The fake Real.

As the lights dimmed in the cinema, I obligingly sat through the myriad of trailers and advertisements for the American "Summer" releases - summer you see is winter for us below the equator, which is just a lesser degree of warm.  Feeling a weird sense of deja vu, I watched trailer after trailer of what seems to be the same movie..wait a minute..was it the SAME movie? Was there an announcement I missed which stated that the next wave of films released would all be sci-fi based, CGI-spacecrafts/planets/fights/effects, post-war, planet-in-ruins, set in 2154(or the future), ecological wasteland/paradise themed, action blockbusters? That time Armeggedon and Deep Impact was released doesn't hold a candle to this plethora of movies that are disgustingly the SAME. Perhaps there a committee of people who gather in a little room that decide over a box of Krispy Creme donuts and Big Gulps, what trend of films to release to the public, you know the way they decide fashion trends but with more coke and less calories? And sadly, do they think that we wouldn't notice?

Perhaps Oblivion, the film I was about to watch will rake in the most moola, as it is the first of the SAME movie released. The SAME movie it seems would included: World War Z, Star Trek (I am a fan of this new rebooted series, do not get me wrong, but after watching the 6th trailer of the SAME movie, I can't remember diddly squat about it, except that Benedict Cumberbatch is in it and I want to lick his face), After Earth (good luck Will Smith), Man of Steel and Iron Man 3 (both a bit more comic booky, but still, those landscapes burning, fight scenes between CGI spaceships- yawn)  and Elysium ..boo the SAME MOVIE.

I almost felt excited to see the trailer to the Hangover 3.

Which brings me to the topic of this post. The fakeness of the real in movies. In "The Story Of Cinema" Episode 14, Mark Cousins reflects on the early 90's as the time when CGI starts being implemented as a tool to create reality in Cinema. From its beginnings in films like The Abyss, Titanic and Gladiator,  those first attempts were pretty exciting and groundbreaking. With obvious room for improvement of course. The more accustomed  audiences became to these special effects, the less REAL they seemed. This was due of course to the fact that the actual technology needed to develop a significant deal to get it to the Life of Pi of 2013. And even so, we all know it isn't a real tiger or ocean or or or, and yet we give ourselves willingly in believing what we see because we love to imagine. And it is for that reason that we take such offence when the CGI is of a lower quality in films. Hally Berry is still trying to salvage some of that Oscar reputation after Catwoman, every Hulk ever imagined on screen fails and that weird molten scorpion/Rock combo of The Scorpion King and The Mummy Returns is just terrible...thank goodness the Fast and Furious has no end in sight as Dwayne Johnstone needs the cash.

As counterbalance to all this, the very recent passing of Ray Harryhausen at the age of 92 seems to mark the end of something. Something important for what is considered "real" in films.
Mr. Harryhausen was and is considered by many as a pioneer of stop-motion model design. He designed and built and filmed the skeletons fighting in 1963's Jason and the Argonauts, made the swaying snake woman in 1958's The Seventh voyage of Sinbad and created the awesome Medusa from the original 1981 The Clash of the Titans to name but a few. 

The man himself.

Maggie Smith as you have never seen her before.

Connely highlights the significant differences between Harryhausen's  dynamation and stop-motion film making and today's CGI special effects in this article from the Guardian. Simply put, in stop-motion an actual 3-dimensional character is built or made and filmed on sets. It has shape, shadow, dimension, a real feel of gravity to it. In CGI, everything is rendered on a flat surface - light and shape has to be created and it costs a whole lotta of money. It is the case of  "practical effects" versus "digital effects".

See..Monster.

Ray Harryhausen is said to have inspired Lucas in creating the special effects for Star Wars, Spielberg in his Jurassic Park renditions, Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas and Frankenweenie, as well as Nick Park's work on Wallace and Gromit.

 "The first time I dabbled in clay," said Spielberg, "was to try and recreate some of the amazing characters that Ray created for those breakthrough pictures."

I sense a relationship here.

Of his personality it is said that he was a loner. a man who developed his own techniques and who became disillusioned with the industry after the release of the Clash of the Titans. As the Telegraph delightfully reports on his process: 

Apparently he tried to hold onto as many of his original creations as he could, but as they were made of rubber and rubber disintegrates it was not to be.

 "He got his father, a machinist, to make the metal endoskeletons and armatures for his creations, which he then covered in latex. His mother sewed the costumes. Later, he would cook his models in the oven, to the dismay of his wife." 

Fee fi fo fum

"Fantasy is a strange thing. If you make it too real, you lose the effect of fantasy." -Harryhausen 

I agree that Harryhausen was a creator of characters not of images and that his creations had a heart beating in them and through them that just doesn't feel present in today's cinema. I don't think I'm going to miss much if I choose not to spend my money on going to see the SAME film this summer. But I will miss pioneers in cinema who create their own art. 

Ps. fun fact, the nice restaurant in Pixar's Monsters Inc is called "HarryHausens".