American Cinema

I enjoyed connecting Prince’s articles to the clips we watched in class, because it consistently made me analyze how film is so multi faceted, a medium that has to mix multiple art forms to create a world. Often film can be regarded as a visual form, but sound is also very, if not more, important towards creating that world. The titles, the landscape, the mies-en-scene, are also of big importance towards this creation. For this reason, Prince points out that “Cinema is photographic, yes, but it is also, among other things, a medium of painting, and I mean that literally…The normative practice of filmmakers in cutting from shot to shot takes the medium closer to the principles of collage than to photographic composition, (Prince, 154).” This is why I see film as such a transformative and relatable art medium. Its ability to immerse the viewer in a world, emotionally and aesthetically, is rooted in its technical and multi-faceted nature. The more dimensions it has, the more we often give into this world.

The clip from the Moulin Rogue that we watched in the lecture is a great example of what Prince was talking about. The director wanted to immerse the viewers in the old Paris aesthetic, and he used digital tools and animation to carry the story along and enhance the environment. As Prince says, “the environments seen on screen frequently are painted ones.” He talks about early films and their use of Matte paintings as backdrops. This reminds me of the Moulin Rouge, which intermixed live action cinematography and digital landscapes of Paris to add dimension. This is also similar to Zodiac and its recreation of San Francisco. Because it is a period piece, the recreation of a dated San Francisco is essential to the storytelling. The digital tools, in this case, immerse the viewer more, and because it is done well, the viewer is not distracted by it like we were distracted by the James Bond clip. Overall, Prince makes the point that utilizing multiple mediums in film, in particular crafting the environment and story through animation and painting elements can only add to the production value. Lastly, Prince’s argument reminds me of the boom of video games. They are able to immerse the gamer in a world (in many ways) more then a film can. Video games use landscapes, paintings, textures of many sorts, and sometimes live action cinematography to drive the characters and storyline. With the increase of virtual reality, I can see how it could be applicable to Prince’s argument about immersive environments. Overall, to use more mediums is to give more shape to your world and to your film.

As the film industry moves into the digital age and technology advances, it becomes possible to create worlds digitally. This allowed for the emergence of CG environments and realities, filmmakers began using this new technology to put their actors in different settings and to aid them in building whole new worlds and enhancing the one that already exists. The movie Zodiac directed by David Fincher, used this new technology to recreate the city of San Francisco in the 1970s. This new use of technology changed what it meant for viewers to go watch a movie. No longer did people assume that what was happening on screen had once happened in real life. Along with this new assumption came new questions of truth in filmmaking. Who do we trust to tell us the truth? What images are true? Should we assume that we are being told the truth? These questions only get bigger and bigger with the development of technology, the internet and social media. The questioning of truth brings along the implications that what is true (what actually happens in front of the camera) is more valid than what is created with technology. Prince argues in his book Digital Visual Effects in Cinema: The Seduction of Reality that filmmaking should not have been seen as indexical but as world building from the beginning. He points out that in the 1930s and 1940s, most movies were filmed on studio locations, meaning that whatever location they were supposed to be in had to be recreated on a set. This was because camera technology was not yet advanced enough to have a mobile camera. Therefore, the worlds shown on screen that people assumed were ‘real’ were created just as the CG worlds in the digital age are. Both filmmakers in during the studio era and filmmakers during the digital era have to rely on framing, lighting, and editing to make the environment they are filming in look real.

“As 2D textures become 3D surfaces and camera moves are projected into virtual space, as photographs furnish textures for painting and painting adds layer to live-action imagery, cinema finds new ways of expressing its fundamentally hybrid nature. The digital and the indexical are not in relation of opposition but are a dialectical moment in an ongoing process of stylistic continuity.” -Stephen Prince (182)

