercial film". So, while it is not a traditional genre, it is a genre nonetheless. It is an "oppositional genre". For example, in 1951 western was commercial junk. Nowadays, it is "art".
A good rule of thumb is that mainstream film historically evolved to a lower ASL (average shot length), while "art film" often poses a very clear distinction by maintaining a much higher ASL. So art films tend to feel "slow" and contemplative.
But if Scorcese and Nolan and a handful of other established directors are the only ones making these types of films, what happens when they retire or pass away?
They aren't letting new directors try these things. There aren't any rising artist directors. Everyone you could consider this style of director has been making films for decades and rather than take a risk on new artists and ideas, the studios would rather make something safe to guarantee their money back (or at least they think will guarantee it).
In 20-30 years there won't be anymore art films being made because the only people allowed will be dead or retired and no one new is being allowed that leniency because it's a risk and the studios don't care as long as they make their money.
Yes they are, and yes there is. Nicolas Winding Refn, Denis Villeneuve, Robert Eggers, Darren Aronofsky, Alejandro Inarritu, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jordan Peele, David Lowery, Bong Joon-ho... the list goes on and on, often with A24, IFC Films, Magnolia Pictures, Bleecker Street, Criterion Collection / Janus Films, Blumhouse, and a bunch of other smaller or foreign distributors/production companies leading the way.
IMO the only people who think classic auteur director cinema is dying, and there are no upcoming artist directors, are people who only watch big studio produced movies, and don't actually watch many arthouse or foreign films so are totally out of touch with that more creative and flourishing side of the industry. We're currently in a mid-budget arthouse and foreign film renaissance, so all the negativity coming from the likes of Scorsese et al. genuinely pisses me off. It's so insanely out of touch with what is actually happening in the overarching filmmaking landscape.
Wait what, really? Do the Daniels not exist? Lulu Wang? Chloe Zhao? Sian Hader? Cooper Raff? Charlotte Wells? Kogonada? These are all directors telling new stories and are arguably rising.
Even more established directors like Denis Villeneuve, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, Taika Waititi, Ryan Coogler, Barry Jenkins, Bong Joon-ho, Darren Aronofsky, handsome man Bradley Cooper, George Miller, Alex Garland, Edgar Wright, Jordan Peele, Greta Gerwig, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Fucking Anderson, etc.
I've seen films from every single one of these directors in the past few years and each of them have released some absolute bangers that have been incredibly well received and broadly speaking, they all fit the mold of art films and hugely creative endeavors.
Where is this idea that "they" arent' letting new directors try these things? They may not be making movies you are familiar with or you typically enjoy but one simply has to look at nominees during award season to see just how many up and coming directors are telling fantastic new stories.
I agree with you, just to be clear. But that part there, what I've found is the people who rail against populist fare often, somehow, somewhere in themselves, feel that if the "populist crap" they despise so much could be made to cease to exist, all the resources required to produce it would be immediately funneled into projects they love.
In other words, they often tend to assume destroying what they hate will lift up what they love. By waving a wand and wisking Marvel out of existence, a legion of art house directors will suddenly be handed dream budgets for their dream projects. A thought that tends to make the anti-populists quite dreamy.
Every single time you see someone bitching about a segment of the creative industry, a genre or whatever, you can always, always, always boil their complaints down to include this key conclusion they're drawing. Even if they don't admit it, or try to talk around it.
Namely, that they want more stuff they personally like and approve of made. Some people have gone to film school, or studied critique academically, or have otherwise figured out how to dress their "arguments" up to sound learned. But when you look, you can usually see how they really just want more of their shit, which usually means (in their minds) less of other shit has to be made.
Creativity, even creativity funded by ticket sales which will always lean heavily on the taste of the ticket-buying public, is not zero sum. If multiple "good" movies come out, people just watch them in sequence. Movies that get buzz usually rise out of the background noise. That's why we say they have buzz. It pisses anti-populists off that narrowly crafted, audience limited stories don't have broader appeal.
Which is funny, if you think about it, because so many anti-populists love to play the "I'm smarter than you" card. So you'd think they'd understand that creating stories with a limited appeal ... limits how many people might be willing to pay for them. I know, rocket science right?
Oh yea, 100% understand this and probably propagated a lot of "anti-populist" thinking and rage particularly when it comes to music. Like why isn't this 90s alt rock/shoegaze revival band more popular than Taylor Swift or Ice Spice !?!? WHAT'S WRONG WITH SOCIETY????
