Pro Arthouse: Benjamin Kirby

Too much money can kill your film. For every dollar the studio gives a filmmaker, there’s one less risk they allow him to take – their mind is on box office returns, not artistic merit. Take Avatar, for instance. It’s true that criticising Avatar is like violently kicking a poor, confused, defenceless blue kitten (in 3D), but as the most expensive film ever made, it’s the best example of how money throttles originality. Within ten minutes, a two year old could have drawn out the rest of the plot in crayon on the back of a napkin. Still, it’s the highest grossing film of all time, so clearly James Cameron and his moneymen were proved financially wise to avoid any original thought.

Arthouse films don’t have this problem. Without access to the funds that sunk the Pirates of the Caribbean films, the Star Wars prequels, the Transformers trilogy (brace yourselves – part 3 is coming) and countless others, arthouse filmmakers must instead concentrate on things that don’t cost money: plot, characters, ideas. While modern audiences are increasingly desensitised to the best CGI money can buy, arthouse films still have the capacity to surprise. The most exciting filmmakers working today – Paul Thomas Anderson, Charlie Kaufman and Werner Herzog, to name a few – operate without big budgets.

But it’s not just about money. It is the arthouse sensibility that is key – a desire to produce something interesting, challenging and new. In short, a respect for the audience. Encouragingly, some directors have beaten the blockbuster system and brought this sensibility into mainstream films. Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott did this with 2001 and Blade Runner respectively, while Christopher Nolan has gone from making the brilliant, low-budget Memento to the biggest budget arthouse film ever made: The Dark Knight. James Cameron could learn a thing or two.

Pro Blockbuster: Louisa Claire-Dunnigan

Blockbusters take their name from an aerial bomb, capable of destroying whole blocks of buildings. The resonances still remain in the complaints of blockbusters squashing smaller films out of the market, crashing into our cinemas. The media portrayal of the 2010 Oscars as a David and Goliath battle between Avatar and The Hurt Locker played into the old aggressive image of the blockbuster movie.

Yet no one is holding a gun to your head as you go to see the latest Twilight film, or 3D animation. One of a blockbuster’s defining features is that people do go to see it, lots of people. It’s not elitist or obscure. Out of the millions who watched Alice in Wonderland or Avatar then, there must have been some who enjoyed them.

A film’s value should be judged by two simple tests; is it interesting and is it fun? One of the benefits of a market that is geared towards pleasing its target audience, to getting bums on seats, is that these films are often extremely enjoyable. There is a buzz and an energy in a cinema of people waiting to watch the eagerly anticipated blockbuster that is just not there in the reserved and contemplative arthouse audience.

You may not get lingering shots of shadows on a glass, but you will get sweeping shots over rolling sand dunes, chases and gunfights in vibrant markets, jungles, skyscrapers and CGI dream sequences. The money that backs blockbusters allows directors to shoot on location, spend days waiting for the right shot, to use effects and the latest technology to make film watching an experience.

With films like Avatar, which had no big names yet became the highest grossing film of all time, the landscape of blockbuster films is changing. Critics are predicting blockbusters that don’t need stars to sell. As blockbusters get smarter, it’s no longer cool to be snobbish about ‘crowd pleasers’ – critics are now part of the crowds.

Pro CGI Animation: Matt Isard

There is no question of the fact that hand drawn animation has made classic films. Childhood movies (think Bambi, or Snow White) will forever been crucial to cinema. Now, however, the new way of telling stories is CGI.

You can’t talk about CGI without mentioning the big studios, Pixar, and Dreamworks, who have made a fortune out of the new technology. Pixar’s Up opened with a staggering $64 million, $44 million more than Disney’s recent hand-drawn release The Princess and the Frog. Admittedly high box office figures don’t make a good film, otherwise every Harry Potter would have won an Oscar and The Hurt Locker would be at the bottom of the bargain bin. CGI, however, unarguably has the power to drag you into the film itself. The worlds that CGI achieves have more depth, texture and richness than anything drawn with pencil and paper. The beautiful coral of Finding Nemo and Puss’ fur in Shrek make CGI films feel more real to the audience. CGI animation also gives each character more expression and life than their drawn counterparts. The character that most epitomizes this is Pixar’s Wall.E; the mute metallic robot is one of the most expressive, adorable characters in animation – all done through a computer. It is true CGI films can be nothing more than cash cows, as films like A Shark’s Tale make explicitly obvious. However, what movie genre doesn’t have a few embarrassments that were better off on the drawing board?

