Thinking of Winter in the Middle of Summer

Spoilers for Game of Thrones ahead (but I think I’ve kept out spoilers for the next book).

When viewing an adaptation of a book, I always try to keep the source material out of my mind, but damn that can be hard sometimes. It was especially hard when watching HBO’s Game of Thrones, the first adaptation of a series that I am currently engrossed in (deep into the third volume, A Storm of Swords, at this point). This is not a preferable method for reviewing an adaptation, but since I can’t get the book out of my mind, I’ll use it. Don’t worry. I work at a higher level of criticism than this old staple of disappointed (usually Harry Potter) fans: “They cut out my favorite part!”

In fact, my biggest criticism of the adaptation has little to do with the book. I’ve previously written about the importance of tone and mood when it comes to fantasy, but I have to harp on it again. The adaptation of Game of Thrones does a terrific job with characterization, but it’s not always successful at creating a sense of time and place, one of the most important tasks to accomplish when dealing with fantasy. A fantasy world does not have to be realistic, but it has to feel like a distinct place that exists in the mind. Peter Jackson did this incredibly well in his Lord of the Rings trilogy, the current high point for cinematic fantasy, as did Alfonso Cuarón in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the best of the Harry Potter films.

HBO’s Game of Thrones only occasionally accomplishes this. I appreciate that it slows down for dialogue scenes instead of rushing through the plot, but I wish that it wouldn’t skip creating a sense of atmosphere. A lot of the dialogue works, especially the scenes between King Robert and Ned Stark. They help to provide the series with a sense of history as the characters reminisce over the rebellion that they led several years before. However, we never really get a sense of King’s Landing as a place. I’m not even sure we get an establishing shot of the city. The show almost approaches Attack of the Clones territory as an epic fantasy dominated by scenes of people talking in offices. I’m not saying that it should have fewer dialogue scenes, but that the dialogue scenes should help to establish the location. There should be more scenes like the one where Littlefinger walks with Ned through his courtyard and points out all of the spies working there. One of the masterstrokes of storytelling in the book was to have Arya wander through the poorer streets of King’s Landing late in the story. This does a brilliant job of making the city feel like a real place, and it sets up the terrific dual-layered story structure of A Clash of Kings. In the show, this sequence is truncated to about 30 seconds. It’s not a flaw because it deviates from the book, but it wastes a good opportunity to create some atmosphere. Of course, at that point in the story, there isn’t much time for creating atmosphere.

But creating a better sense of atmosphere and mood doesn’t have to take time. Lighting alone can radically alter the mood of a scene. Far too many of the sets in Game of Thrones feel like, well, sets, particularly the Frey’s Castle and the streets of King’s Landing. Think of how effective the scenes at the Wall are, especially the scene in the last episode when Jon’s friends catch him in the woods as he tries to desert. Look at the way the scene seems to only be lit by the torches, creating a nice interplay of light and shadow that heightens the tension. That’s atmosphere. That’s mood. The show also makes very good use of setting for the scenes in the Eyrie (well set up by a nice establishing shot form the valley below). The throne room provides the location for one of the weirdest character entrances I’ve seen (isn’t that boy a bit old for that milk?) and a duel around a large hole in the floor. The set piece conclusion of the penultimate episode also has a great deal of suspense, and the last episode winds up with a lot of tension as we see various characters moving off to their storylines in the next season (I loved seeing the Night’s Watch riding out under the Wall at the end).

But unfortunately, the show suffers from the same flaw as the book: the story spends far too much time spinning its wheels. There isn’t enough of a driving story engine. The central mystery behind Jon Arryn’s death and the attempt on Bran’s life is compelling, but the story doesn’t spend enough time propelling that thread. There are a few too many dialogue scenes that don’t really add much to story, particularly the ones that set up characters for the next book. Yes, I know that Lancel Lannister and Theon Greyjoy become important in Clash of Kings, but they’re not terribly important in Game of Thrones. They should spend a little more time with Robb Stark because he is much more important for this story than Theon. As in the book, there isn’t quite enough momentum as the story moves toward the conclusion, and the war begins. The show actually improves on this a little by making the Lannister plans (the scene between Tywin and Jaime is terrific, not least because of the symbolism involved with Tywin gutting a stag) and the Stark plans a little clearer. I assume that budgetary constraints are the reason why we’re robbed (no pun intended) of any battle scenes (which makes me a little worried for the Battle of Blackwater in Clash of Kings). And although the Daenerys storyline has a great payoff, it proceeds in fits and starts and mostly just meanders around, just like in the book.

There’s a lot to like in Game of Thrones. I love the opening title sequence, and I can’t decide whether I want the creators to keep it for next season or see what they can come up with next. Peter Dinklage is terrific as Tyrion, and young Maisie Williams makes for a great Arya. Her storyline is the best part (with competition from Jon and Tyrion) of Clash of Kings, and I’m really looking forward to how the next season handles it (this season already makes an enormous improvement over the rather cruel way the book leaves off with Arya’s story). Sean Bean is so good as Ned Stark that he provides HBO with an interesting problem. The center of the show’s marketing was based around Sean Bean and he was the main reason why a lot of people tuned in. Just like in the book, we like him so much that we can’t believe it when he dies in the penultimate episode. I hope Tyrion, Arya and Jon will be enough to make people watch the next season, but maybe HBO will use the casting of Stannis and maybe Ser Davos as a way of bringing in some big names. As if marketing has any effect on the quality of the show.

