Martin Scorsese, Please Reconsider Your Definition of “Cinema”
/Movies are art. Why should we exclude one kind over another in that discussion?
Cinema: a place where people go to watch films for entertainment.
Or: The business and art of making films.
Those are the definitions easily found within modern dictionaries. But that’s not really what we mean when someone declares that a modern movie is “not cinema.”
What we really mean is, “What is art?”
Martin Scorsese is a director of Academy-nominated movies including The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), a crime film about the a stockbroker’s rampant corruption and decadence. He is known mainly for crime films and gangster movies like Goodfellas (1990), which follows gangsters attempting to climb their way up the ladder of a New York mob before unraveling and falling prey to drug addiction.
Martin Scorsese
In an interview with Empire magazine in October, Scorsese mentions that superhero movies are “not cinema,” likening them to “theme parks”. In an opinion piece published in The New York Times, he clarified his remarks, adding that while he means no animosity towards Marvel films, “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.”
As the opinion piece goes on, he comments that superhero movies have taken over the big screen and that productions – such as his own works that are more cerebral and less high-octane in nature – are being increasingly edged out, lambasting the trend of big-budget movies taking fewer risks. As he puts it, “there’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment [AKA superhero movies], and there’s cinema [AKA Goodfellas, The Irishman, The Shining].” Bold comments are mine.
You will note the three movies I inserted as examples of movies Scorcese made or liked are ones that are generally liked as well. The Shining is not exactly an underground, irrelevant movie hit. The Wolf of Wall Street is a movie made in this decade with roughly an 80% per cent critic and audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. While I have watched very little of Scorsese’s work, it’s hard to deny his skill in film-making
In other words, Scorsese is hardly just some stodgy codger living in Hollywood’s attic. He remains part of the here and now.
So why does what Scorsese directs qualify as “cinema” where Marvel or DC’s offerings don’t?
Yes, there tends to be thematic principles that have guided the latest trend of superhero movies for nearly the past decade since the original Iron Man: Good vs Evil, Justice, Cooperation, Responsibility, Family…
Those are themes worth exploring. Just as Scorsese directs and participates in movies focusing on the aspects of humanity that will bring about its own downfall, superhero movies focus on the aspects of humanity that will bring about its own rise to a utopia. Both are equally valid, even if the latter aspect is an easier pill to swallow than the former.
Does Wonder Woman running through No Man’s Land not count as “cinema”? What about when she experiences firsthand the horror of mustard gas, wandering through a village that had been brimming with life a few hours prior but now was an eerily silent graveyard? Is the deafening silence of a goddess processing the true extent of human cruelty for the first time not enough emotion to be “cinema”?
Thor experiences PTSD following defeat brought on by his fatal flaw – his sense of pride. Do his attempts to scrape and claw out of the deep, dark hole of depression, only to still be found worthy by the mythical weapon Mjolnir not count as “cinema”?
What counts as “cinema”, Scorsese? Because superhero movies, even if they are safe, even if they are produced seemingly en-masse to the exclusion of other films, still touch the hearts of millions of people worldwide.
What is cinema? It is art as a moving picture.
Marvel is art.
DC is art.
Scorsese is art.
Movies are art. Please don’t exclude one genre, theme, or director over another. Reconsider your definition of “cinema.”
Jean-Michel Vaillancourt
Jean-Michel Vaillancourt is a D&D fanatic, a video game enthusiast, a book-lover, and an eternal seeker for the art of storycraft in modern TV pop culture.
