August
27
Bourne Again: How Violent Was Your Reaction?
[Posted by Peter Debruge]
Roger Ebert weighs in on the whole Bourne Ultimatum Queasicam debate brought up by David Bordwell last week. I'm with Anne Thompson that Paul Greengrass is advancing the medium through cinematography and editing, but don't pretend to think that it's a comfortable moviegoing experience for the average audience.
Ebert quotes a filmgoer who had a particularly violent reaction:
We went to see BU on the IMAX in San Francisco. Near the end, when Webb is having the flashback to when he is forced to show his commitment to the project, the lady next to me spontaneously unleashes a huge amount of vomit all over my leg and all over the floor in front of her! I have never experienced anything like it in my life! Now all the action sequences, the nauseating use of moving cameras, and the relentless score were enough to make anyone dizzy, but to throw up?
The anecdote triggered Jeffrey Wells' memory of seeing the second movie (also directed by Greengrass, featuring even more aggressive editing):
Sometime during the third act of a showing at the Writers Guild theatre, an older woman sitting on the left side spewed on the floor. ... The next day I mentioned the episode to a Universal publicist in an e-mail ... Her voice shrill and agitated, she read the riot act in order to dissuade me from mentioning the incident in the column.
This diminishes my admiration not one bit, but explains why I chose to sit in the next-to-last row when I saw the movie. My take on the joker who thought it might be a good idea to screen the film on IMAX (published as a guest commentary on Ebert's site) after the jump.
I don't doubt that "Bourne Ultimatum" played on an IMAX screen, but it certainly wasn't an "IMAX movie." The company is very selective about which films it releases on its screens, going through a painstaking digital "up-resolution" process of optimizing the 35mm prints for their 70mm format. A movie like "Bourne" is clearly just about the least appropriate film for the Imax environment -- all that quick cutting and movement would be simply overwhelming. (Christopher Rouse, the "Bourne Ultimatum" editor and one of the best in the biz, warned me "I would not recommend watching "Supremacy" or "Ultimatum" from the first three rows of the theater!" and the IMAX experience pretty much makes every seat feel like the front row.)Now, here's my theory on this whole quick-cutting phenomenon: By alternating quickly between shots, the directors, cameramen and editors effectively create an IMMERSIVE experience. Rather than allowing us to sit back and admire a handsome shot that encompasses all the action, they situate us in the middle of the action. We have to WORK to understand what's going on, constructing the geography of the space in our heads, as if we'd been dropped in the middle of the action. I can't think of a more perfect match for this technique than a "Bourne" movie. Why? Because the guy has amnesia, his mind is blank, and he's having to rediscover his own identity and environment as he goes. Given Greengrass' approach, we have to do the same thing as an audience. I don't often use the word, but I think it's fair to call the tactic "genius."
Now, as it turns out, "immersive" is also the word the IMAX folks repeat most often when pitching why their format is so superior, but they go about it in an entirely different way. They have a screen so big and wide that it encompasses your entire field of vision. Close-ups hurt. Quick cuts are confusing. A typical IMAX documentary features long, unbroken takes in which the audience can selectively swim around and pick out which details to attend to (see something in the upper right corner? you have all the time in the world to study it. did a movement on the left side of the screen catch your eye? Well, wander on over there to look around). The viewer is still doing work, but it's a different type entirely.
In the last few years, IMAX has been partnering with studios to adapt specific films for IMAX screens, working with the directors themselves to optimize the experience. They're extremely selective, both in content and in style. But recognizing that (a) they can charge more for IMAX tickets and (b) audiences want that experience for other movies as well, exhibitors have been throwing other blockbusters up there as well (I remember seeing a 35mm print of "Lord of the Rings" on IMAX, and a San Antonio theater offered "Jurassic Park"). But it's not the same thing. The brightness is weird (because IMAX screens are silver, to support their 3-D movies), the edges are distorted because of the curvature, and the aspect ratio (1: 2.35 in "Bourne"'s case) looks strange on a nearly square IMAX screen, with lots of wasted space. Simply put: These movies were not meant to be seen this way.
