Cinema has had a peculiar manner of warding off commercial competition through scale. Whenever an immediate threat rises, a faster film stock is invented, a lens with a sharper depth of field is instituted, the size of the cinema
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“I’ll tell you the story of Ramakrishna and his disciple. Ramakrishna was a Hindu wise man. And he had a disciple who had absolutely no faith in his teachings. So the disciple went off all by himself. Fifteen years later, he came back and said, “I have found the Way!” He told Ramakrishna, “Come, and I will show you.” Then he took Ramakrishna to a river. And the disciple went back and forth across the river, walking on water. “See?” he told Ramakrishna. “I can cross the river without getting wet! I have found the Way!” Then Ramakrishna said to him, “You’re a complete ass. With one rupee and a boat, I’ve been doing the same thing for years!”
- Contempt(1963)/Jean-Luc Godard
The history of cinema is linear. If an event occupies a certain point on the linear cinema history-time, it will never reiterate, repeat or recur; instead, like the history of time, being frozen at that point. Such recurrence is rendered impossible because cinema the artform is intertwined with cinema the technology. Each era in cinematic history is marked primarily by the machine (or set of machines) that facilitates its creation. The cinema is but a yield, a subservient one at that, of the level of technological development at the point of its production. If one were to attempt a summarization of cinema’s history in a few words, he could exclaim the names of Lumiere, Melies, Griffith, Eisenstein, Lang, Ford, and Godard; and the answer would be correct, but if he were to choose to constitute his answer with terms such as Phantasmagoria, Zoetrope, Kinetoscope, Bioscope, Kodak, Arri, Michell, Bolex, and Ampex, would it be wrong? No.
And yet, despite the impossibility of recurrence in cinematic history, the possibility of evocation remains intact. Each point in cinema’s history is true not because of its own existence, but because of the existence of another artifact in the future through which its existence will be confirmed. The same manner in which the Cahiers evoked Renoir, and Paul Thomas Anderson evokes Robert Altman, who in turn evokes someone else. The entire history of cinema can thus be described as the present’s homage to the past; resulting in a history that through referencing, is preserved in a state of eternal recurrence.
And yet, the history of cinema is a line and not a circle. Even while it is stuck in its celebration of itself, it surges forward – cinema is an artform that evolves. That is because each case of aforementioned evocation is followed by iconoclasm. Therefore while the Cahiers worshipped the aesthetic of the neorealist Italians, they adapted it to their own city, and developed it into an exclusive property; thus allowing cinema to escape the captivity of blind reverence. However, certain examples of cinematic evocation only worship the icon, but never inquire it, thus being cursed to make the same mistake as the icon itself. Avatar evokes How the West Was Won in more ways than one. For how the Cinerama enhanced the cinematic experience in 1962, Avatar enhances the cinematic experience in 2009 – but while the experience is enhanced, who will think about the cinema?
The entire point of shooting with a camera which has two in-built high-def cameras fitted inside it, and projecting onto a 2D plane from a 3D cubical light source – is to ensure immersion and interactivity. To provide the audience with an experience that teeters on the verge of failing to preserve the fourth wall and the traditional screen-viewer relationship by allowing the viewer to not look at the screen but around himself. This act of seeing as Brakhage would’ve said, is defined, however, by a very superficial, of course literal and I daresay, shallow meaning of the word ‘immersion’. Is it not a disservice to the one and a half century of cinema that preceded it if Avatar stops short of the claim that cinema remains capable of immersing its audience into the experience only through the reduction of literal ‘distance’ with the viewer (whether the reduction is achieved through a physical effort, such as in How the West Was Won, or an optical illusion, such as in Avatar); and not through the simple yet often underrated in modern times power of a well-planned cut or a deft tracking forward of the camera? Even in 3D, one can never get immersed for while the fourth wall of the traditional screen breaks; that of the huge glasses remains.
Even then, Cameron attempts to suit his aesthetic to the new technology, and create a shooting schema that remains exclusive to the purpose of its utilization. He blocks his characters in a manner that they almost always enter the frame from the audience, or exit it into the audience, instead of letting them enter from the right-side or the left-side of what is generally, a two-dimensional space (the frame). Also, instead of executing a choreography of action that is conventionally areal, which divides the two-dimensional space into the right-hand side or the left-hand side or the center-of-the-frame; he plans it in a manner that is planar, allowing his action to take place in different planes of the image, utilizing all the three planes of the image, with most of the action taking place in the foreground, thus allowing the three-dimensionality to project itself better. However, I fear that the description sounds better than how its subject looks. The novelty of the 3D experience, as is of the aesthetic, wears off after the first walk through the forest in Pandora – where Cameron composes carefully to let the feeble leaves form a foreground that you can pluck, yet know better than that to try doing it.