CGI will also evolve as films continue to evolve. The animation will improve, the techniques will improve and, if Pixar are anything to go by, the stories will improve. Its existing stunning properties coupled with a limitless potential to be better is why I will always champion CGI over and above hand drawn animation.

Pro Handrawn Animation: Sophie Adelman

Hand drawn over CGI? Are we kidding around here? When Mickey Mouse first burst on the scene in Steamboat Willie in 1928, did anyone tell him that his explosions weren’t big enough? That there weren’t enough Avatars roaming around? No, it was just a mouse whistling in a boat. Sure, he might have been censored later for questionable animal abuse (look it up), but hand drawn animation has a type of charm and wonder about it that makes CGI look cold, sterile, and uninspired.

Nowadays, any Joe Schmoe can crack open his laptop and get to fiddling with some computer animation. One clever piece of programming later, and you’ve got a jerky, bloated figure lurching across a screen like a modern-day Frankenstein. Where’s the artistry in that? Maybe it’s the nostalgic side of me, but I long for the animation of yesteryear, the golden years of Disney, of fat singing mice and enchanted princesses with doe-eyes and extreme amounts of luscious long locks. I find it no coincidence that as computer-generated animation has increased, it has become harder to find quality animated productions. Animation has become an industry hell bent on out-doing itself, and in doing so, has become its own worst enemy, bested by epic battle scenes and gut-wrenching aliens. With the exception of a few notable productions, such as Up, which received a Best Picture nod this year at the Oscars, CGI has abandoned substance in favor of style.

In short, CGI is just an easy way out, becoming a mockery of a true animation-an art form that is visceral, enchanting, and timeless. As for me, I’m busting out the videocassettes and settling down to some entertainment that is worthy of the label of artistry. So you can keep the fifth Shrek in its plastic-wrapped package.

Pro 3D, Jack Binysh

3D has come of age. After fifty years of absolutely dire horror films and an exile to theme park gimmickry, Hollywood has finally realised the potential of the third dimension. And as a viewing of Avatar, or Pixar’s latest opus Up will attest to, it looks fantastic.

Like any new technology, there are possible pitfalls. 3D will only really work when films are being directed with it specifically in mind. Fail to do so and you’ll give your audience a headache. Try and shoehorn it in at the last minute, as several studios are after seeing Avatar’s box office take, and the effect will be unconvincing and tacky. The difficulties in crafting a good 3D movie do not mean the technique is flawed, but merely that it should be used with care. The effect is right when it is so convincing people can forget about it.

Unfortunately the studios are behind 3D for slightly more prosaic reasons. Hollywood’s current strategy to combat piracy is remarketing cinema as a unique ‘experience’, and 3D films fit nicely with this plan. The 3D effect cannot be pirated, and the average price of a 3D film ticket is £2 more than its cousin. While I find it difficult to argue with a straight face that Warner Bros really need that extra hundred mil there’s no reason this marriage of artistic merit and financial security cannot work. High profile directors have consistently expressed enthusiasm over the technology, with Spielberg, Ridley Scott and Peter Jackson all shooting their next features in 3D. We are in safe hands.

The point is immersion. Of course not every film will benefit from a shiny new dimension. Revolutionary Road would not be enhanced by knowing just how far down said road Leonardo di Caprio is standing (as you may be able to tell I haven’t actually seen revolutionary road), but the potential is there for a truly transcendental experience.

Pro Flatscreen, Luke Partridge

I have always loved films – well no actually that’s not true, Mars Attacks put the five year old me off the whole concept – but aside from that I have always loved films. But my love now stands in jeopardy from a fad; a cheap trick that detracts from the beauty of cinema.

