January 6, 2010
Avatar and the Hyperreal
Avatar’s story may be terrible, but the technology behind it is not:
As anyone plugged into the matrix will know, Avatar is an event film for reason of the boundary-pushing technology that powers its spectacle. The technology I refer to is not so much the 3D aspect (the use of which has existed since the 1950s, though perhaps never as spectacularly, or as integrated into the bone of the narrative, as it is used in Cameron’s film); rather, it is the innovative virtual camera system that Cameron developed for the manipulation of live-action within a hybrid CGI world which has dramatically upped the standards for film and camera technologies. Virtual camera technology is one unknown to most filmmakers because it has been mainly used to design video game environments in popular games like the Resident Evil series or the immersion-heavy Bioshock. Resident Evil is one such game that, to my mind, was greatly responsible for demolishing the old and ordinary standards of horror cinema. I can think of no horror film this past decade which consistently delivered such purely cinematic feats of terror as those that arise in the Resident Evil games. To the cineaste, such a statement will undoubtedly arouse indignation: video game art should not seriously be compared to film art, should it?
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I wouldn’t call Avatar’s story terrible, just mundane. What is the “quote” that says something like there are seven plots and they’ve all been done over and over? Don’t quote me. But in the formulae for plot, then it comes down to “can it be done better?” To hope deliver a performance that rises above the din. In the case of Cameron’s directorial performance here, Avatar rises and stands. Maybe it ain’t about the content, maybe it’s about the brush he has in hand and what he does with it.
“The brush in his hand” seems about right, Rick. I think I recall Cameron saying as much: it wasn’t about the story, it was about the technology. It was about playing with virtual cameras.