The Importance of Cinematic Story Telling
Now you're probably wondering what this little section is seeing as how it isn't really a requisite for the project and with a title as pretentious as that you're also rolling your eyes but hear me out, I wanted to write a short thought piece on how cinema has moved away from cinematic devices as a core story teller in favor of expository devices and a reliance on tropes. For example, some of the most popular horror films about today are also some of the safest and reliable; franchising is the word of the day which in and of itself isn't an inherently bad thing but thanks to the economic disparity of recent years there's been a huge knock on effect to creative sectors that can't afford to bank on smaller, more creative projects as regularly in favor of the established fan bases of known Intellectual Properties. The most obvious examples in recent memory have been the Paranormal Activity and Saw franchises which have not only spawned a succession of their own films but have set the standard and tone for the majority of the industry.
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In 2004, the first SAW film was released to critical and commercial success, praised for a wildly original style, an engaging screen play and being something new from the run of the mill slashers that'd come before (more on that later); I think in retrospect we can all agree that the SAW films are quite enjoyable for what they are, after all, having the job of designing those traps I'd rank up there as one of the greatest jobs ever alongside being the God-King of Chocolate Space or possibly a Thunderbird. However, in the wake of it's own success, how many more films adopted the lovingly named 'Torture Porn' genre and sickly, sweaty, sensory overloading fashion of this Alpha? Hostel, The Human Centipede, Train, Seed (which is one of the worst films I've ever seen), The Collector and more, even newer remakes of old films have lost their 80's camp charm in favor of a wholly uncomfortable set of aesthetic sensibilities showcased at their lowest in the 2009 Friday The 13th and 2010's A Nightmare on Elm Street. Of course, the word of the day now is ghosts! Hollywood can't get enough of them, ever the cinematic profit house cancer that was Paranormal Activity put BlumHouse on the map every horror film and it's dog in mainstream cinema is about the ethereal, the other worldly and somehow is from 'the creators of saw' or 'paranormal activity' to the extent that I'm pretty sure the runner that brought tea on the sets has his own franchise headlined by that statement. Of course, ghost stories are an inherently wider field than torture porn and as such have some room for creativity but it's the bankable cheapness of a film where the antagonist is not on screen for 99% of the run time that fuels that.
I'm not saying there's anything particularly new or even wrong with this, we had monsters in the 60's and 70's, slashers in the 80's and psychological thrillers in the 90's, these things go in cycles as the tastes and attitudes of the generation change. So why have I spent two paragraphs railing against modern horror when it has nothing to do with the page title? Well it's because I love films and slowly, steadily, the funny, adventurous and romping fun nature of cinema - but horror specifically - has declined into boring, predictable garbage that spoon feeds the audience it's scares without any edge and before you cry fowl, pointing at the body shockers of Tusk and THC, they are just as bad as they avoid any intelligence in favor of shock value, the latter of those two being a particularly obnoxious example of how to indulge in your own hype and excess. Horror has never been what you'd call an especially smart medium but people forget that it elicits from us a most primal reaction, fear. Fear is capable of making us to heinous things, of allowing us to justify the most inhumane of actions, of covering up our faults as Human beings. Now perhaps my cold and hardened steel substitute for a heart has taken the fun out of the modern scare flick for me but that doesn't mean a horror film isn't capable of discussing big ideas and more to the point, discussing it through the medium of film that it has set up camp in. Of course this isn't a trait lacking only from horror but the art houses are naturally conscious of these elements to their niche audiences, horror appeals to a mainstream like very few others and has the power to convey a message incredibly well through it's imagery; although not personally my thing I can't deny there are some ingenious uses of the visual language and it's manipulation in Annabelle such as the girl running into a fully grown lethal woman through a door.
Films like Alien and Silence of the Lambs stand out as two great examples of legitimately scary, mainstream hits with a thought provoking premise, Alien in particular is a master class in thematic exploration through visuals and cinematography, the constant cramped conditions used with wide lenses shuts the audience down with low aperture lenses isolation the subject as the characters are, creating a narrative and thematic parallel which is called upon to discuss ideas of maternity, sexuality and of course rape. Now I'm not asking for every horror film to make me curl up on my bed screaming 'Jonesy!' at the dark but I do ask that films think more about what they could be saying and how they chose to convey that. |
One of my personal favorite films of all time, SnowPiercer, tells the story of an extinction level freezing that forces the last of humanity onto a perpetually moving train of the same name at the front of which languish the decadent and the upper class as at the back sit the cramped and impoverished. The lead, Curtis, played exquisitely by Chris Evans of Captain America fame leads a revolt to take the head of the train, walking a linear representation of contemporary capitalist society as they do. The director uses it's camera to construct a rule set where by profile shots have camera left as the back of the train, the humanity, and camera right as the front of the train, the inhumanity. Now this is an extreme example but with these rules it re-contextualizes many scenes and actions into something genuinely quite moving. Horror films I'd argue have a greater platform to do this than nearly any other medium yet still they are content with grizzly gore and jump scares. Not every film is going to be 'The Shining' or 'Scream' understandably but that's no excuse for lazy film making, lazy writing, lazy soundtracks, lazy editing and lazy audiences for eating up shovel-ware. |
Another recent hit, although not of the same genre, was Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, a huge scale philosophical science fiction film which excells in all of the previously chastised fields and the funny thing? Despite my love of the film I know it has serious issues, the most obvious of which being the often preachy script but it's attention to detail and visuals is nothing short of spectacular. I've even linked my own favorite scene which uses POV shots extensively with Model Ships in order to create something truly special and that has inspired me personally as a video creator.
Another recent hit, although not of the same genre, was Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, a huge scale philosophical science fiction film which excells in all of the previously chastised fields and the funny thing? Despite my love of the film I know it has serious issues, the most obvious of which being the often preachy script but it's attention to detail and visuals is nothing short of spectacular. I've even linked my own favorite scene which uses POV shots extensively with Model Ships in order to create something truly special and that has inspired me personally as a video creator.
So in summary, horror films should pay more attention to their use of cinematography and up their respect for the audience, while it's easy to dismiss most members as idiots I think you do a disservice both the the art and the industry to assume that people don't talk and discuss the films you make nor that they are growing tired of such disrespectful content. The difference between now and the golden age of horror is that creativity really was marred by budget and resources, the slasher's of yesteryear had to pour hours of effort and practical effects into their works which lead to distinctive scenes that stand the test of time as opposed to just being generic shovel wear cashed to make a quick buck at the expense of merit.