The Medium is The Masses: 3D’s Reprise

Since its inception in the late 19^th century, the motion picture has successfully adapted to the technological and artistic innovations brought forth by the medium’s most skilled masters.  The first films produced by both Thomas Edison and The Lumiere Brothers were static, with no camera movement whatsoever.  But through advances in technology, the camera was no longer relegated to being stationary and thus more sophisticated cinematography and camera movement was achieved.  The films of Edwin S. Porter and D.W. Griffith introduced the idea of cross-cutting over multiple actions to the world of cinema which gave us the narrative structure we see today.  The introduction of both sound and eventually color, were influential and groundbreaking enough to cause an uproar amongst those in the film industry, who feared they would have to scramble to keep up with the technology at a significant cost.  Today, we sit at the precipice of a potential innovation that could revolutionize film as we know it, or at least reignite America’s love affair with cinema spectacle.

Despite its roots as far back as the 1920’s, 3D filmmaking was not common-place until the boom of the 1950’s.  With television becoming firmly implanted in the American consciousness, the American film industry struggled.  3D was a complicated and expensive technique in its inception, but its ability to bring people into movie theatres made the investment worthwhile.  Despite its brief success when used in horror and action spectacles, the technology faded into obscurity only to be seen again decades later at late night art house screenings.

The factors which have led to 3D’s latest rise in popularity are parallel to those of the 1950’s.  The current influx of consumer technology coupled with America’s recent economic decline has created a citizenry of homebodies.  With a high-speed connection and a computer, a wealth of media and entertainment suddenly becomes accessible (the majority of which is at no cost ).  And with our home televisions growing more bloated and coming in at High Definition, Americans need more motivation to leave the comforts of their own homes.

James Cameron’s Avatar is the first of these new 3D films that attempts to sell this new technology as a legitimate artistic choice.  Unlike the cheesy 3D of previous decades, Cameron uses the technology to further immerse the audience into the world he has created.  What makes the 3D in Avatar so successful, is that the film does not hinge upon the new technology, it uses it to its advantage.  There is, however, and strange irony to a film that so warns of the dangers of imperialism and technological influence, while being almost entirely computer generated with a budget exceeding $300 million.

Critics and columnists have had a veritable field day since the film’s bloated budget was announced some months back, and now that it is a success, the backlash over 3D’s immediate place in the film industry has begun.  It is easy to say that the latest trend of three-dimensional visual media is nothing more than a distraction from cinema’s true purpose, but film history has shown us several examples of how innovations once viewed as crude gimmicks, can reinvigorate one of the world’s most powerful artistic mediums.