On IMAX and Hollywood

As The Dark Knight continues to break box office records I thought it might be worthwhile to examine one of the key features of the film’s success: IMAX. The film’s IMAX treatment has been getting some press lately, but I’ve read nothing that really situates the technology (or The Dark Knight’s use of it) with the history of the format. Christopher Nolan’s second Batman film is, indeed, a cinematic achievement for incorporating –for the first time in Hollywood– the IMAX process into the visual structure of the film. Of the many accolades the film will likely continue to garner, this is one worth exploring further. Here are some thoughts on IMAX in The Dark Knight, its relationship to Hollywood, and its future.

The IMAX format originated as an experimental projection system for EXPO ‘67 in Montreal, Canada. In 1970 the first IMAX system and film was presented at the Fuji Pavilion at EXPO ‘70 in Osaka, Japan. Since then there has been no shortage of discussion in trying to link the large format process with commercial filmmaking. In the early 1980s, as the company expanded its theater and distribution network to include more locations in North America and around the world, technologically conscious filmmakers expressed interest in shooting with the system. Most notably, Francis Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas pledged their support of IMAX technology as a viable out-of-home theatrical experience.

The format boasts an image surface area that is up to ten times the size of normal 35mm film. Using 70mm film turned on its side with 15 perforations per frame, the frame size is square-shaped (1.34:1) as opposed to the wider processes of standard 35mm film. With such a large frame surface area, more light is capable of striking the negative, which results in sharper images with less grain. Audience seating in IMAX theaters such as the Ontario Cinesphere in Toronto– the world’s first permanent IMAX venue — consist of stadium rows that begin above –not below– the screen, which gives the impression of vertical as well as horizontal immersion. In the 1990s, IMAX patented a digital multichannel audio system to compete with other emerging formats such as Dolby Digital 5.1. Together, the immersive image and sound technologies offer spectators an “experience” unlike other conventional theatrical venues.

However, by the mid-1980s the IMAX format became associated with spectacular documentaries, travelogues, and short subjects that lent themselves to the immersive images and sounds of the process. Documentaries such as The Great Barrier Reef (1981) and Hail Columbia! (1982) and The Grand Canyon (1984) are three early examples of the types of films that dominated the IMAX brand: educational and spectacular voyages through space and the sea. Not unlike the early travelogues that helped Cinerama gain a reputation in the 1954 as an immersive and altogether new cinematic experience, IMAX seemed destined to be relegated to the specialty entertainment film, the novelty film, and the educational film.

Hollywood’s interest in IMAX resurfaced in the early years of this decade when the company announced its plans to innovate a system that would essentially convert traditional 35mm film into the 15/70mm IMAX format. This paved the way for conventional films like Beauty and the Beast, Apollo 13, and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones to be retrofitted with the IMAX brand and re-released in IMAX theaters. These retrofitted films were edited for time since the size (and tremendous weight) of IMAX reels prevented films from running longer than 2 hours. Current 2008 IMAX “platters” can hold up to 150 minutes of film. This process, which is called DMR (Digital Re-Mastering) offers a less sharp, less crisp image that is basically “stretched” to fit the taller format. Another option of the DMR format is to present a film in its original letterboxed format, which will leave empty space on the top and bottom of the screen. A further option has been to present Hollywood films in 3-D, such as The Polar Express and Beowulf.

At the same time, true 15/70mm films continue to be made and released on IMAX screens, including the recent film Deep Sea 3D (2006), which utilized 3-D imaging technology in addition to the traditional IMAX screen (and a beautiful Danny Elfman musical score that is made up of his concert work, Serenada Schizophrana).

With this in mind, it would appear that Hollywood has had a very limited relationship with IMAX. Each of the innovations mentioned thus far have been half-hearted attempts by studios and filmmakers to exploit the IMAX format. Hollywood is known for its conservative feelings towards innovative image and sound technology. A “wait and see” approach has dominated the industry since the very beginning, which is partly why it took nearly seven decades for wide film processes such as CinemaScope and Panavision to become an industry norm and not a novelty. In many ways, technical standardization is the result of a perfect storm of happenings: audience demand, economic security, and a film (or set of films) to ignite public interest. In other words, if a technology is cost effective, audiences demand more films to utilize it, and filmmakers have proven to be adept at using it, then it may be adopted by the broader industry. Other factors apply, of course, but I’m trying to simplify things, and these are some of the more dominant concerns of technological innovation in Hollywood.

So, then, why hasn’t IMAX fully partened with Hollywood studios and filmmakers? Why are we not experiencing more “conventional” films in the large screen format? The answer that has circulated in the industry and in cinema studies is surprisingly simple. I will let Tara Wollen answer it for us, since she has written one of the key articles on IMAX in the anthology Future Visions:

The IMAX format imposes particular possibilities and limitations. Since the viewer sits lower in relation to the IMAX screen than in a conventional theatre, the frame’s centre lies about a third of the way up from the bottom of the screen. Close-ups therefore need plenty of headroom. While long shots can be framed wider than usual, the movement from extreme long shot to medium close-up can be very condensed and the screen’s enormity cannot tolerate grainy or irresolute images. It is interesting to note that one of the difficulties (or challenges) the IMAX format poses have provoked reactions very similar to those expressed by directors working in early CinemaScope … Longer pacing and the large frame are ideal for the wide-world films IMAX produces but they send acting, dialogue and emotional scenes into the wrong orbit. Quick cuts are a rarity in IMAX, because they would subject the audience to severe jolts and probably violent nausea.

Wollen basically suggests that there are several aesthetic hurdles that must be overcome if the rules of continuity filmmaking are to be applied to the IMAX format. While the soundtrack remains unaffected, image composition and editing may not “hold up” as well. At least that is the governing logic as Wollen sees it. And, to some degree, she is right to posit that close-ups are difficult to pull off since the wide-angle lenses of the IMAX camera may distort a face or close object. Faster cutting may also not fare well, since the audience must register much more visual information than normal; watching something like The Bourne Ultimatum may prove to be too challenging for some, and may result in the “violent nausea” that Wollen mentions. The movement from close-up to medium or long shot may also be quite startling, as viewers reacclimate themselves to the ever-changing shot scale. To be sure, traditional IMAX fare such as Everest tend to linger on shots, thereby allowing the audience to “take it all in,” which is often the modus operandi of any IMAX docu-experience.

There are other concerns that Wollen does not mention. First, there is the issue of expense. It’s very expensive to shoot in the 15/70mm format and to distribute hundreds if not thousands of prints to theaters. Second, it’s noisy. IMAX cameras are notoriously loud, since they must feed the large negative through the camera at 24 fps. As a result, dialogue is virtually impossible record on set, especially if the camera is close to an actor reading her lines. Lastly, the IMAX cameras are heavy. Hand-held shots are hard, if not impossible, to achieve, which leaves filmmakers with a more limited stylistic palette; crane shots, static shots, and tracking shots notwithstanding.

With the release of The Dark Knight, the first film ever to be partially shot using IMAX film, some of these limitations may no longer be a problem. Director Christopher Nolan has noted in the past his desire to shoot an IMAX film, but like his forebears — Spielberg, Lucas, and Coppola — it was all talk and no show. Until now. Having experienced The Dark Knight in its eight-story IMAXed version, I must admit that I’m once again smitten with the format, not because it reignited my passion for large-format films but because it has proved that large-format commercial filmmaking is possible.

In some sense, The Dark Knight is another baby step in a long line of baby steps that Hollywood has taken in adopting the IMAX format for its storytelling purposes. However, Nolan’s step is much more significant than earlier experiments, since he has laid the groundwork for future experiments with IMAX cameras at the shooting stage of production. It’s one thing to blow up a print for IMAX exhibition, but it’s entirely different to plan and execute several sequences with the format in mind.

