EDITOR’S NOTE: Press Play is proud to premiere a new video essay by Los Angeles scholar and filmmaker Matthias Stork. His video essay, Chaos Cinema, should be a welcome sight to anyone who’s ever turned away from a movie because of a director’s shaky camera.
PART 1
During the first decade of the 21st century, film style changed profoundly. Throughout the initial century of moviemaking, the default style of commercial cinema was classical; it was meticulous and patient. At least in theory, every composition and camera move had a meaning, a purpose. Movies did not cut without good reason, as it was considered sloppy, even amateurish. Mainstream films once prided themselves on keeping you the viewer well-oriented because they wanted to make sure you always knew where you were and what was happening.
Action was always intelligible, no matter how frenetic the scenario. A prime example: John Woo’s classic Hong Kong action film Hard Boiled. Its action is wild and extravagant, but it is nevertheless coherent and comprehensible at all times. Viewers feel and experience the exaggerated shootout fantasy without ever losing their bearings. In terms of camerawork, editing and staging, precision is key. Woo’s film is in fact strongly influenced by the work of American directors such as Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorsese. A similarly great American action film is John McTiernan’s Die Hard. Notice the economy of cuts and camera moves in the scene where hero John McClane fights the bad guy’s chief henchman, Karl. The fight itself is frantic yet clearly understandable, both riveting and stabilizing — the M.O. of classical cinema.
But in the past decade, that bit of received wisdom went right out the window. Commercial films became faster. Overstuffed. Hyperactive.
Rapid editing, close framings, bipolar lens lengths and promiscuous camera movement now define commercial filmmaking. Film scholar David Bordwell gave this type of filmmaking a name: intensified continuity. But Bordwell’s phrase may not go far enough. In many post-millennial releases, we’re not just seeing an intensification of classical technique, but a perversion. Contemporary blockbusters, particularly action movies, trade visual intelligibility for sensory overload, and the result is a film style marked by excess, exaggeration and overindulgence: chaos cinema.
Chaos cinema apes the illiteracy of the modern movie trailer. It consists of a barrage of high-voltage scenes. Every single frame runs on adrenaline. Every shot feels like the hysterical climax of a scene which an earlier movie might have spent several minutes building toward. Chaos cinema is a never-ending crescendo of flair and spectacle. It’s a shotgun aesthetic, firing a wide swath of sensationalistic technique that tears the old classical filmmaking style to bits. Directors who work in this mode aren’t interested in spatial clarity. It doesn’t matter where you are, and it barely matters if you know what’s happening onscreen. The new action films are fast, florid, volatile audiovisual war zones.
Even attentive spectators may have trouble finding their bearings in a film like this. Trying to orient yourself in the work of chaos cinema is like trying to find your way out of a maze, only to discover that your map has been replaced by a reproduction of a Jackson Pollock painting, except the only art here is the art of confusion.
Consider Michael Bay’s Bad Boys 2, an explosive mixture of out-of-control editing, intrusive snatch-and-grab shots and a hyperactive camera. Bay’s cacophony stifles the viewer’s ability to really process the film’s CGI-assisted skirmishes. The action is cool to look at, but it’s hard to discern in detail, and there’s no elegance to it. The shots are often wobbly. Sometimes this is due to the use of deliberately shaky handheld cameras. Other times, the filmmakers have made relatively stable shots seem much wilder and blurrier in post-production through the use of AfterEffects software. (This is not film grammar, it is film dyslexia.)
Considering all the deliberate insanity occurring onscreen, these movies should be totally unintelligible. Yet we still have a faint sense of what’s going on.
Why?
Because of the soundtrack.
Chaos films may not offer concrete visual information, but they insist that we hear what is happening onscreen. Ironically, as the visuals in action films have become sloppier, shallower and blurrier, the sound design has become more creative, dense and exact. This is what happens when you lose your eyesight: your other senses try to compensate. Consider how relentless machine-gun fire, roaring engines and bursting metal dominate the opening of Marc Forster’s James Bond entry, Quantum of Solace. The scene’s dense sound effects track fills in the gaps left by its vague and hyperactive visuals.
But the image-sound relationship is still off-kilter. What we hear is definitely a car chase — period.
But what we see is a “car chase.”
French auteur Robert Bresson rightfully stressed the importance of sound in the formation of atmospheric depth in movies. He even argued for its primacy, saying that in some ways sound might be even more important than picture. But in lavishly funded action films that wish to create an immersive experience, sound and image should be complementary, and they should be communicative. In Quantum of Solace and in other works of chaos cinema – image and sound ultimately do not enter into a dialogue, they just try to out-shout each other.
In contrast to Bay’s and Forster’s haphazard execution of action, consider the meticulously staged and photographed car chase in Ronin. In contemporary action cinema, such a sequence is, unfortunately, hard to find.
PART 2
Chaos cinema technique is not limited to action sequences. We see it used in dialogue sequences as well. We hear important plot information being communicated, but the camerawork and cutting deny us other pleasures, such as seeing a subtle change in facial expression or a revealing bit of body language.