But as I've grown older I've intentionally tried to tamp down that thinking, especially given how accessible music has become. No more days of sitting by the radio listening to college radio hoping to hear a song I love or pirating some unknown file off Napster. I think the same thing can be said for movies : is "Fast 15 : Family Reunion" or "Avengers : The Revenging Pt 2 Book 1" really bothering me when I'm trying to watch "Past Lives"? Not really and honestly, I'll probably check out some of these movies and like let people have their fun, it detracts nothing from what I enjoy.
Like you said, creativity isn't zero sum and the accessibility of fantastic films for narrowly crafted audiences are more plentiful and easily accessible than what we had years ago.
This was great. What is wrong with society?!?!
I was going to make the same argument, but, curiously, the part I disagree with you was the basis of mine. I believe the problem is that people don't really watch multiple good movies in sequence. And, given the option, they will go with what's familiar.
Maybe, part of the issue is the high praise for a mega franchise affects their identities. For instance, when I see someone saying Endgame is the best movie of all time, I really get confused. Any other movie before wouldn't bother me, but I just can't understand the thought. Then you have these people that dedicated their lives to the craft and now have to deal with a cultural shift nobody expected. Other parts are elitism and their egos getting hurt, and the media exposing personal opinions as grand declarations.
That's a unique definition for "art".
But I feel that's exactly why Civil War and Infinity War were some of the most well resonated marvel films, given the subject of critique here. Civil war had two understandable philosophies butting heads and Infinity war had a more traditional "human vs villian" arc that was slowly torn apart by various factors instead of coming together to overcome evil. I don't know if they are "art" because I feel we'll never align on such a definition, but I'd say there were definitely a few meaningful experiences within that very franchise.
I feel this and their point aren't orthogonal. I see no reason to treat it as an opposiing point. The ability to reach out to specific audiences (in this case, an older one) and the ability to tell "hard" stories are both quashed for the same reason you describe. It's a shame that many in media treat them as such .
Postal. Yes, it's directed by Uwe Boll, and yes, the plot leaves something to be desired, but milquetoast it is most definitely not. Enjoy.
I watched the first few minutes of it. Funnyish. It seemed familiar, so maybe I have seen it before.
By coincidence, earlier I watched AD/BC by Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade. They seemed to have a very similar energy
How have I not seen that!? That was wonderful. Richard Ayoade steals the show as always.
This remains one of my top ten movies, mostly because Zach Ward absolutely hams it up as the Postal Dude.
It is the weirdest, strangest, most out there translation of a video game to the big screen I have ever watched. It's grotesque, gratuitous and goddamn hilarious when you realise the atmosphere it was written and produced in (2006/2007).
The game is such a sardonic slog that rips into just about every aspect of 2000s culture. The movie taps into it in such a glorious way to the point of ramping it up to eleven in at least two instances that make you wide-eyed go "Fuck me" and laugh.
Also, "I regret nothing."
I would love to see that but I'm assuming the likes of Marvel and DC are far too interested in maintaining close to 100% creative control over their products, and someone like Scorsese would (rightly) insist on getting to do whatever he wants.
I would actually point to Blade Runner 2049 as an example of it being done right. It's not a comic or videogame movie of course, but I feel like it's close enough in terms of genre - if that makes sense? Anyway as great an auteur Villeneuve is, it flopped at the box office and I imagine the likes of Disney look to movies like that and think that well, there's no point trying to make an actually good movie when audiences are still coming to watch the next installment of Ant-Man (or whatever) that made almost half a billion dollars worldwide
I rightly think this is the real issue here. There's nothing inherent about superhero films or comic book movies or videogame movies that make them incapable of being amazing movies. The problem is that the owners of the intellectual property are prioritizing safe, inoffensive content that appeals to the broadest possible audience over taking artistic risks. This is inevitable with most commercial art, but it's becmoe particularly grating with the sheer number of quite-similar Marvel movies and the way they subsume the occasional interesting directoral decision into the rest of the series by rule afterwards.
God I wish we'd get more movies like Blade Runner 2049. Such a great movie.
Indeed, we've already seen other major directors get dropped from MCU and Star Wars movies over creative differences (Edgar Wright, Lord & Miller), and other directors and actors expressed hesitancy or a reluctance to work under such conditions. Even Chris Evans, in a recent GQ interview, alluded to it (in a very genial and diplomatic way).
