Chaos Cinema

A neat two-part video essay here about the sharp decline in the quality of action cinema.

This article responds, suggesting that the rise of the Avid brought about "chaos cinema" through the changes it made to the editing process.

Interesting stuff. Thanks.

An Interesting but rather limited article. Not a single mention of Paul Greengrass?

Sharky wrote:

An Interesting but rather limited article. Not a single mention of Paul Greengrass?

I count a few.

Amusing that the design of the website makes the article unreadable.

Nice one, yoof.

I hate these pseudo-cinephile hipster bloggers.

Sharky wrote:

I hate these pseudo-cinephile hipster bloggers.

Not everyone can be Bazin and Eisenstein. They're sufficient to start a conversation.

If nothing else, I appreciated the point about contemporary action sequence sound design.

Harmsway wrote:

If nothing else, I appreciated the point about contemporary action sequence sound design.

Yeah, that had some merit.

Still, this Mathias Stork guy's Kermit voice is a bit grating.

By coincidence, I pulled Harry Knowles' book Ain't It Cool? Kicking Hollywood's Butt (2002, not a great, must-have book like Adventures in the Screen Trade, but just about worth owning nonetheless) off my bookshelf today, prior to seeing this thread, and I'm reminded of the following extract from the book:

There's an old film school trick that professors use to demonstrate the power of narrative. You can show a class a cross-section of the Odessa Steps sequence from THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, Sergei Eisenstein's classic 1925 staging of events from the Russian Revolution,and possibly the most famous film sequence in history. Through masterful cross-cutting of the boots of faceless czarist troops and a defenseless baby carriage on the steps of the Odessa Palace, the frenetic collision of disparate images, we exit the realm of narrative entirely and enter a realm of montage,where information is conveyed through editing and the proximity of unlikely images. In its day, this constituted the state of the art of special effects, and it is still extremely arresting imagery.

Then immediately after this, you can show the same class footage from Eisenstein's later IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PART ONE. This was shot in 1945, three years before the director's death, and light-years away from the bold experimentalism of THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN or OCTOBER, TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD. This was after Stalin dominated Soviet politics and art, and Eisenstein was forced to renounce the revolutionary stance of montage and the vigor of his youth. Consequently, IVAN THE TERRIBLE is a deadly boring, stodgy, stagy melodrama, virtually a filmed play, and the opposite in every way of the earlier sequence. But then in the middle of this little experiment, you can suddenly stop the projector. And the class will physically jump. They have been pulled out of the middle of the scene; they were narratively engaged, even by this worst of all possible narratives, and when it was suddenly taken away from them, the shock provided a visceral reaction. Ask them which film sequence was the most compelling, and they will unanimously cite the former. But watch them watching the films, and it's the latter that most easily engages them.

The point is that narrative - storytelling; the recitation of dramatic events in serial fashion - is a mysterious force. One that is present in all of fiction, and one that everyone understands implicitly, but that most of us would be hard-pressed to explain. And whatever else audiences may require of their filmed entertainments, narrative is usually at the root of it. So that when special effects, for instance, suddenly become an identifiable draw for an audience, and film studios, in their desire to please, crowd out everything else in the interest of maximizing those effects, this will only be an efficient strategy to the degree that those effects can advance the narrative. Or augment it, amplify it, and focus it. This is a limitation built into the medium. Spectacle must perform in the service of narrative.

Comparing these mostly incoherent and unengaging action scenes of "chaos cinema" to the comprehensible and involving action scenes in classics like DIE HARD, it's also clear that even scenes of "spectacle" - scenes that are purely action scenes - must have narrative, otherwise they simply don't work. A car chase or a shootout cannot function as a pause from the narrative, or as an action scene that somehow functions outside the narrative - it must have its own (coherent) narrative structure, which I guess springs largely from choreography, cinematography and editing that shows us clearly what is happening to whom. I presume that the Tony Scotts of this world assume that no such rules need be followed and that it's enough simply to create plenty of chaos, fury and confusion so that the viewer will get the general idea of a shootout or a chase or whatever and will feel "there" in the midst of it all alongside the characters. On paper, this seems logical enough (and even imparts a sense of realism - after all, would the characters themselves necessarily know exactly what was going on in the heat of battle?).... but in reality it achieves the opposite effect, with the viewer feeling unengaged - even deliberately alienated by the filmmakers - and bored. Why? Because narrative has been arrogantly tossed out of the window.

I'll look forward to taking a gander at this. The Avid premise is a good one, and ties in nicely with the CG premise -- that the ability to do 100 mediocre VFX shots trumps the old ability to do 1o or 20 GOOD vfx shots, even though it makes the movie more likely to suck IMO. Volume has somehow become an accepted substitute for quality work.

