Evening!
Got back from Ponyo and bashed out my review for the Inquire website. LOVED the film.
"HAAAMMMMMMM!"
Ponyo Review:
First things first, I feel like I should let you know that I’m biased; I adore Studio Ghibli. Despite this fact hopefully this review will be somewhat balanced and won’t gush over Hayao Miyazaki’s brilliance…except for that one bit of gushing right there.
When summing up the basic premise of Ponyo, many people have described it as Miyazaki’s take of the infamous Little Mermaid tale in the sense that it consists of a fish-girl who dreams of becoming human, meets human boy/man, turns into human and must overcome some sort of obstacle to stay human.
Studio Ghibli’s take on the tale however has more layers to it, replacing more obvious threats and horrors such as villainous characters with one threat that can inspire more fear in a child’s heart than any old octopus lady could, that being the loss of the parental figure and the subsequent sense of isolation and abandonment that follows.
Once human, Ponyo and her new found friend - Sosuke - must go on a quest across the tsunami ridden town to find Sosuke’s mother and a charming coming of age tale for both the focal characters arises.
Of course this is an animation film, and something has to be said for the artwork of this film. From the opening scene it is clear that Ponyo is a work of vibrancy. The underwater world bursts with life, every single frame taken up with intricacies that bring forth a smile from the viewer as well as a chuckle as humorous creatures scuttle, float and flip around.
It is something that the rest of the film manages to keep up with, every frame oozing charm more so than any kind of cgi created world could attempt. The cascading and violent waters of the sea warp between diving fish into fizzing foam with such finesse that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch Finding Nemo again without making some snide film student-y remark.
However, I do have one main complaint about this film, and that is the handling and casting of the voice actors. The beautifully directed opening scene is somewhat halted as soon as Liam Neeson’s booming voice announces itself, seemingly rather out of place when coming from a red haired, pin striped suit wearing skinny magician. I find the A-List celebrity voices bring you out of the enchanting world Studio Ghibli has created which disrupts the storytelling and has you sitting their thinking, “is that Matt Damon? Yeah, I swear I just heard Matt Damon.”
So overall, voice actor qualms aside, if you are so inclined to animation, or let’s be honest, good films in general, I suggest you put sometime aside to view Ponyo. Miyazaki makes up for the disappointment that was the recent Ghibli film, Tales of Earthsea and returns to his classic storytelling via animation.
He pits children against life altering circumstances while also managing to imbue his film with topics such as the destruction mankind is having upon the natural world with it still remaining child friendly.
So here's my first film review post.
The Inquire (student newspaper) entertainment head honcho only gave me 200 words to work with, so I found it extremely hard to really talk about the film, and over did it slightly by ending up with just over 300 words, but it will have to do.
Expect a Ponyo on the Cliff review on friday, I have a word limit of 500 for that one which pleases me GREATLY.
Shutter Island:
Scorsese.
There, I said it. A name that will bring in a flurry of eager fans to the box office, a name you don’t even need to be a film fanatic to recognise. His latest film brings him back together with his recent muse of DiCaprio, but does Shutter Island manage to stand out proud amongst the director’s previous body of work?
For a start it fits into the ambiguous genre of thriller/horror. The first half of it is reminiscent of old horror masterpieces such as Argento’s, Suspiria, blending a sense of sinister mystery with moments of horror as DiCaprio’s, Police Marshall investigates a missing patient in an insane asylum. The asylum is of course situated on an island that appears just as menacing as King Kong’s own Skull Island.
The violent editing during the first half keeps the audience swept up in the mystery and adds a tireless urgency to the unravelling film, while the spattering of close-ups of fences, barbed wire and locked gates keeps up the sense of claustrophobia. There are also wonderful undertones of gothic horror, the only thing missing being a cameo from the late Vincent Price.
Dicaprio gives his best crazy eye, gathering a storm of intensity throughout, his performance only challenged by one thing; his ridiculously intense tie.
When things comes to a climax it must be said that the final twist is some what unfulfilling, but the build up is so well handled it negates the negative feeling the initial twist leaves, with the subtly ambiguous final line of the film making up for it.
So overall, a very entertaining film, blending moments of beautiful film-making seen in the dream sequences involving Michelle Williams, while also appealing to the other members of the audience who want an occasional horrific thrill and sprawling yet enjoyable mystery.