Nolan and his cinematographer Wally Pfister utilized the technology for six sequences spread across the film. Sequences shot in 35 were transfered using the DMR technology, which appear as letterboxed, while scenes shot with IMAX cameras on 15/70mm film expand vertically to fill the entire eight-story screen. It is not surprisingly that sweeping vistas and panoramic shots constitute some of the IMAXed scenery, since it is the bread and butter of the format. And even I must admit that the Chicago — er, Gotham — skyline never looked better. With its uncompromising clarity, I was mostly astonished at the level of sharpness with most of the expansive shots.

The film opens with an elaborate bank heist that some critics have compared to Michael Mann’s Heat. While this is not nearly as elaborate as Mann’s instructional “how-to” sequence, Nolan’s prologue does as much to set up the introduction of The Joker as it does to introduce his audience to the IMAX format and its range of visual possibilities. The first shot, as I have already mentioned, establishes the Gotham skyline at mid-day with a skyward track towards a tall office building. As one of the windows is blown out, the sequence-proper begins as a group of clown-masked thugs prepare to empty the vault of one of Gotham’s high-profile banks. What was remarkable about the entire sequence was its adherence to the conventions of continuity logic: wide shots give way to medium shots; screen direction is dictated by eye-line matches; and Nolan continues to exert his own brand of “intensified continuity,” utilizing singles and rhythmic cutting to enhance the kinetic pulse of the bank job. (The images here from The Dark Knight are IMAX frame-grabs).

Therefore, what was remarkable was entirely unremarkable. Instead of being too aware of the vertical horizon of the IMAX image, I was completely swallowed into the story world as the infuriated Bank Manager (William Fichtner) attempts to thwart the clowns’ plans with a hidden shotgun.

The rest of the film followed this logic. Expansive shots gave way to more tightly woven elements, as when Batman plays a game of chicken with The Joker’s 18-wheeler. For the most part, the IMAXed sequences avoid extreme close ups and favor more medium-to-long framings. However, Nolan occassionally draws your eye to various areas of the large screen as accent points, such as when Batman redirects his BatPod by climbing a building wall (at the right side of the screen).

There was no disorientation, confusion, or nausea. At times I admit to feeling completely immersed in the image, especially skyward shots, mostly because my peripheral vision (top and bottom) was consumed by the screen. Others have told me that they couldn’t tell when the screen reverted to 2.40:1 letterbox, a potential testament to the immersive nature of the film itself, not its technical wares.

One of the current executives at IMAX has stated in a recent interview that “What Chris discovered along the way was that not only the things that seemed obvious looked good, but a lot of the close-ups and a lot of the more intimate scenes also worked.”

A Globe and Mail article has called it the “rebirth” of the IMAX brand. The article suggests that

Imax, which is coming off a bumpy few years marked by struggling ticket sales and multiple earnings restatements — the company acknowledged last summer it overstated revenue between 2002 and 2005 — now finds itself filling theatres well in advance.

In Chicago, for example, The Dark Knight is sold out for the next week, the company said.

Mr. Gelfond said Tuesday that Imax is now in talks with several other directors who want to duplicate Mr. Nolan’s model, where scenes are shot for the oversized Imax screens, and then shrunk for regular theatres.

As the IMAX company shifts to an all-digital format in the next two years, the above mentioned “obstacles” may be completely eliminated, most notably camera weight and noise. That only really leaves the aesthetic question. Can filmmakers pull off a feature film entirely in IMAX? Will audiences be nauseated? What kinds of films will benefit most from IMAX treatment? Will studios foot the bill?

Warners has not yet indicated how much of The Dark Knight’s $180-million budget was because of the IMAX sequences. As studio execs ponder the cost effectiveness of entire features in IMAX, filmmakers like Christopher Nolan are reconceptualizing how to shoot for IMAX and make it work. The sellout crowds at IMAX screens across North America this past weekend has signaled an appetite for the immersive medium, even if it costs a few dollars more than a traditional 35mm screen.

As critics and historians we must not fall for the inevitable argument that positions IMAX as a revolution in cinema technology and aesthetics. So far, IMAX has been with us for forty years and is only now making waves in Hollywood’s swimming pool. As home cinemas become more prevalent and more impressive — and multiplexes become less immersive and impressive –  IMAX is a format that continues to “wow” audiences.

To be sure, I believe that the success or failure of IMAX as a viable feature film format will lie with the innovative support of filmmakers like Mr. Nolan, whose aesthetic demands will shape the obstacles, limitations, and possibilities of IMAXed movies.

Six Shooters and Whiskey in the Classroom

As I inch closer to the completion of my PhD studies I have supplemented my time and income by teaching undergraduate courses in the film program at Carleton. Last fall I introduced a group of upper-year students to the world of film sound — from the talkies to Dolby — which turned out to be a great experience. Having thought about the impact of sound on movies for years it was nice to bounce ideas and concepts off a sharp group. More recently — this past spring, to be specific — I was given an opportunity to develop a course on a film genre of my choice. I was immediately drawn to the deceptively simple and foundational essence of the Western.

Some have suggested that the Western is as old as Hollywood itself, a genre that grew to maturity not in literature or on stage but in the movies. Film scholar Robin Wood chose a Western — Rio Bravo — as the one film that could justify the existence of Hollywood. Hortense Powdermaker, author of Hollywood: The Dream Factory, noted in 1950 that “the only motion picture with a stereotyped plot which has met with a fairly consistent success over a long period of time is the Western.” Indeed, genre scholars like Thomas Schatz (see Hollywood Genres) and Jim Kitses (see Horizons West) have circled the wagons and argued that the Western, like the gangster film and the musical, provides a veritable blueprint for the study of film genre.

The icons and themes of the Western are a part of our collective consciousness, even if we don’t realize it. The cowboy hat, monument valley, a tin star, a six shooter, the sound of spurs and creaky wood floors, dusty trails, whiskey by the bottle, the music of Ennio Morricone, John Wayne’s confident swagger, and Clint Eastwood’s intense stare are all universal symbols of the genre. In terms of thematic importance, the classical Hollywood Western codified a not-quite-real Old West that was rooted in myth and myth-making. Perhaps the most recognizable thematic of the Hollywood West is the figure of the Lone Rider, who is outside of society and its civilized laws, but enters the community with the purpose of rooting out the cancerous villains that seek to overtake the town or rob it of its natural resources and citizenry. In the end, the gunslinging hero must leave society again to rejoin the uncivilized wilderness.

My approach to the Western was by no means revolutionary, which is where I encountered some comments from colleagues that were rather surprising. I am a big advocate of canon: canonical films and canonical readings. Sorry hipster filmsters: no radical departures from adorned classics, groundbreaking texts, or trailblazing films. There’s a trend in contemporary film instruction to dismiss the foundational movies that we grew up admiring in favor of lesser-known, lesser-liked works with the aim of “expanding” and “opening” the minds of film students everywhere.

During my own undergraduate studies it was not uncommon to hear professors exclaim the virtues of straying from the canon, as if they were the bearers of things that were “good for us” that we would otherwise never see or experience. There was the inevitable flashback to childhood when mother told you to eat your brussels sprouts because they were good for you. While there is a time and a place for the exploration of the darker and unexplored corners of cinema, it is essential that a foundation be laid before we build a complex, layered house of movies. Then there were those who spoke from the mountain and pronounced some filmmakers and actors off limits to make room for “alternatives.” Their reasoning was simple: you were raised with, say, Sergio Leone films, so why not forego that area of Western film study in favor of, say, Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie.

Edward Buscombe put it best when he asked, “If we want to know what a Western is, we need to look at certain kinds of films. But how do we know what films to look at unless we know what a Western is?” In other words, what makes a Western a Western? My own approach necessitated the use of those canonical films — and scholarly readings — that defined the Western film for generations. How can we appreciate the revisionist tones of Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man without a nod to John Ford’s morally ambiguous masterpiece The Searchers? How can we begin to understand the aesthetic influences of Sergio Leone without first considering the shooting styles of Ford, Hawks, and Peckinpah? How can we laugh at Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles without first laughing at its source material: Dodge City? To properly investigate the nuances of masculine discourse and gender relations in the Western, it would be a mistake to jump to The Ballad of Little Jo before encountering Johnny Guitar and High Noon, both of which offer fascinating accounts of feminism, femininity, and masculine crisis.