This deficiency is especially discernible in the musical film, a genre that ordinarily relies heavily on clear-cut choreography and expressive gestures. But the woozy camera and A.D.D. editing pattern of contemporary releases clearly destroy any sense of spatial integrity. No matter how closely we look, the onscreen space remains a chaotic mess. For comparison, consider a scene from the classic Singin’ in the Rain. Long, uninterrupted takes allow us to see the extraordinary performances of the actors. No false manipulation necessary.
To be fair, the techniques of chaos cinema can be used intelligently and with a sense of purpose. Case in point: Kathryn Bigelow‘s The Hurt Locker. The film uses chaotic style pointedly and sparingly, to suggest the hyper-intensity of the characters’ combat experience and the professional warrior’s live-wire awareness of the lethal world that surrounds him. Bigelow immerses viewers in the protagonists’ perspectives, yet equally grants them a detached point of view. The film achieves a perfect harmony of story, action and viewer involvement.
But such exceptions do not disprove the rule. Most chaos cinema is indeed lazy, inexact and largely devoid of beauty or judgment. It’s an aesthetic configuration that refuses to engage viewers mentally and emotionally, instead aspiring to overwhelm, to overpower, to hypnotize viewers and plunge them into a passive state. The film does not seduce you into suspending disbelief. It bludgeons you until you give up.
Some film buffs have already grown tired of chaos cinema – especially the so-called “shaky cam,” which has been ridiculed even by South Park. Despite stirrings of viewer discontent, however, chaos is still the default filmmaking mode for certain kinds of entertainment, and it’s an easy way for Hollywood movies to denote hysteria, panic and disorder.
Chaos cinema seems to mark a return to the medium’s primitive origins, highlighting film’s potential for novelty and sheer spectacle – the allure of such formative early works as The Great Train Robbery. You can trace the roots of chaos cinema to several possible factors: the influence of music video aesthetics, the commercial success of TV, increasingly short viewer attention spans, the limitless possibilities of CGI, and a growing belief in more rather than less. Those who look closer, though, may wonder when cinema will recapture the early visceral appeal of the train pulling into the station at La Ciotat — truly a symbolic relic, powerful in its simplicity. Chaos cinema hijacks the Lumière brothers‘ iconic train, fills it with dynamite, sets the entire vehicle on fire and blows it up while crashing it through the screen and into the rumbling movie theater – then replays it over and over. And audiences are front and center, nailed to their seats, sensing the action but not truly experiencing it. All is chaos.
Matthias Stork is a film scholar and filmmaker from Germany who is studying film and television at UCLA. He has an M.A. in Education with an emphasis on American and French literature and film from Goethe University, Frankfurt. He has attended the Cannes film festival twice (2010/2011) as a representative of Goethe University’s film school. You can read his blog here.
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I am literally at the point where I can’t follow the Tourette-Syndrome hyperactivity of modern “film making” (I always add quotes when discussing Greengrass or Bay’s work). It seems that now excitement and explosions are all modern film making is; who cares about comprehension, or eliciting emotion?!
What is truly sad is that there is now a generation of film viewers who are being raised to believe that shaky hand-held cameras are the apex of artistic expression. I suppose the Mountain-Dew fueled 13-year olds cost less than, say, an actual artist with experience and skill. And yet somehow these films still cost a fortune…
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in someways i like this essay, in some ways i hate it, i personally am not a fan of the rapid cut shots of modern day action movies but you missed their true foundation in the works of michael mann and paul greengrass. the bourne supremacy, i consider to be ground zero of chaos filmmaking with its rapid cut chase scenes, quantum of solace”s first scene was almost a shot for shot remake of the chase scenes of the bourne supremace. and michael mann is the king of rapid shot gun fight where you just have quick shot of people shooting into space it is one of biggest pet peeve and one of the many reason i consider “public enemies” to among the worst movies i have scene. but that does not mean there is not a time and place for such film antics it really captures what i believe a fight would be like in real life showing the sheer confusion of it. i like to think of fighs in books to see this more clearly, fights are almost always written as a stream of moves which can only truely be captured on film throught the chaos filmmaking your denoncing. and another point that you really lost me at is when you bring up golden age musicals which in no way shows a contrast since the thing your condeming is modern action movies. and then you bring up how the long shots of these film show such beautiful artistry, well your living in the age of the long shots in the last ten years you’ve had some of the most beautiful oners in the history of film. think of the car chase in “children of men”, the beach setting shot in “atonement”, or even the plane crash shot in the god awful “Knowing” it would have been best if you left that side of it out.
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to follow up my 1st point, it seems more pervasive a change as it is a complete change of media: from film to digital, as opposed to a change of technique.
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As in music, the new technology, which makes it all possible, gets abused, and that’s why things look “dated” in 10 years. Also, the commercial mainstream takes what is palatable from the avant garde (surrealism, Brechtian, are early examples, showing up in cartoons, hollywood musicals)and makes them part of the commercial vernacular… Look at the history of the jump-cut, for example, or “cutting-edge” experimenters of the 60’s as antecedents
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Ok, what I don’t get is how people are talking about top notch action and mentioning Christopher Nolan in the same breathe. While his overall action scenes aren’t too bad, his fight scenes are dull as dirt. Only the training scenes in Batman Begins and the hallway sequence in Inception standout to me. Both Begins and The Dark Knight had pretty solid chase scenes and Inception had some decent gunplay, but action is hardly Nolan’s strong point. He’s average at best. The fight choreography in both Batman films is completely uninspired and you can hardly see what’s happening when he takes on thugs in Begins.
