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| The Geography of Wonderland: 3-D Mārtiņš Slišāns, Film Critic | |
| To fly together with blue-skinned aborigines across some alien planet and to tumble helter-skelter downwards into the Rabbit’s cave together with Alice. Isn’t it wonderful? Phenomenal audience support for the films Avatar (2009, directed by James Cameron) and Alice in Wonderland (2010, directed by Tim Burton) at box offices has exceeded the most daring of expectations. The new 3-D films are a visual trump card which has “taken out” everything that came before, and 2010 will go down in history as a crucial turning-point in the development of film. This is exactly the reason why it’s worth exploring ‘what’s inside this teddy bear’ of the future, and it must be started by looking back into the past. Arrival of the train When, at the end of 19th century, viewers first saw motion pictures on the screen, quite possibly they were overtaken by an overabundance of feelings analogous to those experienced when literally entering the new and surprising world of aliens in the film Avatar mentioned above. It is a feeling of surprise provoked by the wonder of motion pictures. After watching the film, on exiting the cinema, the world which for two and a half hours had been crammed with adventures painted in psychedelic tones and a dominance of blue, now appears to be quite grey. It is possible that similar feelings overtook the viewer who had seen the half minute-long film Arrival of the Train, which literally depicted the tittle, or had been entertained by the comedy where one of the actors treads onto the watering hose a gardener is using to water the lawn, but after a moment steps off again so that the gardener receives splash of water in the face(1). The analogy of the new world of 3-D films with the earliest works of cinematography is not incidental. What joins viewers is not merely a feeling of wonder, but also the fact that the story or screenplay are concepts of secondary significance. The primary concept is the picture as a phenomenon. It was sufficient in the early days, just like it is now. It is especially true in the context of the abundance of feeling which is one of the chief criteria for choosing how to spend leisure time, the amount of which has risen rapidly throughout centuries because of consecutive and also simultaneous revolutions – industrial, religious (especially on this side of the River Wisla) and sexual. | |
 Watching 3-D film. The 1950s. USA | |
| Sound and colour “There is nothing new under the sun”, according to Solomon. Examining the development of cinematography from a bird’s-eye view, it is obvious that each new generation of viewers perceive the means of entertainment enjoyed by the previous generation as rather tasteless. In this respect, the cinema is indeed the most significant and contemporary art of the 20th century. It provides a mirror reflection of how humans and society in general have changed, and each leap ahead in the quick march of cinematography, hand in hand with the audience, discloses certain regularities. The first obvious step was the introduction of sound into film. Up until World War I cinematography had passed through the baby-talk stage and was starting to present itself as art. The postwar period turned out to be the Golden Age of silent film. Films rapidly evolved into full-length features and, owing to Hollywood adventure films and comedies, German expressionism and Russian potyomkins, audiences got used to motion pictures as a real show. It was so until The Jazz Singer (1927) appeared on the screens with Al Jolson in the main role, who performed several of his songs and even spoke self-devised texts (according to the screenplay, the actor didn’t have to speak). The success of this partly ‘talking film’ and two subsequent sound films was sufficient to turn medium range studio Warner Brothers into a factory of blockbusters, a status which it has retained until the present day. The rapid demise of the star achiever studio of the silent film era – United Artists – and the early ‘retirement’ of the most famous Hollywood star couple of the time – Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks – is symbolic. As is well known, cinematography is not only art, but also a sizeable capital investment, especially in transitional periods. Transition to a new technical quality can only be done if there is mass support from the audiences. This was the case in the early days of sound cinematography, whereby it was necessary to introduce new and complement the existing equipment in cinema theatres all over the world. The responsiveness of the audience facilitated this process. New stars were born and within a few years the ‘face’ of cinema had radically changed. Along with the introduction of sound, the screen gained a new expansiveness and the means to – literally – address the spectator. Musicals and gangster films became the cornerstones of sound film in Hollywood, and a tonic against the Great Depression. The accomplishments of Rouben Mamoulian are significant to this period. With his experience of producing Broadway musicals, he was one of the trailblazers and successfully turned into a director of sound films at the age of 52. The use of imperfect and unwieldy