My review of GRAVITY

I don't know how you begin to write a film like GRAVITY, much less direct it.  Alfonso Cuaron's film is a marvel of directing, visual effects and acting.  I saw it last week in IMAX 3D and it might very well have been the first time that I didn't feel like the victim of some sort of ticket up-selling scheme.  As a rule, I don't enjoy 3D and I rarely feel it adds anything of value to a film.  Too often, 3D releases are post-converted cash-grab, with the extra depth being little more than an afterthought on a film that may not have even been conceived with it in mind.

The film stars Sandra Bullock as a first-time astronaut who is one of two survivors of a shuttle mission that fails when debris from a Russian satellite assaults their vessel.  George Clooney stars as the other astronaut, the easygoing old flirt who nonetheless becomes the cool head in a crisis once things go bad.  With communication with the ground knocked out and the shuttle no longer livable, Clooney and Bullock set out for the International Space Station, intent on using the escape pods there to return to the surface.  But there's a ticking clock - in 90 minutes, the ISS will also be pelted by debris.

Thus begins a tale of survival, and even now, after two weekends of release and spoiler warnings, I'm disinclined to discuss too much of the plot.  Suffice to say that one of the great joys of Cuaron screenplay (co-written with his son Jonas) is how the story is always in motion, allowing the script to move from one crisis to the next with shocking speed.  Before the film is over, Bullock's character will have dealt with drifting out of control in space, desperately trying to grab onto a space station, failing escape pods, fire within an oxygen heavy atmosphere and several dangerous spacewalks. There are moments where Bullock's character is barely able to draw breath - a feat likely being duplicated simultaneously by many in the audience. 

And this is where the IMAX 3D truly enhances the story.  It draws us emotionally into the plight that Bullock's character faces.  It's not just about providing stunning visuals and eye candy.  There is actual emotional purpose in the sequences.  We're made to experience what the astronauts do, making this fantastic scenario somehow feel more real and tangible.  It's an assault on all the senses, aided tremendously by Cuaron's use of longer takes.

After I saw Avatar, I remarked that James Cameron did a solid job of using 3D to add depth to the scenes, but that in 10 years, when the mo-cap and 3D technology was commonplace, there'd be little left to make Avatar remarkable.  It has decent performances and a familiar concept all wrapped up in a script that's okay.  There are plenty of little things I liked about the movie, but it's not a film I've been compelled to revisit beyond that first viewing.

Avatar uses its 3D to add some depth to a world that's utterly fantastic, but it's not done in a way that makes me feel for that world.  Brilliant visual effects alone can't make an audience feel.  It's why when I watch Revenge of the Sith, I don't really get emotionally involved in the technically complex space battle that opens the film, but I'm very riveted by the final lightsaber duel between Anakin and Kenobi.  The latter is the emotional payoff for three films - Obi-Wan is confronted with his greatest failure and must avenge his fallen comrades while simultaneously killing the protege he failed to properly mentor.  The former is just a bunch of CGI pixels.  For me, at least, most of Avatar falls into this category.

GRAVITY, however, achieves that emotional connection with its protagonist and proceeds to use that to wallop the audience throughout the rest of the film.

Is GRAVITY in 2D still GRAVITY?  It might be possible to make the case that the answer is "no."  Cuaron is savvy in how the 3D draws our attention.  I read an article last week that confirmed it was no accident that in one scene, a floating Marvin the Martian doll is set forth very close in the audience's field of vision so that they would focus on that first.  This way, when a floating body enters the frame, it blindsides the audience just as it would startle Bullock.  The intent of the 3D is to make viewing the film a completely immersive experience.  On a massive IMAX screen with 3D vision, our perspective is often the same as Bullock's.  

Those who derided the film for its lack of character arcs are looking for the wrong things in this movie.  The focus of this movie is on a survival story in a setting that's about as inhospitable as it gets.  Not every story is going to be 50% character and 50% plot.  Which is not to say that there isn't character work in this film.  Bullock's character definitely has an arc.  True, the nature of the story necessitates that her backstory be revealed in an expository conversation, but I don't find the motivation for that conversation to be unreasonable.

