My wife and I watched "Infernal Affairs" last night. It's caused me to rethink Scorcese's legend overall and specifically his own inflated sense of importance to movies in general.
I don't know if I can definitely say "The Departed" is a better film. Especially when considering the difference in budget and production values. Also the biggest difference - the fact that Scorcese had such quality material to base his own work off.
Considering "The Departed" didn't improve on "Infernal Affairs" at all (my opinion) or improved on it a little (fair opinion) isn't that a relative failure?
Taking this further, it turns out that Martin Scorsese doesn't make films based on an original premise/script. His movies are all based on Books or other films. Now I'm not going to question that method because it obviously works well for him. He has made some fantastic films this way. But no matter how good a Cover Band is, they are still a cover band. They are not taking much artistic risk and that's why we don't put them in the same category as a group that are working collaboratively to make music from scratch. Scorcese is looking for Gold with a detailed map, he's not prospecting at all. His vision is an interpretation of a visionary's completed work. Again there's nothing wrong with that at all. But that becomes a bit rich when he wants to turn into a snob and a "purist" on what's art and what's not when talking about the Marvel movies.
I still prefer this attitude to Hideo Kohima though. Who makes incredibly convoluted, unnecessarily complicated video games under the guise of having a unique vision. If you don't understand his vision you are an idiot who doesn't understand what a video game should strive to be. Not just jump, kick, run. It should have Norman Reedus with a android baby that only exists in a parallel universe strapped to his chest delivering intergalactic parcels. Or something like that.
If you enjoy Video Games, no one should be able to tell you how to enjoy them. You might get the same amount of joy from Tetris that you get from Metal Gear Solid and that's perfectly fine. The guy that makes Metal Gear Solid is not allowed to call you an idiot for enjoying Tetris.
As an almost 40 year old who grew up reading and enjoying Comic Books, the Marvel movies are great fun for me. They aren't Citizen Kane, because The Avengers comics were not "Love in the Time of Cholera." Why would you expect them to be?
The fact they exist is not destroying the movie industry at all. Just like the fact that Martin Scorsese became an industry icon off the back of buying people's homework before school doesn't make him a learned Academic.
I know this is a very late response to his Marvel comments, but after seeing "Infernal Affairs" I feel like his genius is very much borrowed.
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