Today's digital technology in Hollywood seems to be omnipotent.
From the "re-creation" of Paul Walker in "Rush", to the birds and beasts in "The Lion King", to the recent news that Hollywood superstar James Dean, who has been dead for half a century, is about to be resurrected through digital technology and then "starring" in a movie called "Looking for Jack" again.
Although James Dean is not the protagonist of the film, but the second male protagonist, Hollywood's ambition to resurrect a legend has been revealed. And the final film will only have two results: satisfactory and disappointing.
The former may point the way to future Hollywood, where Audrey Hepburn can compete with Robert Pattinson, and Greta Garbo can compete with Scarlett Johansson, if conditions permit. And the latter? It is the most likely ending of this movie. The resurrection of the star's career was criticized, and eventually ended abruptly, and no one mentioned it for a short time.
The Search for Jack is based on Gareth Crocker's novel of the same name. It tells the story of a Vietnam Veteran and more than 10,000 abandoned military dogs after the end of the Vietnam War. The background of this story itself is extremely paradoxical. Because the Vietnam War began in 1955 and ended in 1975. Dean died before the Vietnam War began. No matter how the director sets the story, it will be a "crossover drama".
What exactly will technology bring to movies? Is it to make the movie more exciting, or more boring. Is it to add artistic expression, or to make the film once again an industrial product?
In fact, this kind of discussion has always existed with the development of film. From silent to sound films; from black and white to color films; from traditional miniatures to computer special effects; from special effects makeup to CGI technology. Almost every revolution in film technology has brought about the improvement and expansion of film expression and performance range.
Technology, always preceding the development of art, tools and means, can only be used epoch-making and creatively in the right hands of the artist. Coupled with the support of aesthetic theory, it will form a film movement with great influence. Eisenstein and Montage, Bazin and scene scheduling, Godard and authorship, and other movements in film history are examples of technical and aesthetic theories supporting each other.
In hollywood now, technology is too radical, and the exploration of artist-level directors also seems to lack thoughtfulness. Martin Scorsese and Wim Wenders' 3D attempts, Ang Lee's 120-frame practice, and even the dome modification of 2001: A Space Odyssey in later generations have all seemed too hasty.
Technology, after being thoroughly mature and thoroughly mastered by the director, can indeed become the vocabulary and means of cinema, but in the early days of technology, this is only a luxury.
In the early color films, only too high saturation and inaccurate colors, until the emergence of cinematographer Cardiff, color really became a means of artistic expression. In Antonioni's "Red Desert", color really becomes a tool for expression, not just what Krakol calls "the restoration of the material world". At the beginning of the emergence of sound films, they were boycotted by a large group of silent film masters, until the invention of modern mixing technology, there was a real sense of "sound effects".
Now to criticize "In Search of Jack" Anton Ernest and Tati Greco for being disrespectful and too hasty. Although James Dean's family was very supportive of the digital resurrection of Dean's film project, it was seen as Dean's fourth film. After all, new technologies take time to operate and practice to mature. But this kind of operation and practice, if used on a new virtual character, may work better.
Any cinematic technique, in the beginning, emerged as a kind of "gimmick" and "selling point". Color, sound, special effects, no less. This time the capture of Dean with great fanfare was even more so. As a cultural symbol and an icon of the times, If Dean's Paul Walker, who has only a few shots in "Rush" or Kelly Fisher who flashed by in "Star Wars", is a last resort for the sake of film integrity, then "resurrecting" an actor, rather than digitally reducing age, making him the "starring actor" of a movie, for fan fans, this kind of large-scale operation is still difficult to accept for a while.
CGI resurrecting an actor may not be difficult. The difficulty is that under this character and image, the actor is a real person, or just an animation puppet. Is a person with his own emotions and acting skills, but also just a face image. It's like it was shown in Futurology Congress. Hollywood's future is becoming flatter and more entertaining. Stars — in fact, just star images — can be used at will, and this image is just a simple tool, no longer charismatic, and they "starred" in a movie, just a decision, not a respect for the quality of the film and the artistic creation.
At this step in the use of technology, Ang Lee is at the forefront of the times. Tim Burton pushed the limits of his technology with The Wonders of Benjamin Button, and Ang Lee didn't just rejuvenate Will Smith, he created an "actor" who "didn't exist" almost from scratch. As a result, people will no longer be obsessed with stars, and there will be no paparazzi and fans. The great art of cinema, in a sense, has become animation.
Even more frustrating is the fact that today's Hollywood directors, the masters of the mega blockbusters, seem to be more of an image scientist than an artist. They operate a machine made of modern technology, and the actors are no longer living individuals, but market research, audience questionnaires, testing, revision reviews, and remake processing — until people successfully consume them.
Entertainment is not guilty, but entertainment crosses the line and creates danger. Like Jurassic Park, science is innocent and paradise is innocent. But once the boundary is crossed, disaster will occur. As the famous line in Jurassic Park puts it: "Scientists should not consider what can be done, but what should be done or not."
(The picture in the article comes from the Internet)
Vanguard author | Clouds rise
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