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An opinion piece by the famous director....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-marvel.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Some key quotes.....

When I was in England in early October, I gave an interview to Empire magazine. I was asked a question about Marvel movies. I answered it. I said that I’ve tried to watch a few of them and that they’re not for me, that they seem to me to be closer to theme parks than they are to movies as I’ve known and loved them throughout my life, and that in the end, I don’t think they’re cinema.

Some people seem to have seized on the last part of my answer as insulting, or as evidence of hatred for Marvel on my part. If anyone is intent on characterizing my words in that light, there’s nothing I can do to stand in the way.

Many franchise films are made by people of considerable talent and artistry. You can see it on the screen. The fact that the films themselves don’t interest me is a matter of personal taste and temperament. I know that if I were younger, if I’d come of age at a later time, I might have been excited by these pictures and maybe even wanted to make one myself. But I grew up when I did and I developed a sense of movies — of what they were and what they could be — that was as far from the Marvel universe as we on Earth are from Alpha Centauri.

and some more....

In the past 20 years, as we all know, the movie business has changed on all fronts. But the most ominous change has happened stealthily and under cover of night: the gradual but steady elimination of risk. Many films today are perfect products manufactured for immediate consumption. Many of them are well made by teams of talented individuals. All the same, they lack something essential to cinema: the unifying vision of an individual artist. Because, of course, the individual artist is the riskiest factor of all.

The situation, sadly, is that we now have two separate fields: There’s worldwide audiovisual entertainment, and there’s cinema. They still overlap from time to time, but that’s becoming increasingly rare. And I fear that the financial dominance of one is being used to marginalize and even belittle the existence of the other.

Thoughts, reactions, and diatribes welcome!

He's got to build hype for his latest movie somehow.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
He's got to build hype for his latest movie somehow.

Totally this, whilst him and Sophia's dad are free to yell at clouds, keep kids off their lawns and hold any view they like on popcorn movies it saddens me even they are playing the squeeky wheel game rather than just letting the product speak for itself

A better response than what started it all. It was and remains, a business and industry opinion and in many aspects he's not wrong. It's just the dismissive attitude of what constitutes "cinema" that comes across as an old man behind the times. Movies trying to legitimize trashy or childish things their directors have cherished from childhood is hardly a new thing, including Scorsese's own work.

The better way to express his concern is that he fears the death of the auteur. He fears that the business requires so many people and so much investment and oversight and, well, business, that it greatly limits the ability for someone to make a truly personal film. There's an argument to be had there and certainly we've seen that problem rapid consume the video game industry outside of the indie sphere as of late. It's an argument worth having, but not one you're going to have with any meaning if your opening salvo is to dismiss something adored by the people you're trying to reach.

Dementia really is sad isn't it.

I mean, I assume it's dementia and he's just completely forgetting that the exact same thing complete with backlash has happened before in waves with biblical epics, westerns, muscle-actioners, thrillers etc, and that he's also forgetting the numerous industry people who responded to his initial comment by reminding him of the aforementioned, because the alternative would be he's just being a hugely disingenuous old fart desperately casting about for some justification for his obvious snobbery...

 LunarSol wrote:
A better response than what started it all. It was and remains, a business and industry opinion and in many aspects he's not wrong. It's just the dismissive attitude of what constitutes "cinema" that comes across as an old man behind the times. Movies trying to legitimize trashy or childish things their directors have cherished from childhood is hardly a new thing, including Scorsese's own work.

The better way to express his concern is that he fears the death of the auteur. He fears that the business requires so many people and so much investment and oversight and, well, business, that it greatly limits the ability for someone to make a truly personal film. There's an argument to be had there and certainly we've seen that problem rapid consume the video game industry outside of the indie sphere as of late. It's an argument worth having, but not one you're going to have with any meaning if your opening salvo is to dismiss something adored by the people you're trying to reach.

