Thursday, January 14, 2010

Avatar: First Oscar Worthy 3-D Movie?

The inherent technical difficulties in the production and distribution of 3-D movies notwithstanding, will James Cameron’s Avatar be the first ever Oscar-worthy 3-D movie?


By: Ringo Bones


Ever since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences got started back in 1927 with 2,075 members. This cultural organization composed of producers, actors, technicians and others associated with the film industry had never considered 3-D movies to be Oscar-worthy enough to receive one of their prestigious annually dispensed awards. But will it be eventually changed when the first ever Oscar-worthy 3-D movie called Avatar could win this year’s Oscars?

As a whole, 3-D movies are not known historically to be big box office draws or Academy Award-worthy. When one looks into the 1950s – were most movie buffs believe to be the Golden Age of 3-D movies – its very hard to miss that 3-D cinema usually means B-Movie science fiction and creature feature horror flicks. Even the 3-D version of Jaws – probably the highest grossing 3-D movie before Avatar came along – fall into this category.

Sometimes I wonder if James Cameron’s high statistical probability of box office success was down to his flirtations with Marxist-Leninist socialism. I mean the salient feature of his 1998 remake of Titanic was about class struggle, right? If it worked for Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein’s Potemkin – you know, that 1925 silent film classic about a shipboard mutiny in Odessa – surely, something like it would be a success in today’s capitalism weary post credit crunch world.

Thus came Avatar, a 400 million-dollar anti-imperialism Marxist-Leninist socialism leaning science fiction epic that has been touted as this year’s main Oscar Best Picture contender. Not only because of the technically brilliant use of contemporary state-of-the-art visual effects, but also a story line reminiscent of Sergei Eisenstein’s vision of revolutionary idealism set in the backdrop of everyone’s contemporary weariness of capitalism by the masses disenfranchised by the empty promises of the Protestant Work Ethic.

Though the movie Avatar leans more in reminding us on the environmentalist leaning ideals of Friedrich Engels, the salient feature of the movie has always been the critique on where our current “Imperialistic Organized Christianity” is heading. The 2003 invasion of Iraq is just a foreshadowing of the up and coming excesses of the good old days of the Inquisition. The movie – as a morality tale for the supposed present day arbiters of morality – may not be perfect. Nonetheless, it might just prove on what the Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing used to day about science fiction – that they are more social, rather than science, driven stories.

11 comments:

  1. When it comes to 3-D movies, the Soviet has been into it longer than the West - including Hollywood. As far back as the 1920s, the great film director Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein said that the future of cinematography was the 3-D motion picture. Also, a talented inventor in the USSR named Semjon Ivanov, worked on eliminating the need for special glasses and developed a system of raster 3-D motion pictures which could be viewed without them. The only 3-D movie theater in the world based on Ivanov's system was constructed in Moscow back in 1941.
    With Avatar and previously Titanic, there can be no doubt what James Cameron's political leanings really gravitate to.

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  2. Some say that James Cameron's Avatar did show the great director's political leanings, but I don't really care. Like Sergei Eisenstein, Cameron is really one of the best movie directors.

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  3. I do like Avatar and the movie's premise of a successful anti-imperialist uprising probably proves the truism of the importance of freedom fighters. Is James Cameron just got lucky with this years Oscars because Avatar won't be likely facing a challenge of winning the Best Picture as opposed to the E.T versus Gandhi of the 1983 Oscars? Avatar will more than likely be the first Oscar worthy 3-D science fiction movie ever. Maybe James Cameron should consider a 3-D computer generated remake of Sergei Eisenstein's Potemkin.

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  4. James Cameron doing a 3-D CGI version of Sergei Eisenstein's Potemkin? With his recent success on Avatar, I think he already has the "clout" if he choses to do it.

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  5. Fortunate or not, Avatar does seem to have luck on its side. I mean there are no other Oscar Best Picture contenders this year, unlike the "titanic" battle of the 1983 Oscars between E.T. and Gandhi - right?
    On the 3-D version - not to mention a CGI version - of that Sergei M. Eisenstein classic called Potemkin would still be hard to pull-off. Remember those "dead eyes syndrome" film critics had been complaining against recent CGI movies like Polar Express. Fortunately, the dead eye effect was minimized on the CGI remake of Beowulf. Who knows that a 21st Century 3-D movie version of Potemkin would become a worthy successor to the 1925 original, especially when Sergei Eisenstein himself considered 3-D movie cinematography as the future of movie making.

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  6. Surprisingly, the 2010 Oscar Best Picture will be a "titanic" battle between James Cameron's Avatar (especially the 3-D version) and his ex-wife's (Kathryn Bigelow) break-out masterpiece called The Hurt Locker.
    Potemkin by Sergei M. Eisentein is probably the most influential film of all time. To me, it probably influenced Fritz Lang's Metropolis in terms of cinematography.

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  7. Did any of you knew the preexisting "glass ceiling" in the Oscars about the Best Director category not being award to a woman since its begining? If Kathryn Bigelow wins with her relatively modest-budgeted-masterpiece-in-comparrison-to-Avatar called The Hurt Locker, then the chauvinistic nature of the Best Director category will probably end this 2010 Oscars. Although, it still proves that all things Oscar this year is probably revolving around James Cameron.

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  8. It seems like the Oscar Committee had marked International Women's Day by finally allowing a woman - James Cameron's ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow - for winning the coveted Best Director for her work in The Hurt Locker - which unfortunately I haven't seen yet. Maybe she should do a "Revolutionary Idealism" type piece like what her ex-husband did with Avatar - which does seem somewhat reminiscent of Sergei M. Eisenstein's Potemkin.

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  9. Despite of being a very appropriate way for Hollywood academics to mark International Women's Day by awarding a historic first to Kathryn Bigelow as the first ever woman to win the Best Director Oscar accolade during the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, I think The Hurt Locker and James Cameron's Avatar may have someing in common. Both works have a salient theme pertaining their Nietzsche-like critique of Judeo-Christian Slave Morality / Bourgeois Morality and the system of capitalist environmental destruction and institutionalized social inequality that supports it. I mean it is always - since the entire known history of humanity - the poor and downtrodden had been doing all the fighting and dying in the name of the ruling elites. I think Kathryn Bigelow is no stranger to Revolutionary Idealism that inspired Sergei M. Eisenstein to create Potemkin.

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  10. I've read back in high school that feminism has been frequently compared to Marxist-Leninist Socialism. With Kathryn Bigelow beating Avatar in several crucial categories - like Ms. Bigelow winning the first ever Best Director Oscars ever bestowed upon a woman director - probably makes this year's Oscars as the most interesting International Women's Day celebration ever. I think the social inequality portrayed in The Hurt Locker - where it is always us minimum wage folks doing the dying for the Wall Street and Capitol Hill fat cats - represents the gritty side of Revolutionary Idealism which Ms. Bigelow is probably much too painfully aware in Evangelical Majority America that's been confusing terrorism with Islam throughout the Bush Administration. Maybe Kathryn Bigelow should collaborate with Reese Witherspoon for a feminist leaning Revolutionary Idealism flavored movie.

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  11. Ironically, I only happened to hear this preexisting "Glass Ceiling" on the Oscar Best Director category. Bestowing the Best Director accolade to Kathryn Bigelow on the 82nd Oscars is probably one of Hollywood's most festive way of marking International Women's Day. I hope I'll see The Hurt Locker in its entirety soon. Artistic merit still gets more clout in Hollywood these days, but for better or for worse, James Cameron's Avatar did manage to make 3-D movies at home that's easy on the eyes a definite reality just a few months from now with Sony's promise to introduce 3-D capable TVs for the home.

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