\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0-Robert Zemeckis, attempting a fundamentally impossible quest<\/em><\/p>\nRobert Zemeckis\u2019 new film Allied is a not-terrible movie that uses technology in a similarly innovative way to what Lee did. To shoot the film, Zemeckis tried to capture the entire film on a soundstage, filling in the blanks with effects. Allied is far from perfect, but it works as a simple spy movie starring a couple of engaging stars. It even (almost) avoids emotionally over-the-top sequences; the film only goes Full Zemeckis in its final minutes.<\/p>\n
Sitting in that film, I knew less about the process used to make it than I did for Lee\u2019s. I knew Zemeckis would try to be technologically innovative in some capacity, because that\u2019s just how homeboy works these days, but I wasn\u2019t entirely sure how. At times, I could tell that much of what I was seeing wasn\u2019t real per se, mere digital matte paintings thrown on top of blue screens, but after the film was over I found out it was a lot more than I had guessed.<\/p>\n
Now, that didn\u2019t change how I felt about the movie all that much, but it certainly made my feelings about the movie more clear. Watching Allied, it felt like a good movie that had been sterilized. Everything felt too clean to be a world, even though Zemeckis and his team were more or less creating a version of our world from scratch. It was certainly better than Zemeckis\u2019 uncanny valley-challenging films The Polar Express and Beowulf \u2013 with the exception of a baby, nobody in the forefront of Allied is egregiously computer generated \u2013 but there was an unceasing feeling of sterility that plagued the film. For a movie about humanity\u2019s imperfections, it felt too perfect.<\/p>\n
This is why Zemeckis and other technology-loving auteurs like James Cameron like to make their movies on a soundstage: directors are perfectionists, and not having to engage with the real world means not having to contend with real world issues. In Allied, the limits of the weather don\u2019t have to be considered, because there\u2019s a roof covering the shoot, a roof that also features a sprinkler setup to pour rain if the scene calls for it. You don\u2019t have to use a series of gigantic fans and risk blinding Marion Cotillard with a renegade grain of sand, you simply add the sand to the shot later.<\/p>\n
During the studio era, films were made almost exclusively on studio grounds because of various technical limitations. Cameras were larger, the significant power needed for lights was harder to find, and nobody wanted to wait around forever to get one shot (this was a time when directors would consistently release four films a year because the factory-style efficiency let them work faster). Films were consistently made in such an unreal world that when Citizen Kane featured low angle shots that showed a room\u2019s ceiling, it was considered revolutionary.<\/p>\n
As film equipment got better, directors were able to take it out into the real world and allow their films a heightened sense of realism that comes with that. Movies tried to avoid sound stages when possible, because the problems of dealing with locations became worth it to get your film some added authenticity. But now, we seem to (slowly) be going back to the studio age \u2013 with so many big budget superhero bonanzas relying on the soundstage production method, it\u2019s only a matter of time before more directors do the same. (It\u2019s entirely possible that location vs. soundstage becomes a film vs. digital style argument in the future.)<\/p>\n
Again, directors are perfectionists. When somebody like Zemeckis sees a way to give him more control over his environment, he\u2019ll take it. The saying goes that art imitates life, but when artists attempt to do so with too much digital imitation, the lack of an imperceptible, realistic touch will continue to hold the art back. There is no true perfection in life, so expecting that out of your cinema is a fool’s quest. You can create your perfect, sterile world, but that constructed perfection will end up being the source of your film\u2019s imperfection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alex writes about two modernists making films.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[1356,1357,1355,1358,778],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5605"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5654,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605\/revisions\/5654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}