found_drama

Documentary!
No, wait! It’s an action flick!
Vaporized blood? Ick!

Still unpacking District 9. I was a little jarred by the fact that they start it out as a faux documentary (which I loved immediately) and then cut to scenes that were more a bit more “traditional action film”; but I can’t say that I can see how they would have accomplished what they needed to with this film had they gone exclusively with the former format. So… all is forgiven?

Regardless, it’s bloody and violent but that’s just a veneer for what is otherwise a story about tolerance and redemption. It’s well-structured (despite the conflicting formats) and I’m hoping that it stands the test of time to enter the canon of Great Sci-Fi Films.

With 3D turning into a big draw for box office films now^[1], and with Sony claiming they’ll put in our living rooms by the end of the year, I’ve had a few conversations now about the 3D effects and whether/not they “feel right”.  Most folks seem to agree that if you let go and relax your eyes and just stare straight ahead, that you get used to it pretty quick and that the 3D effects add a little something special to those films.  But most folks also agree that something about it also feels a little bit off, and that it doesn’t take much to pull you right out of that relaxed adjustment.

If you think about it for a minute, you’ll notice that it’s the depth-of-field^[2] that betrays you.

This came to me relatively early in the film when I went to see Avatar.  It’s a relatively inconsequential scene:  Jake Sully is floating in zero-gee, coming out of the interstellar suspended animation…  The camera is sharply focused on him and the depth-of-field is pretty shallow…  Sully is groggy and floats dead center in the frame…  And down in the lower left of the frame is a box or a cylinder or something with a label on it.  But you can’t make out the writing because it’s in the foreground, too close and out of focus.  But you want to know what it says, so you move your eyes to the object and try to focus…

And that’s it, right there.  Your brain has got competing signals.  You perceive everything in the frame in 3D.  So your brain assumes you can just track the objects with your eyes, move your own focus.  Your brain believes it ought to be able to make out those words.  But the letters never snap into focus.

But now you’ve pulled yourself out of the scene now.  Your eyes aren’t relaxed anymore, they’re not in the center of the frame “where they belong”, and you’re certainly not caught up in the transformative magic of the 3D effects anymore.

So the questions then become…:

1. How many 3D films are we going to need to see before we train our brains to “turn off” those attempts to change focus? That is to say, is this just an artifact of the fact that we have already “trained” ourselves not to try this change-of-focus with traditional 2D cinematography and we just need to train ourselves to do the same thing with 3D?
2. How are directors and cinematographers going to change their framing techniques? Seriously, is the focus always going to be in the center of the frame “from now on” when it comes to 3D films?  Because I can tell you it was awkward and maybe a little bit vertigo-inducing to look at the edge of the frame in those 3D shots.
3. How is this going to work in the living room? Glasses that you can lose?  Or that your cat will chew to bits?  Help me out here…  But I guess having a 3D TV in the den will help us get the training hours under our belts to address #1?

1. See also: Avatar, Alice in Wonderland, Tron Legacy… [↩]
2. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, try the Wikipedia primer on depth-of-field; though this image is probably enough to illustrate the definition. [↩]

When you walk away from Robocop, there is a temptation to describe it as a Dickian film.

Certainly the elements seem to be there:  a man with a subsumed identity and a concealed past, struggling against forces larger than him—perhaps even controlling him—in a bleak dystopian future setting.  The looming megacorporation that wipes out his memories?  His access back to those memories from his dreams?  It all seems very Dickian.

But Robocop may more appropriately by the anti-Dickian Dickian film.

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Coming to Deadwood‘s anti-climactic finale last night, I decided to append a few follow-up notes and thought questions to my earlier assertion that the show was David Milch’s attempt at a purely American creation myth:

1. Upon further reflection, Milch is attempting some important inversions on the creation myth paradigm.  We’ve already discussed how his women do not give birth; instead, their quests would have less to do with “pure creation” and more to do with resisting destruction, fending off entropy.  In particular here, focus on Alma’s trials and tribulations.
2. Thought question:  what is the significance of “Jewel”^[1] in light of saloon’s name (i.e., “the Gem”)?
3. Though “Wild Bill” Hickcock dies in the first season^[2], his presence stays with us through — even making a reprise in the final minutes of the series finale.  He’s there to humanize mortality — on account of we have quite a bit of seemingly mechanistic killing and dying.
4. Thought questions:  what’s the importance of the symmetry of the blood-stain scrubbing?

