Bonus Podcast Episode: Marvel vs Scorsese

What four years of discourse has actually been about

The podcast is taking an end of the year break, but here’s a bonus episode that gets into the last four years of Marvel vs Scorsese discourse. How did Scorsese become America’s cute little film grandpa? Why does each “side” of this debate argue like the fate of the world is at stake?

We posit that film (and art) culture is changing from being centered around the auteur to focused on the corporation (see: fans devoted to A24 rather than any individual creator; Marvel’s swallowing of distinctive filmmakers like Chloe Zhao and Ryan Coogler; even independent projects getting turned into “cinematic universes” for financial survival). Is Scorsese really an antidote to this, or is he just the face to yet another corporate brand, currently being built by Apple? When film critics defend Scorsese, they are really just fighting for their own survival in a culture that doesn’t necessarily want or need them. Corporate art prefers influencers to critics, after all.

Full audio and links to related materials after the paywall.