I’m not entirely sure I trust my reaction to Game of Thrones. I read the book much too recently, and I’m still reading the others in the series. Maybe I’ll feel better about it if I revisit the series after the books have faded a little from my mind (hopefully this happens before next season). I will say that there aren’t many TV shows that I watch regularly, but with Game of Thrones, I watched, enjoyed and highly anticipated each episode. This doesn’t happen often, so consider yourself lucky, HBO. And did I mention that I’m hooked for next season? How could I not be?

“Even Children Get Older”: Are Those Bastards Killing South Park?

Wait, what? Is that…? Are they…? What?!

This pretty much sums up my reaction to “South Park’s” mid-season finale “You’re Getting Older.” I imagine that many people had the same reaction. Oh yes, this string of mostly incomprehensible words could describe many an episode of that show (remember the airplanes at the end of the Jersey episode?), but this was different. This was not shock at something that happened, but shock at something that might happen, shock at a foreshadowed end to the series. (spoiler alert)

You don’t expect an animated TV show to really deal with the prospect of aging and growing old, especially a show that has kept its characters in Fourth Grade for 15 years. Like always, Trey Parker and Matt Stone sneak this theme in as something that seems ridiculous at first, but slowly starts to make sense. The story revolves around the new music that the kids love and that their parents think sounds like shit. This being “South Park”, the music literally sounds like shit. Parker and Stone use an almost Shakespearean dual-level story structure (yes, I used the word Shakespearean to describe “South Park”; the problem is figuring out which is the high comedy and which is the low comedy) to follow Randy Marsh as he tries to deny his age by claiming that he likes the shitty music and Stan Marsh as he grows older and finds that not only does everything he used to like seem like shit, but in fact everything seems like shit (a condition his doctor calls “being a cynical asshole”). Stan grows distant from his friends, and Sharon Marsh gets increasingly angry with Randy. We’ve seen stuff like this before, and we wait for the resolution.

But it doesn’t come.

Stan still thinks everything’s shit and winds up completely alone (were Kyle and Cartman smiling at each other?), while Sharon and Randy drift apart. They both share their frustrations with how everything in their lives keeps repeating. Weekly cartoons have always done things like this, but we slowly begin to realize that this might not be a joke. Is this how Parker and Stone feel about the show? The episode ends with a montage set to Stevie Nicks’ “Landslide”: “And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills, ‘til the landslide brought me down”.

“South Park” is so risky and irreverent that it has always seemed like the creators were reckless youngsters, and while that may have been true when it began, the series has lasted for 15 years and Trey Parker and Matt Stone are in their 40’s now. Do they see “South Park” as something from their youths, something childish that they should put away? They’ve found new success outside of the show. Maybe it’s become too much of a chore or a burden. As we see Stan growing older, it’s interesting to note that Trey Parker’s parents are named Randy and Sharon.

It actually makes a lot of sense that a show where children are the main characters would deal with what it means to grow older. And using adults as a counterpoint helps to highlight what both the adults and children are feeling. There’s always something poignant about the ending of childhood because it always seems like it lasts forever (this episode might make a good double feature with Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life and maybe Super 8 will fit this weekend). When it ends, there’s always nostalgia and a desire to reclaim it. It’s only when Stan starts to realize that he’s getting older that Randy begins to recognize it. Stan’s never going to be 9 nine years old again, and neither is Randy. “Even children get older, and I’m getting older, too.”

It’s a funny thing that I never really considered that “South Park” might end. I sort of assumed that it would continue forever. It’s a little hard for me to comprehend what life will be like without it, just like I can’t really comprehend not being able to see a new episode of “The Daily Show” or “The Colbert Report”, or not being able to read Roger Ebert’s review of a new movie. But of course, all of these things must happen. “Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?”

When you really love someone else’s created work (be it movie, book, TV show, whatever), you develop a personal relationship with it and start to think that it mainly exists for you. But we forget about how the creator feels about it. I recently revisited the Star Wars movies, and I’m reminded of Alec Guinness’ response to a fan who claimed to have watched it over a hundred times: “Promise me you’ll never see it again.” The opinion of the creator shouldn’t really matter with a completed work, but a TV show is different because you expect the creator to create new things for you. The creator might not want to. “Well, I’ve been afraid of changing cause I’ve built my life around you.” I don’t really follow a lot of TV shows because it can be hard watch something regularly, to schedule things around a specific time every week. There have been occasional exceptions, and “South Park” is one of them. There is something comforting about familiarity, about something that happens regularly and frequently. Changing this can be a big deal. What Trey Parker and Matt Stone seem to be saying is that this isn’t a big deal. This happens. If we can’t handle saying goodbye to Stan, Kyle, Kenny, Cartman, Butters (no, I can’t say goodbye to Butters!), Randy, and Mr. Mackey, how can we do it in real life? Because even though Stan will never see his childhood again, we can revisit it any time we like. That is, if the website stays open.