Blumhouse and A24 are putting out tons of auteur work. With all the stReaming networks snapping up new talent to develop, we're practically living in a second golden age for auteurs. The Balkanization of content channels means that their works are seen by fewer people, but that's true of every bit of entertainment and culture in the world.

I have to say I can't really disagree with anything he said. He's allowed to have his opinion of what he considers real cinema, and what's not....just as we all are.

He's 100% spot on with the way the bigger budget movies are made today, and he's correct that they're just safely calculated money-making machinery. Doesn't mean they're not good enough for a couple hours and a bag of popcorn.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
A better response than what started it all. It was and remains, a business and industry opinion and in many aspects he's not wrong. It's just the dismissive attitude of what constitutes "cinema" that comes across as an old man behind the times. Movies trying to legitimize trashy or childish things their directors have cherished from childhood is hardly a new thing, including Scorsese's own work.

The better way to express his concern is that he fears the death of the auteur. He fears that the business requires so many people and so much investment and oversight and, well, business, that it greatly limits the ability for someone to make a truly personal film. There's an argument to be had there and certainly we've seen that problem rapid consume the video game industry outside of the indie sphere as of late. It's an argument worth having, but not one you're going to have with any meaning if your opening salvo is to dismiss something adored by the people you're trying to reach.

Blumhouse and A24 are putting out tons of auteur work. With all the stReaming networks snapping up new talent to develop, we're practically living in a second golden age for auteurs. The Balkanization of content channels means that their works are seen by fewer people, but that's true of every bit of entertainment and culture in the world.

True, but he is specifically commenting on Cinema and that he narrows to be "on the big screen" therefore eliminating streaming channels, cable, and network TV from the discussion.

I don't see anything "controversial" in his statements at all.

There is definitely something to be said about a difference between "art" and "commoditized entertainment." Evidently he fancies himself in the former camp. Good for him. We can all agree or disagree if that would be the case, but I find it much harder to disagree that there is a difference between those two things, in-themselves.

I also think he is correct on the entertainment industry, in general, being "risk averse." That goes hand and hand with the "commoditization" aspect though. Again, he seems to fancy himself in the "risk" category, which might or might not be the case. Still, I see no reason why he is incorrect in his outline of the paradigm.

For all that Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse likely get "wrong" I don't think they incorrect in pointing out the commoditization of "art" in the so-called "culture industry." For example: "Adorno described the culture industry as a key integrative mechanism for binding individuals, as both consumers and producers, to modern, capitalist societies. Where many sociologists have argued that complex, capitalist societies are fragmented and heterogeneous in character, Adorno insists that the culture industry, despite the manifest diversity of cultural commodities, functions to maintain a uniform system, to which all must conform."

Note too, Baudrillard's later take on the "post-Modern" role of art:
"And yet as a proliferation of images, of form, of line, of color, of design, art is more fundamental then ever to the contemporary social order: “our society has given rise to a general aestheticization: all forms of culture — not excluding anti-cultural ones — are promoted and all models of representation and anti-representation are taken on board” (p. 16). Thus Baudrillard concludes that: “It is often said that the West's great undertaking is the commercialization of the whole world, the hitching of the fate of everything to the fate of the commodity. That great undertaking will turn out rather to have been the aestheticization of the whole world — its cosmopolitan spectacularization, its transformation into images, its semiological organization” (p. 16)."

Not to mention the further "mediating" factor of seemingly ever growing appeals to "hyper-reality" and the like. So, I hardly see Scorsese as "off base" for the most part, even if his view is likely both biased and lacking of a certain amount of self-aware/criticalness.

There's like, a dozen small films released in theaters every month. Modern distribution and theater chain economics mean they tend to play in only a few theaters, but that's how things work in this new economy. He might as well get upset that young people aren't supporting the destination wedding industry like they used to.

 Elbows wrote:
Doesn't mean they're not good enough for a couple hours and a bag of popcorn.