As a huge action fan, I’ve found myself leaning towards lower budget and DTV fair for my fix and have been quite satisfied. Movies like Undisputed III, The Protector and even the cult classic Equilibrium have action scenes that trump a lot of the blockbusters. If anything has hurt the modern action film (and don’t get me wrong, super frenetic cuts and shaky cam can be a drag) it’s a lack of imagination and watering things down. R rated action films are fewer and far in between these days. The death note for comic book flicks being an R has been all but signed and even the most intense actioners are usually PG-13 to grab a wider audience. There has been a minor comeback in recent years in mainstream cinema with movies like Rambo, The Expendables, Faster and Punisher: War Zone being released, but none of the those pictures made enough money for studios to steadily flock back to that style.
Like I said, I think imagination and creativity are coming up short nowadays too. A lot of action movies just aren’t EXCITING like they used to be. Not a lot of interesting camera work; just nothing out of the ordinary. A lot of stuff is more of the same. Gunfights that don’t try to do anything new, repetitive car chases, final showdowns where the bad guy dies in 30 seconds…that’s not exciting. There is a fight between Batman and Superman on The Brave and The Bold that rocks…and it’s a cartoon! There’s no reason a cartoon should have a more excitingly planned out fight scene that a action oriented major motion picture.
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The film “Shoot Em Up” is satire against the very style that you stand against, and should not be lumped in with the rest of the ‘Chaos’ entries. Great Essay though! – I really enjoy your work.
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@arvin: “If I were a betting man I’d wager on there being little if any difference, and a clear correlation between their comprehension, enjoyment, and emotional attachment to a particular film and their age when they saw it (specifically, whether or not they were of the age most impressionable for the genre, i.e. youth for action films).”
This is an excellent point! Though one that a scientist or sociologist is probably better equipped to answer than a critic.
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I couldn’t agree more with this article. Excellent read, valid points all around.
To anyone who thinks this is article is set in the “older is better” mentality; you’re an idiot with bad taste. This article is set in a “better is better” mentality, one that I personally completely agree with.
Ronin is the shit. Love it.
+1
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Great essay!! Enjoyed it quite a lot. Hyper-editing in film today is way beyond control. Personally, I think it can be traced back to Armageddon which shows just how untalented a director Michael Bay really is. Not only is it a badly written, badly directed, badly acted film but it’s also horrifically edited. Roger Ebert called it the 1st 150 minute trailer & he’s absolutely right. The film itself is simply a series of cuts where almost none last longer than about 5 seconds. Combine that with bad acting & dialog & you get a film that’s deliberately confusing but not artistically so. Surely, the film was meant to be an action spectacular but when you consider films like Die Hard or Hard-Boiled, there were brains behind the chaos.
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A very pretentious and, above all, highly biased essay. Older is better, that old chestnut. That’s pretty what your essay said in a nutshell, despite the fact that you would probably deny it. There were a lot of shit and terrible films made in the “Golden Age”, too, but the film snobs usually choose not to remember them. Funny thing is a lot of terrible films from back then are actually WORSE than really bad films of today.
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Ah, the film snob, so deftly able to explain why they are better than everyone but unable to produce the results in reality :). A good film takes heart, passion, experience, a ton of work and an undeniable set of talent to begin with. You are clearly lacking in any number, if not all of these areas. Your pompous and self serving argument provides in fact no real evidence towards your conclusion. While you make think you sound clever, all I’m reading on this end is bullshit. You compare shitty films to universally loved ones (big risk there eh?), and then describe a scene from a classic action movie as wonderful because you can simply see all the action? You then spend time explaining how ‘chaotic’ film making is bad because the viewer can’t tell what’s going on.
In no form do you actually explain your argument besides using as many clever words as you can possibly cram into your haughty writing style. On a side note, if you’re writing to communicate a message to people, why wouldn’t you just write plainly. Perhaps because you are writing to sound superior and boost your sad little ego instead?
A film like the bourne identity gets the adrenaline pumping precisely because of its chaotic filming. The action looks real and intense, an action scene at its finest. Some people rave about the one shot hammer scene from oldboy. In my opinion the action looks completely fake and therefore takes me out of the movie. I understand that some people don’t prefer this style of filming (bourne), I enjoy many different ways of shooting a fight scene myself. However, to call this type of filmmaking ‘lazy’ just because you don’t like it is downright childish. The fact that you’ve backed up your colossal pile of bs with no real argument other than whining about lazy editing and that it sucks is even more absurd. You remind me of a professor teaching about film techniques: they’re so afraid what they say is pointless or doesn’t make sense that they don’t allow any room for clarity.
You may have a following of hipsters, but ya can’t fool me. The premise that older is better is a tired one, not to mention one of the laziest 😉 arguments to cling on to. There are in fact more excellent films coming out today than there were in previous years, thanks in no small part to modern technology. While you may rave about the golden age of films, the fact remains that for every good movie that came out there were tons of crappy ones surrounding it. Just a convenient fact of history nobody remembers them.
