Popular doesn’t mean bad, but popular doesn’t mean artful, either

Martin Scorsese wrote in his op-ed for the “New York Times” that Marvel doesn’t qualify as cinema because there is nothing at risk in a plotline about superheroes, that they oversaturate the market. He’s right.

I adore the MCU with all my soul. “Thor: Ragnarok” holds a permanent place in my heart and my top 5 movies of all time. However, just because I love them doesn’t mean they’re making strides in the film industry or doing anything particularly path-breaking or unique. And that’s fine! They bring comic books that are often inaccessible or gate-kept to the public eye and present fun, compelling stories.

…but there’s definitely way too many of them and most are at least a little bit terrible.

“It’s a chicken-and-egg issue. If people are given only one kind of thing and endlessly sold only one kind of thing, of course they’re going to want more of that one kind of thing,” Scorsese said in his piece.

The monopolization of the movie industry by Disney is extraordinary and upsetting. The company – and Marvel even before they got bought out – formulize filmmaking. Scorsese isn’t against superhero movies. He’s taking a stand against these “market-researched, audience-tested” franchise films that steal theaters away from directors and titles that stand alone, seeking their time in the sun that is so often blotted out by billion-dollar blockbusters designed to enrapture the mass public.

The Moxie Cinema downtown is a truly independent theater, with only two screens that rotate out between independent movies frequently.

The Alamo Drafthouse is a corporate chain that is sucking the life out of places like the Moxie. Sure, they provide a screen for black-and-white classics and feature those art house films like Taika Watiti’s latest, “Jojo Rabbit.” But so does the Moxie, at a much cheaper rate and with a lot less space taken up by the blackout showings of “Rise of Skywalker” that will start at the end of November.

Ultimately, Scorsese stresses the importance of creating evergreen characters. He cites the lasting nature of Hitchcock’s movies in the human stories of the characters. A movie can be beautiful, but without substance it means next to nothing. Cinematography is more than a shot that looks pretty as a desktop. Films need to find their homes in the stories they’re creating – and there can only be so many stories about comic book characters before you start begging people to just read the comics so the translations into film will end.

There’s not a lot that the average person can do to change this, but Scorsese’s evaluation of the industry is accurate. Original storytelling isn’t dead, but it’s suffocated by movies of remarkable sameness.

Article written by Maclen Johnson.