The award-winning 'Kes' helmer joins Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola to diss Marvel Cinematic Universe, saying that money is the only thing the studio cares about.
- Oct 23, 2019
AceShowbiz - Veteran British director Ken Loach has joined Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola in slamming Marvel movies as a stain on cinema.
Scorsese's comment that superhero blockbusters are "not cinema" has sparked a fierce debate in filmmaking circles over their merits, with a host of Marvel alumni defending the movies, and Coppola calling them "despicable."
Now, the two-time winner of the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or prize has told British broadcaster Sky News he finds the Marvel superhero movies "boring" and "nothing to do with the art of cinema."
The socialist director whose most famous films including "Kes" and "I, Daniel Blake" focus on working class lives, and once directed an advert for McDonald's, compared Marvel films to fast food and said they were all about profit rather than art.
"They're made as commodities like hamburgers, and it's not about communicating and it's not about sharing our imagination," he raged. "It's about making a commodity which will make a profit for a big corporation - they're a cynical exercise."
"They're market exercise and it has nothing to do with the art of cinema. William Blake said 'when money is discussed - art is impossible.' "
The 83-year-old's latest movie "Sorry We Missed You" deals with the struggles of life in Britain's low wage economy.
Explaining why he thinks more naturalistic cinema is important, he added: "It can laugh with us, it can cry with us, it can learn about our deepest feelings and what it is to be human - you find that in the everyday."
Following Scorsese and Coppola's criticism, the likes of "Guardians of the Galaxy" director James Gunn, Robert Downey Jr., Natalie Portman, and Sebastian Stan have all defended the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