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It seems as though Mr. Stork mischaracterizes Bordwell’s use of the phrase, “intensified continuity.” In his book THE WAY HOLLYWOOD TELLS IT, Bordwell intends the term to apply to the norms of Hollywood filmmaking, across genres, beginning in the late 60s and encompassing the proffered examples of non-intensified “classical” cinema like BULLITT, THE WILD BUNCH, RAIDERS, DIE HARD, and HARD BOILED. These films aren’t “classical” at all, as the word is traditionally used in describing film style. They may be more spatially clear and coherent than Tony Scott or Paul Greengrass’s films, but identifying them as “classical” is taking it a step too far, I think.
Stork’s claims may hold for select action films in recent years, but it’s troubling to misappropriate a theoretical concept like Bordwell’s. It’s also not insignificant to note, as many in this thread already have, that people have complained about the chaotic nature of modern cinematic style since the 1960s; the song remains the same, as it were.
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Very interesting essay! I direct you to some research on the perceptual psychology of film by James Cutting:
http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~jec7/pictures_film.htm
Among other things, he’s argued that edits have gotten shorter and sharper over time.
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I appreciate that a lot of time went into this, but its simply a denial of style. Filmmaking is an ever-evolving artform, one that changes with advancement. Do we still edit things the way Georges Méliès did? No, of course not. It’s a progression. And while some films do a poor job at this (Micheal Bay’s Transformer series, most of what Tony Scott has done in the past decade), many are masters. Can I safely say that any action scene Christopher Nolan has shot in his last few films is better than the action in Hard Boiled? Absolutely. How anyone can still watch Hard Boiled with stars in their eyes is beyond my comprehension. Just because there’s a lot of gunshots in one fluid shot, doesn’t mean that shot isn’t blandly composed. That saying “Every shot must have a purpose”, is one that gets tossed out in film school a lot as I’m sure many of us can attest to. But what most people seem to forget is the meaning behind it. Sometimes the purpose of a shot, is simply to connect a sequence together. There’s no grand over arching, methodical painter’s approach to simple connective shots and it’d be ridiculous to ascribe such values to them. Sometimes a man turning a faucet is simply a man turning a faucet.
A lot of hatred gets piled on Paul Greengrass’s style in the Bourne films, yet that style is precisely what makes them a step above most other studio action films. By taking a realistic, documentary approach to action, you hope to intensify the experience for the audience, bringing them farther into the protagonist’s world. Maybe this doesn’t work for you, but for many, it does. The same for Forster’s opening of Quantum of Solace. The point of that sequence was to differentiate itself from every other stock car chase, it was supposed to be disorienting. Most of your other examples are ridiculous. Why even bother with films like Gamer, Shoot ‘Em Up, The Expendables? They’re hardly in the same class of film and one could easily argue that for every good example of a “Classically edited Action Movie” you chose, there’s just as many ridiculously shot entries that would go alongside these ones.
Raiders of The Lost Ark was nominated for Best Picture, and rightfully so. But putting it alongside Bad Boys 2? A movie that upon its release was trashed by every major critic. How is that even a good example? It’s simply putting good movies against bad. And their action sequences are not the reasons for their shoddy status. Your attempt to be unbiased, sampling The Hurt Locker as one shining example of the technique is a bit ridiculous as it’s not even an action movie. And comparing it with Domino? A movie quite universally reviled? Your entire thesis is essentially juxtaposing good films and bad.
You’re taking what is a popular critical point of view in that you seem to think you’re the only one who knows what’s really going on. The rest of the audience must be sheep because they eat it up. But you’re basically being just as reactionary as the films you deride. Piling hyperbolic phrases over top of films that were universally panned (Domino, Unstoppable, Bad Boys 2, Gamer) and claiming that these films are the standard when that’s anything but true. You include examples of Nolan’s The Dark Knight and Inception, two wonderfully shot action films that are also two of the highest grossing films of the last few years. You mention Quantum but don’t really touch upon Casino Royale which flirts between the two styles of editing. You seem to have done very little research into editing techniques, especially when it comes to justifying why “older is better”. Choosing a scene from “Singing In The Rain” is a fairly easy out, because it’s a universally loved film. And the scene works because of the performance, not the composition or the editing. But then you put it against a network TV show? I’m with you, there’s a lot of excess in modern cinema, and it’s been a growing trend. But that doesn’t mean the style is going to completely take over. As film has progressed there have always been people to take the style, make it their own and help the progression of film. For every great film, there has always been ten mediocre ones alongside it to capitalize on similar techniques. This is not new. This is simply the way it has always been. Calling some of these filmmakers lazy, ignoring some of the legitimate progress being made seems so archaic. The Lumiere Bros helped to pave the way for an entire artform, but would we ever go back to the beginning? Of course not. We’re educated and things have evolved. Why don’t we go back in time and show those people Inception, I’m fairly certain the awe would still be there. Unfortunately, because we’ve grown up with this artform, we don’t have the simple pleasure of turning that part of our brain off. I think I’d conclude with one question. If film fails to continuously impress us the same way, is it the fault of over-editing, or over-analysis?
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This is a nicely put together essay and your arguments are fine, albeit, as you yourself conede, intrinsically polemical.
Like others have noted, you base your entire argument on the notion that one specific way of acheiving a desired effect is inherently better than another — seemingly solely because it’s “classical”.