There are lessons to be learned from the films and filmmakers who have become synonymous with a genre or style of filmmaking. Not all canonical films are great, and not all great films are considered canon by the majority of film critics, but we must begin somewhere. In developing my Western syllabus I was keenly aware that some important films were going to be left off the course, if only because of time constraints. We never explored the Westerns of Anthony Mann (The Naked Spur) and Budd Boetticher (The Tall T), two directors that have received some new-found attention in recent years.

Some may confuse this approach with what Robert Allen and Douglas Gomery have termed the “masterpiece tradition” in film studies. This refers to a set — or canon — of “great films” that are legitimate examples of cinematic art, which continue to be taught in film courses, screened at museum retrospectives, and singled out by those perennial “Best” lists.  As I have already suggested, some of these “masterpieces” may not deserve the praise, and they undoubtedly push some well-deserving, more ordinary examples out of the spotlight.  As David Bordwell notes, “In most film histories, masterworks and innovations rise monumentally out of a hazy terrain whose contours remain unknown.” The masterwork tradition, as I have defined it thus far, champions the study of certain films over others with the aim of defining a group of legitimate, acceptable, and worthy examples of film art.

While it may have been preferable to cut through the brussels sprouts and avoid yet another screening of Stagecoach or The Searchers or Shane, it would have been a disservice to students with no prior relationship to Hollywood’s myth of the Old West to pick and choose the historical trajectory of the genre.

More generally, however, I was concerned that students would see through my attempt to explore the foundational essence of the Western as simplistic and naive. Indeed, contemporary Hollywood cinema is currently experiencing a condition of genre hybridization that George McKnight has called the “transgeneric.” The Matrix, for example, blends science fiction with literary allusion, Hong Kong action spectacle, the superhero film and the Western. While the transgeneric is by no means a new phenomenon — Chaplin was doing it in the 30s — it certainly hinders the plain vanilla genre film from appearing fresh. How can Alan Ladd’s Shane compete with Bruce Willis’ Western-inspired “Yippee Ki Yay” John McClane?

To my surprise, the student reaction to such old hat stand-bys as Shane and My Darling Clementine was incredibly positive. Stripping away the auteur arguments and the psychoanalysis of pop film criticism, John Ford’s doorways never looked so fresh and felt so moving. The deceptively simple shots through windows in Shane beautifully complemented the baroque framings in A Fistful of Dollars.

What was most inspiring were the connections that students made between classical Western plots and contemporary genre films. The fabric of Western icons and themes were noted in the current superhero cycle: Batman as urban Ethan Edwards. Even Joel and Ethan Coen have toyed with Western symbolism in No Country for Old Men and, to a more hilarious extent, in The Big Lebowski. The Dude remains one of my own personal favorite Western heroes, even if he never donned a cowboy hat or six shooter.

It was all summed up for me when a student approached me at the conclusion of the course and said, “Who knew there was such depth to the Western!”

Memories of the Marquee

I haven’t been around since late May due to a big move back to Toronto, where I will settle down to finish my PhD thesis. Every time an opportunity presented itself to write an entry, I’d get distracted by something related to the move. So now that my wife and I are settled, unpacked, and enjoying life back in the city of my birth, I can return to this blog.

One of the advantages of living in a city like Toronto is its movie culture. Aside from the Toronto International Film Festival, which has grown in size and reputation over the last quarter century, Toronto boasts one of North America’s most avid and discerning movie audiences. Even though many of the city’s landmark theaters have been demolished and replaced by glossy multiplexes there still remains a rich and vibrant audience appreciation for the movies.

I can remember weekends at the Eglinton Theater, one of the vestiges of the golden age of movie-going, with only one screen and art deco trimmings. It boasted an enormous screen and equally big sound. In many ways, it represented the “event” theater, where I saw contemporary fare like Titanic and classics like Lawrence of Arabia and The Godfather. My wife and I both have fond memories of the Uptown, situated at Yonge Street and Bloor Street, which for my money had the best sound system in the city. I never felt the impact of low-frequency bass as much as when I experienced Twister there. The Hyland Theater and the York Theater were other large-screen hangouts that helped to facilitate my cinema education. As a connoisseur of screen size, projection accuracy, and sound, I was (and continue to be) drawn to the theater that makes the effort to get it right.

Our last five years in Ottawa certainly tested our ability to find a great theater. We never found a spot that was technically proficient and garnered enthusiastic audiences. We were often plagued by fuzzy (out of focus) projection, inaccurate masking, and atrocious sound. I also never got the impression that Ottawa audiences really enjoyed being at the movies. Perhaps the only time I felt part of collective whole was during the opening day screening of Revenge of the Sith with a room full of Star Wars fans. Maybe I’m being too hard on an entire city’s moviegoing audience, but I never felt the love and awe that I encountered so often in Toronto.

Let me give you an example. I’ve told this story many times, but it is worth repeating here.  On the opening night of Titanic way back in 1997 the Eglinton theater was packed–a full house. On initial viewing the film was pretty impressive and I was genuinely moved, but I did not expect the audience to be totally captivated. To my surprise, as the final credits rolled, the audience erupted with applause, as if James Cameron himself was in attendance. Then, the ovation faded and the entire audience remained silent in their seats until the final credit rolled by. Then, as the theater curtains closed, they applauded again. In the years that have passed since that night, I find the audience’s response more moving than the film itself.

I have yet to experience that again.

But this doesn’t seem to be an uncommon Toronto audience trait. I’ve always loved that Toronto audiences have a tendency to clap at the end of a movie, and many stay until the final credits have rolled. Elsewhere, I’ve been given evil stares by maintenance workers who want me to exit so they can sweep up. Some of my most memorable Toronto film experiences have been at comedies, where the communal aspect of movie-going is never more pronounced. At a Cumberland theatre screening of Wag the Dog, the audience laughed in unison, which undoubtedly made the film even funnier.

To be fair, I also have had several unpleasant experiences at Toronto theaters. They mostly consist of noisy and rude patrons, people who bring their own food and drinks in noisy grocery bags, and couples who make out during Schindler’s List. During a screening of Saving Private Ryan, someone snickered when the soldier picked up his own arm on the Normandy beach, and an older gentleman yelled out, “Think that’s funny?” He probably didn’t after that.

By the turn of the 21st century many of the grand old theaters were being torn down or converted to “event centers,” host to wedding receptions and bar mitzvahs. In early 2002, I wrote an article for my college newspaper at the University of Toronto, the Innis Herald, urging the community to stop the Eglinton from closing its doors. The city demanded that the theater be made accessible to wheelchairs, but it didn’t have the financial resources to comply, so it closed.

This was all happening around the time that Famous Players introduced the SilverCity brand of multiplexes, which have since reshaped the theater atmosphere in Toronto and across Ontario, including Ottawa. Gone are the stand-alones like the Eglinton and the early multiplexes like the Hyland and Uptown. Any child of the 80s in Toronto remembers the pitiful Eaton Centre theaters, which boasted screens no larger than your average living room television. It’s gone now, thankfully. At the same time, the Cumberland and Carlton survive, mostly to serve independent “art house” fare.

There’s hope, though, in this age of the impersonal multiplex. Upon my return to Toronto I was immediately reminded of the kind of audiences that make movie-going in this city so special. At a mid-day screening of Wall-E at a new uber-plex at Yonge and Dundas there was laughter, cheering, and applause at the end. The AMC theater, which is adorned with movie quotes in the marble floor and director profiles along the walls, is a gauche reminder of the 21st century movie house, but with the slick gloss is the attention to technology and technical accuracy. My main motivation for trying the downtown theater was its advertisement of digital projection in all auditoriums. Even though most Pixar films look great in any format, I was impressed with how sharp and glitch-free Wall-E looked and sounded.

So it would appear that even though the theaters of my youth have all but disappeared, there is hope on the horizon. High quality cinemas with state-of-the-art facilities are a welcome addition to the city’s cinesphere. Of course, as a student of film technology, I might be biased towards the new and shiny. While the multiplex remains an impersonal behemoth, the audience can make the difference between seeing a movie and experiencing one.

