As dear old Uncle George embarks on the 3-D-ification of the Star Wars movies, providing us all with the opportunity to buy the entire saga all over again (how many times is that now?), debate nonetheless continues to rage about the validity of 3-D.
In cinemas across the UK, the multi-million investment in 3-D projection equipment has, of course, already been made, and even as I write, production lines in the Far East are gathering momentum, churning out – whether we like it or not – a new generation of 3-D Blu-Ray players and TVs. Yet amongst critics, it's hard to find a single voice raised in support. Roger Ebert dismissed 3-D as 'a waste of a perfectly good dimension', while on the other side of the Atlantic, Mark Kermode's rants on the subject have reached epic proportions. On his 'Kermode Uncut' blog at www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/ he even offered instructions on how to make special '3-D correcting glasses' which convert a 3-D cinematic projection back into a nice, user-friendly 2-D format. For bemused audiences, still seemingly split on the subject, the issue is just a bit of a headache – and not only because it forces you to go cross-eyed.
But for all this, 3-D does, perhaps, have a natural place in cinema – and, somewhat controversially, it's not where anyone expects it to be.
Let me explain.
For one moment, let's put all those well-worn, overly-familiar arguments about the process to one side. Let's pretend that it doesn't cause severe spectacle build-up among those who already wear glasses, that it doesn't cost significantly more to get in to a 3-D movie – effectively meaning we are paying for the installation of projection equipment that we didn't ask for and perhaps never wanted – that the retro-fitting of existing films into 3-D isn't an industry-wide horror that makes colorization seem like a mere amateur jape, and that the lenses don't mean a 30% colour loss when we're watching the film. Let's pretend, too, that it doesn't render larger objects woefully unimpressive, making them look more like a tiny model than they would have back when those effects were actually done with a tiny model. Let's pretend, in fact, that it just works.
OK, fine. But there's still a problem - and it's one that is rarely, if ever, addressed.
Here's the thing. I don't know about you, but I see in 3-D all the time. I open my eyes in the morning. 3-D. I make a cup of tea and look out of the window. 3-D. I cross the kitchen – using my depth perception to skilfully avoid collision with a chair. 3-D. To many, right now, 3-D appears to be a new and exciting phenomenon. Other, more, cautious souls refer back to 3-D movies of the 1950s, or to Edwardian stereoscopic photographs. But really, they're missing the point. The fact is, 3-D is old news. Really old. Like, millions of years. Considering this, it goes without saying that seeing things in 3-D is actually, well... a bit boring. It's humdrum. Everyday. Just... normal.
So why, when we go to the cinema to experience a distinctly different kind of world – one that, for the most part, we hope is neither boring nor everyday – is 3-D thought to be an exciting addition to the mix? And why is this belief apparently even more fervent when the films in question are big, fantasy extravaganzas, whose raison d'être is escape, and whose attraction is therefore their very difference from the ordinary world that surrounds us? Surely, adding 3-D to these astonishing, wonderfully unreal worlds is rather like gazing upon the painstakingly created, magical realm of L Frank Baum's Oz in all its vibrant, gaudy glory, then gleefully announcing 'Hey, let's make it look even more real! Let's furnish it from Laura Ashley paint it magnolia!'?
But wait... Not all of cinema is about escape. There are films, after all, that aim not to take us away from the world, but to hold a mirror up to life – to bring it closer (even that phrase 'bring it closer' is suggestive). For some filmmakers, the everyday – the humdrum, the 'real' – is their preferred territory; their quest, to make film as 'real' as possible. Following the logic, it soon becomes clear where 3-D truly belongs; not in Wonderland or among clashing Titans, in the hands of woolly-headed fantasists and expressionists, but with the realists, the kitchen-sinkers, the purveyors of true-life grit.
I imagine Ken Loach and Mike Leigh are merely biding their time before making their move. And Michael Winterbottom and Shane Meadows are doubtless waiting for the hype to die away before laying claim to what is rightfully theirs. After all, how can they reasonably resist what the 3-D revolution offers – the chance to make their cinematic worlds more real than they have ever been before?