I’ve had this conversation with others who have had the same issues with the shaky camera (et al.) that you do, and what I’ve found is that it’s really a matter of taste. What I mean is that what you’re looking for in an action scene to give you immersion and enjoyment may not be what others look for.
Let me explain why I enjoy the shaky camera style and frenetic editing (When done right – I can’t watch Transformers…).
You claim it makes the viewer lose his or her spatial bearings and the actual geography of the scene becomes unintelligble. And that’s true, but that’s exactly why it immerses me.
Because if you’ve ever been in a fight, you’ll know that it’s not particularly intelligible. It’s actually quite confusing and frenetic. In other words the style is there not to make me understand the action, but to feel it. You’re supposed to lose your bearings.
You may call that a sensory overload, but that presupposes there’s a natural limit when it comes to how much your senses can take before it no longer immerses but repels the viewer. And that such a limit would be universal.
To me, it’s not important exactly where what fist goes and how it gets there, To me it’s about the feeling of being in the fight with them. And I’d sacrifice spatial intelligibility over immersion any day. And I’m sure a lot of Russian formalists would agree with me. 😉
You seem to be aware that proper use of the chaos cinema style exists it’s seem a bit arbitrary which films you condone of and which you don’t.
You write:
“The film uses chaotic style pointedly and sparingly, to suggest the hyper-intensity of the characters’ combat experience and the professional warrior’s live-wire awareness of the lethal world that surrounds him. Bigelow immerses viewers in the protagonists’ perspectives, yet equally grants them a detached point of view.”
My first question would be: Why is a detached point of view desirable? This seems like a fairly random maxim of proper filmmaking, and stands in contrast to immersion which I would hold up as the ultimate goal of the medium.
My second question would: Could you not replace Bigelow with Greengrass and The Hurt Lokcer with The Bourne Ultimatum and the argument would still be true?
Isn’t the style just as justified for a soldier hunted by btural assassins as it is for an Iraq vet?
Again it just seems fairly arbitrary which films you seem to think uses the style properly and improperly. Perhaps you have yet to quantify what exactly it is that makes you like The Hurt Locker and dislike Bourne, or perhaps it’s just not quantifiable, but as it is in your essay right now, I don’t find it very convincing.
Now, does this mean that you should use the chaos style at all times? No. You still need to justify it. And Like I said, I got a headache from watching the Transformers movies, but I think it’s a common mistake to lump a guy like Bay in with people like Greengrass who’s essentially a docu-actioneer, who shoots his scenes like he would a real life event. His handheld camera frees up the actors who are not bound by rigid choreography and place-markers, thus allowing for more naturalistic performances.
That’s NOT what Michael Bay does. Michael Bay’s movies, whilst shaky and frenetically editied are EXTREMELY composed.
Because to Michael Bay the style is just that. A style. It’s almost like a filter he adds in post. With Greengrass he’s using it for a purpose. Its intrinsic to his entire operation.
Ultimately I feel you’re bit too much of a nostalgic, longing for the perfect time in the past when the grammar of movies was perfect and complete. But no such time existed. I enjoyed your essay but I disagree with you overall.
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I have to disagree with the inclusion of scenes from “Inception” and “Shoot ‘Em Up”. These are scenes that may be sufficiently more chaotic in sound design and rapidity of cuts when compared to say, “Die Hard” but “Shoot ‘Em Up” in particular takes great care to clarify both what action is taking place and where the characters are at all times. In fact, the choreography in the film appears pain-sneakingly planned out for maximum continuity and shouldn’t be lumped in with “Domino” or “Transformers”.
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I may not agree with all of this (I found much of Cloverfield to have great spatial awareness, particularly the street scene you posted. Not sure why you used that as an example. The subway scene would have been a better example, I think) but I was very captivated by the video. Nice job.
Out of curiosity, have you seen Tron: Legacy? That movie has OUTSTANDING spatial awareness. Look no further than the Light Cycle battle for proof that Kosinski is an action director to look out for.
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Fast-cutting and the shaky-cam are just like any other film technique – it’s not enough that the director knows how to use them; the director needs to know why. Black Hawk Down is a good example and it’s been mentioned a few times: each individual sequence is clearly chaotic but it’s building towards an overall purpose, and that overall purpose and meaning is always apparent. Same thing with The Hurt Locker, Children of Men, and even The Bourne Supremacy (Ultimatum… not so much).
But you could really make the same argument about any cinematic technique. Sometimes they work; sometimes they don’t. What distinguishes so-called chaos cinema is its simplicity – it’s much easier, particularly for an inexperienced director (or a lazy condescending director like Michael Bay), to take a shot of a fist and edit it into a shot of a face and imply a punch with a sound effect than to actually choreograph and film a fight. What they’re forgetting is that, unless there’s a purpose behind the chaos, this is just flashing images and is considerably less visceral and thrilling than a long take or a clear, intricate action sequence.
I find it interesting that Christopher Nolan continues to be mentioned in these types of discussions, since he, more than most other recent action directors, has shown that his style is growing. Compare action sequences from Batman Begins to Inception and you’ll see a style that’s gotten stronger, more confident, more spatially aware and less reliant on the illusion of action.
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This piece is everything “Press Play” should be. Great work.
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I think the examples used in this essay are very well spotted. BOURNE in particular – I hated that second film because it was so outrageously shaky and out of control – same with QUANTAM.