And, more to the point, there is nothing wrong with being a fun, dumb movie with no pretensions of being high art. Sometimes you want steak, sometimes you wand doritos.

 Ouze wrote:
And, more to the point, there is nothing wrong with being a fun, dumb movie with no pretensions of being high art. Sometimes you want steak, sometimes you wand doritos.

Well, in a way, using that analogy "proves" Scorese's point for him, though. If you want to liken Marvel movies to snack foods and Scorsese's to steak, well, then you already concede that the Marvel movies are "not good for you." There really is no time where Doritos are "good for you." Sure, in small quantities, eaten rarely, they aren't overly detrimental, but the fact remains they are never really what could be called healthy. So the fact that this is what one might crave, what, if available, one might prefer, speaks well to Scorsese's point.

Sure, we can say that all entertainment need not be "deep" or overly "artistic" what you liken as the nutritional paralel of steak. But so then we could ask, if snack foods are simply not good for us, if, in your words "fun, dumb movies," are what we crave (as we crave snack foods), to what degree should we indulge that? Should we at all? What we are then asking is a teleological question about what the purpose of art or entertainment is. In the same way we could ask a teleological question about the purpose of snack food is if it is the case that it is detrimental to our health (which it likely is, in any quantity).

We then need to ask, are "fun, dumb movies" a detriment to our manner of thinking akin to how snack foods are a detriment to our health?

 Ouze wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Doesn't mean they're not good enough for a couple hours and a bag of popcorn.

And, more to the point, there is nothing wrong with being a fun, dumb movie with no pretensions of being high art. Sometimes you want steak, sometimes you wand doritos.

Which Scorsese agrees with in the essay. He does not condemn these entertainment films, but is more concern trolling that the commercialization of film is pushing out actual art and Autuers from the film making process on the big screen.

 Easy E wrote:
Which Scorsese agrees with in the essay. He does not condemn these entertainment films, but is more concern trolling that the commercialization of film is pushing out actual art and Autuers from the film making process on the big screen.

I don't follow why you figure he is "concern trolling" though. Sound more to me like he is fairly accurately describing the current paradigm. What he isn't doing is being self-critical or self-aware enough to realize that he, himself, is actually a perpetuator of that paradigm, rather than a "force" against it. Or, at least, he is not a force against it. Although, maybe in his minor defense, I don't think he could do much about it, if he even were so inclined to, but the point still stands.

So, H, would you consider him then to be some flavor of hypocrite?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, H, would you consider him then to be some flavor of hypocrite?

I don't know, that word has a "strong" negative connotation. I think he is a person who likely has "good intentions" but we all know where the road to, is paved with.

So, I think he's just a person, inclined to biases, which everyone is to greater or lesser extents. I don't know him, or of him, enough to really know if it might be the former or the latter. From reading that little bit, I don't think he is "trolling" at all, or at least, it seems not. I think he is actually concerned (although maybe/probably not for the "right" reasons). But, like many people, with respect to many things, I don't think he has thought it through enough. And, like many talented people, he probably lacks some measure of self-awareness. That's likely an existential need though, in his case, if he were to make anything though, so I won't really hold it against him too much.

But I would critique his position, here, but not so much his thesis. He seems to be taking a passive role, in a way, and I'd critique that. Also, in a broader scope, he has benefited in all likelihood from the "way things are" but then wants to critique others for doing the same, just in a larger scale. I think then he really needs to get down to a deeper layer and realize the systemic nature of what he is critiquing. But does he really want to bite, any less than gentilly, the hand the feeds? Unlikely.

So, I'll give him +5 for the good intent, -4 for failing to draw the conclusion out past where (I think) he self-servingly wanted it to be. Or at least, so it seems to me. But note, of course, that I am demonstrably an idiot, so, what do I know?

Your posts seem to be much better informed than any others in this field, so I will politely disagree.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
He's got to build hype for his latest movie somehow.

More than that, his career.