Okay, so I recently got an essay back in which I decided to not use any of the given essay questions and films studied on the course and picked my own...just to be diffcult. Mwahaha.
But my pain-in-the-ass-to-seminar-leaders paid off and I got a FIRST. BOOYAH!
Here's the essay...(sorry it's fairly long for a blogpost but I'm rather proud of it.)
How pertinent to an understanding of Hellraiser do you find ideas derived from psychoanalysis, such as the theory of the Oedipus complex and enjoyment (jouissance).
“The Garden of Eden is a Garden of the Flesh.”
The ever evolving genre of Horror is one abundant with similar images and hidden metaphors with themes spanning decades from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Clive Barker’s The Hellbound Heart in literature alone. Repressed desires work as the doorways to the macabre in these stories, materialising in monstrous acts from the narrative’s characters as they pursue these forbidden wishes. The paradoxical theme of pleasure through pain is one that arises often in these pursuits of forbidden wishes, with Clive Barkers adaptation of his novella The Hellbound Heart delving into this topic sometimes termed jouissance.
It is this pursuit for the highest realms of pleasure that is the foundation for his adaptation, entitled Hellraiser. Critical theorist and philosopher, Slavoj Zizek, comments upon this theory and its arousal through a paradox by saying, “the surplus of enjoyment over mere pleasure is generated by the presence of the very opposite of pleasure, that is, pain.” It is what brings about these levels of extreme pain and pleasure and what lengths human curiosity will go to in obtaining them that Hellraiser focuses upon and what gives the narrative its horrific attributes.
Further issues of pleasure and sex are then brought into play once jouissance has been dappled with by the character of Frank, with Freud’s theory of the Oedipus Complex developing. What will be analysed is whether these theories are important to an understanding of the plot that drives Hellraiser and how they make Hellraiser an important component within the genre of Horror.
The pursuit for jouissance within Hellraiser comes about with the fairly banal object of a box, otherwise known as The Lament Configuration. It is the small item that potentially holds all the secrets to reaching untold ecstasies that our dimension cannot even begin to fathom. It is this new place of enjoyment that the character of Frank attempts to discover in the opening sequence of the film when he purchases the box in Morocco and then begins to unlock the device in his attic. The scene of unlocking the box is given an atmosphere of Black Magic with Frank surrounded by candles as if performing witchcraft.
It turns the environment of a seemingly innocent looking household from the outside into a domain of the supernatural. This is a key idea within the genre of horror, making the home appear un-homely. Freud comments upon this by using the terms of Heimlich and Unheimlich roughly translated to mean homely and un-homely. With Unheimlich being the opposite of homely it makes the house an unfamiliar place, or uncanny as Freud would say, “and we are tempted to conclude that what is ‘uncanny’ is frightening."
So due to Frank bringing the box into this Heimlich environment, it instantly makes the house a horrific place that gets gradually more sinister through-out the narrative so that the viewer is always unsettled by the surroundings that the majority of the plot takes place in.
As soon as Frank manages to render the veil of the box that has altered the atmosphere of the house, a series of horrific hooks are unleashed, latching onto his skin and bridging Frank to the new world of untold experiences through his flesh. It is an important image as John Kenneth Muir comments upon the Hellraiser franchise by stating that the “flesh is important…it’s the human bridge to the outside world.”
With Frank intrinsically linked through his flesh to the dimension that the box is the key to, he enters the unforgiving world of the Cenobites. We are then dragged through into this dimension via Frank, with the audience’s sense of curiosity as to what this new place is, being gradually appeased through the use of a few tracking shots which pan back into the attic door and then transport us to the Hell-like domain, once again mixing the Heimlich environment with the uncanny Unheimlich dimension. The first sound we hear is the melodic clinking of chains and hooks, the sound of the hooks linking us to the Cenobite’s dimension much like the hooked chains did with Frank.
Monumental amounts of gore scatter the industrial-like room, with human blood and chunks of flesh standing out amongst the harsh rigidness of the metallic looking walls. A Cenobite lurks into camera and guides us to the Conductor of this world and patriarch of the Cenobites; Pinhead. A close-up shot then reveals his pale vampiric like hand as it searches through a pile of what we can only assume to be Frank’s remains and then finally we are treated to another shot within this Hellish world showcasing Pinhead’s work. Pieces of Frank’s face are being puzzled back together, giving the remains of the human body a jigsaw puzzle effect. It is a mesmerising juxtaposition against the earlier scene of Frank trying to work out the puzzle elements of The Lament Configuration.