Contrasted with Peter Jackson’s excellent LORD OF THE RINGS – consider how meticulously his battle scenes were shot and edited. You never feel lost in the action for a second – in any shot, you know EXACTLY where you are in relation to the characters and the set. If you were dropped in any frame of the battle of Helm’s Deep and were told to make a B-line for the gate, you wouldn’t even have to think about which way to go. Even in FELLOWSHIP in a battle in a random forest, you STILL knew exactly where the other characters were in relation to the ones on screen. RINGS was followed by a plethora of Epic Battle movies that completely failed in this regard: KING ARTHUR, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, etc…
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Thank you all for your comments!
I see CHAOS CINEMA as a ubiquitous phenomenon in mainstream action filmmaking. The essay’s thesis refers to films that seek visual confusion for dramatic effect, sacrificing spatial clarity along the way. I tried to point out chaotic techniques, such as the shaky-cam, rapid cutting, close framings etc. Obviously, these techniques, by themselves, are not problematic, the overarching aesthetic is. While I can read and comprehend the action spaces of these films, I find them inferior to more classical examples of action which emphasize clarity and orientation. It is not just a matter of comprehension, though. I was weaned on MTV-style editing and stylistic hybridity. But watching these films, to me, is more an act of consumption, rather than true cognitive and emotional involvement.
In this regard, the essay is by default polemical. The ostensibly simplistic comparison between classical and chaotic films is, in my opinion, quite apt. Many films employ chaotic techniques, without narrative justification. THE HURT LOCKER should serve as a counter-example. Chaos cinema, as a style, may be classified as a new classical mode, as it seems to have become a default method in Hollywood action film. And its influence is noticeable in dialogue scenes and musical performances as well – and the musical film, originally derived from stage performances, is particularly interesting. The traditional formula enabled viewers to watch the ‘stage’-performance selectively. In the new versions, performance is not unified anymore, but broken into pieces, more an act of editing than acting, it seems to me at least.
Furthermore, I would like to emphasize that I am not adverse to chaotic technique in general. I take issue with an oversimplification of chaos cinema. War, as a cinematic scenario, seems to provide a justification for jerky camera moves, ultra-close framings and wild cuts. I find that formula trite. Cinema, as a medium, has a stylistic catalogue that allows for more varied approaches. Matt rightfully cited FULL METAL JACKET. Clearly laid out shots that you can easily reconstruct and explain in terms of narrative motivation. And the horror of war is still present … disturbing, nauseating even.
I tried to suggest possible reasons that account for chaos cinema. Personally, I hold that we need to consider both technical and industrial (e.g. new equipment) and sociological (our tendency to ‘over’look, shoot glances rather than scan and observe in detail) factors. But this is of course still speculation.
A particularly divisive point seems to be the grouping of directors. I chose works that, to me, reflect chaos cinema. I like Christopher Nolan. His films competently play with narrative conventions. But his action choreography is an illustration of chaotic technique, fast, disparate cuts, close framings, multi-angle camera footage. More seems to better. Less, subtlety I mean, is rare in these action sequences. This is not to say that I dismiss him as a director overall!
MTV-style editing has been in existence for more than forty years, for sure. I do not object to that. But is that not an overgeneralization? Cutting films rapidly is not inherently problematic. If used sparingly, this technique can stir up audiences, involve them in a film. But in chaotic films, rapid cutting is standardized. And usually coupled with other chaotic techniques.
This view of action cinema may appear narrow to some. Consider the format of the essay. It cannot possibly account for the entire genre. But chaos cinema, as I defined it, is not as versatile as some make it out to be. It can be categorized. Some of you mentioned OLD BOY and the NO COUNTRY, or Nicolas Winding Refn’s films. I do not find that they are chaotic at all. OLD BOY and NO COUNTRY … long takes, carefully devised choreography of action, a variety of field sizes, astutely placed sound cues. Winding Refn’s latest DRIVE is entirely classical. And his PUSHER trilogy … he shot with light equipment and granted, some shots are wobbly due to the handheld aesthetic but his editing is crisp and clear, his framings scrupulously composed, particularly in parts 2&3.
Chaos cinema appeals to many viewers. I personally find classical exercises, which are, as some of you rightfully pointed out, still out there. But they are not as wide-spread as they used to be. Chaotic techniques have merit. They can be powerful displays of cinema art, no question about it. But if they are overused, they can be head-pounding and debilitating, in my view, of course.
I am sorry that I cannot respond to all of you individually. If you feel that this response is inconsistent, please leave another comment. This discourse is surely valuable.
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Film makers need not argue that “chaos” techniques are essential to appeal to an audience. “There Will Be Blood” was anything but chaotic and appealed to many.
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Great essay. So true. Movies are really chaotic these days. You have no idea what’s happening on screen. Who’s chasing who and who’s killed and everything until the action scene is over and sometimes not even then.
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I wasn’t specifically referring only to the editing, but to all the elements to which you’d referred (fast cutting, as well as more chaotic cinematography, staging, composition, and camera movement); I think they’re all elements that can be parsed (and enjoyed by its very merits) by youth of the current generation, who can immerse themselves in a virtual world and virtual characters even back when they were made up of crude polygonal models.