About 10 or 12 years ago, I decided there needed to be two different phrases represented by the CGI acronym.
CGI - computer generated imagery (that's for the good stuff)
and
CGI - computer graphic illustration (all the rest) from seaQuest to Star Trek Insurrection back then, today that'd be from SciFiChannel 'originals' to most Nicholas Cage movies. Lack of visual credibility would be the phrase.

Quantity over quality has always been the temptation.

I think this comment nailed in one paragraph:

Quote :

As one who trained on film, cutting on a Steenbeck and marking up with a chinagraph, I learned first to spend time watching the rushes intently before making a single cut. Working with editors who have only used non-linear systems, it’s extraordinary how many of them just start straight into chopping shots up before they’ve spent any time at all viewing them. This is at least partly to do with the greater time pressure everybody’s under, but mostly (I feel) it’s to do with bad habits inculcated by ease of use.

I think you could say the same for digital scoring.

No pain no gain, as they say.

Sharky wrote:

I think this comment nailed in one paragraph:

Quote :

As one who trained on film, cutting on a Steenbeck and marking up with a chinagraph, I learned first to spend time watching the rushes intently before making a single cut. Working with editors who have only used non-linear systems, it’s extraordinary how many of them just start straight into chopping shots up before they’ve spent any time at all viewing them. This is at least partly to do with the greater time pressure everybody’s under, but mostly (I feel) it’s to do with bad habits inculcated by ease of use.

I think you could say the same for digital scoring.

No pain no gain, as they say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A_uOaA3e_0#t=3m58s

I think all of this technology can be used well, but most filmmakers (certainly on action blockbusters) don't give a crap. The shower scene in PSYCHO is small, precise cuts.

And some of the fault has to be laid at the feet of editor-turned-director types. So many folks who worked on SIXTH DAY ragged on to me about Spottiswoode not caring where the camera was, just to get a lot of setups in so he could figure things out in editorial. And based on the three non-movies Stuart Baird directed, I imagine the same forces were at work. When you get bored with a shot (probably because it wasn't designed to capture all of elements of drama in the scene, since you didn't care when you shot it), just find another angle. When you're done, throw some money at Jerry Goldsmith to trumpet over the seams (Baird always did.)

That wasn't the case in the old days (creak, creak), when editor-turned-directors might actually have learned something about directing beforehand. Presumably folks as diverse as Hal Ashby and Robert Wise weren't just knocking off setup after setup in a rush to get production wrapped so they could create the movie in post ... actually, that sounds more Lucas-like the more I type it.

Per Lucas, I recall something about him getting "elements". He'll get part of the shot here (someone walking aimlessly in front of a green screen) and just do the rest with a computer.

Quick-cutting is by no means something terribly new, or novel (one example: Welles F FOR FAKE, from 1972, has an astonishing number of edits), but the ease of it is. There is truth to the notion that earlier editing tools forced those using them to think very hard about what they were doing and how they were doing it.

Harmsway wrote:

There is truth to the notion that earlier editing tools forced those using them to think very hard about what they were doing and how they were doing it.

Completely agree.

The montage theory applies to action scenes, too, I believe. For example, that fight scene in the hotel in QUANTUM OF SOLACE completely neglects the idea. Forster and his editor cut and pasted pieces of the film together that didn't even relate to each other. Perhaps it wasn't the fast cutting that made the scene downright incoherent and (at times) confusing, but simply the use of insignificant cuts and snippets. You go from a man thrown over a bed, to a man grabbing a shoe and hitting his opponent with it, to cuts between broken glass being swung around and punches being thrown, and finally, it ends with a man on the ground being stabbed in the leg. Nothing is consistent and no one cut compliments the other to drive the story. In other words, you could say it's just a big fucking mess.

Not to mention that it does nothing for the film and only makes James Bond look like a polo-wearing thug.

As bad as the car chase is, it's the foot chase that I think is horrid.

And harmsway (forgot to say I'm glad you're back!), that's how I see things. People can do anything they want to now and many of them don't know how to use the tools well. You're not in there really working and wrestling with the film.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

As bad as the car chase is, it's the foot chase that I think is horrid.

The foot chase cutting is bad -- no, make that lamentable -- because I think at a reasonable length, the early intercutting would have properly accentuated the chase, instead of just seeming like somebody sneezing on it.

It seems strange to me that given how THE MATRIX was supposed to be so influential, that few seem to realize that it ain't exactly cut-heavy most of the time. You can actually see the action playing out (which ain't a bad thing till the sequels.)

Mr. Brown wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

There is truth to the notion that earlier editing tools forced those using them to think very hard about what they were doing and how they were doing it.

Completely agree.