Frank’s human desires and curiosities are appeased by the box and with that now open and no longer a mystery it is the Cenobites turn to revel in their pleasures and toy with the secrets of the human body. In effect Franks body is a box of desires and a pathway to jouissance for the Cenobites; Frank’s body is their Lament Configuration.
With Frank now a slave to the torturous instruments of the Hellish Cenobites and his demise laying the foundations for the rest of the plot, the next part of the narrative begins, with the family unit of Larry, Julia and Kirsty. The relationships of the three characters are altered from the original source material of The Hellbound Heart with Larry now placed as the father of Kirsty, and the wicked stepmother role of the tale being taken up by Julia.
Larry and Julia are introduced as they move into the house that Frank was previously occupying. The character of Julia is quickly coded as a villain by means of her adulterous acts which are revealed in a flashback. She cheats on Larry with his own brother Frank, on their wedding day on top of her wedding dress no less, with the image of the pure white wedding dress forever tainted with the traitorous act. There are many images within the film that relate sex towards being a precursor to moments of horror with one of the most memorable happening during this ‘moving-in’ sequence.
With Julia in the attic reminiscing over her affair with the far more forceful and desirable Frank, Larry is in the process of carrying a mattress up the stairs. The flashbacks of Julia and Frank having rather violent sex are inter-cut with Larry’s struggle with the mattress. As the act of sex climaxes in the flashback, Larry accidentally slices open his hand on a nail on the banister. The moment of climax within the sex scene is seen with an alternative image of ejaculating bodily fluid; Larry’s blood. It is a scene that relates sexual acts to moments of violence and blood, developing the scene into a microcosm for the paradox of jouissance; pain and pleasure mixed into one moment of climax.
It is this act of spilt blood that brings the world of the Cenobites into the lives of the rest of the characters. With his hand cut open and bleeding rather heavily, Larry staggers into the attic to Julia, where we are given a slow motion sequence of his blood splattering upon the rotten floor boards where we previously saw Frank’s skin being torn open by hooks. This split blood forms the second, but far more sinister, family unit of the film. An unknowing Larry is who brings Frank back from the brink and gives him a re-birthing which places Larry in the odd role as father; it is his bodily fluid that brings about Frank‘s second birth.
This birth is far from a pretty sight, as a rather lengthy special effects laden sequence occurs. The sequence relates to many special effects moments from David Cronenberg’s body of work in that the human body is delegated to an organic form that is simply made up of watery bags and liquidated sacks. With his body crudely re-formed, the now hideous Frank lets out an unsettling cry like that of a new-born baby. Julia is the first to find his corpse-like body in the attic and despite her initial reservations, she vows to help Frank return his body to its former appearance, which can only be achieved by more blood. “The blood brought me this far, I need more.” Julia then takes on the dysfunctional motherly role, feeding the newly born creature meal after meal, or in this case, body after body, until he is strong enough to fend for himself. It is through this second family unit that the theories of Freud can be used when interpreting some of the themes of Hellraiser.
Freud has mentioned in his theories that the son can find it hard to detach himself from the mother figure and if he doesn’t face this problem early on it can develop problems for later on in life. “It leaves a secret yearning in the child for his mother…a desire to recapture the exclusive relationship.”
With Julia as the mother figure to Frank as well as his lover, it plays into these themes with him seemingly unable to detach himself from Julia but incorporating the element of incest. With her still continuing her marriage with Larry, despite the fact it is now clearly a sham from her perspective, Frank is unable to leave her alone.
In one particular scene he frustratingly bangs around in the attic, alerting Larry to his presence. Larry decides to look into the noise and it is left to Julia, the head of the love triangle, to attempt to coax him away from looking into the attic. This follows into a scene of love-making between the husband and wife but it is something Frank refuses to let happen as he leers over the couple. He toys with the corpse of a rat, repetitively stabbing the creature with a small pen knife. He comes across as a small child throwing a tantrum in front of his mother as she tries to ignore him to give the father her attention. Is it also another scene that is a prime example of how once again sex is related to violence and ugly acts, with the phallic image of the knife penetrating the rat gruesomely as Larry, unaware of the skinless form of Frank at the foot of the bed, tries to make love to his wife.
