2010-04-19 05:47:12

CLASH OF THE TITANS: Our Paranormal Cinema (Part 2)

Filed under: Alice In Wonderland, Avatar, Clash Of The Titans, Featured, Movies, The Wolfman
Posted by: John

by JOHN MARKS

At my local music store, a home-made sign hangs on the wall. “Which make better movie monsters? Puppets or computers?” Duh! I put a red felt tip check beneath puppets. So did most everyone else.

That may sound like a perverse conviction, given that the biggest hits of the year thus far have been computer-lab extravaganzas fitted or retrofitted for 3D, but people in my town have a contrarian streak and tend to find solace in handmade things. But I bet we’re not alone. I bet a lot of people would vote for puppets, if for no other reason than a vague discomfort at the overwhelming power and presence of computer technology in every aspect of life.

The record store question gives voice to the discomfort. Even if we don’t really want to see more puppets in our lives (I personally hate and fear puppets!), we vote against computers as a form of protest.

Hard drives have become inescapable, and this is especially true at the local metroplex. Think of James Cameron’s Avatar, the paragon of wondrous computer generated creatures, or The Wolfman, in which technology had its way with old school make-up and design, or Alice In Wonderland, a visual feast that almost manages to disguise its cylon nature. And the summer promises lots more, starting with the mellifluous bronze bottle glories of The Prince Of Persia.

Then there is Clash Of The Titans, the Greek mythology blockbuster released in late March. If you have kids, you’ve seen the trailer. “Release The Kraken!” anyone?

Clash is a remake of a clunky, fairly awful, yet sporadically magical 1980 movie starring Laurence Olivier and Harry Hamlin, a full-on puppet fest that makes a decent argument for the loyal opposition. Fans of Ray Harryhausen know what I’m talking about.

Harryhausen, who will be 90 in June, is the god of pre-computer live animation. He won the Academy Award in 1950 for his early work on Mighty Joe Young, to which he contributed under the guidance of Willis O’Brien, his hero, the man who created the original King Kong.

Harryhausen then invented his own style that came to be known as Dynamation. The lavish and loving official Harryhausen website explains how Dynmation worked, and it’s something of a revelation to see how much could be accomplished with nothing more than the camera lens, a model, some paint and few plates of glass.

“The process was simple but very effective. He [[Harryhausen]] projected a live action image onto a rear screen in front of which was placed the animation table with the model. He would then place a glass sheet in front of both. When the live action plate had been shot Ray would establish where he wanted to make his matte line and so by looking through the camera viewfinder he would re-establish that line and with a wax pencil on the end of a stick, follow that line by drawing it on the glass. When he was satisfied that the line was accurate he would then paint out, with black matt paint, the lower section, below the line. He would then photograph the animation of the model reacting to the live action on the plate. Afterwards he would then create a second pass in the camera to reinstate the lower previously matted out section so creating a combined image of the creature seemingly as part of the live action.”

That process, first used in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, kept him working for thirty more years.

The original Clash Of The Titans was his final effort in along line of homespun but somehow startling special effects that set the industry standard for creature features until Jurassic Park came along and made him look like a stonecutter from another century. His feats include the skeleton army in Jason And The Argonauts, the cyclops fighting the dragon in The Seventh Voyage Of Sinbad, the misunderstood Ymir from Twenty Million Miles To Earth, the belligerent Centaur from The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad and the cowboy-eating dinosaurs in The Valley Of Gwangi.

It’s unfair to compare his dinosaurs to those in Jurassic Park, of course. In open field combat, Harryhausen’s “puppets” would get stomped. Better to have a look at the various monster movies of an earlier era, the ones that Harryhausen didn’t outfit, whether the sound version ofThe Lost World or B movies like Tarantula or Them or Journey To The Center Of The Earth. A few seconds of screen time tells the story. The latter movies try hard, and some do better than others, but nothing comes close to the fantastic quality to be found in even the least of the Harryhausen efforts.

If I had to use one word to pinpoint the heart of the magic, it would be stillness. The master went to great pains to give his creatures an integrity in their stillness, and yet brought them completely alive at the same time. He made movement itself sort of wondrous.

There is no stillness in the remake of Clash Of The Titans, not even in the stony home of the Stygian witches. I’m not talking about actual movement here, but a quality more deeply buried in the grain of things. I’m talking about a lack of stillness within the objects themselves. Early in the film, the character of Perseus, played by Avatar’s Sam Worthington, rummages in a trunk and pulls out a small, gold, mechanical owl that featured heavily in the earlier film.

It’s a lovely moment, a valentine to the now eclipsed achievements of another time, but it’s also illuminating. That owl, which goes right back into the trunk when another character says, “Leave it behind,” is the one thing in the movie that truly seems at rest. The fact that Harryhausen’s creations were at rest most of the time lends them the flavor of miracle when they actually twitch.

It’s the great nuisance of modern computer generated imagery that it has never known immobility. That should be one of its assets, and maybe it is for viewers who have never known another kind of special effect, but for me the fluidity of most screen creatures these days feels way too easy, as if they’ve been popped out of a Pringles can. At best, in movies like Avatar and Alice, the images take on a ghostliness. It’s not the concreteness that stirs; it’s the ethereality. Deployed imaginatively, this sort of CGI work can be wondrous, too, but it hasn’t yet reached the heights of Harryhausenness.

The original Clash Of The Titans starred Olivier and Dame Maggie Smith, but no one who remembers the movie recalls anything about those paycheck performances. In the remake, the performances are the best thing in the movie. Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson are lots of fun as Hades and Zeus, and Worthington is game as Perseus, but the real star of the show is Gemma Arterton as the demi-goddess Io.

The actress seems on the verge of laughter every time she says a line. Even when being threatened, even while stricken, her lips hold in equipoise the stillness that comes before an uncontrollable giggle. Her lips are, in fact, the one truly great special effect in the film. By the end, I waited for their reappearance like I once waited for the next monster in a Harryhausen flick.

It turns out that a much older form of special effect, the amused lips of a beautiful woman, have a far greater impact on the big screen than either puppets or computers. They work a spell that no sorcerer can match. They destroy monsters.

Comments (2)

2 Comments »

1. I’m with you all the way on this one, especially re: Gemma Arterton. But I do have to say: I liked the whole movie better than I thought I would. And while, on the whole, nothing in this film strikes me as deep as, say, the fighting skeletons in Jason (which still give me the creeps), I have to say that the kraken was pretty awesome, maybe even better than the Balrog in LOTR. I especially liked the look on his big, dumb face when Perseus confronts him with the head of Medusa. I half-expected a Terry Gilliam moment there, with El Krakster scratching his head and saying, “What the…?” just before he turns to stone.

   Comment by Jim — April 19, 2010 @ 8:33 am

2. I’m a big fan of Harryhausen as well and have had the pleasure of meeting him several times over the years. The last time I saw him I remember him expressing his particular views on modern-day CGI visual effects. While he appreciates the marvels of technology, he also mentioned that this sort of all too slick photorealistic imagery can prove more distracting in some ways when the viewer is taken out of the moment and has to discern whether what one sees is real or not (not to mention broaching the “uncanny valley” while trying to realistically depict humans in certain instances). In other words, the built-in imperfections of stop-motion/puppets reveal the human element behind the effects – and actually display a more tactile/spacial sense of dimensionality (since they are actual physical objects) if you think about it, viz. “Coraline” – reminding us that we are participating in a movie experience – not an attempted replication of reality – that transports and encourages us to temporarily and willfully suspend our disbelief. Therein, according to Harryhausen, lies true movie magic.

   Comment by Joe — April 19, 2010 @ 2:42 pm

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