Cinema has had a peculiar manner of warding off commercial competition through scale. Whenever an immediate threat rises, a faster film stock is invented, a lens with a sharper depth of field is instituted, the size of the cinema screen increases, and a sound system that simulates a 4 Dimensional surround is introduced; and yet, only rarely does a progress in the technological scale have a simultaneous development in the cinematic aesthetic. For it remains essential to separate cinema from the technology that makes it, howsoever interspersed they are. Isn’t technology a means to a greater end, or is it the end itself? It is a fallacy on the part of the executives in the cabin to believe that anything exceeds the scale of a human victory, or a human tragedy. Yes, cinema has a tendency to give way to operatic scale, but even then, scale does not have a discernible, measurable or tangible existence of its own – it does not exist in nature, and is meaningless without a corresponding event to apply it to. I do not believe that scale is an aesthetic approach – I believe it rises more from the event that the aesthetic is applied to than from the aesthetic itself. Isn’t the scale of an Aguirre far higher than that of Apocalypto, a film shot at a higher budget, with a Hollywood-sized crew? Isn’t the scale of a Jaws much higher than Deep Blue Sea? In both cases, the struggle of the individual, or the group of individuals, takes higher precedence than helicopter shots. One might shoot a person walking on the road from a crane, and then a helicopter – but it would hardly appear as operatic as a physical brawl which is shot with a static camera. While the former may lead to wonderment and awe; the latter would yield less instantaneous and more evolved responses.
Cameron invested in the technology, and perhaps, consequently, even in the aesthetic, as aforementioned. However, the story of his film is a mere extended situation meant only to apply the technology to, and functions at a level which can hardly claim an involvement as personal and impassioned as Cameron’s in the institution of the technology that made possible its creation. The story, if it has to be told, is a parable on modern-day rampant imperialism wherein a nation declares war on another weaker one, or a race on another weaker one, to gain unsolicited access to its natural resources, in the process causing inconsiderate harm to the indigenous population and their way of life. A representative of Earth, the stronger race with access to modern warfare technology, in his N’avi Avatar becomes a member of the indigenous clan of the people of Pandora, which is a planet that is host to a mineral essential for Earth. However, slowly, realization dawns upon him and he learns to sift the right from the wrong. Told through a series of shockingly lazily written characters who confirm the worst of stereotypes – with the Earthlings being almost unanimously (with the token ‘traitors’ who turn the course of the war) condescending, smug and arrogant in their possession of modern tools of warfare – and the N’avi, who are culturally inclined, children of the forest, believers in brotherhood and harmony ; and natural warriors who do not respond until provoked. The film borrows from obvious sources such as Dances with the Wolves and The Last Samurai; and from the not so obvious ones like Princess Mononoke Hime. Cameron attempts to utilize the ‘immersion’ capabilities of the 3D camera to make the audience wonder at the beauty of his Pandora, and then automatically side with the N’avi when it is destroyed. By making you a resident of the planet, he aims to generate automatic concern; and yet, contradicts himself, when he has fun shooting the explosions of missiles fired from the human choppers, on the surface of the planet, later in the film. He does not function as a filmmaker thus, when he expresses simultaneous joy at his discovery of a planet, and then at its destruction. He functions as an action-movie fanatic. The way he captures the destruction of Pandora is symbolic of his megalomania, as his explosions are prettier than the landscape of the planet. It seems like he can do just about anything he wants to. Sadly, he does.
The scale of Cameron’s ambition is comparable to Herzog while making Fitzcerraldo or Coppola’s, while making Apocalypse Now, where the nature of the protagonist’s story begins bearing a remarkable resemblance to the struggle of the filmmaker while attempting to render it. Of course, Cameron is attempting a different type of ‘rendering’ of his oft-repeated man vs. machine theme (yes, even Titanic is an example, a man defeated by the sheer scale of his own mechanical achievement) – through motion-capture, he is transporting the mannerisms and characteristics of his human models onto his digital counterparts, claiming upto 95% similarity, in a process that is clearly similar to the creation of a N’avi avatar of a human gene in his film. However, isn’t it inherently automation? The creation of a world from scratch, one that has its own physical laws, its own language, its own diverse system of flora and fauna, and most importantly, the residents – if they do not have an existence in the ‘real world’ as such – isn’t it animation? If it is, is it as rich as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis or Miyazaki’s Spirited Away – with the former existing in dystopia and the latter in myth? No. Because while his characters look like something you’ve never seen before, they behave like everyone you know in Hollywood. His immaculately rendered characters cannot hide the fact that they are, in fact, only a bunch of immaculately rendered Hollywood clichés.
