Is Quentin Tarantino just the latest in a long line of auteur filmmakers to be roundly chastised on Twitter for daring to question superhero movies' enduring hegemony at the global box office? According to various reports this week, including this piece in the Hollywood Reporter, that's the story you're reading.
When asked about superhero movies, Tarantino told Tom Segura's 2 Bears, 1 Cave podcast, "I don't love them." I don't think so. I don’t hate them. But I don’t love them. I mean, look, when I was a kid, I was a huge fan of Marvel Comics. There's a chance that if these movies came out when I was in my twenties, I'd be overjoyed and adore them. [However], they would not be the only movies made; rather, they would be films among others. I'm almost 60, so I'm not as enthusiastic about them.
"My only beef is that they appear to be manufactured," Tarantino continued. "And they're the only things that seem to generate any kind of excitement among fans or even for the studio that makes them... So it's just the fact that they are currently the sole representation of this era of cinema. There isn't much room for anything else. That is my issue. It's a representation issue."
Part of the Marvel-ization of Hollywood is all these famous actors playing these characters," he added. "But they aren't movie stars, are they?" Captain America is the main character. Thor is the main character. I'm not the first to say this. That has probably been said a million times, but it is these franchise characters who become stars.
"Back in 2005, if an actor stars in a film that does as well as the Marvel films, that guy is an absolute star." It means that people like him or her and want to see them in things. Sandra Bullock stars in Speed, and everyone thinks she's fantastic. Everyone fell madly in love with her... Sandra Bullock piqued their interest, and they wanted to see her in something else. That is no longer the case. We want to see that guy continue to play Wolverine or whatever."
Regular readers of this column will recall that we have (sort of) been here before, when Martin Scorsese sparked the original anti-Marvel uproar in October 2019 with comments made during his Bafta David Lean lecture. Because of the overabundance of superhero films, the venerable director compared cinema to "amusement parks." In an interview with Empire, he went on to say, "The value of a film that's like a theme park film, for example, Marvel-type pictures, where the theatres become amusement parks, that's a different experience... It isn't cinema, but something else."
Following his acceptance of the Prix Lumière for contribution to cinema, Francis Ford Coppola spoke to journalists in Lyon.
"When Martin Scorsese says the Marvel movies aren't cinema, he's right because we expect to learn something from cinema, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration," said the director of Apocalypse Now and the Godfather trilogy. "I don't think anyone benefits from seeing the same movie over and over again." Martin was correct when he stated that it is not cinema. He didn't say it was despicable, which I do."
Tarantino's remarks enraged Simu Liu, the star of Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, who tweeted: "If Tarantino and Scorsese were the only gatekeepers to movie stardom, I would never have had the opportunity to lead a $400 million-plus film." I'm in awe of their filmmaking prowess. They are transcendent filmmakers. But they don't get to sneer at me or anyone else. No film studio is or will ever be perfect. But I'm proud to be a part of one that has worked hard to improve diversity onscreen by creating heroes who empower and inspire people from all walks of life. I adored the golden age as well... but it was as white as hell."
Of course, Liu has a point, but I believe the majority of the farrago's commenters have missed Tarantino's. The Pulp Fiction director isn't implying that Marvel characters aren't movie stars because they lack presence or the necessary thespian savvy. He laments a bygone era when moviegoers went to see the latest Cary Grant or Tom Cruise film rather than the latest Thor or Iron Man film.
Tarantino has always been drawn to characters with a magnetic screen presence. It's why he's helped so many Hollywood stars, from John Travolta to Daryl Hannah and the late David Carradine, relaunch their careers. He wants us to shudder with delight as we recognise the once and future famous face before us, now reimagined through a lens.
Remarking that Marvel actors aren't really movie stars is almost Tarantino-esque. He is bemoaning the loss of a system that has given him so much, for the filmmaker is nothing if not a supremely talented magpie, half-inching all the best bits from the cinema of yesteryear and reconfiguring them in such a stylish and insouciant manner that the result often outperforms the original.
However, there is nothing for him to grab hold of, nothing to steal, because the stars here are the comic book characters that fans have known and loved for decades, not those who portray them.
Tarantinos in the future may struggle. The rest of us (and Marvel) are likely to be disappointed.
You must be logged in to post a comment.