article from: poison eye, author: Jiang Yuqi, from the cover: Oriental IC
The debate between the big director Martin Scorsese and the Marvel film is constantly evolving.
In October this year, Scorsese said in an interview with Empire magazine: “Marvel’s film (movie) is not a movie (cinema), more like a theme park or an amusement park. I try to see some of them, even though they are well-made, actors can perform The circle is a bit, but I still can’t swallow it, because these films don’t really convey the true feelings and the soul.”
This statement immediately triggered an uproar on social networks and in the midst of movie fans. Even a lot of people criticized and protested on Scorsese’s remarks, saying that it was “too arrogant” and “very 迂 ”. In response to these external evaluations, Scorsese himself recently published a long article in the New York Times, “I said that Marvel movies are not movies, let me explain”.
Segments about the event (Source: @FINCHER_Club)
In the article, Scorsese tells the reason for his “painful” Marvel film: “What makes people sad is that the current situation is that we have two completely irrelevant land: one is global. The audiovisual entertainment product, the second is the movie (cinema). The two occasionally overlap, but have become less and less. I am afraid Yes: One of the economic dominances is being used to marginalize or even devalue the other.”
Use more straightforwardIn other words, Scorsese is worried that the proliferation of “film and television fast-moving goods”, which is dominated by Marvel films, will greatly affect the innovation of film expression and make film creation slowly lose. The uniqueness and “adventurous spirit” become “the vassal” of capital just to meet specific consumer needs.
Martin Scorsese
The view of Scorsese is naturally difficult to get recognition from the Marvel. Kevin Fitch, the head of Marvel Entertainment, immediately said: “I don’t think this is right. Unfortunately, I and the workers in these Marvel movies love movies, love to go to the movies, love to be full of audience. In the cinema, we get a common movie experience, we can use our own success to take risks and do a lot of things.”
Having said that, is Marvel’s film really “adventurous”?
In the previous article, the drug lord once mentioned that the Marvel series is a typical product of the Hollywood film industry system: from the 2008 Iron Man, in addition to special works such as The Avengers 4 The cost of almost all Marvel films is strictly controlled between 150 million and 250 million US dollars, and the scale is highly uniform. To achieve this effect, it means that the production process and links of all the works must be very similar, so as to avoid all accidents as much as possible.
Marvel Universe
Because of this, the vast majority of Marvels so farIf the works are split according to the way of narratology, the narrative mode and the constituent elements are very similar, and they belong to a very typical typed film. The benefits of doing so are obvious, that is, the stability of box office revenues – over the past 11 years, more than $22 billion in box office has flowed into the pockets of Disney and Marvel, which is a unique case in the history of film.
It is precisely because there are Disney and Marvel “Beads in the front”, in recent years, remake, IP adaptation began to replace the original film to become the mainstream of Hollywood creation: in the 1990s, half of Hollywood’s movies were original films. By the end of last year, this proportion had fallen to 10%; and in this year’s North American box office movie, almost no original story can be seen.
Original films from six major Hollywood studios in 1984, 1994, 2004, and 2014
“Compared with the rapid development of the Chinese film market, most of the major Hollywood companies are now professional managers. Their approach is to sequel more and more, so that they will not make mistakes, but they also lack innovation and lack. With regard to themes, stories, and understanding of American literature, Hollywood is increasingly afraid to take risks.” Boehner’s chairman, Dong Dong, had previously said in an interview that these stable gains are actually Hollywood’s “adventure”. The lack of spirit – compared to innovation, large-scale factories are looking forward to stable income.
For such an industrialized content production model, whether it is good or bad, industry and academic circles have always been controversial: supporters believe that industrialization can ensure the stability of content output, continuously meet market demand, and drive the development of the industry. However, the Frankfurt School scholars represented by Horkheimer and Adorno believe that the birth of the cultural industry is actually killing people’s independent thinking spirit.
In 1947, in the article “Cultural Industry: Enlightenment as a Public Deception,” Horkheimer and Adorno first revealed that the culture of developed capitalist countries at that time was characterized by “big industry.” In their view, products in the cultural industry rely on mechanical technology, the content and style of the work are the same, lacking artistic value.Only keen on investment results. At the same time, it controls and regulates the needs of cultural consumers, “binding the human consciousness, depriving people’s emotions, and hindering the development of human autonomy”. It is a means of manipulation and deception, and is a “social cement” that stabilizes the current order. .
Although the argument of the cultural industry is only a statement, it is undeniable that with the proliferation of various IP adaptation works, the types and values of Hollywood works are becoming more and more similar, and some forms that are contrary to each other are becoming more and more It’s hard to survive – just as Disney and other giants are getting bigger and bigger, many small and medium-sized studios that focus on independent films and original movies are getting harder and harder to survive in Hollywood.
In this response, Martin Scorsese also specifically mentioned that he had just finished a new film “Irish” with Netflix, and the reason why he would cooperate with Netflix is because only Netflix allowed him to ” Go and shoot as needed.” Although he still hopes that his film will continue to be shown on the big screen, “the screen of most theaters is full of movies.”
“Irish” Douban Rating and Synopsis
There is no coincidence. When evaluating Oscar’s best foreign language film “Rome” this year, some people in the industry mentioned that if it is not Netflix, there may be no reason for Hollywood to buy this niche movie; and the award-winning season like “Manchester by the Sea” Hot films are not only available with the support of streaming media giants. On the contrary, many Hollywood manufacturers don’t care about this.
So it seems that the fears of “Martin Scorsese” are not groundless.
It is worth noting that both the Frankfurt School’s critique of the cultural industry and Scorsese’s concerns have a common potential premise: in the face of capital, the audience is weak and passive, because It is easily entangled in “fast-moving products” and thus loses the ability to think independently. If the film industry is a unified and isolated