But even if this wasn't a factor, there doesn't seem to be much guarantee that the kinds of audiences who go for MCU movies would 100% go for something more artful. That just doesn't seem to be the kind of movie that audience wants, and a lot of the audience responses to MCU movies reflects that. And if the test is something a bit more artful but from a similar source, we can look at Villenueve's latest, Dune. That one was a big box office success, based off a classic sci-fi book, and done in an artful way that eschews a lot of blockbuster expectations and construction. But did it snatch the MCU audience? It grossed as much as the Eternals, the MCU's worst performing movie, so probably not.
There is clearly a change in the general audience taste in movies. Blockbusters have always been blockbusters but I remember in the 90s that everyone wanted to see the new movie by David Fincher for example. Now I how to find an arthouse cinema to see his latest film. A director name on the poster doesn't sell tickets anymore - with a few exceptions like Nolan. There is a space between arthouse indie films and massive blockbusters that seems to have shrunk in size in recent years. The habits of going to the theater has simply changed, so I don't think anything will replace the ticket sales of MCU movies. There will likely just be fewer tickets sold overall.
Was going to hope The Last Airbender can dash those doubts away. Instead it's more or less the poster child for why people are so afraid of adapting comic/anime stuff into live action.
But if you want a wonderful deep dive into how this potential "market" was squandered decades ago, there was a good deep dive I need to dig up on it. The short of it is: The X rating and Comic Code Authority initiatives killed the few successful pieces of adult animated cinema in the 70's and then the Simpsons and (later) Family Guy/South Park set the tone for adult TV animation to be comedic instead of earnest.
This feels kind of like that time a pirate movie flopped in the 90s and every studio swore they were unpopular and unfilmable, and then Pirates of the Caribbean came out.
The Last Airbender was a problem because it was basically a bad clip show that fundamentally misunderstood or ignored the appeal and world-crafting of the series it drew from. I'd argue it's more the poster child for trying to find a project you think will be popular instead of one you care about.
Yes 'failed' adaptations to live action are a dime a dozen, from books or from comics/anime. But that doesn't mean there aren't or can't be great adaptations like Lord of the Rings or Dredd or One Piece.
I think it definitely went further than simply misunderstanding. They couldn't even bother to get the pronunciations of the characters' names right, or find appropriate actors to properly represent their ethnicities... that's how little of a shit they gave about the actual source material. I still cringe every time I think about them repeatedly calling the lead character "Ohng" instead of "Aang". Like, how did a serious filmmaker like Shyamalan manage to fuck up something that simple (and fundamental) about the lead character in their adaptation? It's truly mind-boggling how horrible that movie was, especially given its $150M budget.
Calm your ass down. This is probably the most arrogant and pretentious piece of writing about the MCU I've read in a while. He's acting as if the MCU and whatever boogeyman comes after it will destroy movies as "he knows it" while completely ignoring that distributor/production houses like A24, Searchlight, Annapurna, etc. are putting out absolute cinematic bangers over the exact same period that MCU has dominated popular culture. He's acting as if a producer went up to Scorsese was like, "Marty, listen, you can't make your next 4 hr long movie because we need to film a 4th Incredible Hulk reboot".
Like I'm 100% burned out with all the MCU/Disney pablum and the fact that so many other companies are trying to establish cinematic universes. But I feel I've seen more great movies more easily that "look like the real world" in the age of MCU than ever before. Like there's enough of hunger for both : just let people have their fun, it's not hurting anyone.
I think like everything, you have to dig. Corporate investment vehicles don't take risks A video game, a movie, a book, it'll be good, not great. For something that is great for me it has a strong potential to be repulsive to another person. Good is good for all, which is why it can't be great. Great is weird and different but if it is the right weird and different it'll live in your mind for life, but it'll also send ppl off to so something else just as fast. That is why they don't ever go for great, they want return in investment.
But it is easier than ever to record and distribute a movie, the whole making money and getting people to wqech part is the hard part. I have more skin in the video game market personally but I see this kind of stuff there too. Big studio looks amazing but is boring almost always. Small indy teams are interesting but hard to wade through the trash and they won't ever have the production of a big studio. There are game types that onlyive in indie space and they will never have a triple a glean on them. I imagine movies are the same, the unique are there but hard to find and won't have the production of a big studio.
I think it just is the way it is, corporations don't make art, they make money. If they do make art, an artist snuck in under the radar and tricked them into it. Lord of the rings is the perfect example. Original trilogy was kinda doing its own thing, makes a near perfect trilogy (imho) then exploded in money making. Result is the shit show that was the hobbit trilogy as it has visibility and people expect it to make money.