Slow Down If You Want the Tone to Last

At the dawn of the modern comic book movie craze, Bryan Singer’s first X-Men movie announced the direction that superhero movies would take by opening with a Holocaust scene. After Spider-Man 2, Iron Man and The Dark Knight, it’s no longer as surprising when superhero movies tackle serious subject matter, but the idea of a Holocaust scene in a comic book movie must have raised more than a few eyebrows in 2000. The placement of this scene in the film is integral to movie’s themes about what happens when people declare entire groups to be unfit for society, and it warns the viewer that comic book movies won’t be kid’s stuff anymore. Most importantly, it establishes that the key to a successful fantasy movie is mastery of tone.

It’s a little ironic that the movie that makes this principle most apparent is X-Men: First Class, Matthew Vaughn’s recent entry into the series. The movie has some major flaws (a character in this movie actually says these words: “We have to sacrifice liberty for security”; wow, that’s really subtle), and it doesn’t reach the heights of The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2 or X2 (the best X-Men film), but it’s very enjoyable and exciting. The difference between what’s good and bad about the movie is tone. Simply put, the good scenes take time to establish tone, mood, character and atmosphere. The bad scenes don’t.

X-Men: First Class draws a direct connection with the first film in the series because it opens with the exact same scene. Well, not exactly, and that’s the problem. The events in the scene are exactly the same. A boy and his parents are being forced into a concentration camp in Poland. The boy is separated from his parents, and when he tries to run back to them, a group of Nazi soldiers restrain him and a gate closes in front of him. As the boy reaches out his hands toward his parents, the metal in the gate starts to creak and pull back toward him. The scene ends when a soldier knocks the boy out with the butt of a rifle, and a wider shot reveals the tangled mess of metal that remains of the gate.

This describes the opening scenes of both X-Men and X-Men: First Class. First Class takes the same footage (and some footage that looks like it was reshot) and makes the scene shorter, most likely in an attempt to avoid repeating the same scene. It probably didn’t help Matthew Vaughn’s job that Bryan Singer did such a memorable job with the scene the first time. The key difference between the two scenes is that Singer spends more time developing the scene and establishing a realistic tone so that there is more weight given to the family separation and more context and surprise to the revelation of the young Magneto’s superpowers. The reveal happens slowly in the first film, as if the boy is just discovering these powers for the first time, giving the sense that the powers are growing naturally out of the emotion of the situation. It also helps that the scene demonstrates the powers in a small, low-key way that is still visually powerful. Singer has spent enough time with this scene to ensure that the introduction of Magneto’s superpowers is not a non sequitur.

The same scene in X-Men: First Class goes by too quickly to establish any tone. This could be because I already knew what would happen having seen the first film, but the scene seems to rush to revealing the superpower, instead of waiting as Singer did to give the introduction more weight.

Maybe this is not entirely fair. Perhaps the scene simply suffers by comparison to the original. The problem is that this scene is not the only example from First Class of scenes that happen too quickly to establish tone. In fact, the entire pre-titles sequence feels incredibly rushed. After the opening Magneto origin, we move across the Atlantic to Charles Xavier’s childhood home. Hearing a noise in the night, young Xavier leaves his bedroom with a baseball bat and walks down to the kitchen. He finds his mother there, but her behavior seems strange to him. If that’s not his mother, we know that there’s really only person that she could be (here’s a hint: she’s feeling a little blue). Unfortunately, like the first scene, this scene rushes very quickly to introducing the powers: Xavier speaks telepathically to the intruder who then transforms into a young Mystique. Although the transformation has the appropriate sense of magic, the demonstration of Xavier’s telepathic ability just doesn’t feel right. It happens a bit too quickly and is accompanied by some awkward digitally assisted camera moves. The biggest problem with the scene comes when Xavier expresses his joy at “finding someone like me.” Somehow, this just doesn’t feel genuine.

The problem with these first two scenes is that Vaughn has not taken enough time to establish the real world before bringing in the elements of fantasy. One way to accomplish this would be to focus on the real-world emotions that the characters must be feeling such as the agony of the family separation in Magneto’s scene or the fear of hearing an intruder in the house. Xavier gets to the kitchen so quickly that we don’t get the sense that he’s worried or anxious as he makes his way there. Even though Xavier’s emotions in this scene are not necessary to the plot, taking some time to build suspense would place the audience more surely in this world before the movie changes things around on us. Establishing the real world emphasizes the contrast with the fantasy elements and gives them more weight.

