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What's Wrong With Cinema Anyway? Irreconcilable Spider-Man[s], Doubles, and Digimodernism
"...maybe you're not supposed to be Spider-Man climbing those walls? That's why you keep falling."
The Marvel Cinematic Universe: a black hole exerting its inexorable, monolithic pull on culture, stifling creative flourishing and making cinema a marketable gallery of twee, collectible action-figures. But it didn’t have to be this way! It’s become cinephile’s dogma that Sam Raimi’s original Marvel Spider-Man films (2002, 2004, 2007) were the vulgar auteur’s answer to what mainstream superhero movies might have been: fun, tight, and with a lot of heart. Their unapologetic relishing of melodrama, and thematic development through action, forms an obvious contrast with the smug quippery and bland action sequences of, for example, Spider-Man Homecoming (2017). Peter Parker’s story is compelling because it illustrates a double-bind: if capitalism is inherently schizophrenic (as Deleuze and Guattari would argue), Spider-Man’s New York is populated with heroes and villains splintering under the pressure of the market. Doubles and alter-egos are a theme inherent to the superhero genre, and no-where are they more fully explored than in the thorny irreconcilabilities of this trilogy. Join us for an aerial thrill ride like no other!
(this was originally released in July 2021 but I accidentally deleted it so it has been re-uploaded)
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By Ruben Traynor&Livvy Sutherland"...maybe you're not supposed to be Spider-Man climbing those walls? That's why you keep falling."
The Marvel Cinematic Universe: a black hole exerting its inexorable, monolithic pull on culture, stifling creative flourishing and making cinema a marketable gallery of twee, collectible action-figures. But it didn’t have to be this way! It’s become cinephile’s dogma that Sam Raimi’s original Marvel Spider-Man films (2002, 2004, 2007) were the vulgar auteur’s answer to what mainstream superhero movies might have been: fun, tight, and with a lot of heart. Their unapologetic relishing of melodrama, and thematic development through action, forms an obvious contrast with the smug quippery and bland action sequences of, for example, Spider-Man Homecoming (2017). Peter Parker’s story is compelling because it illustrates a double-bind: if capitalism is inherently schizophrenic (as Deleuze and Guattari would argue), Spider-Man’s New York is populated with heroes and villains splintering under the pressure of the market. Doubles and alter-egos are a theme inherent to the superhero genre, and no-where are they more fully explored than in the thorny irreconcilabilities of this trilogy. Join us for an aerial thrill ride like no other!
(this was originally released in July 2021 but I accidentally deleted it so it has been re-uploaded)
Follow us on Twitter here
Follow us on Facebook here