Those
of you reading Richard Franklin's impassioned review of
the 3D Imax version of The
Polar Express may be, if you have never
experienced the process, wondering just what is so different
or so special about Imax. Or even what the hell it actually
is, given that there are only five such theatres in the
UK and three of them are located in central London. As someone
who has been amazed by the process but remains cynical of
the films using it, allow me to quickly explain.
Imax
is not just a special type of cinema, it is a film process,
and a rather special one. First up, you cannot show an Imax
film in a regular cinema. Imax screens are HUGE - typically
between 20 and 30 metres wide - and if sit anywhere near
the front, as I do, then your entire field of vision is
filled with the images on screen. Thus you are not so much
watching an image as part of it.
Secondly,
Imax films are shot not on 35mm, as are the majority of
films viewed in regular cinema screens, but on 65mm negative
stock and projected on 70mm, but not 70mm of Laurence
of Arabia and 2001 - Imax uses
15 perforations per frame as opposed to the standard 5,
giving a frame size that is ten times that of the standard
35mm frame seen in regular cinemas. The corresponding increase
in picture detail is genuinely extraordinary.
Thirdly,
Imax theatres are designed so that the seating maximises
the picture and digital sound wherever you choose to sit
- there are no bad seats or spots where you lose out to
the experience (though I still recommend the front three
rows). Imax cinema seats are steeply stacked - the back
row is way higher than the front.
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3D
Imax is a process involving a specially designed camera,
a 'rolling loop' projector and large 3D polarised glasses.
The process is, quite frankly, gobsmacking. Having seen
and thoroughly enjoyed Jack Arnold's The Creature
From the Black Lagoon and It Came From
Outer Space in 3D (and, I might add, at the Piccadilly
cinema which dissolves in violent mayhem at the climax of
An American Werewolf in London), I was
still not ready for this. Whereas previous 3D processes
had produced a most convincing 3D effect, prompting objects
to poke and lean out of the screen (the opening explosion
of a descending meteorite in It Came From Outer
Space sent a young John Carpenter screaming from
the cinema, but also began his love affair with the movies),
compared to the Imax process this was primitive stuff indeed.
3D
Imax has actual, physical space - it can place an object
at a precise distance from you. Thus, if the film-maker
wishes to put an object just one foot from the end of your
nose they can do it. My first experience of this was not
so much disconcerting as startling - I was able to actually
put my hand through what eyes and my brain were telling
me absolutely was not projected from the back of the cinema,
but just in front of my face. The sense of depth this creates
goes beyond realism - it is genuinely remarkable. Combine
this with an image that fills your entire field of vision
and this ceases to be a film and becomes an experience,
just one motorised chair away from a top level theme park
ride.
Which
is - or at least was - precisely the problem. Early 3D Imax
films were visually gobsmacking, not necessarily for their
lyrical photography, but because the 3D Imax process is
so good, EVERYTHING looks amazing in it. The traditional
movie skills of storytelling and character were simply deemed
unnecessary, as all you had to do was find something that
looked spectacular on screen, tag on an introductory sequence
and off you go. Thus you could go to an Imax screening that,
like the early Cinerama demos, consisted almost entirely
of a camera bolted to the front of a racing car as it whizzed
around the track. And visually it was fantastic - you leaned
as the car hit the bank, you lurched back in your seat as
you approached other vehicles. Which is all well and fine,
except I had that exact same reaction to the amazing subjective
shot in Star Wars when the X-Wing flies
into the Death Star trench, and yet when I went to see that
I also got Star Wars, which had plot and
character and humour and storytelling. And it was cheaper
to get in.
Consider
my first 3D Imax experience, a film tantalisingly titled
The Hidden Dimension. It begins with a
cheery, smiling, all-American family arriving at the empty
lakeside house of an elderly relative. The father has work
to do, so the young daughter goes exploring and finds three
keys, all of which a related to science, and eventually
a device that opens up to her the microscopic world of insects.
The next twenty-five minutes consist of three-dimensional
camera movements over gigantic microscopic enlargements
of insect life. Technically fascinating, of course, but
once you've seen three insect heads blown up to twenty metres
wide, you've seen enough to last you a lifetime. Shorn of
the dazzling 3D, The Hidden Dimension would
be a pretty miserable excuse for a film - plotless, characterless
and one whose only real entertainment value, on my viewing,
came from hearing its American cast dubbed into throaty
Japanese (well, I was in Japan). In the spirit of Marshall
McLuhan's "The medium is the message" we were
being asked to marvel not at the film, but at the technology
that produced it. Like a firework display, it was visually
impressive, but lacking any real substance.
Whether
the 3D Imax version of The
Polar Express falls into that category
is a matter of opinion - it is certainly much more than
a series of images slapped together to promote the 3D process,
a genuine movie in the sense that it creates characters
and tells a story. That it apparently uses the 3D Imax process
to astonishing effect doubtless makes that version the one
to experience, but given the fact that just about everything
looks amazing in this process, surely the best place to
judge the film in the more traditional merits of how well
it tells its story and defines its characters is when it
is divorced from the razzle-dazzle of this technical presentation.
In his review, Richard makes the point that the film should
not have been released in normal theatres, and he may well
be right, but the simple truth of the matter is that it
was, and that is precisely where the vast majority of its
potential audience are going to see it. And having handed
over their hard-earned cash, they have the right to expect
a film that works in the very environment that the expensive
"in cinemas now" advertising campaign has encouraged
them to attend. That they have not seen the 3D Imax version
is not fault of their own given the tiny number of Imax
theatres in the UK and the cost of getting to and into them.
I live in an economically depressed area and an outing to
see The
Polar Express at the cinema is expensive
enough for most low income families, but for the 80-mile-plus
family trip into the centre of London, complete with ticket
costs and meals, you could take the kids to Tenerife for
a few days. It's just not a viable option. This is not because
they "can't be bothered" to see the Imax version,
it's a simple matter of access and economics.
As
a primarily DVD-driven site we are repeatedly faced with
the difference between how a film played in the cinema and
how it looks on the smaller screen. And there is a difference.
Take Michael Haneke's extraordinary Funny Games
as an example. A film that challenges its audience to question
their own attitude to screen violence, it is an emotionally
devastating experience in the cinema, and though much of
its power remains on the small screen, it is a much 'safer'
viewing experience. When it gets too much we can talk ourselves
through it, look over at the clock on the wall, nip out
to make a tea or even fast-forward through the nastier bits.
In the cinema, however, you are trapped by the film, and
if it proves too much you have only one recourse, and that
is to leave, precisely the reaction Haneke wanted to provoke.
And yet even given all that, the film's brilliance as tool
of audience manipulation, its painful identification with
character, can still be appreciated on the small screen,
something that simply cannot be said for The Hidden
Dimension or many of the other early Imax films
(some of which are actually and ludicrously available on
DVD if you want absolute proof).
Which
brings me back to It Came From Outer Space,
which looked great in 3D, but also works just as well in
a regular cinema and on TV and on DVD. You know why? Because
it has interesting characters, it has atmosphere, it has
plot, its has a wealth of subtext about identity, McCarthyism,
Communism, however you want to read it, and it's a thrilling,
inventive, low-budget science fiction treat. It works in
whatever medium you want to view it because it is, quite
simply, a MOVIE.