But these first two scenes are nothing compared to what comes next: a scene that has incredibly little control of tone and just screams, WRONG! Young Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto) has been brought into the office of an evil Nazi scientist named Sebastian Shaw. Shaw knows about Erik’s powers and wants him to use them to move a coin. As an incentive, Shaw brings Erik’s mother into the room and threatens to shoot her if Erik doesn’t perform. This scene should be filled with enormous tension and power. This is getting close to Schindler’s List territory. But it’s handled completely wrong. The first problem is Kevin Bacon as Shaw. Actually, the first two problems because the first problem is his mustache. I defy any audience to keep a straight face when Bacon appears onscreen. The second problem is the performance. Bacon is clearly having fun playing Shaw as an over-the-top dastardly villain. But here’s the problem with that: Nazis in concentration camps are not dastardly villains. They’re not Dr. No and Goldfinger. They’re truly evil. I’m not saying Bacon needs to be Amon Goeth in this scene, but something closer to Christian Szell from Marathon Man might be better than Bacon’s wacky scientist. This scene needs to be dark, tense and terrifying, not campy and over the top. The other problem with this scene goes back to movie’s approach to demonstrating the mutant powers. As Erik reaches toward the coin, we don’t get the sense of someone straining to do the impossible. It just looks silly, but of course, the movie could have used that to add to the tension. What is the mother feeling as she knows that she is going to die because her son can’t accomplish a seemingly impossible task? This scene demonstrates very well that subject matter has little to do with the ultimate effect of a movie. On paper, the scene sounds terrifying. On screen, it ends up being strangely devoid of the emotion it should have.

The title of the movie had not even shown up on screen, and the movie had already started going downhill.

Thank goodness the movie decides to slow down about a third of the way through and focus itself. Throughout the first act, I constantly felt that the movie was rushed without the excitement that fast pacing can create (see The Seven Samurai, Star Wars). There are several action sequences, but no memorable set pieces. Far too many scenes happen quickly without establishing tone, mood and atmosphere (the introduction of Shaw’s powers, Erik’s attack on Shaw’s boat).

But the movie starts to settle down when Erik and Xavier finally meet. This is not only exciting for fans of the series, but works as great drama because Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are such good actors that they make their characters feel real. At this point, the movie begins to feel more like a movie and less like a trailer. It really starts to take off when Xavier and Erik start recruiting mutants for the CIA using a prototype for Cerebro. It’s a fairly standard recruiting-the-team montage, but it uses fast pacing that gives the movie a sense of rhythm and excitement rather than rushing.

The moment when I decided that I actually liked this movie comes when the mutant recruits sit around in their CIA living room and talk about the nicknames they want while listening to “Green Onions” (bringing memories of those headlights emerging from the predawn gloom in American Graffiti). Now this is what I’m talking about: a scene when the movie just slows down for a moment to let the characters talk (and this being 1962, it lets the kids be kids and listen to some rock’n’roll). Light comedy scenes like this are incredibly valuable to an action movie like First Class. It’s an easy way to develop characters by having them do funny things with each other. Once we’ve seen the characters having fun and heard them genuinely laugh, they seem more real and more human. We grow to like the characters and care more about them, which makes the dramatic scenes much more emotional and exciting. This is something that the best of the Harry Potter movies have done incredibly well (the Gryffindor boys’ late night antics in Azkaban, the Yule Ball and associated events in Goblet of Fire, the romantic comedy elements in Half-Blood Prince, the Harry-Hermione dance scene in Deathly Hallows 1).

When the movie finally slows down, it devotes more attention to the superpowers and gives them more weight. Michael Fassbender in particular brings a great deal of gravitas to his performance as Magneto, especially during a scene when he strains to turn an enormous radio dish (can someone more familiar with comics tell me whether or not Magneto’s Patronus is an invention for the movie?). And it’s a shame that the trailers give away the image of Magneto lifting the submarine out of the water because it’s really a terrific moment. In fact, the final action sequence (which the ads have considerably over-exposed) is very exciting and does what the X-Men franchise has usually done very well: attempt to lift its comic book material to the level of Shakespearean tragedy. Of course it’s a little silly and Christopher Nolan has done it much better with his Batman films, but I still have a lot of admiration for the emotional level that this movie reaches.

The key issue here is one that has plagued fantasy movies recently: a failure to master tone, mainly from a desire to rush into fantastical spectacles and sacrifice the time it takes to develop tone and mood. It’s one of the biggest problems with the Chris Columbus Potter films (the first shot of Sorcerer’s Stone does a brilliant job of setting up everything that’s wrong with the first two entries in the series). Thankfully, Columbus let Alfonso Cuarón take the reins with Prisoner of Azkaban, which is really a masterpiece of tone, shifting effortlessly from scenes of joy and hilarity to scenes of real terror and exhilaration. Problems with tone also befell the Narnia series with Prince Caspian, which spends less than ten minutes in the real world before returning to Narnia ensuring that there’s no real sense of relief and excitement when this happens. If you show Dumbledore before you show Privet Drive, if you don’t give the Pevensies enough time in England, you arrive quickly at the fantastical scenes that people want to see, but you sacrifice a sense of anticipation. Have directors learned nothing from Spielberg and Jaws? The audience has come to see something that you’ve got to show them. Of course, you don’t want to wait too long, but if you wait just long enough, you’ve got the audience in your grasp. Why let them go so soon?