What are your own favorite movie theater experiences?

If adventure has a name…it must be Indiana Jones

In the coming days and weeks there will be a considerable amount of bandwidth spent on the reaction to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The deluge of criticism began long before the film’s premiere at Cannes last week; in fact, fans of the series have been quite vocal about the prospect of a fourth installment since drafts of potential scripts began popping up on the internet a few years ago. Skepticism reached a peak when Frank Darabont’s draft was rejected in 2006 by the film’s producer and creative consultant, George Lucas, but received high praise from Dr. Jones himself, Harrison Ford, and director Steven Spielberg. Worries about Ford’s age seemed to go hand-in-hand with the concern over the science-fiction plot of various screenplay drafts: Jeb Stuart’s early draft was titled, “Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars.”

I’ve been asked by several people to share my thoughts on the finished film, and while I will offer some initial comments I need to see the film again before I can be sure about things like composition, shot lengths, music and sound mixing, and story structure. Mostly I would like to discuss how the film has been received thus far. Beware of major SPOILERS!

The internet affords a great number of ways in which we can discuss movies. David Bordwell has provided an intriguing guide to web criticism in a recent blog post that aims to detail the types of criticism that fills the blogs and websites of cinephiles like myself. It’s essential reading, since Bordwell stresses the importance of informed criticism and the long-form review. We’ve become too accustomed to capsule reviews and statements that often contain more exclamation points than periods. How many times have we read the line “George Lucas raped my childhood!”?

One of the key issues surrounding the production of a fourth Indiana Jones adventure was the expectation factor. Many fans felt burned by the treatment of the Star Wars mythology in the prequel trilogy, which led to the ridiculous statement about Lucas ruining the childhoods of millions of fans. In many ways, the expectations for the Star Wars prequels were far higher than for Dr. Jones, yet we had to wait a few years longer for another Indy adventure than we did for another visit to Tatooine (16 years to 19 years).

Fans had presumably learned their lesson from the Star Wars prequels not to expect the world from the creative artists at Lucasfilm. With the announcement that filming had begun on Indy 4, fans took a collective deep breath and crossed their fingers. Even though the prospect of another Indy film resulted in a more muted response from fans and critics, I still felt that the “fear the worst, hope for the best” attitude was a smoke-screen for a very high level of expectation.

In recent weeks, the “lowered expectations” attitude has spread from fan forums to critical discourse. At Cannes, some suggested that as long as the film didn’t succumb to the fate of The Da Vinci Code — which was panned with enthusiasm at the festival two summers ago — then everything would turn out fine. In other words, as long as the film did not fail too miserably, then its wreckage might still be salvaged.

Others thought that as long as Spielberg and company recaptured the magic from the first three films, limited the use of computer generated imagery, avoided too many references to Ford’s age, and kept the plot in the established canon of the Indy universe, then all would be fine.

Low expectations, right? Hardly. Beneath the surface of the skeptical viewer is the one who wants it all, even though they’ll be the first to admit that to capture lighting in a bottle again isn’t really possible. What is more troubling, however, is how the first two Indy sequels have been spared from much criticism lately. Those films are “canon” and have come to be iconic representations of the character and the mythology of the series. Never mind the fact that at the time of each release, the films were held to be poor companion pieces to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Writing for The New York Times in 1984, Vincent Canby had this to say about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom:

The screenplay, written by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (”American Graffiti”), from a story by George Lucas, is serviceable but no match for the witty one by Lawrence Kasdan for ”Raiders.” Unlike ”Raiders,” the new movie’s script never quite transcends the schlocky B-movie manners that inspired it. Though it looks as if it had cost a fortune, ”Indiana Jones” doesn’t go anywhere, possibly because it’s composed entirely of a succession of climaxes. It could end at any point with nothing essential being lost.

In an eerily similar review, Caryn James had this to say about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989):

Jeffrey Boam’s screenplay for ”Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” which opens today at Loew’s Astor Plaza and other theaters, cannot match the wit of Lawrence Kasdan’s script for ”Raiders.” Yet of the three Jones films, ”The Last Crusade” may well become the sentimental favorite, the Indiana to end them all.

Each film has its strengths and weaknesses, its triumphs and its flaws. The passage of time has seemingly erased the negative press that either sequel received upon their initial release. The darker and bloodier Temple of Doom has often been cited as falling outside the Indy canon because of its violence; the pulpy silliness of Last Crusade met its own set of detractors for treating the Nazis as broad comic figures.

There have also been those who have dismissed the series from the beginning. Pauline Kael’s review of Raiders pays little attention to the visual and sonic inventiveness of the film and instead focuses on the spectacular nature of the narrative:

Kinesthetically, the film gets to you, but there’s no exhilaration, and no surge of feeling at the end. It seems to be edited for the maximum number of showings per day.

On Temple of Doom, Dave Kehr wrote the following:

Yet the blunt Freudian images of George Lucas’s story (the film is a male birth fantasy in which the hero must deliver a tribe of children from slavery in a dark, damp mine shaft) and the relentlessly juvenile focus of Spielberg’s mise-en-scene come to seem oppressive and pandering; the film betrays no human impulse higher than that of a ten-year-old boy trying to gross out his baby sister by dangling a dead worm in her face.

Kehr’s assessment has been revived by Carrie Rickey, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. In a recent article she suggests that

Given the subsequent installments, it is hard for me to muster enthusiasm for a franchise that has done so much to dumb down movie scripts, ramp up movie tempos, perpetuate colonialist stereotypes, and, yes, marginalize women. Most egregiously, the films in the Indiana Jones cycle have grown increasingly shallow and preposterous. Some might say that’s part of their charm.

Rickey’s critique of the series is informed by little research and lacks a credible source for any of her points. In some sense, the critique is no different than any garden variety cultural study of the films, where words like “imperialism,” “colonialist,” and “masculinist” are tossed around with very little care. This is not to suggest the criticisms are off base. Rather, this sort of argument requires a more rigorous framework that is too imposing for the confines of pop journalism. We should value contrarian views, but not at the expense of rigorous research and development.

As some of you know, I’m very skeptical of such grand theorizing, especially when it seems to promote the author’s agenda more than it informs our understanding of a particular film. If we want to really understand how Crystal Skull fits into the canon of Indiana Jones, then we need to step outside our expectations and consider the stylistic and narrative components of the film. On that basis can we begin to piece together what went right and what went wrong.

I’m not trying to suggest that these films are immune to critical inquiry. Effective criticism should not offer an indictment of what a film should be, but rather what it is. How does it work within the confines of its genre? How well or poorly does the film communicate the story?

The style of action movies have noticeably changed since the late 1980s, and more significantly, Spielberg’s aesthetic and thematic style has changed as well. He has arguably become more confident with his storytelling techniques, resulting in challenging and cinematically arresting works, including A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002), and Munich (2005).

In the press, Spielberg tried to appease fans by suggesting that he would don the hat of his younger self for the production of Crystal Skull. Indeed, there was a concerted attempt in early press to stress the fidelity of the new film to the previous ones.

Before entering the theater to see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, my wife, Monica, told me something that really made sense to me: we’re lucky to have another Indy adventure. She’s right. No one needed to make another Indy film; in fact, the sunset finale to Last Crusade was a pitch-perfect sendoff to the series. To expect anything from the film other than a good time is asking a lot. Can we ask that the filmmakers bring their A-game to the show? Sure, and I completely believe that everyone’s heart was in it. Rather than a final chapter, I felt this to be another adventure for Indiana Jones; an addendum rather than a bookend.

However, I could not help but feel that everyone was trying to emulate the tone and texture of the earlier films. It’s rather obvious that Spielberg dusts off an earlier style in action scenes, but the result is noticeably stiff. There is a distinct self-consciousness to the work that limits the effectiveness to some of the action set-pieces. The film is different from its predecessors, since it is made nearly two decades after the last installment. Why should we disparage Spielberg and crew for evolving their style?