equipment for recording live sound had temporarily set back cinematography towards an early stage of development, and the manner of directing inadvertently had become wooden and static. Starting with the elegance of movement and excellent sense of sound in Mamoulian’s first film The Applause (1929), he became one of those significant discoverers of opportunities provided by the new cinema which helped to overcome these ‘hardships of growing up’. In just a few short years the audience had forgotten what exactly are a pianist and a narrator, thus assigning the Big Silent to history. When sound had become an integral constituent of films, colour cinematography stepped in as a natural consecutive stage. Attempts to work with Technicolor single and two-colour processes were carried out simultaneously with audio experiments, making short films in colour or using colour only for individual episodes. Cecil B. DeMille – creator of the biblical epic full-length feature film about the life of Christ (The King of Kings, 1927) which was released before the demise of silent film – used colour only in the in final scene of the film, in order to highlight the episode about the resurrection of Christ . A comprehensive use of the colour range was begun only with the debut of the Technicolor three-colour process. The first full-length film to be made by means of this new tonally saturated process was the previously-mentioned Robert Mamoulian’s Becky Sharp (1935), which was based on William Thackeray’s well-known novel Vanity Fair. A crucial point in the transformation of colour cinematography in the new format was the huge success of the films Gone With the Wind (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). The stupendous effect of the wide screen Technicolor in conjunction with epic and fairy-tale genres yielded abundant attendances. Gone With the Wind still holds the worldwide attendance record for all time. Approval by the mass audience was unambiguous, yet the events of World War II delayed the anticipated dominance of colour cinematography; regardless of the high costs of processing, Technicolor and its competing German counterpart Agfacolor continued to exist as a statement of status. This was the motivation underlying the creation of the film Münchhausen (1943) during Hitler’s rule, and also the early newsreels of the Olympic Games and the National Socialists’ parades were made as colour films. The introduction of sound and colour in film was closely related to the establishment and growth of the authoritarian ‘studio system’ in Hollywood. Cinema reached its peak popularity in 1940s, when 90 million viewers visited cinema theatres in the USA weekly.(2) Panic was caused in the euphoria of the dream factory in early 1950s, due to the beginning of the television era which contributed to a reduction of box office sales by half within a few years. A remedy had to be sought urgently. The first step was the production of grandiose wide screen colour films in new, ever larger screen formats. Cinerama, which surfaced briefly, was like this – it required the simultaneous use of three projectors, as well as a panoramic screen. It was ousted by the technologically simpler process of the optical transformation of image(3) which provided a similar effect. The heritage of this period retained until today includes the panoramic screen, the size and proportions of which are still used to emphasize the momentousness of film. The Third Dimension Stereoscopic images shot into the sky of cinematography like a comet. The short period between 1952 and 1955 is referred to as the golden age of 3-D cinematography, and can be summed up by the expression “one should not argue about taste, especially about bad taste”. You are likely to have heard of films like Bwana Devil (1952) and Black Lolita (1975) only if you had explored this period of cinematography in detail. These films are two significant and characteristic examples of the exploitation genre – the use of 3-D in this period is regarded by contemporary critics with smile, at best. In the case of the first film, it was promised that ‘lions will jump right into your lap’, whilst the other one promised a spicy erotic experience. The plot of Bwana Devil, a film created by independent directors, hinges on events related to the hunting of man-eater lions in Africa. The film was the first significant prelude to a sudden obsession with films whose core techniques involved the projection of two simultaneous frames which were ‘put together’ spatially by means of glasses made of cardboard frames and twocolour lenses. The opportunities offered by 3-D were used with great enthusiasm by visionaries of horror and alien attack, namely, the creators of B grade movies. These were popular amongst youngsters of the rock’n’roll generation as a supplement to outdoor dating in so-called drive-in cinemas, where films were viewed outdoors whilst sitting in vehicles. The inflexible cinematography industry on this side of the Iron Curtain failed to react to the boom of stereoscopic cinematography before its demise, and the audience missed out on ‘masterpieces’ such as the Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and Robot Monster (1953). The quality of Hollywood’s 3-D films slumped so heavily within a