Avatar does not change cinema. It does not have the possibility to enhance film grammar. For all its accomplishments have no relation to film grammar at all. Avatar is not a document of cinema; it is a document of technology. It shows us how far we can push ourselves in industrialized setups, and yet, reveals nothing about us as human beings. For while Cameron shoots his action sequences with a camera thought to be a figment of an overambitious mind as recently in 2003, he still places it in the same places everyone else does. And while it looks beautiful, it is not great cinematic imagery.
Even as cyborgs indulged in combat in Terminator 2, he could masterfully incorporate a sequence of a mother looking through a wire mesh at herself and her son, playing in the park, as the candescent globe flashed in the background sky. To be able to underline such humanity amidst such mechanical profundity is ability curiously amiss from Avatar. One wishes he would’ve let it breathe as a normal action thriller, instead of letting it feign the possession of a greater, more philosophical ambition.
James Cameron took 13 years to invent a new type of an ink. The moment you write with the ink, you amaze at how smoothly it spreads across the space of your characters, and how lustrous it looks when freshly placed on the white page – but after the second sentence, when all the amazement is over, you still need to write a lot.
Tags: Avatar, Hollywood, James Cameroon
Posted By Anuj | Saturday, December 19th, 2009 | Filed under News, Reviews
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Enjoyed reading the critique Anuj. I saw the movie today. And on the visual level can say that it offered a certain degree of immersion. However, the script etc was extremely cliched. I mean what would one do with such a loose sided Pandora.
Is cinema all about just great visual or graphic whore?
Ravi
‘Graphic whore’ is a phrase I was conscious of throughout the writing of this review, but avoided using it for the want of atleast a respectable level of political correctness. I guess the comment section allows us to give in to our most basal of instincts, however.
It is precisely that. A film that is not as much a series of good images as it is of well rendered automated graphics. Good cinema, I am afraid, has nothing to do with frames that look beautiful. As Rossellini said, \"Cinema is not like photography, for in cinema, the right frames are not the ones that are beautiful; but the beautiful frames are the ones that are right.\" Cinematic beauty is completely disengaged from the conventional definition of beauty, which in photographic terms, is defined in terms of a good composition. Also, what about the inherent beauty of the subject? If you shoot the Alps, the image would automatically look beautiful. But would that mean that the photography is good?
absolutely loved the film though the graphic whore angle is only dawning upon me after reading this review. and the comment above does this mean that the visual has no standing to the overall output that one was getting after watchin this film
Santosh
Glad you loved the film.
Ofcourse it does. But I wish to understand – when you say the visuals are beautiful, what exactly does it mean? Yes, Na\’vi\’s look hyper-real and Pandora looks spellbinding; but that serves only the purpose of getting great film stills, frame captures of screenshots from the film. Film is a moving medium. When Cameron\’s film moves, i.e to say, his camera floats, or he cuts the shot; he does it in the way that everyone else in Hollywood does. His aesthetic (except the first half an hour or so) is a huge cliche, from the drumrolls he uses to mark each transition, to the dolly forward each time a character is about to say an emphatic line. It basically comes down to the above comment – \"If you shoot the Alps, the image would automatically look beautiful. But would that mean that the photography is good?\" No. Because here, the Alps are the forests of Pandora. Yes, Cameron \’created\’ these Alps through CGI. But is that a cinematic achievement? Or is it one of technology? And as inseparable the two may seem, even as he develops the technology, there is no corresponding increase in the level of his cinematic construction. Like a site put it, \"It\’s the longest running screensaver ever.\" Yes, it looks beautiful, but it is no 2001.
