Mark Evanier writes:
Martin Scorsese has directed some of the best movies ever made and most of them convey some powerful message with skill and depth. So it’s odd that when he complains about “comic book movies” and says they’re a danger to the whole concept of cinema, I have no idea what the f-word he’s saying. . . .
Mr. Scorsese is acting like “comic book movies” are some new thing. Just to take a some-time-ago decade at random, the highest grossing movie of 1980 was Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back. The highest-grossing movie of 1981 was Superman II. The highest of 1982 was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the highest-grossing movies of the following years were Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Batman.
I dunno about you but I’d call most of those “comic book movies.” And now here we have Scorsese saying of the current flock, “The danger there is what it’s doing to our culture…because there are going to be generations now that think movies are only those — that’s what movies are.” . . .
This seems like a statistical problem, and I imagine some people have studied this more carefully. Evanier seems to be arguing that comic book movies are no bigger of a thing now than they were forty years ago. There must be some systematic analysis of movie genres over time that could address this question.
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Scorcese’s fears may be overblown, but Evanier is being kind of sloppy in his analysis. E.T., Ghostbuster, Back to the Future and Top Gun aren’t comic book movies. They are original works, neither sequels nor adaptations. They span genres (drama, comedy, sci-fi and action respectively). These days, comic book adaptations (well, the ones I’ve seen; I haven’t seen all of them) are all in the general action-comedy genre.
There is also more to the market than just the top #1 film. Sure, the #1 will always be a “comic book movie” (if we use that term very loosely), but what about the rest? In 2022, 10 out of the top 10 movies were some sort of sequel or adaptation. (https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2022/)
Contrast 1982 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1982_box_office_number-one_films_in_the_United_States#Highest-grossing_films). OK, E.T. is number one, and Rock III is in second place, but look at the rest of the top 10! They are immediately followed by On Golden Pond and An Officer and a Gentleman. Poltergeist is #7 and #8 is The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. There is an abundance of original movies and a diversity of genres not seen in today’s box office leaders.
I realize this isn’t systemic, but I think it provides a powerful counter-argument to what Evanier said. If someone wanted to look at it systemically, maybe something could be done with Gini coefficients by genre and/or franchise. Just brainstorming.
I guess a diversity index of some sort (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_index) might be an appropriate way to quantify it. But it would then require some judgement about what the different “species” of films are, and which films belong to which “species”. (Having not been to a cinema in the better part of a decade, all I know is that I’m not the right person to do it!)
Adede:
Yes, also, come to think about it, Evanier is being misleading in referring to “Star Wars: Episode V.” Yes, this was a sequel, but it was not the fifth in a series.
I agree with Adele here on everything, but especially “there’s more to the market than just the #1 film.” I don’t think Scorsese was complaining that some comic book movies get made and are popular, I think he was complaining that _only_ comic book movies get made and are popular. Well, not _only_, but mostly.
Here are the top 10 movies of 2023 by worldwide box office:
Barbie
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Oppenheimer
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3.
Fast X
Spider-Man:Across the Spider-Verse
The Little Mermaid
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Elemental
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Several of those are surely what Scorcese had in mind: they literally involve comic book characters (Guardians of the Galaxy; Spider-Man; Ant-Man). And others are, I think, emblematic of the same issue that Scorcese is alluding to. I give The Little Mermaid a pass since it is mostly aimed at young children, but the others are for teens and adults and only one of them — Oppenheimer — might reasonably be called a ‘serious’ film.
Adede chose 1983 for contrast, and that’s as good as any other year I guess. It had On Golden Pond, An Officer and a Gentleman, Chariots of Fire…and even the lowbrow stuff wasn’t just comic books: Poltergeist, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Annie…OK, those aren’t exactly Shakespeare but they are at least very different from each other in a bunch of ways, unlike the comic book films.
Either Evanier is an idiot, or, more likely, he understands what Scorsese was saying and he is pretending not to, as a way of getting attention. If it’s the latter, which I suspect, then we have all played into it. At any rate Scorsese is right and Evanier is wrong.
