EPISODE 444: A SEQUEL IN NAME BUT A REMAKE IN SPIRIT
More Like Scorchese, Keepin' Up with the Carousel of Streamers, The Garfield of My Nightmares
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
So of all the unexpected things that could have happened in the last month, I’m not sure any of us expected the one to hit the zeitgeist straight in the jaw not once but twice was Martin Scorsese, coming at the Marvel movie franchise like Thanos about to hit the Snap.
This week he wrote an op-ed for the New York Times explaining what he meant when he said Marvel movies are “not cinema”:
For me, for the filmmakers I came to love and respect, for my friends who started making movies around the same time that I did, cinema was about revelation — aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation. It was about characters — the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures, the way they can hurt one another and love one another and suddenly come face to face with themselves.
It was about confronting the unexpected on the screen and in the life it dramatized and interpreted, and enlarging the sense of what was possible in the art form.
… Many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures. What’s not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes.
They are sequels in name but they are remakes in spirit, and everything in them is officially sanctioned because it can’t really be any other way. That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they’re ready for consumption.
That last paragraph…
The first-time round last month, his attack on Marvel movies seemed very Damn Kids Get Off My Lawn. But I agree with a lot of his op-ed. I love big franchise movies, but they’re rarely stories you might be able to describe as “revelatory”, movies struggling in the deeper waters or existential crises of our humanity.
There are exceptions, of course. Rogue One on the theme of sacrifice. Joker on alienation, societal decay. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. (Roger Ebert calls it “searing”. A.O. Scott says it’s “A movie that confronts us with the absolute indifference of the universe.” Janet Maslin writes it’s “Like a Lovecraft short story, but with a family trapped at a microscopic height in their backyard. Every night since I saw it I’ve woken up screaming.”)
But these are not the standard, and much of what Scorsese is praising about great films may not be possible for an ongoing franchise because it requires the possibility of real consequences.
In some ways the magic trick of a Marvel movie is getting you to believe that despite the fact this is the second film in a trilogy or the 27th film in the series Peter Parker could still die, or Thanos can actually win.
One of my friends was telling me how angry he was after he saw Infinity War because they killed so many great characters. Nine months later he and his daughter were still just so furious. For me, they’re the Ideal Marvel Fans, people willing to remain so immersed in the story world they don’t step back to consider the bigger business reality, the logic of which demands that everything and everyone has to be able to be used again.
(You watch, even Tony Stark is going to have some further life in him before all is said and done. A.I. Tony or something.)
In a way, I want to say Scorsese’s piece is about silence. Great cinema makes space for silence on the screen and silence within us. It creates room for us to contemplate aspects of our humanity. Marvel movies and their like are good for many things, above all entertainment. But they don’t really do much of that.
Scorsese’s piece is not really about Marvel or Disney per se, though; it’s about the fact that Hollywood is less and less willing to give money to make the smaller, complex, soul-searching or soul-searing kind of movies that really have Something to Say.
And whether you or I would go to see many of those movies, that’s still a bad thing. It’s like we’re trapped in a reality of Greatest Hits and we’ve burned all the B-sides. It sounds great, but over time it makes the whole world kind of flat and beige.
THIS WEEK IN THREE TWEETS: MARTIN SCORSESE
Ouch.
I would pay to read that.
So sweet. (Although if you look close, the painting behind them in this loving tableaux is of Jesus and the two thieves being crucified. Not exactly Happy Holidays material. And I want to say that’s very Martin Scorsese.)
Question: If you overfeed content to viewers, do they explode or just stop watching?
Somehow it seems like there’s So Much out there to watch right now, but also so little. For those who wonder who watches the Watchmen, I guess I do, but the why is what I’m wonderin’. This week someone bought a house. Really, that’s the most interesting thing. And it happens in the first two minutes. (It’s a great scene, though. A teeny weeny morality play which features Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton singing.)
Also checked out the new season of BoJack Horseman. Netflix has developed a habit of dropping shows after three seasons. It’s created some blowback, and yet even with a show like BoJack, which I love and think everyone should watch right this second, I’m finding a little fatigue on my part. I’ve already gotten so much out of it, in a way I’m not sure there’s more I need, it turns out.
(Having said that the new season is really excellent. As always, brilliant and deep.)
Meanwhile this is my Friday:
And this is my Wednesday:
Weirdly, I’m more excited about Friday, I think. Maybe because I’ll get the whole season of The Crown at once, whereas the Mandalorian is a week to week.
Also, it seems funny for me to say this but a Star Wars TV show is an unknown quantity. It’s got great people working on it, but will it work?
What I’m hoping for: Something between Solo and Rogue One – gritty underbelly, a diverse and complex team of characters, humor. And a stand out droid. Preferably one that’s sassy.
AND SPEAKING OF
And speaking of sassy, this video of Eric Idle talking about his many, many Monty Python characters is so wonderful. Eric Idle is basically your favorite uncle, just a warm, self-effacing human being who also does very very silly characters.
And speaking of Monty Python, this sketch from a very long time ago starring two very big stars of today has Python written all over it.
And speaking of a long time ago, Paul Hirsch -- editor of Star Wars: Episodes IV and V --just put out a Christmas present for me book about his life, and it has some great tidbits in it.
It was his idea to give Vader’s tie fighter those turned-in wings, because he couldn’t keep track of which TIE was his. Also, he’s the one responsible for Vader having a red light saber – Lucas had thought blue for Vader, red for Luke (!). And apparently Lucas had to fight to keep the Death Star trench battle; 20th Century Fox argued the movie was really over once Ben Kenobi dies (!!).
And speaking of Star Wars:
Get it? Pew Pew?
Hello? Is this thing on?
*crickets*
THINGS THAT ARE WEIRD THAT THE INTERNET CREATED
Wikipaedia: Yep, it’s an Old English version of a Wikipedia entry on Tiger Woods. Like you asked for.
Here’s one on Beyoncé. That’s right, haters, she wis includit in Time magazine's leet o the 100 maist influential fowk in the warld. Drop ye mic on some of that.
Also, Garfield the cat is weird no matter what, but this is that plus extra.
Also, when I searched for Martin Scorsese on Twitter this came up and that is definitely weird.
I have one of those colds right now where you can’t seem to stop coughing, especially in public spaces. I’m like a mom whose kid is crying in a department store, except the kid is my throat and I’ve run out of lozenges. I can feel all your glares and I’m sorry.
Raphael-Bob Waksberg did an interview with Vulture on the coming end of BoJack Horseman (which he created). He was asked if he thought the show was optimistic or pessimistic, and opted for optimistic, which given how dark it is many people would probably challenge.
But I love his explanation:
I see it as clear-eyed about the hardships of life, but hopeful that people can push through that muck and try to better. Although, you know, I think the story of Sisyphus is a somewhat optimistic story, so maybe I’m deluded. Look at him, he’s still doin’ it! He’s still pushing that rock up — good for him!
Wherever you are, whatever rock you’re pushing, I’m cheering you on. In the end nothing is wasted.
See you next week.