Also, remember, primarily, Avatar is not a formalistic film – and even though everyone talks about the visuals, Cameron\’s first aim is to tell a story here. It is a narrative-based film; and if so, does it have an original story to tell? And how long can a narrative-based film afford to rely purely on visual splendor? Avatar is not pure cinema by any means, or an attempt at presenting only a series of images; since it clearly tells its story through dialogues. Hence, visual brilliance is only secondary to the story it has to tell. There, it\’s a massive failure.
Whatay review!!! Magnificent stuff Anuj.
Yes, the movie sucked. But this review is something else. And the Contempt quote is so befitting…
p.s: Could the design team try changing the capcha set? It\\\’s a chore, like Avatar, reading the numbers
Mere samaz seh bhaar hai khi someone cannot like this film? movie meh kya dekh rahe ho bhai?
nice to know….some people dont get bewitched
anuj..very well written..beautiful!
Well written, Anuj. I wonder how far can one to appreciate such an immaterial world(Pandora)…Beside, I\’m quite fearful now.. Especially since Mr J. Cameron taken inspiration from Mr. G.Lucas, so we gonna be seeing plenty more of Pandora in all forms: toys, books, novels, graphics novels, sequels. etc.
The movie is a shit. And it\’s sad that it would be smeared all over our lives in more ways than one now.
I find that the more you over analyze the film you truly aren’t being able to let the directory or artist take you to their world. Yes the story isn’t original, but you miss what is being told and the style in which is being told by over analyzing. You provided a very detailed in depth review of cinema and Hollywood and movie styles in itself, but your point of view shows that you are completely missing the movie. You say how James Cameron loves to show you the beauty of the world and also loves to show you its destruction, you treat it as if it were one sided, and instead being a part of the film, you are an outsider just gazing at it from afar without being inside of it.
JAFB
Thanks for liking it.
Shekhar
Uppar vistaar me likha hai ki movie me kya dekha. Aap bataaiye aapko achchi kyun lagi? Shaayad hum aapki raay par charcha jaari rakh sakte hai.
Kamal Swaroop
Yeah, cinema’s offered all of us so many other spectacles to get bewitched by.
Dhruv
Thanks man. Glad to see you here.
Debojit
You are so right. It is a greater threat that movies so large threaten to get absorbed in popular sub-culture and subconscious, thereby inadvertendly setting up celebrations of the mediocre. However, with the pace at which the world is moving now, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see if Avatar getting substituted by another special-effects bonanza; since all of its spectacularness is based only on technology, and we all know that technology has a strange habit of replacing itself pretty soon. It’s like what Greenaway said about Lucas, ” Yes, he makes films like Star Wars. But in a century or so, they will appear like magic lantern shows to people. Who will watch them then?” I think, Avatar, like much else, is instant popcorn. In cases like it, the hype is the element that lasts the longest. Everything else just percolates into the atmosphere.
Dragon Blogger
I do not think there is anything like over-analysis. What you describe as over-analysis is a mere contemplation of the nature of the film that I had just seen, and contemplation never ends, for one strand of thought may provoke another one to develop. That’s why a film review cannot be conclusive or judgemental, to the point of rating a film. It is a piece of text in a state of constant evolution.
Even then, the review not look for sociological, anthropological or other religious symbols within the film; and tries its best to only analyse a film as a film. I can assure you that most of the thoughts expressed in the review were generated while it was being written and not in the theatre itself. The only thing that I could conclusively feel while I came out of the theatre was that I did not like the film. The review’s a but an ongoing rationalisation of that feeling. Yes, suspension of disbelief is one thing, beautiful visual imagery another; but dishonest cinema altogether another thing. I might be wrong about Cameron’s shooting of his explosions, but to me, his pyrotechnics seem to be an exercise in indulgence than in restraint – the sign of a filmmaker constructing a film scene by scene and not as one single unit. It is a largely noticeable flaw and not a conclusion I had to over-analyse to reach at. In Terminator 2, he never shows us The Terminator dissolving in the fire except for a 2 seoond shot, instead cutting to the reaction of the Connors to explain to us the tragedy. Similarly, in Titanic, he chooses to let the sinking ship be replaced as quickly as possible by a transition to three hours later and the wooden plank upon which the leads are afloat. Here, he revels in the destruction. Maybe I am wrong, but am I?
Wow…..
Dragonbloggers case in point right there…. you just over-analysed a comment, one that disagreed with you, and yet not any that threw that themselves at your feet in your almighty stance…
I have found through experience, humanity has a tendency to over-analyse everything, rather than to just “enjoy” what is being presented, whether through life or any other medium.
it is impossible to deliver a unique story, everything can be linked to something that has come before it. accept it.
