Chaos Cinema
by Nick Glossop on October 7, 20128 comments
Chaos Cinema, or how ‘action’ in film became synonymous with ‘tedium’ (albeit blizzards of tedium)
In this short two-part video essay Matthais Stork traces the devolution of the action film and lays bare the bag of tricks today’s filmmakers employ to achieve previously impossible combinations of abrasiveness and banality. It isn’t the inane plots or threadbare characters that make contemporary actions movies so ho-hum, it’s the action sequences themselves. Sad but true, as soon as you smell a car chase forming up you know it’s a good time for a pee break.
Chaos Cinema Part 1 from Matthias Stork on Vimeo.
Correctly, Stork lauds John Woo’s Hard-Boiled as a showcase of choreography and editing craft. Though it is nearly 20 years old, I can’t name an action film to rival it. Hat tip to Malcolm for prompting me to go see that one on the big screen way back then.
Part 2 after the break
Chaos Cinema Part 2 from Matthias Stork on Vimeo.
And now a palate cleanser by the master:
Originally posted Aug. 22, 2011
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8 comments
Marty on August 22, 2011 at 8:45 pm. #
I would have to agree – this style of action shooting takes us right out of the action most of the time. I can see a justification for this style in a war setting (there was a clip in there from Black Hawk Down) – as an attempt to simulate the frantic chaos of a battle situation. But that Quantum of Solace car chase is practically unwatchable.
One that didn’t get a mention (I haven’t yet watched part 2) was Star Trek. Great movie, lots of fun, but the action sequences were filled with manic cuts and jerky hand-held camera work.
Also, any film essay that touts the brilliance of Die Hard gets my approval.
Gaalen Engen on August 22, 2011 at 10:14 pm. #
would you classify ‘old boy’ as an action film?
Gaalen Engen on August 22, 2011 at 10:27 pm. #
what about any of beat takeshi’s gangster flicks? ‘daywatch’ and ‘nightwatch’? I’m not sure whether i’m crossing genres here, but i think there have been good action films, just not really coming out of Hollywood.
Gaalen Engen on August 22, 2011 at 10:42 pm. #
actually, daywatch and nightwatch were pretty frenetic. not very good examples at all. lol.
Jeff Shyluk on August 23, 2011 at 1:58 am. #
No doubt that “Hard Boiled” is a giant of the action genre. The hospital fight sequence in the essay is just part of a single continuous take that lasts 8 minutes! (!) (!). Time it out yourself with a stopwatch and see.
So, if I was going to pick another post-modern film that had that very precise camera work plus high-octane action, I would choose “Children Of Men”. The takes are very long, but are digitally stitched together to make ultra-long apparent takes. That, and a special gimballed camera was used to really find the core of each shot. Brilliant film-making. My third choice would be “Ronin”, as seen in the doc. John Frankenhiemer had a very long run of action direction that seems to have culminated in those fantastic car chases. Honourable mention for “Die Hard”. How about “Akira”? Just because the camera is set for hand-drawn animation rather than Bruce Willis wit does not mean that the action is random. Just the opposite, really. Animation directors who move into live action tend to make very deliberate films.
“Saving Private Ryan” steps right up to the line of classic action versus chaos. While the camera action appears very chaotic, it is still very much disciplened and under control. “Ryan” makes a nod to the great “The Longest Day”, which remains highly innovative in terms of cinematography while maintaining a very carefully structured classical look.
It’s pretty obvious: modern camera chaos covers up shortcomings in the film. In the New York Bourne car chase, they covered up the fact that the stunt drivers had to obey strict slow speed limits with jiggly camera work and fast edits. Other films use the chaos to cover up shoddy CG, or other glaring elements. “Skyline”, yes, I’m talking about you, you and your kind.
michelle on August 23, 2011 at 1:03 pm. #
Watching the “Wild Bunch” clip, I can’t help but be in awe of the film editors. They cut the film into sections; labelled the strips and hung them hooks; spliced the pieces together; then the whole process was repeated by the neg cutter to make the answer print. it was a physical feat! renders the result all the more impressive.
Nick Glossop on August 23, 2011 at 5:40 pm. #
Interesting to know that in the Bourne whatsit they were at pains to conceal how slowly the cars were really moving. That really is a textbook sequence for what Stork is railing about since for all of the siss-boom-bah-and-the-kitchen-sink of it, it nothing whatsoever is achieved, nothing developed, nothing advanced, nothing resolved. You could, as soon as you detect that car-chase odor, head out for a pee, and then rejoin the film when it’s all over and the protagonist is walking grimly from the multiple wrecks and you have not missed anything at all. It’s perfectly gratuitous in the full and proper sense. Matt Damon did say that if they were forced to do another Bourne film it should be called the Bourne Redundancy.
By way of intense contrast, watch the opening scene from Amores Perros. Chaos techniques are in evidence – the jerky-cam for that verite effect, sharp cuts to dizzy and disorient – but all under tight control and deployed to serve very deliberate purposes. After 2 minutes 24 seconds you are riveted to your seat and left in no doubt that you are in for one hell of a film.
Jeff Shyluk on August 24, 2011 at 5:10 pm. #
SPOILER ALERT!
Stork does bring up another of my favourite shows in his second part, but I get the idea he is ambivalent about “Moulin Rouge”. Director Baz Luhrmann is no stranger to hyperkinetic cinematography. Look at “Strictly Ballroom” and “Romeo+Juliet”.
In MR, the frantic camera work hides more production problems. Where they needed hundreds of dancing extras, they only had less than a few dozen. And almost as soon as the massive sets were constructed they needed to be torn down to make way for another film starring Ewan McGregor. Mr. Luhrmann decided to shoot as much footage as he could in the limited time that he had, and he hoped to reconcile the problems his production faced in the editing suite, a major gamble. If you watch MR with an eye to the cabaret sequences looking for gaps in the crowd and re-used extras, you can easily see the problems they faced. That’s the spoiler; this may make the film hard to watch.
END OF SPOILER
Just as the glue was setting on the MR stage and the paint was drying on their massive bejewelled elephant, it was all torn down with hydraulic demolition equipment to make way for Star Wars Episode One. A very poor trade. Mr. McGregor went on record to state that he felt upset about losing the Moulin Rouge stage.
Often enough, the razzle-dazzle edits and effects seem to serve to mark time in films, and to give ILM staffers something to do. But sometimes, there’s a good reason behind the decision to use chaotic cuts. The very smart film-makers find ways to make the crazy shots work. Maybe it doesn’t much matter, because the lazy, careless, or indebted filmmakers manage fill a lot of theatre seats regardless. Whye else would I have a DVD copy of “The Hottie And The Nottie”? (Unwatched to this day, but maybe after I make a tequila run to the liquor store…)