GRAVITY is such a triumph in so many ways that to browbeat it for not having a conventionally-revealed character arc is to sound like a rigid intellectual preaching the "virtues" of a "well-made play."  Avatar's thin characters drag it down because the story itself is so conventional - but especially because it's hard to maintain emotional investment in the film.  When a film truly achieves the kind of emotional investment that GRAVITY demands, it doesn't matter if it misses a few items on the mythical "screenwriting checklist."

That's not to admit that the script is weak - because it isn't.  Every aspiring screenwriter could learn from the tight pace, the rising tension and the straightforward way that one crisis begets another.  And within all of that, it still manages a rather decent character arc for Sandra Bullock's character, if one is attentive enough to notice it.

See GRAVITY in theatres, because I can almost guarantee that the film everyone's raving about will not be the same experience you get on blu-ray in the comfort of your own home.  I fear that venture will be akin to watching The Wizard of Oz on an all-black-and-white television.

My 500th post! Why I hate 3D!

500 posts. Where does the time go?

What started as a hobby has... remained a hobby, albeit one that I attend to much more frequently. Reaching 500 posts is a big milestone for me, considering that when I started this blog, I wasn't sure if I'd keep it up for 100 posts! I'm sure there are probably enough useful posts here to comprise a screenwriting book or two, which I suppose means that I'm a sucker for giving this all away for free. It's also gratifying for this to happen as I'm approaching 500 "fans" on my Facebook page (please "like" me if you haven't already) and closing in on 2000 followers on Twitter.

I've been thinking all week about what I should do for this post, especially when I saw it would land on my "Freebie" day of Friday. One thing that's become clear to me is that as much as you guys like my advice, you seem to really like it when I get up on a soapbox and rant! Some of my more popular posts have been things like calling G.I. Joe the harbinger of the apocalypse and comparing its cinematic merits to "Two Girls, One Cup." (Hi Mom... like I said before do NOT Google that!) My "Open Letter to Agents," taking them to task for the shit they shovel out, is also a fan fav. So it's clear to me that I need to celebrate 500 posts by picking on something and saying that it sucks.

While I was working that out, I was reminded that I really enjoy interacting with a lot of you guys over Twitter. There are certainly times where I'm more free to engage than others, but I really like when something I send out hits a nerve (in either a good or a bad way) and I see your reactions.

Yesterday was such a time. Amid tweeting links to an article about Playboy putting 57 years worth of archives online and Lars Von Trier's incredibly ill-advised statements at Cannes, I sent out a link to this article on James Cameron and Michael Bay talking about the 3D of the new Transformers movie. In it, I said, "I hope 3D dies soon."

Here are some of the responses I got:

@BlueRidgefilms - "amen to that. Pay extra for something that's going to give me a headache? Screw that."

@FrankenScript - "Not only do they want to make your ears bleed, but your eyes too."

@dansiger - "It's a scam. I haven't seen a movie yet that truly benefited from it."

@mrickett1 - "3D is just a pain in the ass."

@San_MonkeyGod - "I work on 2D & 3D films, as nice as it can be (Avatar) in most cases it doesn't really add anything - just B.O. receipts... plus piracy of film doesn't include the '3D experience' - one reason Avatar did so well."

@HannahSalt - "those self-rightous blue knobs from Avatar can keep their 3D, its naffa and hurts my eyes."

I'm pretty much in agreement with most of these statements. I think the 3D process has vastly improved since the days of red and blue glasses, but to me, it's still a gimmick, and as more than one reader pointed out, it's an easy way to raise ticket prices and thus, rake in more money.

I don't think anyone pointed out one of my biggest issues with it - which is the fact that the 3D glasses add depth at the cost of brightness and color vibrancy. I avoided all Avatar trailers until I saw the film opening day, so I was shocked when I started seeing the TV spots and realized how bold and brilliant the colors were intended to be. Comparatively, my experience was like watching the film through polarized sunglasses. I end up not seeing what the director intended me to see, and filmgoing is a less satisfying experience, especially at nearly $20 a seat.

