Martin Scorsese stirred up a hornet’s nest when he boldly claimed that Marvel movies, especially those held within Disney’s MCU, are not cinema. Now one of his contemporaries, Francis Ford Coppola, the man behind such seminal classics as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, is agreeing with the filmmaker. Only Coppola does Marty one better. He dares call the MCU movies ‘Despicable’.
Agree to disagree. Many people love Marvel movies, especially those held within the MCU. You need only look at the box office receipts for that. They have dominated the cinematic landscape for the past decade. And some of the older guard just ain’t having it. After Martin Scorsese made his comments that these movies aren’t cinema, quite a few MCU luminaries responded, including Robert Downey Jr. and James Gunn, most politely disagreeing with him.
You won’t get any such disagreement from Francis Ford Coppola, who last directed the hardly seen Distant Vision back in 2016, with the obscure fantasy horror comedy Twixt coming before that in 2011. Coppola also believes that these MCU outings are nothing but theme park rides. And it’s unlikely that we’ll see the master filmmaker ever embarking on one of these endeavors. Speaking to journalists at the French city of Lyon where he’s just been awarded the Prix Lumiere for his contribution to cinema, Coppola says this.
“When Martin Scorsese says that the Marvel pictures are not cinema, he’s right because we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration. I don’t know that anyone gets anything out of seeing the same movie over and over again. Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is.”
Francis Ford Coppola only selectively works when a project truly interests him. And he has found such a project in Megalopolis, which deals with utopia. The director has been working on the project for over two decades, and may just be riling up Marvel fans to bring some attention to his own current work. He says this about the movie.
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“I wanted to make a film about a human expression of what really is heaven on earth. I would say it’s the most ambitious film (I’ve worked on) — more than Apocalypse Now. That’s the problem. I think it would cost more than Apocalypse Now. It would be the biggest budget I ever had to work with.”
Francis Ford Coppola has now joined the exclusive ranks of those who have received the Prix Lumiere. Past recipients include Martin Scorsese, Pedro Almodovar and Milos Forman. We don’t know how those other two guys feel about MCU movies. But we may find out soon. Jennifer Aniston is another big name that has come out against Marvel and Disney in recent weeks. She, instead, would like to see a Meg Ryan revival at the local cinema. Doubt that will happen though. These comments from Francis Ford Coppola come from Yahoo! News.
