Coy: 3D Redefines Film Medium
I can’t call 3D a worthless gimmick anymore. Complete artists like Martin Scorsese and Werner Herzog have proven it’s not just the tool of schlock-meisters. With “Hugo” and “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” they’ve elevated its purposes and explored this new format, revealing its indispensible cinematic capacity in the face of the apparently digital future. Now another brilliant director could save 3D from its current floundering. Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” will be released on December 14th of this year and it’s a foregone conclusion that it will be a financial success, but whatever box-office records the movie shatters will have a greater impact on the future of movies than on Peter Jackson, J.R.R. Tolkien or any of their fans, due to the innovations implemented in its production. A triumph of profit and creativity could ensure the death of celluloid film and ultimately bring cinema back to its origins of novelty.
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If 3D is proven a form with visual and creative integrity, more directors will use it, giving theater owners a financial incentive to switch to digital projection, which is ultimately cheaper than film projection. When celluloid film has nowhere to be exhibited, it will become museum novelty.
After 3D has finished off celluloid, it will be the only form suited for talented, ambitious young directors in a landscape dominated by the flavorless 2D digital image. It will be the only way for anyone to explore the image with the same exuberance set by Scorsese, Herzog and Jackson, while subsequently giving the hacks flashier tools. ...
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