Personally… i recommend you take some time off.. let your brain rest before it explodes.
Oh.. and in reference to the movie, yes the story itself wasn’t new, but the environment, and the way the story was told was much better than previous incarnations. i also do believe that dances with wolves was the movie made before this script was WRITTEN…. over 15 years ago. maybe.
The fact that over 300 people i have spoken to personally, had very simple remarks when leaving the cinema, “wow” “mind-blowing” “omg.”
isn’t that all we ask for really?
But anyway, Lifes too short,
enjoy what you can while you can. the fact that so far all the negative comments i have read so far about this film have had to nitpick to do so, well, it mustn’t really be that bad after all…
(yes, i have seen it, and yes, despite all the special effects i have seen prior through various sci-fi shows, i was still wowed as my original reaction.)
I look forward to the day you write and direct a movie that overawes the majority of the population, icluding your most distinguished peers.
All the best, Merry Christmas, and I hope someone buys you an Avatar shirt for the holidays
Regards
Oh… and i was a skeptic. right up to the point where i sat down.
Here’s Moff\’s law to all those who believe “Don\’t over-analyze man, jsut enjoy.”;
http://www.racialicious.com/2009/12/21/and-we-shall-call-this-moffs-law/
Dragonis
“you just over-analysed a comment, one that disagreed with you, and yet not any that threw that themselves at your feet in your almighty stance…”
Dragon Blogger’s comment hardly agreed or disagreed with my stance on the film, instead choosing to judge the intent of the review itself. To that, who else but me would raise a counter-point argument? You, or any of your 300 friends?(Why 300?!! You’re doing a focus-group study for Avatar, or do you need so many other opinions to seek assurance in the sanity of your own? And well, no offense, but if all of them merely said ‘wow’ and nothing else, you need to seek better people to be with)
Also, read my reply to Ravi up there. I can only contemplate a little when there is a window to contemplate. If someone says, “Good review/Bad review”, I can only offer a simple-worded short acceptance. It is you who ‘wants’ me to over-analyse things.
“I have found through experience, humanity has a tendency to over-analyse everything, rather than to just “enjoy” what is being presented”
Let’s not generalise the comfort you seek in ignorance to entire humanity, shall we? 90% of your life is comfortable right now because a man decided to, in your words, over-analyse why an apple fell on his head instead of chomping into the sumpstuous texture of the cherry red orb and ‘enjoying himself’. More so, the phone you carry, the computer you use, the aero-dynamic shoes you wear, the car you travel in, the language you use, are all a result of someone’s ‘over-analysis’.
“it is impossible to deliver a unique story, everything can be linked to something that has come before it. accept it.”
Ofcourse it can be. But when a film claims to possess the ability to change the game for a medium I am a very very minute part of, we will come down harder on it. What do you think?
“Personally… i recommend you take some time off.. let your brain rest before it explodes. ”
Personally, I think you’ve taken far too much time off. You should let your brain get back to work for you’ve actually started seeking comfort in a life that features conversations that go, “How was it”/”Wow”/ “Ok.”
” and the way the story was told was much better than previous incarnations.”
) As for your belief it’s artwork is very original, do you know that the animators based the look on their photos of an oil mill called Noveau Clyde Bodreaux? Or that you should read Jim Emerson’s entry on its original look? Go search for it. Takes 3 seconds. Or is your life too short?
Have you watched Princess Mononoke Hime? If you want to argue against the validity of the review, are you aware of the artifacts it presents? If not, how do we take your comment seriously? Do we just believe you prima-facie? Or do we ask you for evidence? You say it is better than previous incarnations. Show us how. I wouldn’t believe you, as Nitesh says, a priori. Or did you forget how. Because all you can say is wow. Come on now. (Wouldn’t Khalid Mohammed be happy?
“isn’t that all we ask for really?”
No. That is what YOU ask for. Simplification, trivialisation, demystification. I don’t. We don’t, on this site.
” have read so far about this film have had to nitpick to do so, ”
Well, I suggest you read more then. Some of the leading critics in this nation, and I mean, good critics, not the fanboys-disguised as-critics, haven’t actually had to nitpick.
“I look forward to the day you write and direct a movie that overawes the majority of the population”
I am liable to make the suckiest film ever made, and even if my career ends right there, I will be back on this platform writing criticism. I hope you come to read it and let your brain explode.