To be honest, that is my big criticism of the film. There’s a stunted feeling to the narrative that may be the result of the stitching together of various screenplay drafts. My own feeling is that the script needed another one or two drafts to polish some of the exposition and deepen the relationship of Marion and Indy and Mutt.

We undoubtedly expect too much, especially from filmmakers who have helped to shape the look and sound of modern American movies. Does it stand with the other sequels? Absolutely. It’s not as sharp or terrifying or silly as the others, but it has its own flavor.

The science-fiction angle of the plot made perfect sense to me. Not only did the film capture the surface anxieties of the 1950s — McCarthyism, nuclear annihilation, the suburbs — but it also captured the pulpy fascination with saucer men from Mars. Some will say, “Yes, but is it Indiana Jones?” Of course it is. Every film had its dose of supernatural superstition. The archaeological component is not a large component to the latest adventure, but the subtext about alien archaeologists put a big smile on my face.

Specifically, I have always been enamored with Spielberg’s thematic interest in extra terrestrials. All I can say is that it feels like home to me. And — major spoiler coming — when the alien travelers are revealed in the film’s climax, I was immediately reminded of the look and shape of the creatures from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. They’re a constant in the bearded-one’s work, and work wonderfully well in the spirit of the 1950s saucer conspiracies.

In general, the first forty minutes worked flawlessly to reintroduce Dr. Jones. The prairie dog opening was fun, but I feel that I’m on the outside of an inside joke between Spielberg and Lucas. The warehouse scene was concise enough not to linger and embellish the connection between it and Raiders. It also featured the best joke in the film: Indy miscalculating his jump and landing on the wrong truck. My own love for Spielberg’s suburban animism was beautifully reworked in the Doomtown sequence. Adding to the mythology of the Jones story, I thought it was particularly nice to know that when America entered World War II, Indy fought the Nazis and came away a decorated war hero.

There is a laundry list of smaller items that I loved about the film, none more satisfying than Indy’s school-boy reaction to seeing Marion for the first time. As the credits rolled, I must admit that I felt the same way.

Cutting for Clarity

If you’ve been following the production and early marketing campaign for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, then you may have noticed how Steven Spielberg has been discussing the film’s visual style in relation to the other Indiana Jones films and, more curiously, to contemporary action films. It seems that last summer’s intense discussion of The Bourne Ultimatum’s hyper-kinetic editing by bloggers and scholars such as David Bordwell and Stephen Rowley did not go unnoticed by the bearded-one. In the February issue of Vanity Fair, which featured an Annie Leibovitz photo-spread of all the major characters in the new film, Spielberg comments on his own editing style:

I go for geography. I want the audience to know not only which side the good guy’s on and the bad guy’s on, but which side of the screen they’re in, and I want the audience to be able to edit as quickly as they want in a shot that I am loath to cut away from. And that’s been my style with all four of these Indiana Jones pictures. Quick-cutting is very effective in some movies, like the Bourne pictures, but you sacrifice geography when you go for quick-cutting. Which is fine, because audiences get a huge adrenaline rush from a cut every second and a half on The Bourne Ultimatum, and there’s just enough geography for the audience never to be lost, especially in the last Bourne film, which I thought was the best of the three. But, by the same token, Indy is a little more old-fashioned than the modern-day action adventure.

Spielberg’s technical skill as a director has always been closely linked to the tenets of classical Hollywood style. His adherence to eye-line matches, graphic matches, and the 180 degree line - where the camera obeys an axis of action over an entire sequence - might not sound so revolutionary, but it is has been one of the keys to his success as an innovative storyteller. In this sense, Spielberg subordinates style for story clarity. Though he is not one to shy away from breathtaking shots and jaw-dropping visual effects, this “stylish style” (to use David Bordwell’s phrase) is presented in an open and transparent manner. In other words, it’s all there on the screen to be appreciated.

In the above quotation, Spielberg is discussing two elements of visual style. His preference for clearly defined spatial geography is not unlike many other contemporary filmmakers, who build scenes out of stable blocks of shots: master (establishing shot), medium, and close up. You establish the space with a wide or long shot, then move in for greater details and drama once direction and “geography” has been defined. David Fincher comes to mind, so does Paul Thomas Anderson, the Coen brothers, and Michael Mann. However, more and more films - including the Bourne series - sacrifice visual clarity for kinetic rhythm and movement.

Spielberg suggests that this sacrifice is not entirely necessary, since speed can be conjured through other means, namely story:

Part of the speed is the story. If you build a fast engine, you don’t need fast cutting, because the story’s being told fluidly, and the pages are just turning very quickly. You first of all need a script that’s written in the express lane, and if it’s not, there’s nothing you can do in the editing room to make it move faster. You need room for character, you need room for relationships, for personal conflict, you need room for comedy, but that all has to happen on a moving sidewalk.

This constitutes the second element of visual style under discussion. The speed at which Spielberg cuts appears to be on the slower side compared to other directors in the industry. The fact that he needs to outline his preference for editing precision and concision comes off like a defense against the industry “norm.” While I have not completed an average shot length study of Spielberg’s work, it is clear that other filmmakers are indeed cutting faster. Yet it remains to be seen if faster cutting has resulted in more stylistically innovative, comprehensible, or successful films. Compare, for example, the action scenes in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins to Michael Bay’s Bad Boys II. While Nolan stresses the congruity and geographical integrity between shots, Bay abandons this compositional value for the rapid-fire “feel” of an entire sequence.

With respect to Spielberg’s own editing style, I would hardly call it conservative. He may be more methodical and deliberate than Martin Scorsese but it depends on the genre in which each director is working. The flamboyant Scorsese (The Departed) is faster to the draw than the serious Spielberg (Amistad). Even in an adventure film like Jurassic Park entire sequences play out with very traditional setups. The introduction of the T-Rex is first revealed offscreen on the sound track, then visually by the cup of rippling water. The first time we actually see the angry predator, it’s a wide shot - much like the introduction to the Brachiasaur earlier in the film. As the T-Rex sequence continues, Spielberg has established the space of the scene using eye-line matches and other directional strategies to orient the audience. In many ways, this enhances the suspense of the scene because we’re fully aware of the proximity of the T-Rex to the other characters.

In an article published in the New York Times on May 4th, Spielberg again discusses his editorial strategies for the new Indiana Jones movie. This time, he is more explicit with his intentions:

In fact, Mr. Spielberg said, he tries to cut as little as possible in these movies’ action sequences, because “every time the camera changes dynamic angles, you feel there’s something wrong, that there’s some cheating going on.” So his goal is “to do the shots the way Chaplin or Keaton would, everything happening before the eyes of the audience, without a cut.”

By citing the visual styles of Chaplin and Keaton Spielberg reinforces his preference for stylistic transparency. Although Charles Chaplin used far more close ups than Keaton, both silent comedians earned their keep by convincing audiences that their stunt work was the real deal, not the result of a camera trick or a stunt man. In Modern Times, Chaplin (who is blindfolded) rollerskates dangerously close to the edge of a second or third floor department store balcony. In Steamboat Bill, Jr. and College, Buster Keaton narrowly avoids being crushed by a falling housefront. Each of these iconic moments are captured in a single take and in long shot to “sell” the danger and “realism” of the stunts.

Spielberg continues:

The idea is, there’s no illusion; what you see is what you get. My movies have never been frenetically cut, the way a lot of action is done today. That’s not a put-down; some of that quick cutting, like in ‘The Bourne Ultimatum,’ is fantastic, just takes my breath away. But to get the comedy I want in the Indy films, you have to be old-fashioned. I’ve studied a lot of the old movies that made me laugh, and you’ve got to stage things in full shots and let the audience be the editor. It’s like every shot is a circus act.