All that said, IMAX just announced they would be adapting "Transformers" to screen beginning Sept. 21. Bad news in my book. The Michael Bay approach (specifically, the editing and camerawork) doesn't lend itself to IMAX AT ALL. But I suppose there's financial incentive to try it (and I bet if you looked close enough, you'd find that the same theater that projected "Bourne" on an IMAX screen probably showed a 35mm print of "Transformers" that way, too).
Subscribe to this blog's feed
We saw The Bourne Ultimatum on the first day of the film's release in Israel after reading the hysterically good reviews which appeared in the US Press. I am relieved to know that I was not the only person who found the camera work and very loud music really disturbing and distracting. I agree that there is much to admire in the film - especially the superb chase scene in North Africa - but all in all I felt that the camera techniques were excessive and made the film exhausting to watch. It was a pity because Matt Damon was excellent and the rest of the talented cast were good, despite the rather thin plot development. Perhaps it is an age thing because we are certainly middle-aged and maybe the producers and director envisaged an audience made up of young people only. Our children certainly enjoyed the film more and weren't disturbed by the camera work.
Posted by: Ruth | August 28, 2007 at 12:22 PM
I agree with your thoughts, but would disagree that IMAX is "extremely selective, both in content and in style." IMAX has been eager to sign any big name prod. to help advance its cause.
"Ultimatum" may take quick-cut immersion to a new level, but it is hardly the first fast moving (read - nausiating & headache inducing) Hollywood pic to be DMR'd:
Star Wars: AOTC
Matrix 2 & 3
V For Vendetta
Poseidon
300
I'm sure that if the Bourne films were offered to IMAX, they would jump at the chance provided a deal could be reached.
Unfortunately, vet filmmakers like Frank Marshall, George Lucas, Ron Howard, Peter Jackson, James Cameron and others have made their disdain for IMAX business practices well known.
"Transformers" is more PR gimmick that cinematic wonder.
Posted by: Pepto Bismal | August 28, 2007 at 01:23 PM
I remember when the proponents of 5.1 sound used the term "immersive experience" to explain what it was that surround sound brought to picture. "Surround sound puts you in the picture," they would say, but I wasn't buying it.
After seeing Robert Harris' restoration of "The Godfather" last night, I wondered what it was that made the movie feel like POV filmmaking. I think I found my answer:
"The Godfather" is classical, elegant, measured. Coppola says on the DVD commentary that the great cinematographer Gordon Willis, whose painterly lighting brings the movie a majestic quality, was a traditionalist who insisted that every shot represent a point of view; the camera is usually about four feet off the ground, the angle flat and even. Coppola remarks that he threw in an aerial when Don Vito is gunned down, telling Willis (I’m paraphrasing) "It’s God’s point of view, it’s my point of view, whatever."
pulled from
http://illinformedgadfly.com/?p=44
Posted by: T.Holly | August 29, 2007 at 10:54 AM
It doesn't make sense that Greengrass's style is designed to evoke Bourne's mental states, because there are scenes where Bourne is not present that are still photographed in the same style.
Rather, Greengrass has made a choice to make the film in this manner, and is retrospectively trying to justify why he felt the film needed to be made in that way. There is actually an infinite number of ways the film could be made, and the filmmaker could still use character psychological state as their artistic motivation.
Also, the post proposes that fast cutting and lots of camera movement is immersive. It should be pointed out that classical film theorists such as Andre Bazin proposed that a lack of cutting is immersive, because it is a style that promotes the ability of the camera to record reality.
Bazin's argument itself is flawed, because the camera doesn't need to be used for the purpose of realism. But Greengrass' approach isn't anymore realistic either, it is simply one set of stylistic choices that people tend to associate with realism.
Posted by: Simon Howson | August 31, 2007 at 01:00 AM