“I hope someone buys you an Avatar shirt for the holidays”
I hope someone does. Is that in 3D too? I hope someone buys you a book.
Merry Christmas.
Ah, and adding to JAFB’s contribution to the rebuttal of the ‘Why analyse it’ argument, here is what Bordwell says about Robin Wood in his tribute to the man.
“This passion for nuance did not lead to a sort of scientific objectivity. The responsibility of criticism made writing inescapably personal. The critic responds to the work as a living being, as a “whole man alive”—a Leavis phrase that Wood was wont to quote.”
Avatar is all visual flare and unfortunately very little substance. Easy to get carried away and lose track of time with you\’re staring at next-gen CGI. Just utterly effing gorgeous images.
Dances with Wolves goes sci-fi!
Anuj,
Excellent review and very well written. This is the best review of Avatar.
*SIGH*
I never understood that what is the point in writing these LONG`INTELLECT essay while revieweing a movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Most importantly what is writiung trying to prove here
These writes need to understand that who are their audince when they write their boring essays. I can collect thesaurus and put intellect words in my writing but why waste my effort where these type of essay are not required
just review the damn movie in freaking simple words inbstead writing some reserach paper
jeeeeeeeeeeez
Here\’s RGV’s take on Avatar. You may be a lover or a hater of the film, but you can\’t help but laugh at this one:
http://rgvzoomin.com/2009/12/16/the-second-coming/
atleats movie is better than JUNK bollywood delivers weekly basis
now this week we have 44 year old UNCLE acting college student and scratching his arse
Suraj
Yes, the longest screensaver in the world.
Sputnik
Thanks for liking the review.
Aadmi
Overall, the cinematography was good. The editing was crisp. The story was nothing original but still freshly presented. The acting by Sam Worthington was suitable for his character, Zoe Seldana was good, while Sigourney Weaver stole the show with a tour-de-force. The direction by James Cameron is fantastic. But the real winner of Avatar is it’s visual effects. Watch the film for its superbly layered ecological and political messages, and spellbinding visuals.
Here. Like this review now?
JAFB
Ha, yeah, read that. Will repeat what I said in response on the IMDb forum,
“”I have never believed in God but I think James Cameron is greater than God for the simple reason that he created a far more beautiful, far more fantastic and far more exotic world than what even God can ever hope to create. ”
Sure. His world’s so original that his animators went to an oil mill called Noveau Clyde Bordeaux and photographed the hell out of it to model their world on. I think RGV oscillates between being a rather astute observer of cinema to a novice fanboy with his tongue touching the floor. As for Avatar, it’s a huge yawn.
Anyone who tells me watching Avatar is a greater cinema experience than watching Taxi Driver, TGTBTU or even Anand is a talking out of his ass.”
Avatarrules
” atleats movie is better than JUNK bollywood delivers weekly basis”
If that’s your criteria for a film’s excellence, I am certain you find a lot of films excellent. Life must be a dream right now.
And 44? What’s age got to do with how serious a review is?
Anuj,
Hilarious capsule review there… Just change the specifics and you have the regular Bollywood review we read every week.
so u are hating on this movie because it has no story??????
this movie has simple yet more deeper story if u look carefully
i guess u are still stuck in BAHRATH CHODO attitude and u probably hate anything western cinema does because they are white men and u can\\\’t see them triumping over indian cinema
i never understoiod why u people have GRAPES ARE SOUR attitude towards western cinema
james cameron spent 12 years for this movie alone can we see bollywood directors that dedicated on one movie ????
and i work in Visual effects departmenet myself and let me tell u developing that kind of SFX is not easy!!!
it is mind numbing working where one simple mistake can ruin the whole process and we have to start all over again and u have no idea ho many man hours are spent on visual frame
so that is why i apperacite james cameron annd his team for Avatar
what james cameron achecived with avatar bollywood can never achive in nect 100 years
i rather see movies like avatar over some movie where 44 uncle acting like college student
or MNIK
and what is your critearia of film excellence
let me guess 3 IDIOTS where 44 year old uncle sings ALL IZ WELL and act JUVENILLE on big screen in name of cinema
goahead give that movie 5/5 rating with long essay
Avatarrules
“this movie has simple yet more deeper story”
Since you’re an erudite and astute follower of Western cinema, and unlike us, not a protector of nationalist tendencies, might I suggest you watch Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai; or Apacalypto, or read Journey of the Hero? All western works your truly global soul should embrace with the fervour of brotherhood.