This threat from the child - Frank - and his toys - the rat and the knife - causes Julia to give up on the act of sex with the father figure and she yelps for him to stop. Both of the men are sexually imposing themselves upon her, fighting for her attention with Frank ultimately being victorious. With Frank and Julia’s outright disturbing relationship affirmed, it can be said that it is similarly related to that of jouissance.
Jouissance can take many shapes and forms of unbidden pleasures, and although the act of incest that their metaphoric roles apply to isn’t a higher realm of pleasure, the fact Julia has resulted to killing men and supernaturally restoring Frank’s skin to achieve her desires takes their relationship to one centred on death and unachievable with normal methods. Frank is no longer a human creature, like a vampire he is the hesitation between life and death, and it is this gap that the hestitation creates which is filled with a foreboding sense of the uncanny, and it is Julia reaping her sexual desires with this uncanny persona that creates the unnatural jouissance within their relationship. They are having an affair due to supernatural turns of events which makes their ‘romantic’ scenes moments that reach different realms of delight that normal sexual pleasure cannot achieve.
The fact that Frank has managed to evade the Cenobites with Julia’s help however does not sit well with the hellish creatures and as the plot unfolds and the character of Kirsty becomes bridled in the after-effects of Frank using the box, the two worlds of Reality and Fantasy begin to collide.
After a confrontation with Frank in the attic, Kirsty manages to obtain the box and wakes up in the hospital with the contraption. Due to her curiosity as to why Frank holds the box so preciously, she begins to try to work out what it is and as a result accidentally sparks The Lament Configuration back open.
Cynthia A. Freeland delves into the legacy of the Hellraiser franchise in her book, The Naked and the Undead, and in reference to Kirstys opening of the box states, “she desires just enough sexual knowledge that she opens the box and must pay the price but she escapes in the end because her desires are not perverse.” According to Freeland, there is underlying knowledge in Kirsty that this device will lead her to possible sexual revelations but this fact is hidden in her sub-conscious. By opening the box she brings the Cenobites down upon herself, but because she is the innocent of the narrative and not in an explicit search of jouissance she is spared, or at least given an alternative to a horrible death; return Frank to the Cenobites and have him confess himself and they might let her go.
When Kirsty returns to the house and the game of cat and mouse continues, Frank utters the phrase, “Come to Daddy.” It is a line that relates the family dynamic to Freud’s Oedipus Complex once again. One of its conflicts according to Freud is the result of the Oedipus Complex on the father/son relationship, “facing this conflict is painful for the child…experiencing hatred and jealousy for the father.”# Frank has taken drastic measures and has now taken out his figure of hatred, Larry - the father figure - because of his jealousy and has now taken over his role as the patriarch of the family unit, in more ways than one as he now dons the flesh of Larry adding another layer to his need to become the controlling father figure. He seems to desire Kirsty - the daughter figure - and chases after her lustrously, adding more essence to the underlying incestuous vibes of the film.
However, because Kirstys search for knowledge within the box was not perverse, she manages to outwit him and hand him over to the Cenobites who mutilate Frank and Julia with their hooks as they enter our world and appear in the attic. With the Cenobites occupying the space of the attic it completes the gradual transformation of the house into a domain of the Unheimlich or the uncanny that began with Franks set up of the candles at the beginning of the film. The house is now under the influence of the Cenobites and therefore is now a place of Evil that Kirsty must fight her way out of, which she eventually does as it collapses about her.
Hellraiser is a horror that when its excessive amounts of gore are over-looked, has a wealth of hidden meaning and metaphoric understanding that can be hard to come by in many modern horrors. It is a highly important contribution to an over growing genre in that, despite the fact its narrative reveals a hell dimension populated with grotesque creatures, it still focuses upon the evil of human nature.
Freeland’s earlier statement in reference to the character of Kirsty gives the impression that an understanding of the term jouissance in relation to the plot of Hellraiser is important.