Tone is important for every movie, but it is especially important for fantasy. Fantasy films visualize images that cannot exist and could either be awe-inspiring or silly. X-Men: First Class may be a very important film because it demonstrates both outcomes: scenes of incredible visual power and scenes that just don’t work. Everyone who believes that fantasy is a valuable art form cringes whenever fantasy is done poorly and cheers whenever it’s done well (Lord of the Rings, Pan’s Labyrinth, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). The material for fantasy movies is usually very similar. The difference is in how the material is handled. The best fantasy films are conscious of the tone that they are using. What does the storyteller think about the story? How will it be presented? When is it serious? When is it funny? What is the context? A film director always has to know the answers to these questions, but it is especially important for fantasy directors to know them because fantasy can very easily get out of control. It is possible to create a tone with fast pacing, but filmmakers must be able to establish it. Fantasy usually works better when it slows down and creates context, mood, and a sense of place, atmosphere and anticipation. Take some time. Set the stage. Don’t rush things. The outcome can be bad, but it can also be extraordinary.

“Computer, define dancing”: WALL-E and Being Alive

The common question in movies about artificial intelligence is: what does it mean to be human? Pixar’s WALL-E goes even further and asks: what does it mean to be alive?

WALL-E is a thrilling adventure, a terrifying vision of a dystopian future and an examination of humanity: a story in which the human race is destroyed, judged and saved by its own technology. The premise of this story is to have humanity leave Earth so that the things that we have made are the only remnants of our presence here, a brilliant scenario and possibly a logical conclusion to our society. What will the next inhabitants of Earth think about us based on the materials that we have created? This is the question that WALL-E explores as its robot hero sorts through humanity’s garbage and glimpses the society that has disappeared.

Since WALL-E’s function is to clean up the garbage, he is venturing outside of his job description by looking through all of this junk that humanity has left behind. Instead of smashing everything into blocks of trash, WALL-E keeps things that he likes for himself. This provides the film with some early comedic touches to lighten the mood of the dystopian vision, such as WALL-E’s encounters with a fire extinguisher and a bra. A particularly wonderful moment comes when he finds a box with a ring inside. The ring sparkles in the sunlight, but he tosses it aside and focuses instead on the hinge that opens and closes the small box.

WALL-E’S favorite item is an old VHS tape of the musical Hello Dolly (the thought of humanity being judged based on this movie is more than a little frightening). As he watches these strange images of humans dancing around, WALL-E reveals himself to be a romantic at heart and that after hundreds of years of mindlessly fulfilling his appointed task, he longs for contact with someone else (or as Bruce Springsteen put it, “a little of that human touch”).

At this point, the movie reveals that it is not just about what humanity makes, but what humanity does. WALL-E finds the greatest goodness and joy in movement and activity. When the robot EVE arrives on Earth, the first thing she does is soar through the air and fly across the landscape, providing the movie with some spectacular shots. And it doesn’t take EVE long to try to emulate the dancing in Hello Dolly (which unfortunately and hilariously sends WALL-E crashing into a wall). The most beautiful moment in the movie comes when WALL-E and EVE dance through outer space in a jaw-dropping ballet of light and movement while the Captain of the Axiom asks his computer to define dancing. The Captain has become fascinated with the idea of returning to Earth and is exploring all forms of human activity that have become lost in humanity’s sanctuary in space. Isn’t it interesting that when the Captain asks the computer to define Earth, the first images that appear are not of soil, but of humans using the soil?

Now the movie has arrived at humanity’s downfall when it is away from Earth: total lack of movement. On their spaceship, humans live in a world of immediate comforts as they constantly sit in floating beds. After generations of having every need instantly fulfilled, we have decided that we would rather just stay lying down if we don’t actually have to move. Humans eventually stop looking around, and this reaches the point where we don’t notice our environments (“I didn’t know we had a pool!”) or other people, which creates the unpleasant question of where these new generations of people are coming from. During the movie, we meet a few humans as WALL-E’s adventures interrupt their daily routines. As their floating beds experience some malfunctions, they start to look around and notice each other.

This later section of the movie is not as subtle and poetic as the first third and it leads to some rather heavy-handed dialogue (“I don’t want to survive. I want to live.”), but it provides the opportunity for some terrific action and comedy set pieces. WALL-E becomes a character not unlike Jacques Tati’s Mr. Hulot, a nearly wordless character who bumbles through a world of bizarre rules and technology. This section of the film also creates a chilling image of humanity’s future, one that is very likely to happen. The most chilling aspect of this image is that it doesn’t seem all that bad. Life would be very easy. Only when we think about this life does it become really unpleasant. Our reliance on technology could lead to an almost complete lack of freedom. How can we be free if we can’t move, if we can’t have control over what we do? How can we truly be alive if we have no connections to other people? It’s a connection to another being that saves WALL-E from being a mindless drone at the end of the film. I don’t know if the electric spark from EVE’s kiss could actually restore WALL-E’s memory, but it’s a great romantic moment in cinema.