short timeframe that it led to a loss of audiences. This is the last of technical novelties introduced by the great studios and it marked the oncoming decline of the system, giving way to a new generation of creators of cinematography and independent producers Ecstasy Each new step forward in the development of cinematography has offered a new level of emotional intensity which conforms to the needs of the audience, but the heritage of the 1970s is special and forms a direct umbilical cord with cinema entertainment today. After the War, the first colour films created in many European coun-tries were epic stories of national significance, and only gradually, as the economy recovered and changes took place in the perception of viewers, the dominance of colour cinematography was established by the late 1960s. Meanwhile, the marriage of increasing welfare and self-contented hypocrisy became burdening to the new generation, thus the time had come to rise up against ‘the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie’. The consequences of the late 1960s revolution of sense and sensibility were also directly reflected in cinema. It can be succinctly summarised by a line from the Rolling Stones song Satisfaction, namely, “I can’t get no satisfaction”. Audiences demanded and enjoyed cinema which was completely different from that of just a few years before. Along with the use of mind-altering substances causing various interesting effects and side-effects, the disco era also brought a rapidly increasing demand for films of the erotic genre. Creators of XXX rated films tried to use the stereoscopic technique in the 1970s, so that with the third dimension of the screen the effect of erotic experience would be heightened. A giant breast or some other body part all across the whole 3-D space were features which allowed films like Black Lolita, Scoring (1972) and The Secrets of Ecstasy’72 (1972) find their audience. As revealed by one of the more successful pornographic film producers of the time, in order to fill the 3-D space efficiently, it was necessary to complement the use of human body parts with the use of, for instance, a massive cow’s tongue stuck onto a wooden stick. The level of adrenaline had to be increased to the maximum – this was the catch phrase of the new era, as young people became the dominant sector in the audience. Symbolic of this time is the life drama undergone by one of the most outstanding directors in the world, David Lean (Doctor Zhivago, 1965; Lawrence of Arabia, 1962; The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957). Audiences ignored his new epic film Ryan’s Daughter (1970), and the director was aggrieved by such indifference and unfavourable critiques from young critics to such an extent that he abandoned film-making altogether and directed his last film – A Passage to India – only 14 years later. Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) came to the fore as the new bench-mark for films in ‘official’ Hollywood. The significance of the plot began to diminish in proportion to the increase in the sensation of ecstasy unleashed. However, the decisive turning point was Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). The future belonged to the viewers, who demanded the gripping entertainment of special effects in a weird world. Until now, serious filmmakers had regarded this type of film with poorly masked contempt, yet they subsequently became the ‘golden calves’ of the dream factory. The success of Star Wars, of the extent attained by few other films, was a crucial point for introduction of the first spatial sound standard Dolby Stereo into global cinematography. During this transition period the great figures of cinematography – Luchino Visconti and Andrei Tarkovsky – literally made their last films and passed away. The fascination of cyberspace swiftly appeared on the horizon and began to gain ground, for the moment outwardly represented by computers in awkward block form. Together with a more frequent presence of visual effects in the films of the 1980s, the first digitally created effects evolved in line with the capacity of computers – in comparison with what is possible today, the effects were like children’s drawings. The film Tron (1982), which contains not only computer graphics modern for the time, but also an original visual concept, is a significant witness to this developmental stage. The plot is based on a story about a programmer who enters cyberspace and engages in a fight with a malicious programme and its intent to rule in physical space. It is difficult to imagine the phenomenon of the future – the Matrix Trilogy (1999–2003) – without the germinal ideas presented by this film, which also included a modest reference to Alice in Wonderland. During this period the position of stereoscopic cinematography in circulation was insignificant, because audiences were carried away with glorifying each new achievement of Spielberg and Lucas. The supposed watershed can be considered to be the film Jaws 3-D (1983), whose considerable commercial success marked the end of 3-D films of the analogue era. The giant dome screens of IMAX format gained popularity, and for this format documentaries and popular science films dedicated to the mightiness of nature and human achievement were released. Moreover, the digital age was already on the threshold, and the opportunities it promised have only become fully realized now, in line with the new wave of popularity of 3-D. | |
