cross-posted to Lapis Loquens Blog
A recent NPR story about 3D films and their increasing popularity got me thinking again about differences between film and stage. NPR focused on a young company in San Diego, Legend3D, whose business is converting existing movies to 3D format. The company is presently converting to 3D six well known films (they won’t say what ones). If you have any doubts that 3D is hot, consider these numbers: in 2005 Legend3D had 25 total employees; its current staff numbers 1,200 (400 in San Diego and 800 in India). That’s not exactly the pattern for the overall economy in recent years.
There’s obviously something about the verisimilitude of television and film that pleases the human mind. But might that pleasure come from working less? Being inherently lazy creatures, if someone offers us entertainment that requires less effort, do we, lemming-like, gravitate toward it? The evolution of film seems to lead inexorably to more realism, until a version of Captain Kirk’s holodeck arrives and we no longer have to use our imaginations at all. According to the Legend3D spokesperson on NPR, when that day comes “We won’t watch Pandora, we’ll inhabit it.” One view of this trend is that we will be seduced into dystopias such as Philip K. Dick and others envisage. But the enthusiasts of this technology (and they seem to be legion and mostly young) seem to discount or just ignore any sinister potential.
Movies have always offered an audience more realism than the stage. Every step of technology advancement has amplified movies’ realism. Film audiences have been trained to expect realism and they are not very tolerant of deviation from it. In this sense, movies are constrained by reality.
Last month I wrote a blog post about lack of coherent story narrative in the current and oh so well publicized Broadway production of Spider-Man. But another reason for that production’s myriad problems may be that it is striving for too much realism, attempting things – such as characters literally flying in crossing patterns above the audience – that film is better suited for, and not trusting enough in the audience’s imagination.
Is the holodeck the endgame of narrative art that began hundreds of thousands of years ago with stories around campfires? My view is that there are divergent paths of narrative evolution, only one of which leads to the holodeck. I suspect that the increasing verisimilitude of film has the unintended consequence of enlarging the experiential niche for the live performing arts precisely because they are less tethered to realism and they do require the audience to actively participate with their imaginations.
The stage should concede excessive realism to the film folks and focus on engaging the imagination of our audiences. What theatre can excel at is enchanting us with nothing more than two forlorn travelers, lost near a rock and a tree, waiting for someone to show up. That’s really all it takes. As long as we bring our imagination with us. When such art is done well (and often it’s not) a magic is created that film cannot touch. That’s the distinctive strength of plays, musicals, opera and ballet.
What do you think? Am I on to something here? Or am I just some reactionary Luddite whistling past the graveyard?