WALL-E is absolutely exhilarating from start to finish, one of greatest adventures ever made and an exuberant celebration of the joy of movement. It’s also a brilliant story of man’s relationship to technology in which robots that do everything for humans teach us how to do things for ourselves again. And like all great films, it is perfectly suited to its art form. What art form is best suited to movement? Why movies, of course! And even though I would prefer that the last remaining movie be something other than Hello Dolly (is it too much to ask for something by Welles, Hitchcock or Kurosawa?), WALL-E shows that movies will be an extremely valuable record of humanity. What art form depicts human activity better than movies? Think about what it would mean to have movies from the Renaissance, from Ancient Egypt and Rome, from any time before the invention of cinema. Our books, our buildings, our art, and records of our thought will give clues about what it means to be human, but movies will actually show what it means to be alive.

The Size of the Canvas

I thought we were past this. Somehow, I thought that the combined effects of widescreen TVs, Siskel & Ebert, and more widespread knowledge about letterboxing had brought us out of the Dark Ages of Pan-and-Scan. But apparently I was wrong. Apparently, people still just don’t get aspect ratio.

So far this year, I have seen two new movies: The Adjustment Bureau and Source Code. I saw both of them at my favorite movie theater: the Uptown in DC. This was where I saw all of The Lord of the Rings movies, most of the Harry Potter movies, and re-releases of the Star Wars trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Blade Runner. Instead of seeing Avatar in 3D, I saw it in 2D at this theater. So why have my movie-going experiences at the Uptown this year been so terrible?

I enjoyed both The Adjustment Bureau and Source Code a lot, but something was very wrong with the projection. Both movies are in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, but they were both fitted onto a 2.35:1 screen, cropping off the top and bottom of the frame. Thanks to this, many people will not know that Duncan Jones directed Source Code because his spot in the opening credits only said, “Directed by”. At least his name isn’t on a version of his movie that is different from the one he made. There’s a reason why The Adjustment Bureau and Source Code are in 1.85:1 and not 2.35:1. I’m not sure what that reason is (probably because I didn’t see them in the correct format), but if the movie is presented in a different aspect ratio, it isn’t the movie the director made.

The Uptown has recently installed a new projection system that quite obviously does not align with its Cinerama screen because of the way it curves at both ends of the frame, making the image look a little like an oval surrounded by black space. This probably has something to do with having the capacity to project in 3D, which the Uptown did not do until it showed Tron: Legacy last December. I don’t know why the projection system does not allow it to show movies in 1.85:1, but that is apparently the way it is (check out the discussion at Cinema Treasures for more information). If they can’t find a way to make aspect ratios in digital projection fit to the Cinerama screen, I may have to see big movies elsewhere (fingers crossed they fix this before The Hobbit comes out).

The problems with aspect ratio don’t just exist in the movie theater. As convenient as it is, Netflix Instant Streaming has begun to really annoy me precisely because it is so lax on aspect ratio. I first noticed this when I watched Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia, a 2.35:1 movie that Netflix had in 1.85:1. While it was a little painful to watch Wally Pfister’s compositions butchered, I still sat through the whole movie. I can’t say that for every Netflix movie. I’ve stopped watching movies like Syriana and Gangs of New York during the studio logos because I noticed they were in the wrong aspect ratio.

I decided that this is a serious problem when I watched John Carpenter’s Escape from New York on instant streaming. As you may have guessed, it was cropped from its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 down to 1.85:1. This was my first time seeing the movie (I did watch the entire thing), but I don’t think I really saw it. At least, not in the way it’s supposed to be seen.

Why did this one push me over the edge? Because it’s a John Carpenter movie. Carpenter is not really one of my favorite directors, so why did the butchering of one of his movies make me madder than the same treatment of Christopher Nolan and Martin Scorsese? Because John Carpenter’s movies are SUPPOSED to be in 2.35:1. John Carpenter’s trademark (aside from his love of Steadicams) is that he makes low-budget B-movie stories in epic widescreen. His Halloween has endured as a horror classic when so many of its sequels and rip-offs have been forgotten because the direction elevates the material. A lot of that is due to the 2.35:1 scope (half of the budget was spent on Panavision cameras). Aspect ratio doesn’t guarantee a good movie (as the many Halloween sequels can attest), but it adds a great deal to the movie’s tone and atmosphere.

One movie that Netflix Instant has in its correct aspect ratio is Carpenter’s 1976 film Assault on Precinct 13. Despite its low budget, it looks great in its epic 2.35:1 scope. It would be a completely different movie in 1.85:1. The 2.35:1 aspect ratio is primarily associated with 70mm, with Lawrence of Arabia and Ben-Hur, movies that were so big you couldn’t fit them on a TV screen. When a movie is in this format, it automatically makes it feel bigger. Escape from New York is a terrific action picture, but I bet that its intended 2.35:1 aspect ratio would have made it feel a whole lot different.