I think to be able to fully prove a thesis of a fall of action filmmaking you’d have to look at its effects on a controlled demographic (youth back then versus youth now, adults now versus adults back then), and see whether or not they regard films of the past to be any clearer and emotionally engaging than action films of the present.
If I were a betting man I’d wager on there being little if any difference, and a clear correlation between their comprehension, enjoyment, and emotional attachment to a particular film and their age when they saw it (specifically, whether or not they were of the age most impressionable for the genre, i.e. youth for action films).
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Arvin: According to your definition, contemporary cognitivity standards enable us to perceive the rapidity of the images onscreen. This argument does not necessarily involve spatial clarity. And again, the essay does not reduce chaos cinema to an intensified editing pattern but identifies a variety of techniques. Furthermore, while I concur with your assessment that the modern generation of spectators may be extremely visually literate (subconsciously, though, I would argue), the trend to abbreviate takes and minimize shots in scale is not a method to foster the new cognitive ability.
Thomas Jahn: I respectfully disagree with your thesis that cinematic evolution involves an increase in speed. Cinema is concerned with the movement of the image, yes, but it offers more than just editorial velocity.
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They said the same things about Peckinpah years ago. If you don’t like the modern Cinema, just watch old movies. But the Cinema is an evolutionary Thing and it will get faster and faster. Yes. But throwing the Scott Brothers and other great Filmmakers in this essay, basically swing that they don’t know what there doing… i just shake my head and make movies.
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If it’s acceptable in The Hurt Locker, the same must be said for Black Hawk Down as both employ the technique for a valid reason.
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Anybody care to define (or redefine) chaos cinema? Is it just fast cutting? Must it also include shaky cam? Or is it fast cutting, shaky cam and lack of spatial clarity? Or is it just the last one?
Going through the list of 2011 mainstream action releases, those that extensively employ handheld are rare and none appear to intentionally or unintentionally disorientate the viewer.
Major action films/films with major action sequences (almost inevitably designed, shot and cut without much influence from the name director) are dogmatic about spatial clarity, which is why scenes like the opening of Marc Fosters’s QUANTUM OF SOLACE get noticed and talked about. It’s stands out because it’s rare to see something so spatially unclear in a mainstream release. But CAPTAIN AMERICA, ON STRANGER TIDES, the last HARRY POTTER, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, COWBOYS & ALIENS, CARS 2…? Which of these were intentionally or unintentionally spatially unclear? Shaky cam also seems — when you look for it — pretty rare.
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It seems a major fault in the author’s argument that the advent of action video games… specifically first person shooters, and their ever increasing pace (driven by multiplayer gaming), have honed the spatial acuity of the current generation of moviegoers (i.e. the prime audience for action films) to parse chaotic action. Their level of discontent at current action movies seems to be at the same level of previous generations…
Honestly at this point the only indisputable claim one could make based on the data is that action films are edited and paced to match the cognitive sensibilities of its contemporaneous audience (which, yes, seems to ever trend towards faster and faster cutting), which inevitably lead to the previous generation’s distaste towards the present form. As someone else said, it’s been happening since the beginning of action cinema.
i.e. – we’re all getting old. get over it (or not, you can certainly bellyache all you want, I’m just getting tired of “academic” bellyaching), and hold onto your Criterion collections.
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I don’t disagree with the core of the author’s thesis where action cinema is concerned, but – then again, this has been the trend of action cinema since its inception. What’s regarded now as a remarkably long and implicitly thought out sequence in something like, say, George Miller’s The Road Warrior, for example was at the time of its release victim to many of the same complaints that you’re foisting on these films, here. That it moved far too fast and was visually incoherent. The same was said of Peckinpah and Sergio Leone. These are filmmakers from the explicitly montage cinema school of thought, of which Hitchcock and Eisenstein were the pioneers, as opposed to those in the mise-en-scene camp. And, what is ironic is that, for many of the films that you’re using as examples of “how it was in the good old days,” they’re all edited almost as rapidly as anything from the last ten years that you’re using as the crux of your argument.
The fault that you should be confronting here with these films – your selection of which, by the way, shows a brutally narrow view of action cinema and visceral cinema as a whole, which includes musicals – is not their use of constant, rapid editing, but rather their visual dissociation and general lack of thought and narrative philosophy put into them, at the start. You do hint at this somewhat by your inclusion of The Hurt Locker, but as you say, the exception proves the rule. You say. And yet, filmmakers like these are, by and large, the minority. Christopher Nolan is one of the larger action filmmakers around right now, and I think his set-pieces are beautiful examples of clarity and choreography, utilizing an initial philosophy behind which to bind their editing styles – especially in The Dark Knight where, because of a few of the narrative and extranarrative factors, in contrast to Batman Begins which was intentionally herky-jerky, all of Batman’s punch-up sequences are filmed almost entirely in one naturalistic shot. He flows and moves far more smoothly and is much more biting in his attacks, and the film’s visual clarity reflects that, in lieu of its predecessor. And yet, it is as much a style of its generation of filmmaking as any other – there are no hierarchies in terms of quality, only quality itself, really. It’s also because of this that I think Cloverfield is such a strong film, visually – by the way. It is governed by its internal philosophy that is governed from the ground up by narrative.