Stressing the need for long shots and deliberate pacing for effective comic gags, Spielberg underestimates the innovative spirit of his own visual style in dramatic situations. His preference his “in-shot editing” is clearly evident in Munich. In one scene, Avner (Eric Bana) and his partners discuss the logistics of their next target assassination while inside a small car. Spielberg’s camera slowly pans from the hotel (site of the assassination) to the car’s side-view mirror, in which Steve (Daniel Craig) is reflected. As he speaks, the camera continues to move laterally towards the car’s rear-view mirror. Hans (Hanns Zischler) comes into view as he finishes Steve’s sentence about who they may be up against. The camera continues to focus on the rear-view mirror as Avner comes into view and says, “It’s definitely him.” A fourth visual plane is established when Hans holds up a photograph that blocks the rear-view mirror, which still remains the camera’s central focal point. The black-and-white image is of the man they are to kill, Al-Chir. As Hans describes the potential obstacles to the hit, the camera swings around to reveal Avner seated in the backseat, taking the photograph from Hans.

The shot presents four planes of action that reveal key story information without a single cut. Instead, the camera moves around the confines of the car, using the various mirrors to reflect each of the characters who do not sit facing one another. The constricted space of the car does not limit Spielberg’s camera from capturing the visual details of the hotel (site of assassination), the worry on the group’s faces, and the assassination target. This type of shot is repeated in Munich as characters and objects are reflected in windows and mirrors to avoid superfluous cutting. While the story may provide the momentum, certainly we cannot dismiss the movement of Spielberg’s camera as contributing to this sensation of speed.

In the Vanity Fair and New York Times interviews, Spielberg admits that his visual style has grown and matured since the last Indiana Jones adventure in 1989. For the newest installment, he and his cinematographer Janusz Kaminski re-watched the trilogy to get his “Indy legs back.” In Kaminski’s case, he was asked to approximate the look of another lenser, Douglas Slocombe, who shot all three Indy films and recently passed away. Spielberg recounts:

I still wanted the film to have a lighting style not dissimilar to the work Doug Slocombe had achieved, which meant that both Janusz and I had to swallow our pride. Janusz had to approximate another cinematographer’s look, and I had to approximate this younger director’s look that I thought I had moved away from after almost two decades.

This is an intriguing admission, since it points to Spielberg’s desire to return to a style of filmmaking that he no longer practices. Perhaps Spielberg and George Lucas feel that it is necessary to emphasize the timelessness of Indiana Jones by sticking to a very time-specific style. For many fans, it wouldn’t be an Indiana Jones film without the signature iconography of the series, which includes Indy’s hat and leather jacket, the ubiquitous map line, and the many creepy crawlies that Indy must swat, crush, and flick. Of course, this iconography also includes the characteristic action set-pieces, hair-raising stunts (sans CGI), and buoyant John Williams score.

It would appear that Spielberg and company are aiming to recreate a stylistic moment that has, by all accounts, influenced a generation of filmmakers to “out do” the Spielberg/Lucas one-two punch of action/adventure filmmaking style. Indiana Jones gave way to John McClane (Die Hard), the Terminator, and Jason Bourne. Computer generated effects have become more prolific, yet arguably present filmmakers with fewer options. Cutting rates have increased and action scenes are noticeably more frantic and fragmented.

However, I am wondering if Spielberg is perhaps too aware of this recent stylistic trend. With Raiders of the Lost Ark and its two sequels, cutting speed and visual flair seemed to grow organically from the films, which is why they defined a new approach to an old genre. In the early 1980s, it wouldn’t be uncommon to hear critics bemoan Spielberg for hyperactive and disjointed action scenes. Now, those same critics long for the intelligible and witty textures of the Indy series compared to the numbing banality of M. Night Shyamalan and a slew of unremarkable superhero pictures.

Obviously, I have yet to see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, so I cannot comment on the film’s stylistic approach. Since Spielberg has been so outspoken on the visual style of the series compared to more contemporary editing/compositional approaches, I am curious to see if he is too self-conscious, too constrained, too judgmental of his own instincts. Because - as we know - when Spielberg’s instincts are sharp, we are in for a wonderful time at the movies.

Hulk Running

My absence from this blog hasn’t been intentional, as I have been working on a draft of my dissertation proposal. After some major concentration I managed to complete a draft that outlines my major arguments and intentions for what will surely become a mammoth project. As some of you already know, I began this blog to work out some of the major ideas of my thesis in an open forum, in hopes of getting feedback from loyal readers and — more realistically — providing me with an opportunity to fine tune the hypotheses and concepts that will eventually form some of my research. This blog is also an outlet for my own impressions, ideas, and opinions on cinematic trends, theory, style, and other quirky elements of Hollywood filmmaking.

My research addresses changes in American sound practices since 1970, so that means I’m fascinated with the emergence of “surround sound,” THX certification, and the dynamics of film sound since the arrival of Dolby. Much of my interest stems from the importance of sound effects, Foley, and ambiences in contemporary films. Whereas the classical era of studio filmmaking relied mostly on dialogue and music (and some effects) to create a soundscape, films today boast aggressive, hyper-realistic, and complex mixes that foreground detailed effects. In addition to voice and music (source and score), mixes today are often more frenzied than the visuals. With faster cutting rates and computer generated enhancements, the image is often the focus of studies of changes in film style and technology, but my whole argument is that we need to consider how the sound of movies have changed as well. Perhaps the sound of modern movies has influenced contemporary visual style.

One of my favorite websites is Film Sound Daily, which is a wonderful resource for interviews with sound professionals and information on the sound designs of new releases. Where else can you read informative interviews with Foley artists and re-recording mixers? Well, aside from Mix Magazine and filmsound. org, of course.

A recent post triggered my memory and nostalgia for the films of Albert Brooks, especially his early works like Modern Romance and Lost in America, which are two American comedy classics. Brooks has made a career of directing himself in small films that are never perfect, but always disarmingly funny. While Judd Apatow remains the current benchmark for relationship comedies, I prefer the dry and sardonic qualities of Brooks’ humor. Brooks proves that you don’t have to be a goofy man-child to be funny and endearing.

The Film Sound Daily editors posted a short clip from a scene in Modern Romance, where Albert’s character, Robert, a film editor, tries to find the right sound effect for a scene he is working on. It’s a great moment that perfectly captures my interest in the power of sound to shape our understanding of a film.

Over 90% of what we hear in films is created in post-production. On some films that number is even higher if production tracks are unusable due to environmental noise or recording errors. Everything from rain drops to the rustle of clothing is designed, edited, and mixed by some very talented artists, whose job is to convince us that the sound is tied to the image. In this way, sound effects can provide subtle or overt commentary, add weight to visual objects, or scare you with an unexpected stinger that stems from the rear of the theater.

If I could open my dissertation with a film clip, this one would be an apt choice. I came across it as I was just finishing my proposal and thought I’d share it.

“I’ve lost you, Judah”

It was a real surprise this morning to read the news of Charlton Heston’s death. I don’t mean this post to be an obituary, since Robert Berkvist has already written a fine one in the New York Times, and I am sure that others will follow in the coming days. If someone were to ask me what Heston meant to me and to Hollywood history, Berkvist has summed it quite eloquently with this statement: “Mr. Heston’s screen presence was so commanding that he was never dominated by mammoth sets, spectacular effects or throngs of spear-waving extras.”

It might surprise some to read that I — born well into the New Hollywood and the breakdown of the classic studio system — grew up admiring the actor and his many films. It must have begun when my parents planted me in front of our then giant 36″ inch television to watch Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments in its entirety. Heston’s portrayal of Moses, from young prince to learned leader of the Israelites, was anything but static or “marble-monumental,” which were criticisms levied at the actor throughout his career. How could a young Jew, like myself, not be captivated by the force of his booming voice calling for the Pharaoh to “let my people go”?

Years later I watched William Wyler’s version of Ben-Hur for the first time and realized what presence he held on screen. David Bordwell has written an essay about the potency of actor’s eyes, and I submit that Heston’s were some of the most expressive in the studio era. There aren’t many close-ups in Ben-Hur, but when Wyler’s camera moved in tight on an actor’s face, it was usually Heston’s that captured the emotion of the scene. The intensity of the chariot race is there to see on his face, in his determined grimace that expresses a unique blend of confidence and vulnerability. Berkvist is right when he says that Heston was never upstaged, not even by a crowd of thousands or a set larger than a baseball field. When Judah finally collapses at the end of the film in the arms of his mother and sister, the weight of losing his family has been lifted, and it’s all there on screen, in Heston’s eyes and on his face. The role of Judah Ben-Hur won him his only Oscar.

