Director Joe Dante ("Piranha," "The Howling," "Gremlins," "Matinee," "Homecoming") talks with Dennis Cozzalio about stories and effects at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, in one of the most enjoyable filmmaker interviews I've read in a long time:
... I'm not saying all these new techniques are better. Unfortunately, you can't go home again, and it is difficult to make films using the old technology. I've seen a couple of pictures in Europe when I've gone to festivals where they have carefully tried to use the old Rob Bottin-Rick Baker school of do-it-in-the-camera, and it's often very effective, but those movies often don't get released anywhere because they're not CGI, they're not what people expect. I mean, love it or hate it, CGI is here to stay -- the trick is to find a way to work it so that it doesn't look as sterile and mechanical as by definition it is.
Right on. We should remember that if CGI isn't exactly in its infancy, it's still in its toddlerhood. It's primitive and often looks amateurish, but it doesn't have the scrappy, low-budget charm of Roger Corman (or Ed Wood) effects (like rubber octopi), and it sticks out even worse because it exists on some other plane of illusion altogether. You can immediately tell it's just a two-dimensional rendering, not even a photographic image of a latex crab monster, or whatever, taking up actual physical space. As Dennis says, in a movie like Dante's classic werewolf picture "The Howling" (1981), co-written by John Sayles, "the almost handmade quality, the tactile, on-set quality that by definition you can't get with CGI, also makes it kind of timeless, and certainly scarier."
You really must read all of this delighfully multifarious conversation, which ranges from the titles in the upcoming "Dante's Inferno" series (August 5 - 13) at my old Fairfax neighborhood movie house, the New Beverly Cinema ("Miracle Mile"! "The President's Analyst"!! The rare 1957 "Not of This Earth"!!!), to his new movie, "The Hole."
I was delighted to learn that Dante, like so many cinephiliacs including me, doesn't have much of a memory for plot. This is the way I experience movies -- and I've always sensed from watching his that he was One of Us:
JD: ... I can watch a murder mystery, or an old Perry Mason episode I've seen a hundred times and not remember who the killer was. But it's still fun to try to figure it out! (Laughs)
DC: I've never quite understood the person who says, "I've seen a movie once. It's given all it's going to give to me. I know it. I'm done with it."
JD: Well, that's a person who, for the most part, probably isn't that serious about movies. I saw 8½ when it was new--in 1963 I was 12 or 13, 15, I can't remember. It was kind of impenetrable to me, but I thought it was fascinating. But as I got older and I would see the picture again I would get different things out of it. Then I became a filmmaker, and I saw the film again. After being a filmmaker a number of years I saw the film again. Every single time it was a different film.
DC: That's a really important point, especially in terms of younger people and how they view movies. That kind of ability to identify and return to something after a few years--
JD: It has to have personal meaning to you, and I think that people in the culture in general are encouraged to not see films as having personal meaning, but instead as something disposable, something to pass the time, to be hip about, but without any real bearing on your life.... [When] I was in college and we'd go see movies in the '60s and '70s, these were movies that really were worth seeing more than once, worth discussing. Who makes pictures like that anymore? I feel very privileged to have grown up and lived when I did.
Now, maybe that's a generational thing. I have always loved music and movies from many generations past -- because the present doesn't make any sense without them, especially in this age overwhelmingly dominated by pastiche and collage in so many art forms (but especially music and movies). I find an awful lot of new stuff too thin to hold my interest precisely because it seems so frantically desperate to hold my interest -- not by pulling me in, but by bombarding me with repetitive sensations. It's death by a thousand cuts. As Dante puts it:
In the current incarnation of what are known as popular movies that are supposed to be enjoyed by kids, the amount of effects work and the number of "highlights" in the movie are astronomical. These pictures go from climax to climax to climax to climax, any one of which would have been good enough on its own for a movie made 20 years ago. But now they're strung together one after the other and they all become kind of meaningless. No matter how technically proficient they are, no matter how spectacular they are, there's a brain-deadening quality to them, and after a while it becomes just a bunch of visual noise. I think what modern filmmakers have to guard against is making these nonstop Hasbro toy commercials that are--the only word I can think of to say is soulless. They are showcases for the greatest technology we've ever had since the movies started, and yet the one thing that made the movies great, which is telling stories and having characters that you could relate to and be emotionally moved by, that's sort of gone on the back burner.