The characters that are perverse and search for sexual liberation through disgraced methods will ultimately meet their death with this theory supported by the fact that the character who opens the box without these desires manages to survive. It is not the Cenobites that are the true villains of the piece, they are simply there to do what they have been called forth to do. They exist and come about in the film because of human curiosity. The Cenobites can be seen to be the manifestations of the human super-ego as man searches for “pleasures which would redefine the parameters of sensation,” as he believes he has conquered and overcome his normal earthly desires.
In summary it is the humans who are the malevolent forces within the narrative meaning the search of jouissance by the human characters is pertinent to an understanding of Hellraiser and is clearly the message that Clive Barker was hoping to achieve.
I spend too much of my free time controlling pixels to run, jump, shoot and do all manner of things I’d never even begin to attempt in real life, mainly because I’m sat on a sofa eating a small nation’s supply of Pringles, controlling said pixelated character in the latest video game.
So when my other vice, that being cinema, combines with the world of video games and attempts to adapt popular gaming franchises, you’d think I’d rejoice like the sad little fan boy I am. But alas, I simply reach for another tube of Pringles with a faint distained roll of my eyes and return to my fake guns, fake jungles and fake oversized breasts to continue to raid another tomb.
The most recent adaptation is that of the Jake Gyllenhaal vehicle Prince Of Persia: the Sands of Time, but despite my negative outlook on video game adaptations, I actually think this one stands a chance. Having played Prince of Persia, which itself is a remake of a much older game, and having completed it a few times - Yes, a few times, I forewarned you I spend too much time not living a real life - I can say that the visual style of the film and the main aspects of the plot appear relatively loyal to the game.
We have the heroic yet oddly English accented hero, the feisty Arabian Princess, the mystical Sands of Times Dagger and a treacherous looking villain, all pulled together within perilous looking locales as floor collapse and battles are fought. Laying out the plot in this fashion just makes it sound like an odd variation of James Bond; James Bond: Desertraker, but staying loyal to the source material of the computer games and not over complicating the already established formula of its plot can only mean for a more well received film.
Take the Resident Evil movie franchise.
What the hell happened there? Mila Jovovich, you belong in an orange wig, speaking gibberish and following around a badly bleach haired variation of John McClane. You do not belong in a red dress, in a high-tech laboratory, fighting zombies and then for some unknown reason, being cloned in Las Vegas.
Did I just hear an resounding what the hell? echo out across campus from the students among you who are not familiar with these films? Good, because that’s exactly what I thought (and screamed aloud) when watching all the Resident Evil films for the first time.
As a long time fan of the games it was down right traumatising watching one of my favourite past-times, stalking a creepy old mansion while decapitating dead people with a shotgun, getting royally screwed over by Hollywood. The Cold Unthinking Bastards.
I can’t think of a single game adaptation that really stuck with the original plot. It’s a shame as many video games are underrated despite the fact that some of them have a tremendous dose of narrative development and engaging characters, i.e. the epic Final Fantasy series, (unfortunately another series utterly ravaged by a film adaptation…set in Space…barf.)
The Tomb Raider Movie franchise wasn’t terrible, but the film and its sequel had plots that just never managed to reach the epic scale the majority of the games managed to invoke. With the Prince Of Persia adaptation appearing to not steer too far from the games storyline and characters, I have vaguely high hopes.
Mike Newell is helming the project which gives me a faint mix of anticipation diced ever so slightly with a pungent sense of worry. With the likes of Donnie Brasco under his belt he can clearly stir great character development and tremendous performances, but let’s hope Prince of Persia doesn’t turn into another Newell bum-note like that of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the weakest in the Potter series for me.
So go forth Gyllenhaal! You can raid those tombs and shoot those zombies with the best of them, but please, for my sake, do it off screen and stick to making sand castles in Arabia for now.
I had to redraft my Cameron's Balding, Golden Army article as the Editor wanted it to solely focus upon the Oscars as an Avatar centric article had already been published this month. So I decided to focus upon the rather humourous topic of debate that has been riffled up due to the Oscar nominations this year. (Not that I find Divorce funny or anything...)
Battle Of The Ex's
Everyone knows how awkward break-ups are; deciding whose CDs are whose, who gets to keep the Lost dvd box-sets, and of course, who gets to win Best Picture at the Oscars. We’ve all clearly been there.
As they always say, men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but with this variation on the same old formula we have the man fighting from a computer generated and cinema revolutionising world entitled Pandora, and the woman growling from a realistic, gritty Iraq desert with her bomb disposal crew.
