Revenge of the Superheroes

In my last post I mentioned how Martin Scorsese had made dismissive comments about the slew of superhero movies that threatens to engulf the American movie industry. Not surprisingly, his comments weren't taken by the makers of those movies with much magnanimity. I'm fairly certain that Scorsese made his comments offhandedly, not meaning them to be taken as a final word on the subject. The way they're reported makes him sound rather apologetic, as if he were sorry he had nothing positive to say.

However Scorsese intended his comments to be taken, they have provoked a surprising furore in the official movie industry. Samuel L. Jackson, who, I suppose, feels obliged to act as the spokesman for them, remarked: "that’s kind of like saying Bugs Bunny ain’t funny. Films are films. You know, everybody doesn’t like his stuff either. I mean, we happen to, but everybody doesn’t."

James Gunn, director of some of the superhero movies, tweeted: "Martin Scorsese is one of my 5 favorite living filmmakers. I was outraged when people picketed The Last Temptation of Christ without having seen the film. I’m saddened that he’s now judging my films in the same way." This statement is ridiculous. Scorsese was expressing his opinion, not telling anyone else to think the same way. What bothers Gunn is how much authority Scorsese's opinions command. The picketers outside The Last Temptation were puritans who were trying to deprive potential viewers of the film of the pleasure Scorsese's film would've provided them. Scorsese has neither the time nor the inclination (not to mention the ability) to deprive any of the millions who stand in line to see Gunn's movies of their pleasure.

Some of the other directors who have made movies for Marvel also felt the need to chime in. But the uproar over Scorsese's comments sounds exactly like a similar fracas inspired by comments made last July by the Irish novelist Colm Tóibín when he was asked what he thought about detective fiction. Without knowing what a hue and cry his opinion would provoke, he said, "I can’t do thrillers and I can’t do spy novels. I can’t do any genre-fiction books, really, none of them. I just get bored with the prose. I don’t find any rhythm in it. It’s blank, it’s nothing; it’s like watching TV." This was taken as a direct insult by the writers of detective fiction, along with the legions of fans who devour it. As I recall, Tóibín didn't retract his statement or apologize for it.

I don't believe that Scorsese, like Tóibín, intended his remarks as a kind of sneer at fantastically successful movies - the kind of success that Scorsese can only dream of. His interviewer at Empire Magazine could just as easily have asked him what he thought of K-Pop. But the fact is that Scorsese and James Gunn belong in two different worlds of movies: Scorsese's is one in which talent is committed to the realistic portrayal of characters and situations that resemble, as close as his talent is capable, real life and Gunn's is another in which talent is committed to the engineering of imaginary and/or fantastic creatures that seem to exist in our world, but only as long as it takes them to destroy it piece by agonizingly realistic piece. People like Gunn throw every bit of their energy into devising ways to make the impossible somehow possible, if only for the duration of a movie. But the impossible for them is making the ultimately shallow, juvenile inventions of comic books so realistic that we might take them seriously. The problem is, the shoddiness of the superhero characters' conception is increased by the care with which they are recreated on screen. And the more money that's lavished on special effects only exposes the hollowness of the underlying ideas.

James Gunn and his colleagues simply cannot have it both ways. Their films can guarantee enormous box office returns but they can't guarantee critical approval. If they don't know this simple fact by now, they don't know anything about film. Are they even aware of the fact that the greatest American film ever made - Citizen Kane - was a box office flop? And that its failure to attract an audience commensurate with its artistic greatness effectively wrecked the rest of Orson Welles's career? The producers who backed Scorsese when he made The Last Temptation of Christ knew what they were getting into, but they got into it anyway, knowing full well they would probably not make money. Ask the producers of Scorsese's Silence what they expected their box office returns would look like. But Scorsese made the film anyway. He also made a string of films with Leo DiCaprio that made substantial profits, but that contributed nothing to Scorsese's prestige as a gifted filmmaker. Orson Welles once said that every discussion of film art is compelled to bring up the subject of money. Any discussion that didn't was a waste of his time. But no one mentions how much Federico Fellini's net worth was at the time of his death. What was the total value of Bergman's estate? His house on the island of Fårö was sold for €3-4M in 2009. But it's only because it was Bergman's house, with enormous cultural and now historical value in Sweden. In contrast, Roland Emmerich, director of a slew of forgettable blockbusters, now inhabits the palatial home of Hollywood pioneer Thomas H. Ince. I seriously doubt that "Roland Emmerich slept here" will be one of the selling points when the property is again up for sale.

It is true that many - if not most - filmmakers aspire to one day be established professional Hollywood film directors. François Truffaut once admitted in an interview that what he wished most was to have been a Hollywood director like Raoul Walsh, making hundreds of films entirely on assignment, finishing a movie on a Friday only to find the script for his next film delivered with his Sunday newspaper.

But what puzzles me - and probably puzzles Martin Scorsese - is how some filmmakers who attain complete independence from financing worries (I'm thinking of someone like George Lucas) never seem to take advantage of that independence by making films that are in any way different from the ones on which their financial independence is based. As more than one critic has pointed out, there are two Steven Spielbergs: the one who makes Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park and the other who makes Schindler's List and Lincoln. There was once another George Lucas - the one who made American Graffiti (which I think is his best film). But that filmmaker got lost in the Star Wars franchise and was never seen again.

Movies are a business, as everyone must know by now. They have made some people extravagantly wealthy, and they have left some others dead broke. But some have managed to produce a film that, in a hundred years, will be remembered and talked about and celebrated. Scorsese, I think, has accomplished this against incredible odds. What it comes down to is: what do you want a film to do for you? A few days ago I watched Eddie Murphy in Disney's The Haunted Mansion. It was inspired - if that is the word - by a Disneyland ride. If you want a ticket to anywhere but here then you can't be interested in art - which is based on human beings living on a terrestrial earth, in Brooklyn or Tokyo or Rome. When Scorsese called a superhero movie a "theme park" he was being rather perceptive. He had given the subject some thought, which is far more credit than I can give the movies' makers or their fans.