Heston became adept at playing larger than life figures like Michelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstacy (1965), a highly under-rated film, and Marc Antony in Julius Caesar (1970). But as I was discovering the nuances of 1970s conspiracy thrillers (The Parallax View; All the President’s Men), I quickly grew enamored with a trilogy of decidedly counter-culture films that starred the very mainstream actor. Beginning with 1968’s Planet of the Apes, Heston seemed to embody the changing notion of the American screen hero. That film’s social comment on race and civil rights is still relevant today, and his performance is vastly under-appreciated. The “damn, dirty ape” line might get the most attention, but for me his advice to a teenage chimp is the more memorable one: “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.”

The film basically positions his character, Commander George Taylor, as the embodiment of the establishment who opens his mind when he sees the brutality and callousness of the ape race. In this way, Heston was very much at the border of this moment in film heroism. He was too tall, too masculine to embody the anti-hero status bestowed upon other contemporaries like Donald Sutherland and Dustin Hoffman. But beneath that surface was just such an anti-hero persona. For further proof of this, check out Major Dundee.

In The Omega Man (1970) and then Soylent Green (1973), Heston continued to portray morally conflicted characters facing a global social crisis. His characters in all three of these science-fiction films were sensitive souls with an inner individualism that sought justice for those who had been wronged. This is the probably the one quality that set Heston apart from most of his peers. He was capable of playing a damaged hero with the deck stacked against him. He didn’t need to act the part of a leading man; that part seemed to come naturally. The vulnerable nature of many of his characters — from Moses to Detective Robert Thorn in Soylent Green — represented his real talent as a leading man.

Nowhere was this vulnerability more evident and callously paraded as in Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine. Though I hasten to level any criticism at Moore or his crew, I will never forget the way in which Moore manipulated and cajoled an obviously ailing Heston to make a dubious point about gun control.

Though he is now more famous for uttering some of greatest one-liners in Hollywood history, Charlton Heston was a cinema giant. He parted the Red Sea. What more can you ask for?

“It’s Iowa”

Opening day 2008. My Toronto Blue Jays were rained out at Yankee Stadium, so I must wait one more day for the season to begin. Every spring the start of the baseball season is pretty significant for me, since it’s the only real professional sport that I follow consistently from beginning to end. It was easy for me to get hooked as a small boy, since Toronto was building momentum through the 1980s to emerge in the early 1990s as the team to beat. I was fortunate enough to be at the All Star Game at Sky Dome in ‘91 and witnessed Joe Carter’s game-winning blast in Game Six of the ‘93 Series from six rows up on the third base line.

I remember feeling the roar of the crowd as the ball sailed over the left field wall. I was thirteen and haven’t experienced anything like that since.

My love of the game is simple. It’s a game of precision and concision. It isn’t afraid to take its time. There’s a genuine sense of excitement when a pitcher goes 3-2 and has the crowd on the edge of their seats, and then fires a third strike to end the inning or the game.

And each year it begins again with a clean slate. This is when you hear the smattering of fans proclaiming, “This is the year we go all the way.” By mid-season their tune changes slightly: “We’ll take the division.” By September, it’s “There’s always next year.” And so that’s basically been my experience with the Jays since 1994. Of course, if you were to ask me today, I’d be lying if I thought this year wasn’t the year we take the AL East.

Waiting for the rain delay to end — which it never did — I thought about the ways in which baseball has been portrayed in the movies. Which obviously got me onto considering my favorite baseball movies. I realized that some were about baseball, while others only mentioned the game or used it as a set piece for certain scenes.

There’s Major League (1989) — by far the funniest movie about baseball. Pedro Cerrano yelling at his voodoo doll is worth the price of admission: “I stuck up for you Jobu. You no help me now…I say fuck you Jobu. I do it myself.” The Naked Gun (1987) features a climactic scene at a baseball game that is pretty memorable — remember Enrico Pallazzo? As a kid I couldn’t help but love Rookie of the Year (1993). And more recently I re-discovered Eight Men Out (1988), The Bad News Bears (1976), and Bull Durham (1988).

What makes a good baseball movie?

Every year my wife nudges me to read W.P. Kinsella’s baseball novels and short stories, which were inspiring for her. Unfortunately, I still haven’t gotten around to reading Kinsella. But the film adaptation of his novel Shoeless Joe sits atop my list of “favorite baseball movies.”

Field of Dreams captures the spirit of baseball without having to actually show much of the game in action. There are only a few short scenes of play, while the rest of the film wrestles with the philosophical and spiritual textures that the game inspires. The simplicity of the game is romanticized as characters repeatedly ask to “have a catch.” The finale sees Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) ask his ghost-father for one last game of catch to mend their broken relationship. This scene defines the “male weepie” status allotted to the film by some critics and non-believers who dismissed the emotional power of baseball — and more significantly the power of having a catch with your old man.

Some have said that the film is about second chances. While it’s hard to dismiss this thematic thread, I tend to think that the film better reflects the sense of renewal that the beginning of every new season brings to players and fans.

It’s hard not to be touched by Terence Mann’s (played by James Earl Jones) monologue late in the film:

“Ray, people will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”

Mann’s poetic refrain is undoubtedly corny, but undeniably touching. It’s about those little moments in the game that shape a lifetime’s worth of memories.

Death of the Title Sequence

Since my return from Philadelphia I’ve been listening to Film Score Monthly’s groundbreaking release of the music of Superman. The FSM “Blue Box” contains eight compact discs containing the complete original scores from all four Christopher Reeve Superman films (1978-1987) and the music from the short-lived 1988 Superman cartoon series. It’s a remarkable achievement by such a small record label, who specialize in the music of the movies. The rich history of the Superman films and their music is documented in an accompanying 160 page book — a must-have for any fan of the series or the music of John Williams.

Superman: The Movie remains the quintessential superhero film and the comic book adaptation against which all others are judged. While director Richard Donner has had other successes — namely The Omen and the Lethal Weapon franchises — his most accomplished work remains Superman. The expensive and exhausting production of the original 1978 film has been documented elsewhere, most recently in the 12-DVD box set released by Warners in 2006 to celebrate their “year of Superman” that coincided with the release of Brian Singer’s Superman Returns. I’d like to focus on a few smaller aspects of Donner’s work, namely the music and the main titles.

Listening to the music of Superman: The Movie by John Williams, I recall being six years old and hearing the soaring march for the first time. The Superman theme — which includes a brilliant three-note phrase that seems to call out “Sup-er-man!” — is the music of flight. It is visceral and transparent, and most important, it soars. Perhaps most interesting is the “balletic preparatory” music that precedes the introduction of the fanfare and, by corollary, Superman himself. It’s a dotted triplet rhythm that is carried by the low strings and sets a variety of action sequences in motion. It’s used to great effect during the first big reveal, when Clark Kent transforms into Superman on the streets of Metropolis to save the life of Lois Lane, who dangles off a building roof. There’s something about that “preparatory” phrase that is very John Williams. It’s dead serious, yet playful, and entirely cinematic. It reassures the audience of Superman’s imminent arrival in the same way that the shark motif in Jaws warned of imminent danger. The moment when Clark tears open his shirt, revealing the Superman shield, is effective because of this musical lead-up.

Part of the original film’s appeal is the opening title sequence — designed by R. Greenberg and Associates — that features the full musical fanfare and march in Dolby Stereo. Donner’s intent was to immerse the audience in the world of Metropolis and the mythology of Superman without losing a sense of verisimilitude — the quality of appearing real. This was also manifested in the film’s marketing campaign, which utilized the tagline “You’ll believe a man can fly.” As such, the film itself begins in a movie theater with the curtains closed. The frame-within-a-frame reveals another frame when the curtains part (like in those old picture palaces) and a screen appears, followed by the noise of an old projector.