I am of course referring to the 2010 Oscar nominations and the issues these nominations have thrown-up.
James Cameron’s Avatar took cinematic technology to the next level and has been praised for being a game changer in the world of Hollywood, but this evolution it has brought isn’t necessarily a good thing. Could the fast moving development and progression of cinema into a 3D digital narrative platform be damaging cinema just as much as it is apparently improving it? Is the fast moving technology of cinema making the carefully constructed narrative threads of films such as Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker defunct?
It is something that has struck up an entertaining Battle of the Ex’s between Cameron’s Avatar and Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, the two Directors tying the knot in 1989, then shortly filing for divorce in 1991 and now both battling it out at the Oscars.
So far we’ve had two rounds, The Golden Globes and The Baftas. Avatar swept the earlier Golden Globe awards ceremony with all of James Cameron’s usual “I’m The King Of The World” swagger. Someone please buy the man a crown already and nail the bloody thing to his head just to appease his ego. Luckily us Brits being phenomenal as always awarded The Hurt Locker over Avatar. I just hope we don’t have a rerun of The Golden Globes at the Oscars.
No matter how entertaining Avatar was, you cannot deny how trivial the narrative was when compared to Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, and if Avatar had not been filmed for the IMAX theatre would it have really received as many nominations? Maybe it’s that the 3D element manages to immerse the viewer within the cinematic experience far more physically than it ever could before as dragons-like creatures dive bomb in front of your face just as effectively as the careers of every member of Hearsay have.
Many more social cinema goers may prefer this fantastical immersion compared to a more cognitive and character building plot but I’ll take a sprawling intelligent plot over technical wizardry any day.
With the Oscars beckoning (7th March) I can’t help but fret that Bigelow’s talents are doomed to be overlooked as James Cameron comes marching up the stairs to receive a small army of balding golden men as his nailed on crown glints patronisingly in the spotlight.
Maybe I’m being a tad melodramatic, 3D films can co-exist with the rest of the usual produce of cinema, but I just hope in the future, 3D doesn’t begin to completely over shadow everything else including clever narratives that don’t accommodate the usual Hollywood fare.
For this particular battle, I’m with Venus; you can throw as many scantily clad blue creatures whipping past my head as you like, but I’m with Bigelow’s bomb squad on this occasion.
And there you have it! The much shorter and more focused published article. Hope you enjoyed, and as stated in the last post, here are the films I have riddled my eyeballs with this week:
Hannah and her Sisters
Dead Ringers
Hills Have Eyes 2
Hellraiser
Badlands
A Prophet
Hills Have Eyes remake
Serial Mom
Next week I shall be analysing just how good a Persian Prince Jake Gyllenhaal really can make...you will shocked, appauled, offended and most importantly disgusted. I will see you then.
Well, good evening.
As I said this blog will consist of things I have written either for University, such as essays (which will be re-editted for the blog so as not to bore the hell out of you...at least the seminar leaders are getting paid to read my stuff...you however do not. Unlucky,)and for the Student Newspaper.
So here is the first draft of one of my articles which revolves around the much yakked about topic of Avatar...and the impending Oscars. dummmdummmduhdummmmm:
Cameron’s Balding Golden Army. 6/2/10
Another day, another shallow Hollywood franchise announced.
Today I had the fortune of finding out a film adaptation of the old 70s toy, Stretch Armstrong is being developed. Yes you heard, a film based on a toy whose arms you can pull to abnormal lengths.
I’ll be the first in the ticket line.
Further more ‘exciting’ news added to this announcement is that STRETCH ARMSTRONG his name sounds far cooler when in capitals) will be played by Twilight Saga thespian Taylor Lautner. And it will all be in 3D! Huzzah!
One depressing fact after another to be perfectly honest.
Taylor Lautner, in my pretentious film student eyes, has as much charisma and acting ability as a rubber duck floating in a puddle of urine, an image that’s all together far more fascinating than the whole 2 and a bit hours of Twilight: New Moon.
Of course the only thing that really grabs the eye about Stretch Armstrong is the fact that the film will be screened in 3D, and this brought an annoying thought to my mind. This thought being that the fast moving development and evolution of cinema into a 3D digital narrative platform could be damaging cinema just as much as it is apparently improving it.