Post-conversion 3D just flat-out sucks. A few other people expressed similar sentiments to me over Twitter and I couldn't agree more. If the film wasn't shot in 3D, then I cannot imagine any cogent defense for charging extra to present it as such. Also, if this post-conversion was a decision made after shooting ended, odds are the director would have composed his shots differently to take advantage of the depth. I'll give James Cameron this - the depth that his characters lacked was not missing in his visual compositions. He used 3D to its fullest advantage and attempted to create a real depth of field.

But then there's a director like Michael Bay, who - love it or hate it - uses more cuts per second than probably any director out there. With no time to appreciate the mise en scene, why go the 3D route? Before your brain can process what's on screen, he's already moved on to something else. The construction of the Transformers has already meant that some battle scenes have been nearly incomprehensible, where it's hard to tell where one robot ends and the other begins when they wrestle. (At times, it's difficult to even tell some of the robots apart in the quick cuts.) Bay's films are already a visual overload, why add a third dimension to that?

If I was a director, I'd do everything possible NOT to shoot my film in 3D. I can't imagine any director wanting to make their movie harder to watch, and for many people, the 3D is an annoyance rather than an enhancement. I make an effort not to by 3D tickets and going out of my way to find the (increasingly scarce) 2D showings. I fully intend to see Green Lantern, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and Captain America all in glorious two dimensions, no matter what money-grubbing studio tries to make that an inconvenient option. I'd go so far as to call it a boycott. Feel free to join me.

I asked on Twitter if anyone out there was willing to defend 3D and I got far fewer responses:

@chilldivine "Not defending as much as sitting tight. Old Hollywood geek, so can't help but compare with reactions to first talkies..."

@indieflickchick - "I love having the 3D option. I think to force things in 3D is a little much but it also has to do w/ the subject matter... and figure out how to most wisely use it, we can really make some awesome entertainment. For exple: Final Destination, Piranha 3D. Using 3D as a tool to move the audience, to involve them at another level."

I'm not going to pretend that a few Tweets send out on an afternoon are at all a scientific survey, but it is interesting fewer people were as passionately pro-3D as others were con. It's also probably worth noting that people who follow me on Twitter and who take the time to reply to me are probably more likely to agree with me. I don't exactly make it a point of following people who I regularly disagree with, so it's not unlikely that my followers and I are of like minds.

Do the pro-3D people have a point? In 1932, film theorist Rudolf Arnheim published Film as Art, in which he expressed the view that silent film was inherently superior to the "talkies" that were rising in popularity. His case for film as art was that it must strive to be different from reality, and that by adding sound to the moving image, the unique nature of film was compromised.

I recall the first - and only time - I read Arnheim's book. It was in a film theory class headed up by a professor who was an incredibly entertaining storyteller, but not always as apt at making those stories useful to our education. He lectured on Arnheim's tenants, which to me seemed pompous, archaic and anathema to everything I enjoyed about film.

Frankly, I thought Arnheim's views were garbage. The professor wrapped up the lecture with the note that Arnheim's book's publication coincided with the ascent of Adolf Hitler. Since he was a Jew, Arnheim's books were banned. I offered to the friend sitting next to me that the suppression of this book proved that the Nazis accomplished one good thing under their reign.

And there I just had a Lars Von Trier moment. Having made that gaffe, I could say I sympathize and understand Von Trier, but I suspect that would get me into trouble with Cannes. It's not that I care about missing the films - but I'd had to lose out on the parties.

So in hating 3D, have I become Arnheim? In 50 years, will some film student have this blog post directly downloaded into his brain and snicker at my naivete? (All together, "You should be so lucky.") I don't care. I hate 3D. And why is the music so damn loud? And what's with teens and their low-hanging jeans?

I can't think of a better way to spend my 500th post than tweaking 3D and evoking something I learned from one of my most memorable professors. Sir, this dry martini is for you.