Phil:
I agree with all of your post except for the last paragraph. I have no reason to think that Evanier is an idiot or is pretending not to understand. I think that Evanier’s argument is superficially convincing—enough so that I was persuaded by it and posted it on here—, so my guess is that Evanier was persuaded by his own argument too. That is, he hadn’t fully thought things through, and the hivemind here in the comments section did a better job on this one. Evanier works in comic books so it makes sense that he could be a bit defensive about the topic and easily fool himself.
First off, there is a big and undeniable “hey, kids, get off of my lawn” energy to this whole exchange, with two old men arguing about a topic that neither knows much about. Combined, both Martin Scorsese and Mark Evanier, have probably seen fewer Marvel movies than have most of the people reading this. If anything, I suspect the latter may have seen even fewer “comic book movies” than the former. Because of his 50 plus year career as a comic book and animated cartoon creator and historian (as well as being the guy who knows everybody in comics and cartoons from back in the day), Evanier is always reached out to for comment whenever these things are in the news, though he readily admits he has little to no interest in the MCU.
His favorite movie is mad, mad, mad, mad world. Take from that what you will.
As an indicator of just how far this discussion has drifted, it is worth noting that the term “comic book” does not appear in Scorsese’s York Times OP Ed. The piece was about Marvel films in particular and big budget tent pole franchises in general.
Scorsese himself admits that some of his distinctions are a bit strained. He even admits that by many standards Hitchcock films meet his definition, though he immediately attempts to weasel out of the obvious conclusion.
(this is part of a long tradition. There’s a good 70 year history of filmmakers and critics trying to convince themselves that Hitchcock films were deep works of art rather than really fun pieces of entertainment.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-marvel.html
One more important point. The modern multiplex-dependent tent-pole franchise model was created in the late 70s. Scorsese’s examples of a healthy, diverse industry are pre-1970. Evanier starts his discussion in 1980.
Quote from the post: “Martin Scorsese has directed some of the best movies ever made and most of them convey some powerful message with skill and depth. So it’s odd that when he complains about “comic book movies” and says they’re a danger to the whole concept of cinema, I have no idea what the f-word he’s saying. . . .”
Wait, what. I don’t get this.
1) Unless you think al the recent “comic book movies” are also “some of the best movies ever made and most of them convey some powerful message with skill and depth” it isn’t at all odd that Scorsese might state something like that in my view.
2) Unless you think that you have to agree with and/or understand everything Scorsese says because you think he made “some of the best movies ever made and most of them convey some powerful message with skill and depth” it isn’t at all odd that you might “have no idea what the f-word he’s saying. . . .” in my view.
3) Also, I don’t know whether Scorsese had only certain comic book movies like those made in the recent decade(s) in mind when saying what he said (I think he might have), but that might perhaps be a crucial aspect concerning his statements and your subsequent interpretation.
I can’t speak to what Scorsese might mean, but I have noticed that Marvel-style “comic book movies” and their emulators all have a very similar kind of “house style”. They tend to have similar visuals, draw from the same pool of character types, have largely forgettable music, and adopt a similar plot structure. Of course, the same could be said of many genres! But the prevalence and profitability of the specific marvel-style has led to so many copycats, that I think I understand why Scorsese is worried.
It’s a bit like cargo cult science or it’s close relative, cargo cult analyses. There’s a danger that people adopt a certain style or method not because it is actually appropriate to their specific research question, but because it has a certain form that resembles the kind of thing that has acquired the label of “science” or “statistics”.
It could be that people will make Marvel-style movies not because those are the stories they want to tell, but because they think that it has to have those characteristics in order to be called a “movie”. Similarly, people may perform tests of meaningless bull hypotheses because they think they need to do so for what they’re doing to be called “statistics”.