 The Jazz Singer. 1927 | |
| Onwards, follow Cameron! The transition to digital format coincided with the rapid development of the career of a rising star – director James Cameron. Given the way he proceeded deeper into the undiscovered territory of cinematography with each new project, he was destined to be one of the main players in the dramatic entrance of the digital era. Cameron’s first ‘photographically real’ 3-D graphics(4) on the wide screen were revealed to the world in his film The Abyss (1989). Although the alien being that resembled a long transparent water tentacle with the image of a human face at one end appeared only in few episodes, this ‘actor’ was an introduction to the future accomplishments of the director. Each new work of the director ever since Terminator 2: The Judgement Day (1991) has made a lasting impression, not only on the film crew who arrived in pyjamas in 101st day of filming the said hit film, protesting against the tyrannical regime, but also the whole world of cinema. Let’s just mention the bare figures, as they largely mirror both the scale of the films as well as Cameron’s magnetic ability to attract audiences. Three of the last four films created by the director have been, one after the other, the most expensive at the time: 100 million dollars (Terminator 2), 200 million dollars (Titanic, 1997) and 300 million dollars (Avatar)(5). Each of these was not only the most watched film for that particular year, all around the world, but also amongst the most commercially successful films ever. What does it tell us? It is merely the red line that marks the geometrically progressive development of the digital world in the 1990s, and its triumphal entrance into the new millennium with the Matrix trilogy, Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and Pirates of the Caribbean (2003–2007). The cult film Star Wars was enlivened in a new quality by complementing the first trilogy (1977–1983) with a second one (1999–2005). Possibly the most significant resemblance of all was shown by the creators of Matrix, who depicted people as batteries from whom the essence of life is extracted, substituting it with digital stimulators which look and taste like steak, but are not a steak, or a human being who may look like your partner, yet is actually only a programme which simulates the appearance of a human being. But – as said by one of the film’s heroes, who cannot bear the greyness of everyday life after the return to reality and exchanges his companions for a place in the digital illusion and a piece of steak – “I don’t care”. Eye-glasses for Alice The return of 3-D or stereo cinematography has happened over the last few years. It took place in parallel with other processes, such as the appearance of the first photographically real digital actors in films. Heroes of this period are Gollum, slave of the ring in The Lord of the Rings, who received an MTV award as the best virtual actor, along with Captain Davy Jones with an octopus as a face in Pirates of the Caribbean. Cameron’s keenness for the stereoscopic format in popular science documentaries about the exploration of the realm of the ocean deep went hand in hand with the return of cinema theatres to the well forgotten 3-D experience, where the audience were being increasingly drawn by vivid documentaries bearing an ecological message to the world. The director’s experiments with documentaries in the films Ghosts of the Abyss (2003) and Aliens of the Deep (2005) helped to form the basis for a new stage of technology of cinematography, called virtual studios. This is a fully digitalised process of filming, where even stage sets aren’t needed. In the studio, reception sensors are attached to the actors and a spatial matrix of the actors’ movements is recorded on hard disc for the purposes of further processing. A director then can adjust the actions of actors using digital models seen in real time mode on camera and on computer screens. The creation of this studio and the filming cameras (which can record simultaneously in conventional ‘flat’ and stereoscopic formats) was part of Cameron’s leap towards the future, lasting several years, in the creation of the film Avatar. Meanwhile, because audiences were ready to pay even a third more in order to see the few films (especially the major family animation films) which were in 3-D format, the number of 3-D cinemas sprang up very rapidly in the USA, whose high attendance rate makes it a seismograph for worldwide attendance forecasts. The difference in profit in favour of these relatively few new format cinema theatres was so significant and the wave was on such a roll that when Avatar came out, 3-D saturation had reached a level where 75% of the profit was coming from these screens. Moreover, for the dream factory which produces approximately 400 films annually, the gigantic box office profits from one single Cameron film of 2.7 billion dollars makes up at least one quarter of the annual income of the whole film mega-industry. Together with the popularity of Alice in Wonderland, this figure