For whatever reasons, he feels the need to justify himself as above current trends, and cover himself in the illusion that his work is 'high art' or more artistic because... stuff. And things.

BobtheInquisitor wrote:Your posts seem to be much better informed than any others in this field, so I will politely disagree.

Well, I don't know that we can know. All we could really do is surmise. I guess I have something like a "spirit" of "charity?" Who knows, probably still an idiot, just one prone to over-thinking.

Voss wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
He's got to build hype for his latest movie somehow.

More than that, his career.

For whatever reasons, he feels the need to justify himself as above current trends, and cover himself in the illusion that his work is 'high art' or more artistic because... stuff. And things.

Well, perhaps he is really self-conscious and so he feels the need "justify" what he does? Perhaps that actually comes from him knowing full well that he hasn't been the "artist" he could/should/would have been?

I'm totally unfairly psychoanalyzing here though. In one sense though, I can't blame him if that's the case. How does the Real compete with the Hyper-Real? It's a losing battle. Or, so it seems.

In a way, it's like you have a carrot stand and someone else is slinging heroin on the corner. Sure, people come get some carrots from time to time, but way more people are jamming that addictive stuff, stuff made precisely to be addictive, made to evoke cravings and addiction. But I am drawing on too dramatic a parallel. But the thing is, I do think they analogy is very roughly akin. It's a matter of degrees and those degrees do really matter, but in the end, can we really say that profusion of "thoughtless" media is actually a good thing?

In the words of Gil Scott Heron* (we could probably put a lot of them here): "You will not be able to stay home, brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on and drop out. You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip. Skip out for beer during commercials. Because the revolution will not be televised."

*(Final note there, yes, Gil Scott Heron was a pretty terrible person, as a person, but his vision, and artistic vision, was keen.)

 H wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
And, more to the point, there is nothing wrong with being a fun, dumb movie with no pretensions of being high art. Sometimes you want steak, sometimes you wand doritos.

Well, in a way, using that analogy "proves" Scorese's point for him, though. If you want to liken Marvel movies to snack foods and Scorsese's to steak, well, then you already concede that the Marvel movies are "not good for you." There really is no time where Doritos are "good for you."

That wasn't exactly what I meant... maybe it was just a bad analogy.

I think Scorsese is generally right in that most comic book movies are not "cinema". They're essentially popcorn flicks. There isn't anything wrong with saying that. People love popcorn flicks, and just as there is room in the supermarket for both fish and steak, there is room for high concept indies and Pacific Rim. They're not competing for viewers.

 H wrote:
What he isn't doing is being self-critical or self-aware enough to realize that he, himself, is actually a perpetuator of that paradigm, rather than a "force" against it. Or, at least, he is not a force against it. Although, maybe in his minor defense, I don't think he could do much about it, if he even were so inclined to, but the point still stands.

This is also a good point. The complaints about being cookie-cutter are pretty rich coming from the guy who thought Goodfellas was so good that he's about to release the 4th ieteration of the same formula.

H, I meant I disagree that you are an idiot.

 Ouze wrote:
I think Scorsese is generally right in that most comic book movies are not "cinema". They're essentially popcorn flicks. There isn't anything wrong with saying that. People love popcorn flicks, and just as there is room in the supermarket for both fish and steak, there is room for high concept indies and Pacific Rim. They're not competing for viewers.

I'd quibble here slightly. In one sense, you are 100% right, there is "room" there for both. In another though, the "market" does not "solve" everything, I don't think.

If we deign to another nutritional analogy, if most things on the shelf at the grocery store are engineered to appeal to human cravings, to indulge human tendency to "desire" things that are "unhealthy" sure, there is "room on the shelf" for the healthy food, but who is buying? The race to the most addictive, super-low-price stuff is well and on. This is Hyper-Reality on 11, where food engineered in laboratories tastes "better" than what grew "on the vine."