I was under the impression that a lot of the hero movies followed the ‘Hero with a Thousand Faces’ plot structure and that is pretty much why they all end up with a very similar ‘house style’ as you put it. Certainly the wikipedia page for ‘Hero…’ gives numerous examples of films that follow this structure and also states: “Christopher Vogler, a Hollywood film producer and writer, wrote a memo for Disney Studios on the use of The Hero with a Thousand Faces as a guide for scriptwriters”
I think the idea behind Scorsese’s comment is that the marvel “comic book” movies are uniform in style whereas older blockbusters used to vary more.
If you watch avengers end game, or iron man, or the marvels, etc., they all have basically the same themes, character types, quip-heavy dialog, green-screen heavy visuals, assortment of random name-brand classic rock songs thrown in, and so on. They have been so dominant at the box office that many young people would reasonably only be aware of this film type — the “comic book movie”. Evanier equates the “comic book movie” with the general concept of the summer blockbuster, but I do think they are different. He mentions movies like empire strikes back, top gun, and E.T., and while these are all summer blockbusters, they are extremely different on themes, visual style, characters, etc. — they don’t share, to borrow “gec’s” term, a “house-style”
The nuance that’s missing here is that it’s not really about superheroes, but rather the franchised “cinematic universe”. Superman in 1978 was a movie about Superman. Spider man in 2002 was a movie about Spider man with a beginning middle and end.
Spider Man today (by which I mean the Marvel Spider Man) is a movie embedded in a web of other movie plots and other superheroes with their own movies. The central gimmick of these is the feeling of being a knowledgeable insider, the little thrill when you recognize a reference to a previous movie or a character you’ve seen in other contexts. The more of these movies and, cynically, the more money you give to the same parent company, the stronger their pull. The plots of these individual movies are of therefore of little consequence, and the concept is often overtly a template plot with a chosen character. Heist movie with this hero, featuring appearances from x y and z, a spy movie with this hero feature these people, etc.
This kind of interconnected plot necessitates some tradeoffs. As someone else mentioned, to maintain a consistent tone, there’s a house style of light consumable ironic detachment. In my opinion (as someone who hasn’t seen any of them in years), it also limits how emotionally involving a story can be because if movie A has any significant consequences to a character or setting can make all subsequent movies incomprehensible to anyone who hasn’t seen movie A.
A much more quantifiable take from Scorcese
I haven’t had occasion to analyze the data in depth myself, but it’s pretty clear that franchises, remakes, and sequels are a higher percent of new releases, box office revenues, and studio funding.
https://www.franchisere.biz/movie-industry-charts-and-trends/
https://www.experimental-history.com/p/pop-culture-has-become-an-oligopoly
Of course, I personally think it’s a great time for media, but it does seem that the unique stuff is smaller and the bigger stuff is blander; I don’t think cinema is necessarily in trouble without stuff that’s both unique and big, but I can what Scorsese misses.
Spider Man is a movie “embedded in a web” . . . I see what you did there!
I think it’s a tacky pun
String him up!
I think you are hitting the key point here.
This system of storytelling was adapted directly from Marvel/DC comic books — they want you to buy lots of different comics to follow the big story.
The other big thing is the proliferation of multiverses and parallel timelines, and the “retcon”. Pioneered by comic books and now seemingly the main plot device in all Marvel and DC movies (as well as the animated Sony Spider-Man).
An interesting contrast is the recent Batman movie with Pattinson. I’d say your average Letterboxd user — meaning the type of film fan who agrees with Scorsese here — seemingly liked that movie. Still a “comic book movie”, but it had an idiosyncratic vision and as you say, a beginning, middle, and end.
Maybe Scorsese’s comment is being taken too literally. Maybe, by “comic book movies” he means something more general: movies with simple common plots analogous to those in comic books or Saturday morning comics. Childlike. Rarely addressing current social issues, and even when they do so, addressing them with contemptable shallowness. That would fit perfectly with modern times, where it seems to suit both extremes of the political spectrum to ignore the complexities of issues to facilitate their extreme views.