has reached astronomical heights – one third of the income of the entire USA film industry. One could say that the floodgates are open. At the beginning of this year, the first comprehensive studio of 3-D technologies, exported from California, arrived in Paris. The same is happening in Moscow, where the technology comes in from Japan. The Berlin film festival held in February included a discussion about the new format, whilst following its film festival in May, Cannes will host the first speed-training programmes for European film technicians who are chasing their American counterparts. There is an immediate need for the creation of a new product in order to feed the starved audiences, who bolted down the first major films like a snack. Approximately 20 films of varied 3-D format will be released this year, yet it is clear that this won’t be enough. Media giants are beginning to experiment with 3-D broadcasts. The major electronics companies are starting to offer computer and television screens, as well as new HD (High Definition) format video players, with an inbuilt 3-D support function. Thus the next step is to merge our domestic and professional environments with virtual simulated space. Tearing down the borders was one of the key themes in this year’s CeBit, the most important trade fair of electronic innovation held in Hannover. In a unique survey conducted for the purposes of the exhibition, 23% out of 1000 respondents confirmed that they would agree to have a microchip implant inserted under their skin. At present, all current 3-D technologies are in essence a combination of two asymmetrically overlaid and simultaneously projected images, which can be adjusted only by the use of special viewing glasses. The visual beauty of this technique will prevail during the coming years; nevertheless, it is also possible that the next step might be the quite forgotten holographic photography or some kind of similar technique which, if carried over to the domain of moving images, would eliminate the necessity for dedicated glasses. Projection of this kind is prominently present in Star Wars and other science fiction films. I dare to add that the laser weapons which can be controlled from space have become the latest fashion among the military in recent years, prototypes with a precise targeting feature have already been tested and are now being implemented in reality. It’s not art anymore, but a reality of our own life, and the rules are being re-written on the cinema screen. 3-D plays a significant part in this period of the information revolution which, contrary to the changes that occurred in the previous century, doesn’t provide more free time, but rather devours it. That is why our private space has overlapped with public activities. We don’t have to leave home in order to establish social ties – this is still in the early phase of rapid development, but it will be perceived as natural by the internet generation born after 1995 and their children. We have stepped over a new threshold in the paradigm of society’s perception. The children and grandchildren of Star Wars audiences have found their wellspring for quenching the thirst caused by the revolution of 1968. If everything that happened before then was largely related to industrial development and was physically tangible, then the post-Beatles period, including cinema, is perceivable by means of an intangible, yet obvious concept such as ‘change of cognition’. The form of the story, which had been largely borrowed from the tradition of the narrative novel, has been changed at its very core. The presence of words is being substituted by a visual image. 3-D films lead this estrangement from active thinking towards the next level – a state of passivity. Whatever the fans of Avatar might say, the instant that dialogues appear in the film, the visually perfect beauty reveals its Achilles heel and spoils the good impression. It is a world in which presence of the word is functional and informative; the emotional and intellectual level has been replaced by the image. Space is given for sensations and experiences, the description of which requires terminology which has yet to be created. The literary illiteracy of the internet generation is merely the beginning of an era of visual hedonism. It is the way to a new and self-sufficient Wonderland, where everybody will be able to find their own source of pleasure. (1) The plot about a poor gardener who sort of “slipped on a banana peel” is immortal and is consistently being repeated in films even today. (2) Data of 1946. (3) Cinemascope format and technique. The use of anamorphic lens allowed to ‘squeeze’ the frame horizontally during filming, expanding to panoramic size during projection. (4) Spatial 3-D computer graphics (which are a significant constituent of any film with special effects nowadays) bear no technical relevance to 3-D stereoscopic films. However, it must be mentioned that the final part of some 3-D computer graphics animation films (e.g., Ice Age, 2002–2009) organically turn into an impressive entertainment in stereoscopic format. (5) Numbers for both last films are the same, if inflation is taken into account. /Translator into English: Jānis Aniņš/ | |
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