Now, sure, if you get a bag of Doritos once every month, whatever, who cares. But there are people whose lives are predicated on this stuff. They eat fast food for 3 meals a day.

Back to movies. Do "unthinking" or "dumb, fun" movies really hurt someone for sitting down and watching them? No, not likely. Just like how one bag of chips probably doesn't kill you. But, what happens when that is all you consume? What becomes of a mind conditioned to simply not think? What becomes of a body fed food unfit for prolonged consumption? That's the danger I can imagine. Most people won't shot gun endless snacks. Most people won't predicate their lives on whatever the latest Fast & Furious movie is "saying."

The thing is, with dataism, big data and what we learn via neuroscience, things like Cambridge Analytica and so on, really beg the question: how long can one hold one, in light of engineering things to be addictive, to be mindlessly entertaining, to "switch-off" thinking? I'm not really trying to be doom-and-gloom, but the phenomena seems all too real, we just have to ask, what does it end up looking like?

 Ouze wrote:
This is also a good point. The complaints about being cookie-cutter are pretty rich coming from the guy who thought Goodfellas was so good that he's about to release the 4th ieteration of the same formula.

Well, I think we can likely say that "money talks, nobody walks."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
H, I meant I disagree that you are an idiot.

Don't worry, I got it,

I'm just disinclined to agree with that summary, since, well, I'm trapped in here with me 24/7,

 H wrote:

Well, perhaps he is really self-conscious and so he feels the need "justify" what he does? Perhaps that actually comes from him knowing full well that he hasn't been the "artist" he could/should/would have been?

Questions he should ask himself in the privacy of home, then, not in print.

I'm totally unfairly psychoanalyzing here though. In one sense though, I can't blame him if that's the case. How does the Real compete with the Hyper-Real? It's a losing battle. Or, so it seems.

Its never been 'real.' It's always been film (or theatre), and dressing things up into something people will actually want to watch..
Bob and Jill's Boring Life wasn't ever a draw. They've always had on costumes, whether its samurai, gangsters, cops and robbers or superheroes. It goes all the way back to Greeks and tendency towards demigods and royalty.

In a way, it's like you have a carrot stand and someone else is slinging heroin on the corner. Sure, people come get some carrots from time to time, but way more people are jamming that addictive stuff, stuff made precisely to be addictive, made to evoke cravings and addiction. But I am drawing on too dramatic a parallel. But the thing is, I do think they analogy is very roughly akin. It's a matter of degrees and those degrees do really matter, but in the end, can we really say that profusion of "thoughtless" media is actually a good thing?

Is it thoughtless, or do we just see a lot of thoughtless reactions? When everyone has a 'voice,' its pretty understandable that most of what people hear is babble.

Gangster films aren't exactly thought-provoking, so if that's his take, it isn't a good one. And when he was making them, I know perfectly well there were 'artistis' decrying his work- too raw, too sexualized, too violent, too much cursing, etc, etc.

But I see a lot more attempts at analyzing film now then I did in his heyday. They cost more and require more collaboration, but that doesn't require the loss of 'vision.'
A trend towards epics and heroes are in style because people are self-consciously aware of their lack of power.

In the words of Gil Scott Heron* (we could probably put a lot of them here): "You will not be able to stay home, brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on and drop out. You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip. Skip out for beer during commercials. Because the revolution will not be televised."

Eh... gotta completely disagree with that quote. Its easy to stay home, ignore and lose yourself- there are always lots of distractions, as well as better things that matter.
As for revolutions, those are definitely televised- every ridiculous moment, chopped up, spliced and replayed day-in-day-out.

Back to movies. Do "unthinking" or "dumb, fun" movies really hurt someone for sitting down and watching them? No, not likely. Just like how one bag of chips probably doesn't kill you. But, what happens when that is all you consume? What becomes of a mind conditioned to simply not think? What becomes of a body fed food unfit for prolonged consumption? That's the danger I can imagine.