Then, and only then, will 3-D cinema finally make sense.
Showing posts with label Mark Kermode. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark Kermode. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Monday, 3 August 2009
ANTICHRISSED
Antichrist Lars von Trier (2009) Denmark/Germany/France/Sweden/Italy/Poland
In a recent piece for the Daily Mail, critic Christopher Hart slammed maverick Danish director Lars von Trier’s controversial new work Antichrist – but also succeeded in creating a controversy all his own. Under the heading ‘What DOES it take to get a film banned these days?’ he went straight for the soft underparts, with the opening words: ‘A film which plumbs new depths of sexual explicitness, excruciating violence and degradation has just been passed as fit for general consumption by the British Board of Film Classification.’
Having a go at von Trier is nothing new, of course. At Cannes, it’s practically compulsory. The part that really ruffled readers’ feathers, however, came in the fourth paragraph. ‘I haven't seen it myself,’ said Hart, ‘nor shall I – and I speak as a broad-minded arts critic, strongly libertarian in tendency. But merely reading about Antichrist is stomach-turning, and enough to form a judgment.’
This was greeted with hoots of derision from readers and commentators of every hue – including fellow critic Mark Kermode – all of whom seemed to struggle with the concept of judging a film you haven’t actually seen. When Hart talked of the film containing ‘horrors the likes of which I have never witnessed’ you could almost sense the half-stifled guffaws of disbelief, and the cry from the bequiffed gentleman at the back of ‘That’s because you haven’t seen them...’
When he went on to harangue ‘the anonymous moral guardians of British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), who in their infinite wisdom, have passed this foul film for general consumption’ you could almost hear the unrestrained cascades of cruel laughter, and the pantomimesque heckles of ‘Their wisdom may not be infinite, but at least those moral guardians bothered to watch it!’
And when he continued by stating: ‘It doesn't surprise me that Antichrist was heavily subsidised by the Danish Film Institute to the tune of 1.5 million euros,’ you could almost feel the furrowing of the eyebrows and lengthy pause for thought across vast swathes of southern Scandinavia, as the entire population of Denmark mused on whether they had just been roundly insulted.
All of these reactions, of course, are grossly unfair. I may not agree with Christopher Hart’s assessment of von Trier’s film, but I defend to the hilt his right to pass judgement on it in a state of complete ignorance. In fact, let me add my own voice to his.
I haven’t seen Antichrist either, but based on blind assumption, hearsay and rumour I judge it to be possibly the best film I have never seen. The opening sequence, in which the couple make love while their child falls out of a window, is both beautiful and heartrending, while the Sleepy Hollow bit with the arms coming out of the tree looks absolutely marvellous.
As far as the much-debated genital mutilation goes, well, I’m all for it. Just another one to add to the collection, from my point of view. And who cares if it hasn’t got a happy ending or a moral? That’s why we have Disney and Dreamworks, for goodness sake. As for the idea that these shocking images corrupt us, I’m with Wes Craven on that one – such cinematic shocks and traumas are small rehearsals for the shocks and traumas of real life, and so are life-enriching, not corrupting.
The bits in between – though largely imagined – are by turns absurd, tragic, funny, sickening, heartwarming, thrilling, stomach-churning, poetic, offensive, bold, terrifying, sentimental, misogynistoc, ironic, meaningless and life-changing, and the sequence in which Willem Dafoe does tricks on a bicycle in an apple orchard to the strains of Burt Bacharach and crashes into the mic boom is sheer movie magic.
Some – bandwagon jumpers, BBFC officials, people who have actually seen the film – may take issue with this unfashionable point of view. But it’s people such as Chris and myself who have the purest possible experience of it, unsullied by the distraction of any kind of objective reality. Certainly, our versions are a hundred times better and/or worse than yours. Born out of sheer bloody ignorance, these are pure and unfettered experiences – untouchable, incorruptible, beyond criticism; something those who have actually seen Antichrist will never know, and have absolutely no right to comment on.