I don’t think that 2.35:1 is better than 1.85:1 (or 4:3), but I do think that these examples point to a widespread disregard for aspect ratio. It’s rather alarming how many people don’t seem to pay attention to this. This has been a problem with home video since time immemorial going back to the Dark Ages of Pan-and-Scan, when movies were essentially redirected for video by chopping off the sides of the frame and digitally panning across the image. It was always kind of funny that people were paying the same price and getting literally half the movie. I always thought that widescreen TVs would cure this problem because people who didn’t want black bars at the top and bottom of the screen wouldn’t want them at the sides. The problem has been cured with 1.85:1 movies, but not with 2.35:1 movies. Instead of cropping these for 4:3 screens, they’re cropped for 1.85:1 screens (actually 16:9, but they’re approximately the same). It’s less space lost, but there is still some image gone and some awkward-looking digital panning. Essentially, the butchery has not stopped. By fitting the images to widescreen TVs, distributors have managed to fool a lot of people into thinking they’re watching the actual movie.

But the issue runs even deeper than that. When distributors and consumers don’t understand aspect ratio, that’s one thing. When filmmakers start to disregard aspect ratio, it’s a little terrifying. And the problem isn’t with bad directors. James Cameron is a very smart and talented director, but I’m troubled that the DVD of Avatar is in 1.78:1, the aspect ratio it was shown in IMAX and the aspect ratio of a widescreen TV. The non-IMAX theatrical release was in 2.35:1. Considering that most of the movie was created in a computer, Cameron could easily compose for both aspect ratios. But the problem is that there are two different versions of the same film as different as the two versions of The Abyss, maybe even more different. The Abyss has two versions with different plot details, but the same tone and atmosphere. A 2.35:1 Avatar just feels different than a 1.78:1 Avatar even though they have the exact same plot details. 2.35:1 gives a wider canvas, making the story feel more epic (whatever that means) than 1.85:1. Cameron has said that he shot his Aliens in 1.85:1 because of difficulties with visual effects and that if he had the chance, he would have made it in 2.35:1. There’s obviously something about the 2.35:1 ratio that Cameron feels is suited to a story like Aliens and probably Avatar, too. He might argue that in 1986, 2.35:1 was the biggest canvas, but in 2009, IMAX is the biggest canvas and 1.78:1 is a way of approximating an IMAX screen. If that’s the format that Cameron wants to use for his movie, that’s completely fine, but we have to recognize the difference between the two versions.

The issue with the IMAX format also arises with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and his upcoming The Dark Knight Rises, which are mostly in 2.35:1, but have certain scenes in IMAX dimensions. I don’t have a problem with the format changing within the movie. Nolan decided that the tone of certain scenes called for a different film size. The problem comes when the IMAX scenes are cropped for 2.35:1 screens. The tone of these scenes has become different. Nolan surely approved both versions, but the cropping causes changes. Before the armored car chase scene in The Dark Knight, there is a helicopter shot looking down on the city. The IMAX version shows a burning fire truck blocking the road at the top of the frame. In the 2:35.1 version, the camera follows the police cars along the road and eventually the fire truck enters the frame at a different time. This is not a big difference, but there is a different rhythm, a different impact from the burning fire truck. It’s a different shot. This is one of the few things that worry me a little about The Dark Knight Rises: how exactly does Nolan deal with the difference in aspect ratio between 2.35:1 and IMAX?

The idea of a director composing for two different aspect ratios is not new. When a DVD collection of Stanley Kubrick’s films came out in 1999, there was outrage when a few of his films were presented in the 4:3 aspect ratio. Outrage turned to confusion with the realization that Kubrick approved these editions. Why? Because he shot movies like The Shining and Full Metal Jacket with both 4:3 and 1.85:1 in mind. Kubrick was a noted perfectionist, so I cannot question his drive to express his vision on screen, but I wonder how he was able to approve two different versions of his movies.

The issue at hand with the examples of James Cameron, Christopher Nolan and Stanley Kubrick is that we don’t have a case of filmmakers having no control or being forced to change their visions for home video as we normally do with the issue of aspect ratio. The question becomes: can a director disregard the importance of aspect ratio? I have a lot of admiration for Cameron, Nolan and Kubrick, but I would submit that the answer is no. No artist can be lax about the size of his canvas. The aspect ratio decides the dimensions of the frame and therefore the size of the canvas. It also contributes a lot to the tone, to the mood, to the overall feeling of a picture. A version of a movie with a different aspect ratio is not the same movie, plain and simple, even if the director approved both versions. Decide the size of the size of the canvas and why it is in that format. Why is Full Metal Jacket in 1.85:1? Or 4:3? Why is The Dark Knight in 2.35:1? Why might that size change during the course of the film? Why might it not change? There is a reason why parts of The Wizard of Oz are in black-and-white (sepia tone, actually) and the rest is in color. A version entirely in black-and-white or entirely in color is not the same movie. This is the same question that filmmakers will have to answer before diving head-first and safety-last into 3D: is a 3D movie the same movie if it’s shown in 2D?