The montage theory applies to action scenes, too, I believe. For example, that fight scene in the hotel in QUANTUM OF SOLACE completely neglects the idea. Forster and his editor cut and pasted pieces of the film together that didn't even relate to each other. Perhaps it wasn't the fast cutting that made the scene downright incoherent and (at times) confusing, but simply the use of insignificant cuts and snippets.

the cutting in BOURNE is what really threw me. The action scenes are staged badly, and the cutting doesn't do anything except obscure how rotten the action is being handled. I am still amazed that the first BOURNE wasn't jeered out of theaters, just based on what I can remember of a fight with Damon and a guard(? maybe in a bank?) and the wall climbing. If Clive Owen weren't in there having his headaches, I don't think I'd've made it to the ending.

trevanian wrote:

Mr. Brown wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

There is truth to the notion that earlier editing tools forced those using them to think very hard about what they were doing and how they were doing it.

Completely agree.

The montage theory applies to action scenes, too, I believe. For example, that fight scene in the hotel in QUANTUM OF SOLACE completely neglects the idea. Forster and his editor cut and pasted pieces of the film together that didn't even relate to each other. Perhaps it wasn't the fast cutting that made the scene downright incoherent and (at times) confusing, but simply the use of insignificant cuts and snippets.

the cutting in BOURNE is what really threw me. The action scenes are staged badly, and the cutting doesn't do anything except obscure how rotten the action is being handled.

The sound design is excellent though, as that clip shows. Probably about the only thing giving it any sense of flow

The major stylistic difference between the BOURNE stuff and QOS, is the absence of the crazy zooms in the later. Is that a Greegrass touch?

I only saw the first BOURNE, which was Liman, not Greengrass. I remember because I loved Liman's GO and wanted to like Bourne, and took an article assignment about it well prior to its release ... and then Liman refused to be interviewed about the film and I was left with just a crappy interview with the cameraman and no article to sell ... and that was before I got the megadisappointment of seeing the movie!

Does Greengrass do those Michael Bay zooms (little camera moves on Connery whille he drives the hummer in THE ROCK), just not as well? I don't think I've seen any of his pictures (maybe the trailers all make me dizzy.)

The guy who shot QOS for Forster is really really good. All you have to do is freeze on a non-blurry frame and you'll see a nice composition most of the time, and sometimes very moody looks I find quite effective.

trevanian wrote:

I only saw the first BOURNE, which was Liman, not Greengrass. I remember because I loved Liman's GO and wanted to like Bourne, and took an article assignment about it well prior to its release ... and then Liman refused to be interviewed about the film and I was left with just a crappy interview with the cameraman and no article to sell ... and that was before I got the megadisappointment of seeing the movie!

Does Greengrass do those Michael Bay zooms (little camera moves on Connery whille he drives the hummer in THE ROCK), just not as well? I don't think I've seen any of his pictures (maybe the trailers all make me dizzy.)

Just watch how this sequence from the third movie is constructed:



Compare it to this:



What are you say are the key technical differences?

Quote :

The guy who shot QOS for Forster is really really good. All you have to do is freeze on a non-blurry frame and you'll see a nice composition most of the time, and sometimes very moody looks I find quite effective.

Schaefer, right? I'd say he's a better DP than Phil Meheux. Too much soft focus (which just looks ugly after digital mastering) and flat compositions there.

Loomis wrote:

Comparing these mostly incoherent and unengaging action scenes of "chaos cinema" to the comprehensible and involving action scenes in classics like DIE HARD, it's also clear that even scenes of "spectacle" - scenes that are purely action scenes - must have narrative, otherwise they simply don't work. A car chase or a shootout cannot function as a pause from the narrative, or as an action scene that somehow functions outside the narrative - it must have its own (coherent) narrative structure, which I guess springs largely from choreography, cinematography and editing that shows us clearly what is happening to whom. I presume that the Tony Scotts of this world assume that no such rules need be followed and that it's enough simply to create plenty of chaos, fury and confusion so that the viewer will get the general idea of a shootout or a chase or whatever and will feel "there" in the midst of it all alongside the characters. On paper, this seems logical enough (and even imparts a sense of realism - after all, would the characters themselves necessarily know exactly what was going on in the heat of battle?).... but in reality it achieves the opposite effect, with the viewer feeling unengaged - even deliberately alienated by the filmmakers - and bored. Why? Because narrative has been arrogantly tossed out of the window.

Good post.

I myself have nothing to add at the moment. You may now navigate away from this post.

Matthias Stork fired the first salvo. Now Scott Nye returns fire with his article, Chaos Cinema, Abstract Painting, and Sforzandos. (And, while he argues for a stance I don't like very much, his piece is better-argued than Stork's original piece.)