Are Superhero Films Cinema?

Martin Scorsese has awoken the wrath of innumerable comic book fans with his recent comments regarding their beloved cape donning, mask porting strong men and women, particularly those belonging to the almighty Marvel brand kingdom. His opinion has spawned hundreds of opinion pieces in defence and in contra to his views, as well as the support of fellow auteurs Francis Ford Coppola and Ken Loach, and the saddened disbelief of superhero directors like Tim Gunn.

The timing of Scorsese’s sudden anti-supers outburst is especially interesting given the recent release of Joker, a film that is essentially a comic book homage to Scorsese films Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, and the upcoming release of his own The Irishman, produced by Netflix, who many view to be the real modern threat to cinema.

What is so wonderful about Scorsese’s thoughts, which were explained in detail in his New York Times opinion piece, is not so much whether he is right or wrong, but the neverending stream of debates that have emerged concerning the unanswerable question: What is cinema? Can market-tested, cookie cutter studio pictures like Marvel films be considered cinema? Can films launched on a streaming service where a majority of viewers watch the content on smartphones?

Scorsese’s argument boils down to his belief that in his day cinema: ‘‘was about revelation — aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation … 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.’’ While Marvel films lack, ‘‘revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk...They are sequels in name but they are remakes in spirit ...That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they’re ready for consumption.’’

It is a damning criticism by Scorsese, and he could not have more accurately defined the contrast between the films that he and his fellow auteurs make and those of Marvel. If we are talking about quality, there is no question as to which films are more emotionally and intellectually stimulating, which films are innovative and challenging, which films seek to inspire, to befuddle, to expose, to enrage, to inform, to question, and to dare to show the audience something they do not understand, something that makes them uncomfortable, something that is as inexplicable, moving, and frustrating as life and time itself. These are the films we should cherish and defend above all others. They are the films that make cinema the rich art form it is.

However, does this mean that superhero films are not cinema? I believe that while the debate is fascinating to have, that the answer may be as simple as Taika Waititi’s response, ‘‘Of course it’s cinema! It’s at the movies.’’ Scorsese himself basically admits this in his own article, citing that the films of the Golden Age of Hollywood were similarly controlled and manipulated by suits in offices rather than artists with the liberty to do what they wished.

What were in their day considered as nothing more than mindless entertainment like the films of John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Alfred Hitchcock are now revered as some of the greatest, most influential masterpieces of all time. I am in no way saying these super-blockbuster, crime fighting, alien combatting films will share a similar destiny when film historians look back on them, but there is no doubt that one can find redeemable qualities in them.

I am certainly not the biggest champion or defender of Marvel films, but I found Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor Ragnarok to be very enjoyable B picture action comedies. Captain America may be as interesting as a wet rag as a character, but the way his films challenge and second guess American political figures was surprisingly daring in such a mainstream franchise. Black Panther is undoubtedly an enormously important icon for African American children. And while I felt that no Marvel film was more tedious and boring than End Game, which to me felt more like watching a super expensive, ultra action packed corporately planned and plotted checklist being coldly executed step by step, the moment when the female superheroes assemble together to fight on screen (though to me an unsubtle, contrived and painfully obvious politically correct ploy of a corporation screaming ‘look feminism!’ in your face) is a very strong and empowering image for little girls in the audience.

Though these films do not make master Scorsese’s cinema approved cut, he also admits that the technicians, actors, and artists working on the films are clearly talented individuals doing the best work they can given the circumstances, similar to artists working in the old Hollywood studio system.

Scorsese was offered the opportunity to direct Joker (which for some reason he does not consider a superhero film) but said he could not deal with the fact of ‘‘this character developing into a comic-book character. He develops into an abstraction. That doesn’t mean it’s bad art. It could be, but it’s not for me.’’

I ultimately must agree that there is something inherently problematic with the genre itself. Even in a film like Joker which tries so hard to be about more than a man with face paint who fights a man dressed as a bat. Despite all the dark shades given to him from characters like Travis Bickle and Rupert Pumpkin, at the end of the film Arthur Fleck is not flesh and blood like they are. He is a comic book clown that ends up in Arkham Asylum, the possible brother of Bruce Wayne and son of Thomas Wayne. Whatever possible message the film may have to say about modern America is distorted by the comic book mythology elements that prevent the film from having the real political, emotional, parodical punch that it’s non comic book predecessors do have.

I would not go as far to say that Joker or Marvel films are not cinema, but the genre does not seem to have the potency that non superhero films have.

Scorsese signs off saying, ‘‘The situation, sadly, is that we now have two separate fields: There’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there’s cinema. They still overlap from time to time, but that’s becoming increasingly rare. And I fear that the financial dominance of one is being used to marginalize and even belittle the existence of the other.’

His devastating prognosis seems quite correct, and superhero films are not the only ones to blame. The big studios are completely uninterested in producing the type of cinema defended by Scorsese. Disney not only churns out one nearly identical Marvel film after another, but seems determined to do the same with Star Wars, and is inexplicably getting away with making live action copies of their classic animation films. Creativity and originality has been thrown out in place of safe, repetitive, mind numbingly familiar material, and if it continues in this direction, cinema as we know it will become nothing more than an unending stream of the same predictable film for us to consume again and again.