Samuel Brace on Ethan Hawke’s comments about Logan and superhero movies…
Logan is a great superhero movie, on this, there can be no doubt. But to call Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine swansong a great movie in the general sense is quite clearly not the case. This was Ethan Hawke’s point when his now viral statement caused the internet’s nerd infused population to collectively jeer. To refamiliarise ourselves with what the actor said, or to catch those up who may have missed his comments, Hawke said the following:
“Now we have the problem that they tell us Logan is a great movie. Well, it’s a great superhero movie. It still involves people in tights with metal coming out of their hands. It’s not Bresson. It’s not Bergman. But they talk about it like it is.”
Now, I don’t remember any tights being present in Logan (please do correct me if I am mistaken), but apart from this tempting but (possibly) fallacious bit of rhetoric, there’s nothing else in this statement that can be construed as apocryphal. For, and it should be quite clear to readers who have spent any time watching the classics of the medium, that while Logan is an excellent film of the superhero genre, that it is laughable to suggest that its up there with the GREAT movies of all time. It simply isn’t. Logan isn’t The Godfather, It isn’t The Shawshank Redemption, heck, it isn’t even The Dark Knight (though, I’d be rather interested to hear Hawke’s thoughts on Christopher Nolan’s Batman classic. Something tells me that he might not be too fond of that film either).
Now, to call a film ‘great’, of course (and it should go without saying), doesn’t mean it has to be an all-time great but it does require the film in question to reach a certain level of excellence. Hawke’s point, let us recapitulate his sentiment once more, is that Logan is a great superhero movie (to compare it to the bulk of its brethren is to illuminate this fact quite clearly) but that it shouldn’t be compared to films of a class and prestige that some of its more vocal admirers have been found guilty of doing. We have a tendency in the movie-sphere (and, honestly, in many other areas of 21st-century society) to speak in hyperbolic terms: X is the greatest film since ___, Y is this generation’s ___, and so on. It seems to me that Z is nearly never the new ___ but this type of rhetoric is, of course, a tremendously useful tool in generating hype and excitement.
It’s not like Hawke didn’t even bother to see Logan before judging the inadequateness of its nature in comparison to the classics of yore. On the contrary, Hawke responded to the culture’s enthusiasm and went to investigate for himself, as he comments here: “I went to see Logan cause everyone was like, ‘This is a great movie’ and I was like, ‘Really? No, this is a fine superhero movie.’ There’s a difference but big business doesn’t think there’s a difference. Big business wants you to think that this is a great film because they wanna make money off of it.”
There is nothing of a particularly fallacious flavour to these words but the point that I believe Hawke is missing (apart from the fact that, of course, people want to make money out of films, because… obviously), is the clear attempt on behalf of Logan’s creators to try something different, to produce a film in the genre that at least attempts at something higher and more substantial than the usual meretricious popcorn flick that usually characterises the genre. Logan isn’t a classic but to dismiss the film like it wasn’t even trying to be something more than Fantastic Four or past Wolverine films, is a little dishonest. Hawke’s philippic against superhero movies isn’t without standing but no matter your thoughts on the genre, there’s no danger in admitting when films like Logan aim for a higher plane.
It seems to me that the question we should be asking ourselves is this: Do we want more films like Logan in the superhero sphere? And it seems to me that the answer should be: “absolutely”. I don’t think I would be too bold in saying that this would usher in a far greater level of quality into the genre than that which currently exists. So let us not dissuade Hollywood from attempting such things, let us not espouse animadversions that are inimical to this much more desirable state of affairs. Is the superhero craze all getting a little much? Sure. Do I wish the higher echelons of the box office were populated with more films of another ilk? You bet your ass I do. But it appears quite clear that the genre will experience no diminution in popularity anytime soon, so, if our culture’s cinematic bandwidth can presently allow for not much else, let us all hope that film’s like Logan become the new standard and that its style, approach, and more grounded aesthetic are to be further replicated, and even imitated, by future entries into a genre starving for such features.
Samuel Brace