Many of us have bemoaned the same thing for years. Most recently, I wrote about it here, but my criticisms of several of the big action hits of the last few years (you know their names) come down to just that: spectacle exhaustion. When movies go into overdrive these days, they also seem to go on auto-pilot and become generic spectacles. But real spectacle is not generic; it requires imagination, set-up and pacing. Without the valleys, there are no peaks -- its all just a flatline. Movies, like performances, need someplace to go; if they're pitched at 10 all the time, 11 really isn't enough to make a perceptible impression. Dial it down, already! Highlight reels are fun, but they don't have the impact of actual movies.
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It's always interesting for me to go back and watch older "blockbuster" movies, with their handmade effects and sometimes primitive looks, because more often than not, these special effects are infinitely more interesting than the CGI we see in so many films that come out today. The Alien series is probably my favorite series of films ever (yes, even the third and fourth ones) and seeing the models, miniatures, backdrops, matte paintings, and all the other things it took to make the film come together is to watch a piece of film history, one where blood, sweat, and tears went into the creation of a film instead of just clicking a mouse at a computer.
One interesting exception (there are always exceptions) is what Darren Aronofsky did with The Fountain. There was almost no CGI in that film- most of the special effects were accomplished with microphotography of bacteria, practical effects, and color correction, but it looks like most of the film was made with CGI. It's a great film, and an interesting window into what special effects can do. I only wish more filmmakers would take such risks because usually the results are more interesting than another CGI laden effects fest.
I mostly agree with Dante except for the comment about the lack of story and character in today's blockbusters. I really don't think there's much less today than in blockbusters of yore. The problem today isn't the stories. It's the FX. They stink.
The blockbusters today are just plain old butt-ugly to look at. People talk about blockbusters being "eye candy" but that implies something pleasurable in the act of looking at them. I can't bear to look at most CGI spectacles. Even the trailers are enough to make me nauseous. It boggled my mind that people can watch a trailer for Transformers 2 and think "Wow, that looks great!" And I'm emphasizing the word "look" there. How can you think that _looks_ great?
What frustrates me more than anything in the blockbuster discussion is the claim by most people that movies look so much better today. Implicit in the remake craze is the idea that today they can "get it right" in terms of FX so it's about time to "correct" all the old movies with proper technology.
That's one of the reason I loved The Fountain so much, because say what you will about it, it doesn't look like other movies because Aronofsky used new technology for old style effects, creating the orb that 2500 Hugh Jackman lived in through filming chemical reactions in a petri dish, which not only gave it a distinctive look, but made it seem somehow more real and awe-inspiring than it would had it solely been CGI.
Thanks for that link. That IS the most enjoyable filmmaker interview I've read recently.
I hear you. I've always loved "The Adventures of Robin Hood" or "Captain Blood", or most especially three of my personal favourites "The Sea Hawk", "The Mark of Zorro", or "The Black Swan", more than a modern CGI-driven action movie.
When you watch Tyrone Power gallop his horse over a bridge 15 inches wide (ostensibly in the dark), or watch Diego and Capitan Esteban essentially playing a game of chess with each other for control over whether the Alcalde stays in California or goes to Spain; or the grittiness (for the time) of the galley scenes in "The Sea Hawk" - or even more incredibly, the wonderful performance of Flora Robson as Elizabeth I - a woman in a man's world but in complete and total control of everyone around her. I love Laird Cregar's take on Sir Henry Morgan - a big, blustering Welshman ("Fetch me some ale before I blow away to dust!").
It's disheartening to find my kids saying this is boring, and I'm working on them...
Actually, by definition, you could get anything with computer technology that you could get with real objects. You could even go so far as to draw it pixel-by-pixel if you had enough talent. James Cameron's secret weapon on The Abyss was an artist who would fix details of the CGI water tentacle by painting over them in an early version of Photoshop if anything wasn't quite right. Now it's true that CGI, part of the time, hasn't captured the reality of actual objects, but sometimes it does get it right. As a matter of fact, I saw something very interesting in some parts of Fox/Blue Sky's Robots: CGI that looks like stop motion. Sometimes those metal surfaces were so real I swore I could touch them! And they didn't have the usual motion blur. I had to check to make sure they hadn't used actual stop motion for the film!
Now yes, real physical objects have the kind of spontaneity and realistic imperfections that CGI is hard-pressed to recreate. Yes, CGI does stick out like a sore thumb lots of times. But they're getting better at it all the time. For the time being, it might be best to do some things through compositing and use of models etc, plus you get a lot of charm with primitive effects in certain instances. But digital technology is catching up.
