Hello readers,
Christmas is fast approaching, and as I am from the UK, the Harry Potter films are making their annual pilgrimage across television channels everywhere. Each year I catch bits and pieces of the series as they appear, and as with all truly special works of narrative, upon each rewatch they seem to bear new personal significance.
What surprises me each year is how they hold up visually, too. One would think that, with the leaps and strides in technology we’ve seen since Voldemort went up in ashen confetti, even the final film would look positively archaic in comparison to today’s offerings. And whilst there are moments where it is obvious that there is a green screen in play, or actors’ eyes don’t quite follow the path of the magical creature flitting overhead, they are never glaring enough to ruin the overall atmosphere of the movie. If anything, they add to it a certain cosy charm.
There are other old movie series that come to mind when considering visuals that still hold up, or in moments of datedness, actually add to the character of the film. The Lord of the Rings being one, and Star Wars (the original trilogy, of course) being another. All three of these series are restrained by the technological limitations of the time, and yet not only embrace that restraint, but flourish within it. Were one to retroactively polish up these works, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that much of their personality was actually scrubbed away in the process.
This is a phenomenon not just applicable to cinema. A personal favourite example of limitation breeding excellence is from an entry in the acclaimed videogame series The Legend of Zelda. Released in 2011, Skyward Sword joined the Wii’s library very late in the console’s life, when eyes were already turning towards the beefier technologies of the next generation. In comparison, the Wii was running on far inferior tech, and Skyward Sword had no hope in competing with the photo-realistic fidelity of its competitors.
So, Nintendo instead hid the graphical insufficiencies behind an extremely stylised artistic approach inspired by Impressionism. The fuzziness of far-off objects and settings did not matter, for they were instead depicted as pale, blotted watercolour brush-strokes. Individual leaves on trees or rugged mountain settings could not be rendered in extreme detail, so they were portrayed as splotches of paint lifted from a Cezanne. Much of the game occurs in the sky, allowing for a majestic combination of puffy pink clouds lightening a canvas of bright blue.
Without the technical limitations of the Wii, such a unique and memorable artistic direction would never have occurred to the creators of Skyward Sword, and the console would not have had the visually-stunning swansong that it deserved.
In this way, limitation breeds creativity. Some of my proudest short stories have come from competitions that impose as many restrictions on the writing process as they can— for example, The Writer’s Playground sets a small list of essential characters, settings and items that must be incorporated, alongside a testing word count. Instead of strangling artistic opportunity, it focuses the mind of the writer in a specific direction, channelling inspiration towards a more strongly realised goal.
In contrast, then, we can return to the practically limitless creative potential provided by the technologies of today. Gone are the days when visual spectacles on screen could only be pale imitations of the concept art they were supposed to imitate— now, an artist’s work can be translated perfectly into cinema. (Thus, I suppose, explains the increasing trend of showcasing such concept arts during credits, as if to prove just how accurately they were rendered in the final product. I, for what it’s worth, greatly enjoy seeing such behind-the-scenes titbits.)
Of course, it is a great thing when a movie can unerringly depict an artist’s creative vision. But I do wonder, with the current state of cinema in mind, whether this increasing ubiquity of ultra-powerful, ultra-realistic visuals is slowly sapping at a director’s need to make truly unique and interesting graphical choices. If there are no obstacles in the way, why not just take the most obvious path of least resistance?
More than that, though, I wonder at the effect such a wealth of visual power in movies has on the experience of the viewer. Shortcomings in onscreen representations meant that the audiences’ minds had to fill in the gaps, and there was just enough splendour happening to allow the imagination to run free. Now, so much happens on the screen at once that it’s hard to keep track of where to look, let alone how to interpret that information in your own mind. The viewing experience, it could be argued, moves from something active to something passive.
An ideal way to conceptualise this, fittingly, comes from a movie itself. Nolan’s ‘Inception’ is as much about the relationship between filmmaker and audience as it is about dream-meddling, a concept summed up in Cobb’s instructions to Ariadne, ‘You create the world of the dream and they fill it with their subconscious’. If the dream is too intricate or overwhelming; in other words, if the dream’s orchestrator is too pushy with their artistic vision; then the victim begins to suspect the artificiality of what they are seeing, and the illusion begins to shatter. Instead, the dream creator must be subtle in their manipulations of the illusion, in order to pre-occupy the target with an active participation in the experience of the dream.
Likewise, in all art forms, the second that the hand of the creator makes itself too visible, the fantasy it tries to weave is ruined.
Like I wrote about a few Scribblings ago, when it comes to written description in literature, one has to know when to stop. Too much explaining can stifle the reader’s enjoyment of the novel, preventing them from taking your source material and making it their own. Perhaps too much visual stimulation in cinema is the same— if space is where the imagination can truly flourish, then a film’s production must leave gaps where the mind can roam, rather than pounding the audience into dumb submission with loud noise, bright colour and rapid motion.
And in the end, graphical shortcomings rarely mar the memory of a movie or videogame. Nostalgia, after all, provides a strong pair of rose-tinted glasses, and one often recalls such things looking far better in their mind than they actually did. This can result in quite the shock when engaging with them again, but that visual identity, so wrapped up in the era from which it came, also serves to transport you back to a simpler time too.
I wonder if such a thing will eventually be true of the near-perfect graphical quality of todays’ cinema? We shall have to see. In the meantime, please share any thoughts in the comments.
Thank you for reading,
The Watchful Scribe