Culture:
Brave new world
Mark Greene reviews Avatar, the 3D movie leading cinema’s fightback against widescreen TV
Few films have been more widely anticipated; very few films have had such lavish budgets and no film is steaming so inexorably towards outstripping James Cameron’s previous film, Titanic, as the biggest moneyspinner of all time. Still, the interest in Avatar is not confined to the usual suspects of earnings and awards. Indeed, this green sci-fi tale of blue aliens fighting for freedom and beauty and the interconnectedness of all things against the invasion of earthlings ravaging their planet has drawn commentary from American neoconservatives, British left-wing activists, the Chinese government, art historians and even a film critic or two.
In the beginning, interest in Avatar focused round its innovative 3D technology. For some, the stunning immersive impact of the technology is the story, precisely because it’s so smoothly used you hardly notice it. Only occasionally does an arrow or a fish zoom towards you on a seemingly inevitable collision course. No, Cameron’s goal was not so much to make you aware of his technical virtuosity but to use it so artfully that you forget the 3D glasses and just enjoy the experience. As he put it: ‘All of the technology should wave its own magic wand and make itself disappear.’ On the whole he has succeeded. This may or may not be the future of film but it is certainly the future of a certain type of film. 3D would hardly enhance a film like It’s Complicated or Up in the Air but it sure can do something splendid for an action film, a storm at sea or a ball in Jane Austen.
We are one step closer to Aldous Huxley’s vision of ‘the Feelies’ in Brave New World – an entertainment experience that increasingly mimics the sensory range of reality. Yesterday we looked on. Today it feels like we are there. Tomorrow, we may well feel the ground beneath our feet and the breeze wisping our hair. The day after tomorrow we may well smell the fragrance of the flowers. For cinema this is good news, because for the next decade at least the 3D experience is one that will be very hard to get close to on a home cinema or a Plasma screen, even one twice the width of Kansas.
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