People may not care if they don’t know who directed Source Code, but I bet they care if half of Matt Damon’s face is cut off at the top of the screen. Mistakes like that might be all that we need to convince people of why the format of a film is so important. But everyone needs to pay attention to this. Everyone. Audiences, distributors and filmmakers. We all need to stop being lazy about how we watch and present movies. The impact of seeing a painting in its original form is not the same as a version that we see in a textbook or on the internet. There is one true version of The Last Supper. There is one true version of Guernica. If we want to treat films as great works of art and not just ways to kill a few hours, we have to take the same care with aesthetic decisions as da Vinci and Picasso did.

I May Not Be Mad as Hell Right Now, But...

I'm not really sure what to write about the loss of the great Sidney Lumet, so I'll just leave this quote from him that I read in his New York Times obituary: “While the goal of all movies is to entertain, the kind of film in which I believe goes one step further. It compels the spectator to examine one facet or another of his own conscience. It stimulates thought and sets the mental juices flowing.”

Fairness in the Frame

“Without mercy, man is not a human being.”

So Governor Masauji Taira tells his son Zushio near the beginning of Kenji Mizoguchi’s Sansho the Bailiff, a wonderful film that I can’t believe I saw for the first time only a few days ago. It’s the kind of movie that is so emotionally involving during the initial viewing that I know I’ll need to see it many more times to fully appreciate it. I know there are many themes that I didn’t pick up on (a terrific essay by Jim Emerson gives some direction on that). But I did notice that I’ve never seen another film where the technique and style so completely supported its central creed.

“Mercy” probably isn’t the best word to use when describing a filmmaking style, so I’ll try to find another that approximates it. Let’s try “fairness.” The essence of the Governor’s teaching to his son is that he should be fair to all people: to the wealthy and the peasants, to the largest and smallest people in society. Without fairness, without compassion for the smallest things, people have no humanity.

Mizoguchi’s compositions echo this belief. He shoots in wide and medium deep-focus shots, letting our eyes move across the screen, giving us the freedom to focus on anything in the frame: trees, rocks, water, and maybe the people walking through the setting. The first shot of the film (after an opening close up of stones beneath title cards) lingers on a forest clearing while a family slowly walks through. He gives equal opportunity to everything we can see. Ultimately, our attention will be drawn to the people, but mainly because they are moving and we are conditioned to think that the humans are the subjects of the shot. But there is reason enough to spend the entire shot focusing on the sunlight drifting through the leaves or the tree trunk lying across a creek.

It’s interesting that I watched Sansho the Bailiff only a day after watching Jacques Tati’s Playtime, a film with a similar visual style. Like Mizoguchi, Tati uses wide, deep-focus compositions filled with a lot of information. In Tati’s case, he usually fills the screen with people without using focus to tell us which ones we should notice. All people in the frame have an equal chance of being the center of the audience’s attention, especially during the restaurant scene that dominates the second half of the picture.

But wait a minute. If Mizoguchi and Tati are being “fair” (my word) to everything in the frame, what about everything outside of the frame? I thought about this issue while watching Sansho the Bailiff during an establishing shot of Kyoto. Zushio stands on top of a hill overlooking Kyoto, looks at a sign, then heads toward the city; the camera cranes up and tilts down to show Zushio running down the other side of the hill. This hill highlights something that is present throughout the film (any film, really): the boundaries of the frame.

A movie screen cannot show everything. Something is always hidden, whether it is on the other side of a hill or outside the edge of the frame. Does this undermine what I’ve been talking about in regards to fairness? Absolutely not. There is a danger when talking about the styles of directors like Mizoguchi and Tati in that it sometimes suggests that they are not in control of their films, that they just let things happen. On the contrary, every frame of a movie reflects a conscious decision by the director. Mizoguchi made a deliberate choice to put his camera on that side of the hill, to point the camera at that tree or that side of the bay. Tati made deliberate choices to point the camera at the bar or at the stage, just as he made a deliberate choice to use the sound of a falling umbrella to direct our attention to the entrance of Mr. Hulot (Tati’s use of sound in that film is worth an entire blog post of its own). Not to mention that they decide how the characters move through the frame (even if they don’t give specific instructions).

As awkward as my uses of the words “mercy” and “fairness” have been, they reflect the conscious decisions made by the hand of the director. Martin Scorsese said, “Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.” What the director decides to leave out of the frame is not necessarily better or worse than what the director decides to put in the frame. What matters is how fair directors are in their decisions. Why is this on screen? Why is this not on screen? Every director has to answer these questions: Kenji Mizoguchi and Akira Kurosawa, Guillermo del Toro and Christopher Nolan, Kathryn Bigelow and Michael Bay. This is the heart of cinema. Movies have the ability to go anywhere and see anything, to transport us to different times and places, places that might not concern us. Directors have to understand what we are seeing and why we are seeing it.

In Sansho the Bailiff, a character laments that he has “found that humans have little sympathy for things that don’t directly concern them.” If people had greater understanding of things that don’t concern them, we would have that much more humanity. I can think of no greater function for cinema than to provide just that.