“u probably hate anything western cinema does because they are white men and u can\\\’t see them triumping over indian cinema”
You are the first person to make an accusation as bizarre as this, and for that, I have to give you credit. I mean, usually the accusation adopts a direction which is the other way around. I assure you, both accusations are as far from the truth as they can be. We do not hate or love any cinema based on the nation of their production. Yes, we are pro some directors and against others. But mostly, the demarcation comes down to love/hatred, honesty/dishonesty, ambition/safety, cinema/slideshows, innovation/convention, independence/industry. And even then, they are not fixed.
“james cameron spent 12 years for this movie alone can we see bollywood directors that dedicated on one movie”
That’s a weird criteria you have right there. The duration spent on the making of a film being directly proportional to its resultant quality. If that were the case, would we have Chungking Express, or A Band Apart, or The Killing, or Strozcek, or Taxi Driver. Most of them Western films. Besides, Cameron’s been thinking about Avatar since early 70s. So by your yardstick, we should have on our hands the best film ever. We don’t.
“it is mind numbing working where one simple mistake can ruin the whole process and we have to start all over again and u have no idea ho many man hours are spent on visual frame
so that is why i apperacite james cameron annd his team for Avatar”
I share your appreciation, trust me. I understand where you’re coming from. However, do you, as a person who works in the visual FX department, understand its inherent relation to cinema, it’s space within the cinematic medium, it’s basic aim – is it only to replicate a ‘realistic’ look? If your frames are digital creations, look realistic but still look like hundreds and hundreds of films that come out every year; would it be an achievement in cinema? Have you ever tried to separate the technology from the cinema and look at the differences?
“and what is your critearia of film excellence ”
It is simple. I do not think that there can be a certain and definitive conclusion as to what constitutes a good film. But as aforementioned, we would prefer certain elements over others – awareness/ignorance, love/hatred, honesty/dishonesty, ambition/safety, cinema/slideshows, innovation/convention, independence/industry. And that’s all it comes down to. I think Cameron passes on many counts, but fails on more.
About 3 Idiots, I do not know, since I haven’t seen it yet. It might be excellent. It might be bad. Let us not presume.
dude what is this some writing competition !!!!
u are not making any sense to me yes i m illietrate person and i m not “intellect” like u so write like averagfe person does on internet
or u also talk to person that way face to face
salla apun ka sisoora bheja ghuma diya
Nice writing Anuj.
There are art forms and there are more art forms. Feature film is a visual story telling art form that uses moving images, sound(since the days of the talkies) and dance and drama and emotion, in my truly small and humble opinion. In the end the final product has to grip you. Like you rightly pointed out, just because the ink is new, you are bound to be wowed the first couple of pages you read, but after that it is the writing that has to grip you.
To all the naysayers if technology were the only thing important all 3-D films would have been blockbusters, no? AVATAR is strictly a one-watch movie in my books. Its NOT a classic by any standards. I salute Cameron for all that he has achieved technology wise, we shall all be grateful to him yet, but as a story teller, give me his ABYSS or TERMINATOR anyday! When the Empire State building was the tallest in the world, people flocked to it to gaze out of its top floor. Dont think it was that much of a novelty once the next taller building was built. Something very similar sentiments I have for this film. Its a first for many things and maybe no one else is ever able to make a film like this ever again, but one watch is going to be it for me. Or at least for now, who knows what happens in some more time yet?
Peace out and lets leave the toxicity for the earthlings of AVATAR shall we?
i find AVATAR much better than snorefest called LOTR triology
if avatar is is visual whore then LOTR is critics whore
peter jackson is a HACK
ps i wish i can live in planet PANDORA RGV was right james cameron created a world more beautifull than world created by the god
@avatarrules
“u are not making any sense to me yes i m illietrate person and i m not “intellect” like u so write like averagfe person does on internet”
This is hilarious… I am sure you must have felt victorious while writing that comment. It’s like, look dude, you are intellectual, i am not– so you suck. And that\’s the bottomline coz’ I said so.
That’s a damn good strategy to fight off any kind of attack on your ego. But, yeah even though it may not happen here, your undeserved arrogance might just boomerang on you.
And would you tell a cricketer to bat like average people do, because when you bowl to them they always hit you for a six. Maybe you would.