I think you're over-analyzing a figurative expression. I don't think much of the intellectual capacity of the general public, but the 'turn off the brain' thing is just a turn of phrase. Really, films are one of the few places the average joe is introduced to new ideas and different points of view. Even if they want to be stupid, something new is going to wander in.

 Easy E wrote:
Thoughts, reactions, and diatribes welcome!

I mean logically if one keeps digging they'll eventually reach the other side. So hey, silver linings!

Anyway, he sounds like the kind of person who still thinks that there's a difference between a "movie" and a "film". I once thought that way, but I realised just how stupidly arrogant that was quite a while ago. Scorsesee's older than me, and had a lot more time to figure that out.

Voss wrote:
Questions he should ask himself in the privacy of home, then, not in print.

I don't see any reason why that should be the case. How can there be a public discussion in the privacy of his home?

Voss wrote:
Its never been 'real.' It's always been film (or theatre), and dressing things up into something people will actually want to watch..
Bob and Jill's Boring Life wasn't ever a draw. They've always had on costumes, whether its samurai, gangsters, cops and robbers or superheroes. It goes all the way back to Greeks and tendency towards demigods and royalty.

That's a fair point, it's always been about spectacle. THere you likely have the very appeal of the hyper-real. Realism in-itself just doesn't cut it.

Voss wrote:
Is it thoughtless, or do we just see a lot of thoughtless reactions? When everyone has a 'voice,' its pretty understandable that most of what people hear is babble.

Gangster films aren't exactly thought-provoking, so if that's his take, it isn't a good one. And when he was making them, I know perfectly well there were 'artistis' decrying his work- too raw, too sexualized, too violent, too much cursing, etc, etc.

But I see a lot more attempts at analyzing film now then I did in his heyday. They cost more and require more collaboration, but that doesn't require the loss of 'vision.'
A trend towards epics and heroes are in style because people are self-consciously aware of their lack of power.

It can be both, neither is mutually exclusive. And I already went into why, even his is initial critique is apt, that he fails to take it to it's fully self-aware realization. It is definitely not my position that gangster movies are "art." In fact, I was pointing out the opposite.

Voss wrote:
Eh... gotta completely disagree with that quote. Its easy to stay home, ignore and lose yourself- there are always lots of distractions, as well as better things that matter.
As for revolutions, those are definitely televised- every ridiculous moment, chopped up, spliced and replayed day-in-day-out.

That is exactly the point of the quote. The actual "revolution" would not be what you see on television. Because to be a part of it, you'd actually have to be out doing something. Of course you can do all those things, you can stay home and consume all the media coverage or whatever, but none of that is the "revolution" in-itself. So, what Scott-Heron is saying there is that the "revolution" will not be the media coverage, the commoditization, the "narrative" spin of it, it would be the actual thing you go out and do, for real. Baudrillard had the same notion with The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, not that nothing happened, but that the thing portrayed on TV and in the media didn't actually happen, what actually did, there, on the ground, was vastly different than the media that came out of it.

Voss wrote:
I think you're over-analyzing a figurative expression. I don't think much of the intellectual capacity of the general public, but the 'turn off the brain' thing is just a turn of phrase. Really, films are one of the few places the average joe is introduced to new ideas and different points of view. Even if they want to be stupid, something new is going to wander in.

Well, I already admitted that I am prone to over-analysis. But that, in-itself, doesn't mean what I said is factually incorrect. Sure, no one literally "turns off their brain," they'd be dead. But the notion that people are conditioned to not think critically, well, to me, holds water. Now, of course there is a matter of degrees at hand here. But do Transformer movies, or Fast & Furious movies, really introduce any new ideas or perspectives?

As you say yourself, it's "easy to stay at home, ignore and lose yourself." To what degree is that a good thing? That's my question. What happens when that notion gets applied not just to movies, but to things that actually matter, like real-life choices and politics? If you are already conditioned to simple "tune in and drop out" to the news? Where does one start thinking critically then?

