image © Universal Pictures
Fast forward a few decades, and it’s depressing to see how jaded the popcorn munching punter has become. These days, to describe a movie as a “CGI blockbuster” is to damn it with laziness - as if the director simply couldn’t be bothered to round up some real dinosaurs. Down in the murky depths of the blogosphere, movie dweebs moan incessantly that their beloved whip-crackin’, lightsabre-swingin’ heroes have lost their souls to a Pentium processor.
CGI, the hatah’s argument goes, is a poor substitute for real filmmaking. A world created on a hard drive lacks the atmosphere of a monolithic stage set. A simulated car crash can never impart the same force as a stuntman’s fender bender. It’s the same tiresome stuff we used to hear from chin-stroking musos on the arrival of the compact disc. “Real filmmaking” is a slippery concept anyway, because everything on celluloid is false, from the moonlight streaming into Rick Blaine’s office to the rustle of Rocky’s boxer shorts. King Kong is a fake gorilla whether he is made of plasticene or pixels, and does it really matter whether R2D2 contains a dwarf or not? There are the stunts, of course, and Hollywood likes to amplify the dangerous aspect of stunt work, because danger can sell a movie, but there are few safer or more rigidly controlled working environments than the modern movie set.
The truth is that CGI is just a tool in the director’s arsenal, like a Steadicam or a smoke machine. But what a tool! Computers will change the face of cinema as profoundly as sound and colour once did. At its best, this technology can elevate the movies to a new and extraordinary level – can you imagine Peter Jackson making his Lord of the Rings trilogy without the technology to create those rampaging Orcish armies, or Shelob the evil spider?
image © Rex Features
Leaving the monsters aside, we’ve only just begun to tap CGI’s potential for artistic expression. Currently, computer animation is most effective when it is invisible - even the canniest punter will be hard pressed to spot where the actors stop and the pixels begin in The Dark Knight – but some directors have used computers to change the very tone of cinema. The stunning neo-noir interiors of Sin City, or the light-soaked splendour of Sunshine, would have been impossible without CGI technology. Imagine how much fun a Fellini or a Kurosawa could have had with the resources of Industrial Light and Magic.
The trouble is that CGI is still a young technology. Too many filmmakers just don’t know how to use this tool properly. Audiences are inclined to blame the tool rather than the workman. George Lucas, a great advocate of digital filmmaking, slathers his movies in animation like mustard on ham, leaving his poor actors stranded with nothing to play off. If CGI is just one tool in the toolbox, Lucas is a man trying to build a house with a screwdriver.
So yes, CGI is overused. Did we really need Indiana Jones’s computer animated gophers? Yes, it often comes across as a cost-saving measure, or a Band Aid for second rate shooting. But in those cases, blame the director, not the tech. Complaining about filmmakers using computers is like bitching about painters using blue. CGI is great, and it’s here to stay.
