Earlier this month, our honorary nonno, Martin Scorsese, decided to wage a war of words against the Marvel Cinematic Universe: He declared the franchise as being “not cinema” and nothing more than “theme parks,” and also encouraged cinemas to prevent being “invaded” by them in the future. Now, his buddy Francis Ford Coppola is busting out some even saltier anti-Marvel rhetoric. As reported by Yahoo! News at the annual Lumière Festival, the director, while accepting a lifetime-achievement award, wanted the record to show that Iron Man 3 is no Patton. Or that Thor: Ragnarok is no The Godfather Part II. “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,” Coppola explained. “Martin was kind when he said it’s not cinema. He didn’t say it’s despicable, which I just say it is.” Mic drop, Matera style.
Update, Saturday evening: James Gunn, who directed two Guardians of the Galaxy movies, came to the defense of the MCU in a heartfelt post on social media. Although he didn’t directly name Coppola (or Scorsese, for the matter), his message was strong. “Many of our grandfathers thought all gangster movies were the same, often calling them ‘despicable.’ Some of our great grandfathers thought the same of westerns, and believed the films of John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, and Sergio Leone were all exactly the same,” he wrote, in part. “Superheroes are simply today’s gangsters-cowboys-outer space adventurers. Some superhero films are awful, some are beautiful. Like westerns and gangster movies (and before that, just movies), not everyone will be able to appreciate them, even some geniuses. And that’s okay.”