Watching Richard Fincher’s Zodiac, I couldn’t believe it was made in 2007. Unlike the clip from Die Another Day we watched in class, the film “blends its effects tools imperceptibly,” and transports viewers back to both extinct decades and settings, as well as a by-gone era of filmmaking (180). More along the lines of (as Prince would say) Master and Commander, the use of visual effects on the film seems to “create a sense of complete realism,” where “the illusionistic world [represented]…look[ed] like its authentic counterpart,” (180). Not that I was in San Francisco in the 70s (or even alive in the 70s for that matter), but stunning cinematography and seamless incorporation of visual effects coupled with the stellar acting performances made me, as a viewer on a two hour and thirty minute journey not, “even consider that what [I] was watching was not totally real,”(just like Nathan McGuinness of Asylum had hoped for with viewers of Master and Commander, 180). Rather, I found myself completely engrossed by the narrative, the characters and, mostly, by the beautiful visuals that painted the whole picture. The film’s authenticity felt even further supported by its illusions to the New Hollywood cinema of the late-60s and 70s. For example, the opening scene felt reminiscent of American Graffiti (George Lucas; 1973). So much of its documentary-style and film noir-esque depictions of the chase (the mundane/tedious aspects, as well as the thrilling/face-paced ones) and (failed and successful) attempts to sidestep bureaucratic bullshit felt reminiscent  All the Presidents Men (Alan Pakula; 1976) and at Chinatown (Roman Polanski; 1974). The film was a true exhibition of the marriage of the old and the new; a testament to use of digital effects that goes beyond whatever superhero movie is currently playing at your local theater.

 

Prince’s article focuses on the era of filmmaking that that we live in now, an era that focuses on the use of digital visual effects and environment creation.

In Zodiac, Fincher depicts an impressive and cinematic version of San Francisco in the late 60’s- 70’s. To accomplish this, he utilized the new, digital technology that is used heavily in most mainstream film today. The film for the most part uses CGI to create the city, a lot of the time in wide establishing shots, instead of shooting them practically in exterior locations. The reason that this could be argued as necessary is because the film is a period piece and it would be extremely difficult to recreate San Francisco during this time period when the filmmakers could just create it digitally. Visual effects supervisor Michael Owens for the film Changeling, a film that was in a similar predicament, justifies this type of decision in the Prince article: : “We wanted the most dramatic impact we could get, but without the effects being too much in the forefront… The look of the city, setting that time period, just gave the story a little more credence and helped involve the audience more. That was the intention”.

Brandon Autry

In the Prince reading he writes, “As Philip Rosen points out, ‘Accounts of the digital gravitate toward a postulate of radical change in arenas of representation, discourse, culture, and sometimes even society as a whole.’ An oft-repeated idea is that because digital images are more easily manipulated, photography loses its privileged claims to truth, its credibility as a visible document of the world.” This highlights the sentiment of many of the critics of digital cinema who feared that this new trend would diminish the power of cinema to put forth a show of ‘reality.’ As Prince points out, these claims are made with the presumption that “digital photographs can no longer function as indexes.” However, Prince goes on to make the case for the indexicality of digital images by turning to a quote by Rosen who said “Digital information and images can have indexical origins, the digital often appropriates or conveys indexical images, and it is common for the digital image to retain compositional forms associated with indexicality.” I think Prince makes a good point when he says, “The persuasiveness of the effects makes indexical claims.” In this, there is the sentiment that cinema shouldn’t be so preoccupied with the real, but should rather aim to create a convincing representation of whatever world the filmmaker is trying to create.

In, Stephen Prince argues that “The development of photography…freed painters from the obligation to depict the world as it appears and enabled them to pursue instead poetic and subjective imagery.”  In this way, photography allows artists to have their own vision of the world they are building.  It can be anything.  With advances in CG and 3D technology, there is more power than ever in the editors hands.  For example, Zodiac “uses digital methods to create a naturalistic, almost documentary-like style.”  Making these films less realistic shouldn’t be seen as a downside, rather as an extension of photography.

Prince’s article talks about the advent of digital effects and the replacement of photographic images.  Many of the points made discuss the fact that replacing photographs takes away from the facts while adding CGI givens it a more fantasy related feel.  I believe there is no way to prove any side of the argument but I do there are different perspectives.  Movies are for entertainment and adding visual effects creates a more memorable film with larger scale productions.  It definitely adds to the entertainment aspect of the film by creating backgrounds and images not able to be replicated.  However, I do agree with Prince that this does take away some aspect of the realism of the story.  With digital effects you are trying to replicate a real image, however that image is tainted with visual effects based on what the viewers want to see and what the director believes would be best for the film.  Especially, if the film is based on a true story using visual effects may cross boundaries when depicting a real image.  However, once again everything is based on perspective.  Even a photograph is open to interpretation, because people will see the content in the photograph differently.  However, using digital effects would surely not give the viewer a true interpretation of the real image because they are now interpreting an already interpreted image.  This takes away from the actual plot of the true story because you are now picturing different content while learning about the events.  It all depends if one thinks that films should be created for entertainment purely are for informative purposes.  This creates a hard line to draw because many films that are based on true stories try to do both: entertain and depict actual events to inform viewers.

Shawn Green