“Like the ancients, we experience far more than we understand”
…we denizens of the third millennium ce make constant recourse to specialists whose art has no basis in empirical discovery or other Enlightenment values. We shape our moral and aesthetic imaginations through reading Lord of the Rings or watching The Matrix series. We sate our appetites for stylized violence by watching Pulp Fiction and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. We depend on an acupuncturist for […] continued…
Considering vertical vs horizontal perspectives
Before 1930, moving picture aspect ratios were all over the place. But mass distribution requires standardization, so influential filmmakers met in Hollywood that year to talk. They settled on the horizontal shot. Things pretty much stayed that way for decades – until the 2010s, when the mobile phone began to unravel this consensus. The phone […] continued…
“Back before Buffy and Katniss, Besson was one of the only directors championing stories with women as action leads”
Back before Buffy and Katniss, Besson was one of the only directors championing stories with women as action leads. He’s a little cagey about this. “I pay the same attention to the girl and the guy,” Besson says. “What I like, in fact, is the strength of the woman and the weakness of the man. […] continued…
Disney “usually does not return to classic characters in a willy-nilly manner”
Hollywood loves to revisit hits in ways that can be maddening — oh, that old script was wonderful; we’ll change everything — and Disney has a particular tradition of mining and remining the same stories. But the company’s movie studio usually does not return to classic characters in a willy-nilly manner. Walt Disney himself gravitated […] continued…
“…George Lucas crafted a saga that is endlessly fascinating and worthy of repeated viewings”
Star Wars has always been about the unknown and the unknowable, the instinct to seek answers where none might exist and the faith in that galaxy to have an underlying logic and integrity. By jumping around in time, letting eventful sequences play out offscreen, changing characters dramatically between episodes, and leaving lingering questions about the […] continued…
“Star Wars intentionally challenged an audience who had no idea what they were getting themselves into”
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Star Wars used to just be one movie. Before the novels, the comic strips, the video games, the television shows, and all the sequels and prequels, there was just Star Wars. The great magic trick of that film was making one film feel like a small piece of the […] continued…
“For A New Hope, the crew scavenged interesting- looking spare parts from model kits and junkyards to make the ships and vehicles”
For A New Hope, the crew scavenged interesting-looking spare parts from model kits and junkyards to make the ships and vehicles. Tomkins works the same way now. “It’s found items, you know, be it parts from an airplane breaker’s yard or from a plastics-molding company or a dismantled photo-copier,” he says. Tomkins likes to crack […] continued…
“At the moment that our foundational religious stories began to echo too distantly in the past, a new storytelling rose to supplement what time threatened to take from us”
Hollywood is not only a fun factory of vapid entertainment. At times, Hollywood plays an important role. The role of the ancient storyteller. Hear its stories and draw from its wisdom. If we believe that religious stories teach us valuable lessons, then we have a moral obligation to learn these lessons for ourselves and convey […] continued…
“A sequel like last May’s ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron,’ from Marvel, is less a self-contained film than a loose amalgam of ongoing stories”
A sequel like last May’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” from Marvel, is less a self-contained film than a loose amalgam of ongoing stories. The film lays track for two future sequels and allots significant screen time to each of the film’s fourteen main characters so they can serve as calendar reminders of forthcoming spinoffs and […] continued…
“Disney owns the three biggest storytelling platforms in the world. … They push our wonder buttons, but like all good stories, they are also fountains of potential interpretation”
Disney owns the three biggest storytelling platforms in the world. They own Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar. To me, that’s like owning the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Quran. Primarily, these platforms tell good stories. They push our wonder buttons, but like all good stories, they are also fountains of potential interpretation. Marvel […] continued…
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