I don't honestly see a solution besides being lucky enough for a corporate project maker to have a passion for making art and still have creative control. That's a rare case and they are usually home grown from indie to rich person before that happens.
I think it's easy to forget that we're already in the midst of a major change in cinema. People aren't as interested in going to a theater as they used to be.
The wait between a movie being released in the theater and being available on my TV has been drastically reduced. COVID really sped this along when studios felt forced to make their films available over streaming. The multi year wait to see a movie for cheap is gone. Most movies are available to rent for ~$20 within a week of their release. That's less than the price of two tickets in a first run theater where I live, and it won't be long before you can rent it for less than $5.
This has pushed the big movie houses to prioritize what they see as sure things to make lots of money. While a few films do force a longer wait before streaming, they're now the outliers.
At the same time, the streaming services are now paying decent prices for independent work. SAG has a framework for making low budget movies. Canada will throw money at anyone who wants to make a film that qualifies as a "Canadian Production". Some US cities have similar programs, though with smaller budgets. Anyone can make a film with a phone and some friends. The horror themed 48 hour film fest in my city filled completely up in early September. I've been to a lot of them, there are always 2-3 that are quite good.
There are a lot of films out there whose main problems are marketing and that their only available platform is YouTube. A24 is a great example of an organization giving previously unknown creaters a wide audience, I'm hopeful more companies like that will come along.
I'm not sure I fully agree. I agree that making "great for all" is extremely hard and the number of examples in history can be counted on your hands. But good and great aren't necessarily exclusionary.
eccentric billionaire are even rarer but exist. In a few decades' time millenials will retire and those will be ones that grew up with video games, saw the rise of the internet as a young adult, and enjoyed a variety of different media (anime, Interactive Fiction/Visual Novels, MUDs, MMOs/social games) compared to the previous Gen X/boomer generation. It'll be interesting to see what influences such talent as time goes on.
There are meetings-that-could-have-been-an-email. And then there’s the article-that-could-have-been-a-tweet
While I think this is important and interesting to discuss the future for cinema, this "article" doesn't really add anything substantial insight to this topic. It is nothing more than a rant without any clear direction.
I also think these debates also often misses the mark and becomes an unproductive argument on who has the better taste in movies. There is nothing wrong with Marvel movies in itself. There are not better or worse movies as such, and I think that is also the point Scorsese has - though he seems to be either misquoted or he poorly explains himself. The problem is not with the movies themselves, but the entire industry around it that pushes other types of movies out. It has been said a hundred times before, but the midtier/midbudget movies are the losers in this. Small indie and arthouse studios are actually thriving in my opinion, and tons of interesting things is happening in that space. But the industry around the cinematic universes productions takes up a ton of money and people, which makes it harder for up and coming directors to take risks and try something new within a decently sized production. Movies like Fight Club, Forrest Gump or Apocalypse Now could be examples of such movies, and I don't see much room for those kind of productions.
Also with the last 10 years of cinematic blockbusters, the industry has created sort of expectation that going to theaters should be a 3 hour action spectacle. What happens if those kind of movies don't draw the same audience anymore? Will people go back to watching regular 2 hour drama movies in theaters again? There is little room for new directors to develop their craft in this production heavy system where the industry doesn't want to take any risk because they need a proper ROI on their massive budgets.
Wow, this is such a selective and biased view of the cinema landscape. It's a screed written for people who judge storytelling by genre rather than quality of content or realization.
As it happens, we just re-watched Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse as a prelude to Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse. Spouse was never a comics fan, and he's now determined to slow-watch the whole thing frame-by-frame the next time I'm on the road. I'm by no means an expert on the whole gamut of the Spandex-and-capes legacy, but even I'm sitting there going "Was that Bill Sienkiewicz?" and losing the thought a second later when there's another arresting visual/action/dialogue/drama moment.
But Spiderverse is also an example of a potentially threatening trend both in film-making and the real world. There's less apparent space for auteurs, for singular pure visions that are the products of one person's ego-drive. Spiderverse was the effort of a very big team. Invention in science, technology, and the arts, has almost always been the result of teamwork and accumulated discovery. Singular auteurs are losing their value as brands for marketing purposes - "Scorcese" really is competing with "Marvel". Team creativity doesn't have to be a series of bland compromises, a gaggle of people digging shallow holes because they don't have a mad dictator demanding they go deeper.
Gotta stop and go to work, but cogitate on this take and LMK if I'm on to something or just overcaffeinated.