1. As in “Jewel’s name being ‘Jewel’”. [↩]
2. And relatively early on, for that matter. [↩]

Work with me here:  When David Milch hallucinated the opening scene to what would become Deadwood, when he gathered up his personal assistant(s) into a darkened room and reclined on the couch to spill forth from his amygdala exactly what he was seeing beyond his third eye, he was leaking his fever-dream vision of a purely American creation myth.

I’m convinced of this.

Listen:  Milch saw a gap.  Every culture worldwide, living or dead, has a ripe and complex history, rich with detailed mythology and folklore.  And though many of these cultures’ mythologies are suppressed under some latter-day predominant macro-culture^[1], the fact of the matter is that each of these mythologies feature some kind of creation myth^[2].  What Milch saw, was that America — melting pot or not — has emerged as a pretty interesting cultural entity, one that is likely to have a long-lasting legacy.  But where was its creation myth?  Was it to succumb to the fate of borrowing the creation myths of its patchwork constituents?  Was it to delegate its mythology to the cultures native but otherwise systematically destroyed^[3]?  Or was it to move softly into its own future without regard for this dare-we-say necessity?

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1. Judeo-Christian traditions, I’m looking in your direction. [↩]
2. Judeo-Christian tradition:  I know you’ve got yours too, but it’s pretty weaksauce when compared to some. [↩]
3. A tip of the ironic hat there? [↩]

descend from Andes
descend to utter madness
wrestle with monkeys

Great film.  Stunning.  Epic.  Masterfully shot.  Surreal.  Insert more superlatives here.

However, when your primary film-selection criterion for the evening is “which one is shortest?” — well, this one may leave your jaw unpleasantly unhinged.  Bewildering.

Will watch again.  When I’m more serious about it.

some say “slow moving”
but instead ’tis action packed.
still, please be patient.

Seriously.  You need no additional evidence that Kubrick was a bat-shit insane genius than this film.

Anyone that says that describes it as “slow moving” is expecting entirely too many explosions for something set in the 18th century.  Or they’re not paying attention.  Every scene is dense with dialogue, imagery, narration, and plot-advancing actions.  It’s complex (no fooling there) but not so complex that it becomes difficult to follow.

That said, you do need to be paying attention.  And you do need to exhibit some patience to let all of the pieces come together.

Plus, the film is a technical masterpiece — even before you stop to consider the great pains to which Kubrick went to achieve all of those candle-lit shots without the aid of electric light.

Allegory for
spousal secrets, marriage woes
—but more explosions.

when it says “written,
produced, and directed by”
please just walk away

“What’s wrong?” “Oh, nothing.
I just need something stronger.”
Subdue the perverts.

It’s a little tough to believe that I’d gone this long without seeing George Lucas’ THX 1138. And in many ways, it’s almost harder to believe that it was made by the same guy behind Attack of the Clones.

As I’ve said of some books:  far more erudite and learned individuals have put together thoughtful, insightful essays that either include or are about this film.  I have no intention of doing a “close read” here.

The thing that was most startling to me was that I didn’t realize exactly how iconic this film had become. Watching it for the first time^[1], during the first 15 minutes, I recognized three bits of audio that had been used in songs I’ve been listening to for years.  It may not be iconic in the mainstream-geek sort of way that Star Wars is, but it’s definitely become part of our cultural consciousness.  It just might be the definitive science fiction film about the alienation that follows assimilation by a Big Brother-style authority.  If you haven’t checked it out already, you should definitely do so.

UPDATE: Also, it occurs to me that the film reminded me very much of This Time of Darkness, a young adult novel I read in the fifth grade (?).  Sadly, it appears to be out of print — but the two stories share a great many details and plot elements.  I’ve yet to come up with a publication date yet, so I remain curious as to which served as inspiration for the other…

1. I could have sworn I’d seen it before but apparently not. [↩]