3D has moved on. The ‘look dad that spear just flew straight past my head! Super awesome!’ times are over. What separated Avatar from the crowd of inferior 3D films was time had been spent thinking about immersion rather than titillation. But the problems with Avatar were simple; it was not a very good film. Was there a memorable performance? Did the plot with its thinly veiled metaphors sweep you away? Was it an hour too long? 3D paints over these cracks but they should not be ignored. Film-making at its heart is story-telling and when that comes second, the director’s got it wrong.

And now, if you will, think back over your favourite films. Whether its Lost in Translation or Lord of the Rings can you honestly say they would be improved by 3D. Would that make you love them more? So why does it matter? It matters because it’s hurting everything else, like a giant but highly profitable bull in a china shop. At the moment everyone wants 3D (like Pokémon cards or yo-yos) and the studios will keep producing it. This is to the detriment of other films that could have been made in their place, films that are ambitious but need funding. These films need the help of studios who are now otherwise occupied.

So next time you are at home go and find the drawer that still has that yo-yo, or the Charizard Shiny it felt too difficult to bin, place next to it those 3D glasses that I know you stole from the Cinema. You will make film better if you do.

Pro Film, Evie Deavall

Film is Art and Television is not. By ‘Film’, I’m not referring to the mediocre and shoddy: television can rival that any day. Instead, I’m talking about the gritty, consequential stuff: the sort of thing that wins Oscars. If you get a really ‘good’ Film, for example, something by Jeunet, Arnold or Bigelow, its basic aim is to combine visual and audio elements with an uncompromising plotline to create a sensical indulgence: films such as Amélie, The Wave and The Shining immediately spring to mind. Ultimately, a Film is just another way of channelling creativity. Your senses are heightened; you become alarmingly aware of the physical and emotional world around you. Films draw out raw, deep-seated emotion; Film exploits human vulnerabilities. This is the purpose of Film.

You may argue that Television too can offer a gripping storyline, character development and visual niceties; programmes such as the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Spooks and the critically acclaimed and visually arresting Wallander are good examples of this. The difference is, however, that the medium of Television is vacuous, void of depth and appeals only to the apathetic masses who watch, passively, to kill time. With Television you drift, oblivious, in and out of a storyline but with Film you will be dragged kicking and screaming.

What, then, is the purpose of Television? To be honest, its almost acceptable if the only thing that Television does is provide light entertainment and escapism. But what I do take issue with is audiences concentrating their energy on Television when Film can offer them so much more. When it comes down to it, however, you cannot compare the two. This is not because they are such different media, but because they are, in essence, polar opposites of the same medium: Film as the crowning glory and Television lagging far, far behind. Hence, it is hardly worth the comparison.

Pro TV: Helen Pye

TV better than film?! Surely they’re completely incomparable! Well you’re right, television is better in so many ways. People think television is just mind-numbing reality programmes and Jeremy Kyle saying ‘put something on the end of it’, and while I admit there is such drivel shown on TV, don’t forget some of the amazing drama that’s available. Think of Desperate Housewives, Lost, Mad Men, The Wire; what do they all have in common? They’re long-running series that people watch week after week, because they take the time to go deeper – characters are developed and sub-plots are introduced. Just think about the intricate story-lines and twists in the US drama FlashForward; a 2-hour film simply doesn’t have the time to develop like television.

Film often resorts to throwing money at CGI to impress people or falling back on a predictable and over-used formula (name any rom-com you like). But there’s more than just entertainment on TV. I’m the first to confess to tuning into channel 4 and catching ‘the man who ate his lover’ or ‘the girl with two faces’ and thoroughly enjoying it. Would I ever have learnt so much if I’d decided to watch Harry Potter instead? And don’t get me started on how much better comedy is on TV with quiz shows, stand-up and sketch shows. Plus watching a TV programme is a social event. Just think about those Christmas days crowded round the TV with your family, glued to Eastenders. Film, conversely, is a couple of hours in a dark cinema being shushed by the irritable person next to you, sticky with popcorn and so uncomfortable it’s hard to focus on the unsatisfying characters on the screen in front of you. Film isn’t ground-breaking now; instead you get a barrage of money-pinning franchises. Film is on its way out while TV is coming into its own so stay home and switch on the TV.