You vaguely insult "the general public" for what reason, I don't know, so should we just hole-up in our Ivory Tower then? We are all the general public. People often don't "learn" because they don't have the time, the energy, the access. When you are working two jobs, when do you have time to consider Plato's Republic? When you are a single parent, struggling with work and raising kids, when do you have time to read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics? As we already pointed out, it is easier to "tune in and drop out." When you get informed of what your opinion is, ready-made, why bother thinking? But to think that people just aren't intelligent? Nah, I don't buy it.

Lampoon it, sure, my analysis over-done. But I consider the edge-case, because that seems more informative than any other. Since I don't fancy myself as smart, or "right," it doesn't bother me much to be wrong. However, nothing you've presented shows me an actually error, just a disagreement about the question of degrees as far as I can tell.

Honestly, if massive visual spectacles aren’t cinema, I genuinely do not know what is.

I like Scorcese’s films. But I can’t say any of them are cinema must watch. Rather, they’re exactly the sort of film I want to watch at home.

Isn't this just the same debate over high vs. low culture, fine art vs. kitsch, and craft vs. art that has been at the heart of mass pop culture for 100 years?

Fine art can be commercially appealing, and products with mass appeal can have artistic meaning, but on the whole, I can't begin to argue that the Marvel moves are anything other than highly competent craft.

 Polonius wrote:
Isn't this just the same debate over high vs. low culture, fine art vs. kitsch, and craft vs. art that has been at the heart of mass pop culture for 100 years?

Yes..... that's what makes it interesting, especially in this snapshot in time.

Is there value in Art or are we all swamped by the Vulgar. Where is the line.... today..... between the two?

Scorsese thinks he has one......I am not sure I agree with it.

 Polonius wrote:
Isn't this just the same debate over high vs. low culture, fine art vs. kitsch, and craft vs. art that has been at the heart of mass pop culture for 100 years?

Fine art can be commercially appealing, and products with mass appeal can have artistic meaning, but on the whole, I can't begin to argue that the Marvel moves are anything other than highly competent craft.

In a sense, yes, it is. Given that we could spend 100 years talking about it would seem to give credence to the notion that it isn't simple, belies the idea that it doesn't matter, or that we shouldn't care about a possible distinction though.

Again, I have some intense doubt about Sorcese's labeling of his own work, but I do find some credence to his point about "commoditized" and monetized "art." It raises, to me, deep questions about what the function of art is, or should be. If the end-goal, the whole teleology of the enterprise is just "enjoyment" and "profit" then I think we'd be right to have some concerns about just what is going on and what will go on. Just like my above posts highlight in a nutritional parallel, if the only point of a food-product is the make money and so to do that, get you to eat it, then why not lace snacks with some super addictive drug to that end?

There has to be some "other aim" in there. Maybe there is, even in the lowest of "low-brow" movies. But if the direction we are headed, again, is toward big data, dataism, and the like, then the future could be fraught with products aimed ever the more solely at leveraging tendances that lead to addictive, non-thinking behaviors. I think video games, for example, are already headed down that road, unfortunately. Along with news and social media, as further examples.

Perhaps that is a bit doom-and-gloom and hopefully I am wrong and somehow, someway, we pull up out of a spiral of heading toward making things for the sake of just making money.

Voss actually makes a better point than any other. Of past cultures and/or cultural greats, which works are best (or at all) remembered?
Is it the thoughtful, philosophical, artsy ones, or the ones with gods, demons, larger-than-life heroes, kings murdering each other, etc?

In that context, it seems to me Scorcese is more afraid that his work will be by-and-large forgotten, while the over-the-top, larger-than-life superhero movies will be what future generations remember as our cultural heritage to them. And TBH, it could be worse. Superheroes, for the most part, encourage people to try to do the right thing, and be the best person they can be by example.
It's a simple message, to be sure, but one that cannot be repeated enough.