I think the category Mr. Evanier has in mind is more like “movies which depart from real life, such as you might find in a comic book” (e.g., “Ghost Busters”) I don’t know if any storyline is actually original in that it has never been used before in any tale in humanity’s 200,000 year history, but I have read (many years ago) comic book stories which seemed original to me.
I can (I think) recall at least one Scorsese movie which involved witchcraft and a deal with the devil, which gave me vague recollections of things seen in comic books.
In my youth there were a lot of cowboy and indian movies, and other pot boilers, such as very dumb so-called science fiction movies (involving monsters from outer space). There was always a cartoon besides the main feature, and often the cartoon was the best part of the show–in a small town movie theater.
I think it is just another example of Sturgeon’s Law, and its corollary: 10% of everything is not crap, including comic books. Confounded by the fact that it is a different 10% for different people.
I find Mark Evanier’s complaint just as preplexing as he finds Scorsese’s. Like, what is he even talking about when he said, “I dunno about you but I’d call most of those ‘comic book movies.'” ? I don’t think anyone except Mark would call any of those comic book movies. So I’m trying to see past his extremely weird examples to see what bigger point he’s trying to make, but I really can’t.
(well except Superman and Batman, obviously)
The biggest mistake Scorcese makes is equating cinema with “our culture”. He’s devoted his entire life to movies so you can see why he’d make that mistake, but we don’t have to.
There wasn’t any cinema 150 years ago and there was culture just the same. This will continue to be the case whether or not all movies eventually become comic book movies. If they do, it will reveal that the comparative advantage of cinema, with its huge screen and powerful sound, is larger-than-life action sequences. There will continue to be demand for deeper, more subtle themes, and those will move to tv / ipads / phones / kindles / etc.
Don’t assume the thing you grew up with is the default thing forever and ever.
Some of my favorite movies are things like Broken Flowers, My Dinner With Andre, The Big Lebowski, and Serpico, so I’ll go along with Scorsese and agree that we don’t make em like we used to. Now if only these kids would get off of my lawn!
Do you people really really not understand how billionaires completely restructured almost every business in this country in the the last 30n years? And no, they were not optimizing on user experience. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/make-hollywood-great-again
> This seems like a statistical problem
I don’t think so… It seems like you have a statistical hammer in your hands, and now every problem looks like a nail to you…
I’m sorry if that sounds disrespectful, I didn’t mean it to be…
Anyway, from what I’ve heard in excerpts from Scorsese’s interviews, and from the very fact he’s a director, I strongly suspect he’s interested in the internal qualities of the movies, not their statistical properties. He was referring to (Marvel) comic-book movies as an “attraction” like a roller-coaster and not the movies as he know them.
I think he’s pointing to specific thematic, stylistic, plot and execution choices these movies make. They rely on over-the-top action, (fake) stunts, huge explosions and CGI as the main drivers of their artistic effect. And they all have to conform to mostly the same recognisable visual style of the whole franchise. This severely limits stylistic and technical choices a director (and a DP) can make, including the lighting, the lenses, what types of shots and camera movements to use, and which not to use. Overall, the uniform style of these movies and their quantity forms an impression of what cinema in general looks and feels like among the viewers. Leaving very little room for other styles…
A sort of stark counterexample is the recent movie “The Killer” by David Fincher. On the surface, it’s literally a “comic-book movie”, but the style and execution is something opposite to Marvel flicks. It has no explosions at all, very subtle and “technical” CGI, only one hand-to-hand fight (and again, choreographed and shot in a completely different style), I’ve counted only 6 kills throughout the whole story, and no shootouts at all (kinda anti-john-wick). As far as I can see it’s pretty much hated by “comic-book movie” fans because you have to pay very close attention to what’s happening on the screen to understand what’s going on and why. And at the same time, it’s next to hated by David Fincher fans because the plot is so simple and straightforward. :D
That’s why I think it has little to do with descriptive statistics unless we’re talking about the box office and its implications… :D
Another category error: “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” was a (car)toon movie, not a comic book movie.