In 2004, a woman called Leonie Leblanc claimed, even though she wasn’t a Jew, that she had been the victim of an anti-Semitic attack by a group of Africans on board a train just outside Paris. The event sparked a media furore with the French President offering his support and Ariel Sharon urging Jews to leave for Israel to ‘escape the wildest anti-Semitism’. It soon emerged that the event was fiction. Andre Techine takes inspiration from this event for The Girl on the Train, but the brilliance of the movie lies in the way it narrates the very private worlds that get caught up in these larger debates. Jeanne, whose company is mostly just herself, though initially resistant, coyly yields to a young wrestler’s advances. A whole world of living individuals is created around her, yet she seems to have hardly any contact with most of them – even with her supportive mother, played powerfully by Catherine Denevue. In such a world, one reached only through its fictions, reaching out can have disastrous consequences. Yet, even though the movie conjures up capturing narratives, some other narratives, or odd scenes, stick out a bit oddly – making it more a collection of wonderful pieces and moments, rather than one organically stringed feature.

In comparison I found Romanian director Radu Jude’s The Happiest Girl in the World very well knit – all the more remarkable given the slower pace of the movie. The movie is structured by repeated attempts to shoot a commercial, weaving around it the stories of three individuals variously involved in the process. It gradually emerges that Delia has won a car by posting some juice labels and her parents desperately want to sell it off – hence the journey to the city. Beginning from the friendly, but casual greeting after such a long journey, to the brisk hands doing the make-up, to being shouted at by younger people – the rural family soon realise they have entered a different place, yet one in which they can shout back. They can both be surprised at Delia’s failure to perform the scene to perfection at one go – ‘they want to give her a Logan and she won’t listen to them!’ – and insist on hovering around the sets to give their own directions. Jude’s movie paints a moving picture of the people behind the commercial – the happiest girl might not have the money to maintain her prize.

Rian Johnson is a director who knows his genres, as he first proved four years ago with Brick. There he slammed together two distinct styles – film noir and high school comedy – to great effect, and with The Brothers Bloom, he’s written and directed a deliriously entertaining take on con films. With its deadpan comedy, odd characters and a surprisingly heartfelt conclusion, this feels like a deliberate and refreshing resistance to the slick but soulless glamour of Ocean’s Eleven. Johnson injects the scenes with a joyfully quirky sensibility, and in doing so has produced an oddly stylish and entertaining film.

The film focuses on two brothers, Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody), who decide to take on ‘one last job’, intending to trick Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz), a naïve, lonely but very rich character, out of $2.5 million. Predictably, things don’t go according to plan. Funny how these last jobs are never as simple as they sound. It’s a risk tackling the con man genre, as these films are utterly reliant on the audience being at least one step behind the filmmaker. But having learnt from the likes of The Sting and the Oceans films, the audience is usually experienced enough to catch the filmmaker out. Johnson knows this, and so is not only reliant upon comedic misdirection, but also upon his ability to pull on the audience’s heartstrings.

Indeed, the most impressive and surprising aspect of the film are the emotional relationships that develop between Bloom and Penelope and, more importantly, between the brothers themselves. For Johnson, con films don’t have to be soulless. Particularly impressive is the previously undiscovered comedic talent of Rachel Weisz, who manages to play the banjo, ride a unicycle, juggle, break dance and perform card tricks (though not all at the same time). Although the rest of the cast do well, it is Weisz who carries the film when its abundance of quirk occasionally threatens to capsize the whole venture.

Unfortunately, despite its quality, the film has bombed at the American box office and as such has taken over a year to be released in the UK. But it was well worth the wait. Here, Johnson is perhaps the ultimate conman, pulling the rug from under the audience with an emotional punch previously unseen in the genre. It seems that, with Brick and now The Brothers Bloom, Rian Johnson has proved he’s far too talented to be trusted.