The appearance of the date “June 1938″ is followed by a black-and-white faux newsreel narrated by a small child, who explains that during the Great Depression, not even the great city of Metropolis was spared hardships and despair. The child turns the pages of an Action Comics book and the camera focuses on a sketch of the Daily Planet. The newsreel then dissolves to a live-action version of the Daily Planet building at night, and the camera arches beyond its roof and into the heavens.

Though music has been playing in the background up until this point, it’s been nondescript. A timpani roll formally introduces the beginning of the title sequence and the film-proper. The first title, that of producer Alexander Salkind, appears to move beyond the old-fashioned movie screen (whose ratio is approximately 1.33:1) and into the theater space. As the blue letters invade the theater space, the screen widens to the full Panavision width of 2.35:1 and the side curtains move beyond the limits of the frame.

The music continues to swell, building off of the preparatory phrase, until the S shield fills the screen with a red glow.

The remainder of the title sequence repeats the innovative 3-D effect for each name and credit, giving the impression they are flying past the audience.

The starfield background is occasionally interrupted by a cosmic anamoly or starburst, which is timed to the music. Or, should I say, the music is timed to the image. Either way, it works beautifully to convey the grand spectacle to follow. In his original review of the film, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther expressed his distaste for the sequence when he wrote that the “opening credits … are so portentous they could be announcing the discovery of a new mouthwash…”

Little did he know that the main title sequence was slowly fading from view. In the years since Superman: The Movie, studio executives and filmmakers have moved the bulk of credits to the end of the film. My own research reveals that by the early 1990s, most Hollywood films held the “main” credits for the end, reversing a long history of studio filmmaking that announced up-front who was responsible for the film you were about to see. Some have attributed this move to audience polling during advance screenings. Studios risk losing the audience’s attention during long, cumbersome title sequences. Even Steven Spielberg has noted that he prefers the end credit system, since it enables him to start the film without disruption or pause.

This is ironic since Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can opens with one of the most entertaining title sequences in recent memory. Indeed, the animated titles pay homage to a by-gone era of studio filmmaking, when title songs and sequences became as famous — or even more famous — than the films themselves. Here I’m thinking of the Pink Panther and James Bond series, which incorporated complex animation and choreography to open each installment.

While Catch Me If You Can appears to be the exception, a number of studio films continue to place the main titles at the beginning of the film. They are noticeably translucent, tucked at the edges of the frame, in order not to detract from the introductory scenes that, no doubt, are establishing character and plot. The Devil Wears Prada opens with a montage sequence showing Andy and other women preparing for an early morning job interview. The sequence is set to the up-tempo KT Tunstall song “Suddenly I See,” which glues the whole thing together, and sets a rhythmic tone for the film to follow.

Some films have even crafted intricate and visually interesting end credit sequences. The second and third Bourne films showcase an array of graphics that interact with crew names. The use of Moby’s “Extreme Ways” works not only a musical signature for all three films (they all incorporate this song over the end credits), but it provides the quick tempo and catchy melody that turns ordinary credits into an arresting credit sequence. See the credits here.

Other films have dispensed with opening titles altogether. After studio logos, Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor opens on the image of a sunset and gets down to business without even announcing the title of the film. Batman Begins opens with an elaborate sunset shot filled with swarming bats that form the shape of the bat signal. No title, just the shield. I admit there’s an immediacy to this technique, since you are instantly plunged into a fiction without the presentational aspects that have shaped our collective notions of movie structure.

More recently, 3:10 to Yuma, Michael Clayton, and No Country for Old Men offer their respective titles at the start of the film, but nothing more until the closing credits. This is by far the most common technique utilized by current filmmakers: state the title and get on with it.

For a while, especially in the 1960s, the title sequence was an emerging art form. Saul Bass is a legend in the field, producing the titles for Psycho, Anatomy of a Murder, Vertigo, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and my personal favorite, Casino. In addition to Superman, R. Greenberg and Associates created the titles for Home Alone and The Untochables. And, of course, Maurice Binder’s Bond sequences are among some of the finest and trashiest ever produced.

The novelty of these sequences lies in their ability to set a tone, create a visual and sonic signature, and synthesize the iconographic elements of a given film. The best ones can emerge as standalone set pieces, while others simply serve as introductory “warm ups.” It’s not surprising, then, that the Superman sequence began with a ritual that has also faded from our movie-going habit: the grand theater with a proscenium and curtains that reveal the screen.

Instead, we now get more commercials in front of the feature, smaller screens, and movies that are all too willing to cut to the chase.

What are your favorite title sequences?

“Did you feel that?”

From March 6-9th I attended the annual Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, which was held in Philadelphia. In many ways it turned out to be a reunion of friends and family. Not only is Philly the city of brotherly love, but it also happens to be the town where my mother grew up. So amidst the academic chatter and panel presentations on Soviet montage, I managed to squeeze in some time with my family and old friends.

Philadelphia is a great city — not only because it’s the home of Rocky Balboa and those art museum steps. On this trip I discovered great restaurants, shops, and a friendly vibe that permeates the city center. And if you’re even the most modest cinephile there’s nothing quite like running up those Rocky stairs, along with all the other tourists. (For the diehard fans: the city relocated the Rocky statue to the Spectrum arena years ago to protect it from pigeons and haters).

The SCMS conference is another family affair of sorts, since it’s a place where all cinema (and media) scholars can come together for four days of academic posturing and reverie. It’s the Olympics for film studies: hundreds of panels devoted to a myriad of research areas. For the past few years I’ve had the privilege of presenting with some of the most impressive people working in contemporary film sound. William Whittington and Mark Kerins, who continue to chair our panels, are doing their part to open the ears of film studies. Randolph Jordan, who is completing his PhD in Montreal, continues to use sound theory to reshape the way I hear contemporary cinema. My work on sound technology and sound style rounded out our panel. This year Elisabeth Weis was our official respondent — the co-editor of Film Sound: Theory and Practice and author of The Silent Scream — which was a thrill for me, since her work greatly influenced my decision to pursue this PhD.

It’s always good fun to present at the SCMS, and this year was no exception. We had a strong audience for our panel, who seemed to genuinely respond to the research being presented. This year, I spoke about the use of Low Frequency sound and how it is being utilized in current suspense thrillers and horror films. There’s a line from Jurassic Park that basically summarizes my position on the use of sub-audible sounds in cinema. Little Tim turns to his sister, Lex, in the Explorer and asks, “Did you feel that?” At about the same time, Lex and the audience begin to feel the vibration from the weight of the T-Rex’s footfalls. For the next minute, besides the rain effects, the sound track reverberates with the sub-audible frequencies of the T-Rex’s movement. It’s important that Tim says feel instead of hear, since the sensation is most definitely felt not heard.

There’s always a flurry of activity at the SCMS meeting, since it’s a place to share research but also catch up with old friends. To do both means that by Sunday you’re exhausted and ready for three days of sleep.

This year’s panoply of panels didn’t disappoint. I did my best to get to all the soundtrack panels, which this year included several papers on film music and early sync sound conventions. While I disagreed with the approach and findings of some in this area, I was impressed by others who re-evaluating how to write about and teach film music and sound technology in the 1920s.

By far the most lively panel I attended was one devoted to new trends in film and television comedy. A paper on the “cringe” aesthetic explored how shows like The Office and The Sarah Silverman Program specialize in uncomfortable, awkward moments that border on the offensive. Some might even say they are offensive. Another paper examined the ways in which Jon Stewart balances his position on The Daily Show as a low-brow comic and a political pundit. It was obvious who in the audience preferred Stewart as pundit and Stewart as dispenser of fart jokes, since only half the crowd chuckled at the potty jokes. I, for one, can see the humor in both strands of humor, but some of my colleagues were none too pleased that the show regularly punches below the belt for a quick snicker fix.

Another memorable year at SCMS. So many panels so little time. At least there’s always next year.