In short, a fabulous film, that everyone, young and old, should see. Or not.
In a recent piece for the Daily Mail, critic Christopher Hart slammed maverick Danish director Lars von Trier’s controversial new work Antichrist – but also succeeded in creating a controversy all his own. Under the heading ‘What DOES it take to get a film banned these days?’ he went straight for the soft underparts, with the opening words: ‘A film which plumbs new depths of sexual explicitness, excruciating violence and degradation has just been passed as fit for general consumption by the British Board of Film Classification.’
Having a go at von Trier is nothing new, of course. At Cannes, it’s practically compulsory. The part that really ruffled readers’ feathers, however, came in the fourth paragraph. ‘I haven't seen it myself,’ said Hart, ‘nor shall I – and I speak as a broad-minded arts critic, strongly libertarian in tendency. But merely reading about Antichrist is stomach-turning, and enough to form a judgment.’
This was greeted with hoots of derision from readers and commentators of every hue – including fellow critic Mark Kermode – all of whom seemed to struggle with the concept of judging a film you haven’t actually seen. When Hart talked of the film containing ‘horrors the likes of which I have never witnessed’ you could almost sense the half-stifled guffaws of disbelief, and the cry from the bequiffed gentleman at the back of ‘That’s because you haven’t seen them...’
When he went on to harangue ‘the anonymous moral guardians of British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), who in their infinite wisdom, have passed this foul film for general consumption’ you could almost hear the unrestrained cascades of cruel laughter, and the pantomimesque heckles of ‘Their wisdom may not be infinite, but at least those moral guardians bothered to watch it!’
And when he continued by stating: ‘It doesn't surprise me that Antichrist was heavily subsidised by the Danish Film Institute to the tune of 1.5 million euros,’ you could almost feel the furrowing of the eyebrows and lengthy pause for thought across vast swathes of southern Scandinavia, as the entire population of Denmark mused on whether they had just been roundly insulted.
All of these reactions, of course, are grossly unfair. I may not agree with Christopher Hart’s assessment of von Trier’s film, but I defend to the hilt his right to pass judgement on it in a state of complete ignorance. In fact, let me add my own voice to his.
I haven’t seen Antichrist either, but based on blind assumption, hearsay and rumour I judge it to be possibly the best film I have never seen. The opening sequence, in which the couple make love while their child falls out of a window, is both beautiful and heartrending, while the Sleepy Hollow bit with the arms coming out of the tree looks absolutely marvellous.
As far as the much-debated genital mutilation goes, well, I’m all for it. Just another one to add to the collection, from my point of view. And who cares if it hasn’t got a happy ending or a moral? That’s why we have Disney and Dreamworks, for goodness sake. As for the idea that these shocking images corrupt us, I’m with Wes Craven on that one – such cinematic shocks and traumas are small rehearsals for the shocks and traumas of real life, and so are life-enriching, not corrupting.
The bits in between – though largely imagined – are by turns absurd, tragic, funny, sickening, heartwarming, thrilling, stomach-churning, poetic, offensive, bold, terrifying, sentimental, misogynistoc, ironic, meaningless and life-changing, and the sequence in which Willem Dafoe does tricks on a bicycle in an apple orchard to the strains of Burt Bacharach and crashes into the mic boom is sheer movie magic.
Some – bandwagon jumpers, BBFC officials, people who have actually seen the film – may take issue with this unfashionable point of view. But it’s people such as Chris and myself who have the purest possible experience of it, unsullied by the distraction of any kind of objective reality. Certainly, our versions are a hundred times better and/or worse than yours. Born out of sheer bloody ignorance, these are pure and unfettered experiences – untouchable, incorruptible, beyond criticism; something those who have actually seen Antichrist will never know, and have absolutely no right to comment on.
In short, a fabulous film, that everyone, young and old, should see. Or not.
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