JE: Cameron has been a pioneer in the use of CGI, usually choosing it to show us things we've never seen before: a shape-shifting tentacle made out of water, a cyborg of liquid metal, and so on. (That said, the notorious "helicopter" shot across the deck of the Titanic with the little Lego people is one of the most glaringly awful CGI shots in movies.) In general, his philosophy is a wise one: Use CGI that's obviously CGI when you want to show the impossible, the surreal, the dreamlike... Just be careful how you position them in relation to the photographable world. That's where they so often fall into the "uncanny valley."
Also, I think that the term "11" as a volume level has become overused recently. We must not let 11 become divorced from its Spinal Tap roots. We must use it only in instances where we want people to think of Spinal Tap and laugh, not in instances where we are serious.
JE: "11" always means what it means in "Spinal Tap": It is a way of mocking those who think there is someplace to go after "10" on a scale of 0 to 10.
No, I don't think that's it. Because there is someplace to go after 10, now isn't there? 11. Those numbers aren't just drawn on to look pretty. If you turn the knob from 10 to 11 it will get louder. See, 10 is usually the top, so you're playing at what everybody thinks is the loudest you can get. Then you push it up to 11 and everybody's blown away by it! The scale doesn't stop at 10 anymore: people just expect it to until you surprise them with 11. Nigel isn't the brightest bulb, but he's got reasoning behind the amps that go to 11, even if he can't articulate it. If he simply had an amp with a louder 10, he'd have to be playing at 9 most of the time and then pushing up to 10, and he just wouldn't feel right about it. Because of the numbers themselves, he'd feel like he was holding back. By having an 11 to go to, he feels like he's pushing through the established ceiling. And the only reason Marty asked him why he didn't just make a louder 10 was because it was a funny thing to ask.
The thing is that by using 11 in serious arguments, we're pulling the expression away from it's Spinal Tap roots. When someone says something goes to 11, you're supposed to immediately think of Spinal Tap and smile at the reference. You might argue that 11 can take on postmodern qualities and be something we say when we're being serious, but I don't think it's right. I think we should keep 11 and Spinal Tap firmly connected.
JE: Because it's one louder.
Roight... that's nitpicking, isn't it?
Dante's comment about how some recent movies seem to move from climax to climax to climax is interesting to me.
Recently my wife and I decided to look at all six Star Wars films again. After watching "A New Hope", I won't be surprised if it's written off by the children of the next few generations as being too "slow". I'm not here to sing the praises of Star Wars, but from a structural standpoint there aren't too many climactic moments. Obi Wan Kenobi is killed, the Death Star is blown up, and maybe a few minor intense moment are all that the viewer is given. The rest of the movie is taken up with silly dialogue, little episodic situations, and basic character/plot development. There's a surprising amount of footage dedicated to people (or droids) in conversation for a film thought to be the beginning of our modern blockbuster mold.
And Jim, you're not alone as someone who can't remember plots. I can remember images or moods, but rarely plots. Only after seeing "Chinatown" for the fourth (or maybe fifth) time last week, do I really think I'm starting to have a firm grip on the whole plot.
Joe Dante's comments remind me of what Sydney Pollack and Francis Ford Coppola said in the documentary "A Decade under the Influence". Pollack made a similar remark about how movies nowadays can't just have one or two big climaxes but have to have one every 10 to 20 minutes until you just get to all climaxes. And Coppola remarked that to just keep making the big popular action and romantic comedy movies is like saying that from now the only drugs that pharmaceutical companies are going to make are tranquilizers and viagra.
It's interesting. This blog entry (and Roger's similarly-themed entry about the Dark Age coming) prompted me to conduct a bit of an experiment on the weekend.
I sat down with my daughter (9 years old) and watched one of my favourite action movies.
The movie was "The Black Swan" (1942), starring Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara, Laird Cregar, Thomas Mitchell, George Robinson and Anthony Quinn. She watched the whole thing with me, but at the end she said, "No offense, but there were lots of boring parts."
Whereupon I commented that movies can't always be wall to wall action - you have to have some quiet stuff in between, and then the action is that much more interesting.
My older son (13), who'd been playing on the computer while we were watching the movie, replied, "Yeah, but why can't you have a movie that starts out with action, and keeps going like this?" and mimed a continually upward slope of action.
