Why Scorsese is Wrong

Martin Scorsese has another sweeping crime epic about the mob out in cinemas and soon to be streaming on Netflix. As part of the marketing campaign, in which Netflix is no doubt hoping to pick up some Oscar buzz, he’s been making headlines by criticising the major studio, big-budget superhero films, complaints which have created a hilarious level of cognitive dissonance amongst certain groups of cinephiles. This is because the venn diagram of what is appealing about the modern superhero trend has significant overlap with what makes Scorsese films popular which, ironically, has nothing to do with what he is criticising of the franchise. Despite the ‘click-bait’ title, broadly speaking I agree with Scorsese, I don’t agree that superhero movies “aren’t cinema” for instance but I do agree they’ve become painfully generic, predictable and have sucked all the air out of the room in cinemas across the globe, that isn’t what he is wrong about. The reason I think both Scorsese AND the recent crop of superhero movies are wrong has a lot to do with someone else who has been going viral recently criticising the superhero genre (if you can call it a genre).

It was legendary comic book writer Alan Moore’s birthday recently and to celebrate someone dug up an interview he gave in 2017 for Brazilian writer Raphael Sassaki, in which he talked about his dislike for the current state of the superhero oeuvre. What his overall…