Tell me one thing guys, with all this bickering about a weak script, are there any NEW stories out there to be told ? Almost all aspects of human civilization have been already exploited in one way or the other in books, comics and films. Shakespeare used a pure human setting with Shylock to show greed for instance, StarTrek used the alien Ferengi deep in space and in the future to do exactly the same. The conflicts and aspirations remain constant over the past thousands of years. Thus scripts based on humans and humanoids will all share the same DNA and as I said, over the years, most of what can be said has been said.
What has changed is technology. And by that I am referring to new ways of social interaction, travel, communication and warfare all enabled by new tech. The fundamentals are the same but the manner of execution is different.
So a love story in the year 1000 BC in Babylon might involve a rich merchant and a poor girl, both in the same town. Their social inequalities make the story interesting. In 2010 however the technologies like the internet might spawn a new love story born out of the digital world and you have stuff like You Got Mail. In 2154 AD fast interstellar travel to Pandora could very well lead to an inter species relationship like that between Jake and the very blue Neyteri. But its the SAME story, told differently. All three can capture the imagination.
For those of you who are purists, then yes, its the same old sh** repeated but if you can let your mind wander a bit, you will find that its not the story itself that is important but it is the way the story is told!
Avatarrules
Let’s just end our enriching discussion on this thread with a Quentin Tarantino quote which pretty much encapsulates my feelings towards the demands you’ve made of us, “It’s a Tarantino film, whaddya expect? Has to be violent. You don’t go to a Metallica concert and ask the fuc**rs to turn down the volume.”
Cheers.
Arkayne
Agree, read the director’s roundtable of The Hollywood Reporter recently, where Cameron expressed a desire to be known as a storyteller; and I believe if his storytelling is his attempt at immortality; he has taken steps in the wrong direction with Titanic and now Avatar.
Sanjeet
I believe you’ve got the concept of the story completely right in cinema. Innovation in the basic plot idea is not as essential as is in its expression. However, when you talk merely of a love story, it is a very general idea that you talk about – the term ‘love story’ itself is encapsulative of a genre – and its basic construct(that of a man-woman relationship, or any other such relationship between two individuals) remains the same; however It Happened One Night is a completely different love story from Three Times. Bonnie and Clyde is a completely different love story from Intolerance. And Mausam is a completely different love story from A Moment to Remember. Within the construct of a love story, various different types of possibilities have been explored, and not just in terms of ‘the way’ the story is told, but also the text itself.
When this review, as many other reviewers, have mentioned the age-old story of Avatar, it has not been as strong a complaint as the manner in which Cameron chooses to unravel it, from using all stereotypical characters – from clan leaders, the envious boyfriend, the military general; his redundant dialogues, to the events that follow one another – so at the level of purely a story, it is not as random or general as a love story, but very specific in terms of the narrative, and at a purely textual level, its similarity to Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai, Pocahontas, or Princess Mononoke Hime is not as ambiguous as You’ve Got Mail’s similarity to Avatar.
Even if, however, we assume that Avatar attempts great formalistic triumph, and is more ambitious than an attempt to just tell a story, and therefore, we should concentrate more on the ‘way’ the story is told; even the construction of his sequences, with a camera that usually arches up and arches down as the scene begins, dollies in as the dialogues are spoken, encircles the characters, and then cuts to another sequence with a drumroll – is a most redundant and overused shot division of Hollywood films. And I hope you’re not talking about his use of 3D when you mention the ‘way’ he has instituted to tell his story – because the entire review, in my humble opinion, is an attempt to separate and detach the technology from the cinema. To think of them as homogenous and interchangeable is an ideology that will do more harm than not. When you say the dynamics of a love story changes according to the prevalent technology, then that technology changes the manner in which the communication between the leads of the love story takes place; and not the way that love story is made by the film crew. The difference is obvious – one causes a change outside the film, the other inside it.
Very astute review. I had a similar feeling that Cameron was more interested in a display when the final battle scene started. He was showing off the great military arsenal as if he was proud of it. Not to mention, the \"inspiring\" speech given by the protagonist to the navis. At that point, i thought Cameron just over-simplified the sentiments regarding the intimacy of the ecosystem in pandora that he was building up and went all jingoistic.
And for a film that spend millions of dollars on creating a whole new world/ a different setting, i thought it was sad that the camera didn\’t love it. I cant remember one scene or an instant that shook me. So many banal shots. What a wasted opportunity.
Good job Anuj, Keep it up