Clearly, I have my work cut out for me.
But it's interesting that the expectation of the current generation that action is the only thing that's interesting. Character motivation...why does someone do what they do, what circumstances force them into actions they might not ordinarily take...that's just "boring".
And the weird thing is, my kids love "Avatar: The Last Airbender". If ever there was an animated TV show with lots of character development, that's one. The thing being, that most of the character development happens as a result of action - someone gets into a battle and learns something about themselves from it, sometimes right away, sometimes later. And they get involved in that.
I grew up with Harryhausen stop-motion effects and the old tape-and-rubber-band effects. I even worked on the last film in Quebec to use the optical printer. I moved on into the digital realm in the 90s and am surrounded and know some of the best effects technicians working today. I have worked on several features where the CGI was seamless and not noticed at all because the film was a drama. This is where the "CGI looks fake" becomes an unfair generalization, and frustrates the hell out of the hard-working visual effects artists.
Almost every single feature film coming out of Hollywood in the last 10 years has had CGI effects - sky replacements, set extensions, period cars, wire removal, CGI crowd replacement etc. Have you seen the HBO series "Generation Kill?" It is nominated for a VES award for best visual effects in a miniseries, yet it looks 100% like a documentary. My friend in London pointed out shots to me that he created that were CGI and I thought he was joking - and I can usually spot them. Mundane shots, handheld, that would go unnoticed and yet have extraordinarily complex CG and compositing.
This is the real movie magic, going under the radar because all robots and monsters get the spotlight. Sure, you're going to scrutinize something that's not plausible and notice any little detail that's off because it's not of this earth. It's the dramas and stories about real life where the true CG effects shine, where the effects are so invisible and supportive of the story.
When "Cloverfield" came out, it was nominated for best visual effects. I heard many people say it didn't deserve it because the creature was only seen for about 10 minutes of the film. What was truly amazing - and what deserved the award - was the complete reproduction of New York city for nearly the entire length of the film. 90 percent of the film was fake. While the audience was waiting for the creatures, I was in awe of the hand-held backgrounds that were completely synthetic. These are the shots taken for granted as "real", and yet are the ones requiring the most work and high-caliber talent.
All this to say that when you talk about CGI looking fake, be more specific, like saying that a CGI monster, or impossible camera moves, or poorly lit matte painting, or wrong placement of a lens flare looks fake.
Dante's comments on Bergman were interesting to me, as I've noticed Bergman falling out of favor, too. And not just with the average moviegoer, who wouldn't know Bergman, but younger film buffs.
Dante is off the mark by saying "Bergman has fallen way off the charts for film students, and even some critics, because his movies are slow, they’re in black and white, they’re somber, they have no humor." That's just a dismissive blanket statement, and I think there's more going on here than that. Could it be that Bergman has been imitated and parodied so much that it is difficult now for a young viewer to take his Very Serious Movies seriously?
I'm not sure myself. I am a 33-year-old and while I love a few of Bergman's movies and regularly watch old, slow, foreign, somber, black-and-white films, he is way down my list of favorite directors. And while I can't claim to speak for every young (or youngish) cinemaphile, this does apply to many that I know.
I like the comments about the deadening effect of climax after climax after climax.
I don't know if you've caught Michael Mann's "Public Enemies" yet, but it has the same "action rhythm" as his 1995 film.
You leave both films feeling like there were spurts of violence throughout, a sizeable setpiece at the beginning, a pretty big one at the end, and a GIGANTIC one a little bit after the halfway point. Lots of simmering intensity in-between. In both cases, the biggest shoot-out was not saved for the end.
Compare "Terminator 4" with "Terminator 2." In "T2" there were essentially just 3 Terminator-on-Terminator fights in that movie: the mall-to-the-street, the insane asylum, and the protracted chase at the end. Between the 2nd and 3rd fight was a shoot-out between the good guys and the cops. That's just 4 fights! "T4" had that many within the first 45 minutes.
I've got this notion that the promise of CGI is that it potentially allows filmmakers to set their imaginations free to fly, with no need to worry about the technical end of how to pull it off. Unfortunately, all CGI has really done is to show how limited most filmmakers' imaginations really are.
Robert Rodriguez and Jean-Pierre Jeunet are pretty much the only major directors I can think of who are using CGI in an interesting (and subtle) way. Most everyone else seems only to want to use it to make bigger explosions and more detailed giant robots.
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