3D cinema seems to be attacking our eye sockets literally from every angle and it seems to be becoming something of more importance, than say, the cast of the film. As long as the film is in 3D then you don’t need to know the plot because, Hey! The image is jumping out at you, so who cares what it is actually depicting!
It is something that has reared its head recently with the 2010 Golden Globe winners. Avatar swept the awards ceremony with all of James Cameron’s usual “I’m The King Of The World” swagger. Someone please buy the man a crown already and nail the bloody thing to his head just to appease his ego.
It came about that Avatar’s technical wizardry completely out-trumped all the other films on the nominations list, and although the film is an incredible work of special effects, with many people calling it an event rather than just a film, I feel like other films with a far more centred and sophisticated narrative are being ignored because of the - ‘Ohhh look how pretty that blue creature is as she runs along a tree trunk which in fact doesn’t actually exist at all’- factor.
It won Best Drama and Best Director, but special effects aside, did anything really monumental happen during the 3 hour run-time that truly took you by surprise?
Well the answer is yes and no.
Yes Avatar has indeed changed the way some films can be made and revolutionised aspects of special effects, with Spielberg following the same technique as Cameron with his in-progress Tintin adaptation. Avatar then is far from being a full-on negative force upon cinema, but it also means the focus on one of films main components, that being the plot, is not looked at as such an important part of the film-making process.
No matter how entertaining Avatar was, you cannot deny how trivial the narrative was and if the film had not been filmed for the IMAX theatre would it have really received as many awards? No, because the plot can be seen in a handful of other films such as The Last Samurai and Dances With Wolves; a man comes to a foreign land, learns from its people, falls in love with one of them and ultimately, despite being a newbie to the different culture, manages to save the entire foreign people with his amazing Hollywood good looks and his chiselled abs.
Okay, slight exaggeration at the end there but the rest still applies.
However this doesn’t seem to have become that much of an issue to a lot of people, and maybe that’s because the 3D element manages to immerse the viewer within the cinematic experience far more physically than it ever could before. Loincloths of oddly attractive blue creatures flap in the wind as they spin down tree branches around your head, teasing the perverts amongst us (said perverts being all of us), and dragons dive bomb in front of your face just as effectively as the careers of every member of Hearsay have.
Is this 3D effect immersing us in the film more effectively than a sprawling intelligent plot? Well according to the 2010 Golden Globes it is, with Avatar winning Best Motion Picture Drama, beating out tightly scripted films such as Up In The Air and Precious which, it can be argued, pack a far more emotional dramatic punch than Avatar does.
With the Oscars looming ahead (7th March) I can’t help but fret that films such as An Education and The Hurt Locker are doomed to be overlooked as James Cameron comes marching up the stairs to receive a small army of balding golden men as his nailed on crown glints patronisingly in the spotlight.
Maybe I’m being a tad melodramatic, 3D films can co-exist with the rest of the usual produce of cinema, but I just hope in the future 3D doesn’t begin to completely over shadow everything else including clever narratives that don’t accommodate the usual Hollywood fare.
At the end of the day, if stood at the box office in the near future and I’m torn between the choice of seeing 3D extravaganza Stretch Armstrong or 2D epic The Rubber Duck and The Puddle of Urine, I’d have to ultimately go for, The Rubber Duck.
Well, that my friends is the first official film related post! Is that applause I hear from you? No? Well bugger off then.
I've also decided to include another feature, with every post, which fingers crossed will happen every friday. (Apart from this week as I have the other Oscar related article to put up before the Oscars actually screen on sunday.) I will put up a list of the films I have watched this week...because...you know you want to hear about that pointless fact...
But anyways, thank-you for reading! And return, for I promise many more utterly riveting opinionated posts and the occassional secret to the Meaning Of Life. (I've gotta say something to make you actually return.)
Well, in my attempts to become an even more vapid and self-involved person I have evidently set up my own blog, full of my own comments and articles on Film. The thought of different people from all over reading my opinions clearly appeals to my ego.
As I said this will focus on Film, and hopefully my ineptitude in actually structuring good arguments in the world of cinema won't shine through...or at least won't shine through too much.
So hopefully whoever is actually reading this - hello by the way - you will enjoy my random musings and rantings, and if not, at least you can use it as an example of how not to write about film.
Over and out.