There’s also Steven Soderbergh’s two parter Che to consider, which – for all of its political muckity-muck – are both as much action films as they are essays on a man. In the first part, Soderbergh places us in the mess at the mountain barracks, The Battle of Santa Clara, and again at the capital – bullets whiz by our heads, their is shouting and fire all around. The editing is at times slow and thoughtful, and at still others fractured and immediate. It is within the back and forth between these two aesthetic styles that the film creates something entirely other and authentic. If anything deserved to be called “Chaos Cinema,” it is this film.
(also, I’m a little put off by your exclusion of most of the examples of both of the genres you attempt to confront, action cinema and musicals, that kind of disprove the overall thesis of yours that both of these genres are headed into the visual and aesthetic toilet – where was Park-Chan Wook’s Oldboy? The Coen Brother’s No Country For Old Men? Cuaron’s Children of Men? And as far as musicals go, where was the big one – George Miller’s Happy Feet? I mean, sure, it’s an animated film, but it is one approached with a live-action filmmaker’s sensibility, and it’s one of the foremost returns to the loping and lyrical editing styles of the golden age of musical yesteryear, melded with Miller’s trademark visceral, roving and emotional aesthetic. Come on, that’s just inexcusable.)
Henry J.
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http://twitter.com/#!/AFFAFilmSchool
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Loved this video blog. You presented some very interesting points.
I’ll make sure to pass on your blog. Great work.
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“I tried to suggest possible reasons that account for chaos cinema.”
I think you are neglecting to account for the key ontogeny:
“Rapid editing, close framings, bipolar lens lengths and promiscuous camera movement now define commercial filmmaking. Film scholar David Bordwell gave this type of filmmaking a name: intensified continuity. But Bordwell’s phrase may not go far enough. In many post-millennial releases, we’re not just seeing an intensification of classical technique, but a perversion. Contemporary blockbusters, particularly action movies, trade visual intelligibility for sensory overload, and the result is a film style marked by excess, exaggeration and overindulgence: chaos cinema.“
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Not really getting this notion that we should necessarily accept chaotic filmmaking because of new camera and editing technology. Regardless of whether one edits on a Steenbeck or Final Cut Pro, you still have to make choices that serve emotion, theme, story, etc. In other words, just because one can cut faster and shoot something from about twenty angles doesn’t mean they have to slap all those angles together in the cutting room. Good filmmaking is about making artistic choices. If you don’t find this sort of chaotic filmmaking problematic, then what choices do you think the filmmaker is making when the camera is whipping about and a cut happens every 2 seconds?
Also, the accusation that somehow this essay is stuck in the past is rather absurd, considering it includes the old-timey classics like “Hard-Boiled” and “Ronin”, both movies which employ a lot of cutting themselves and somehow maintain spatial coherence. And I’m sure at least “Ronin” was edited digitally as well. We have moved over the last ten years from filmmakers who would learn how to stage exciting moments through camera placement and editing that was precise and thought through to what we have now which is creating excitement by cutting to between angles just because they can. Not because any of those shots actually have any function or meaning beyond coverage.
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Thanks for the great essay Matthias. The spatial sloppiness of many (but not all) action films today leads to boredom for the audience. These is frequently combined with cookie cutter character building which only makes the action scenes worse. How can you care about an action scene if you don’t care about the people in it? Filmmaking has been getting worse in general which makes this film lover and creator very sad.
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Greg, your argument for segregating high-class directors like Nolan and Greengrass from populist jockstraps like Michael Bay is the kind of caste/hierarchy/Grey Poupon thinking that has everybody so confused out there.
All these guys traffic in cinema that induces pointless anxiety and disorientation. They are like terrorists who do it just for kicks.
Doesn’t matter what books they done read or if their screenwriters got Pulitzers. Their shots be dumb as rocks.
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While I don’t in general watch the movies being attacked so viciously – but not incisively – here, I don’t accept neither the premise nor the conclusion of this “scholar and filmmaker”. His arguments about the movies not “suspending disbelief” and being generally crude, brings to mind the sort of person who will criticize people for drinking wine when they can have champagne: he’s conflating categories and he mistakenly believes that champagne has some sort of intrinsic quality beyond that bestowed upon by the social context and the history behind it.
Furthermore, where are the arguments for the claims of how the movie-goers parse this new visual language, brought about by revolutions in digital recording and editing? I, for one, never had any issues following action on-screen – this from a person who absolutely adore Roy Andersson’s still-life-like tableaus, Tarkovsky’s cutless style, and Haneke’s insistence on concrete spatiality. Judging from the comments here, it seems that you’re preaching to a choir of nostalgic ADD’ers, who seemingly can’t follow MTV-style editing – after MTV has been around for neigh-on 30 years.
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I’m sorry, comparing excellent directors (with excellent DPs) like Nolan and Greengrass (both of whose films you have a good spacial awareness and you know exactly what is going on all the time) with Bay and so on is just not sensible. It is like trying to review a whole nation’s cuisine by going to the dodgy takeway near you that has given you food poisoning every time you’ve eaten there.
It’s also a very conservative and romantic view you are taking and I tend to disagree with much of it because it comes across as too stuck in the past and oblivious to the faults of that past. Which you amplify because when you pick the best of the best of the past and compare it only to the worst of the worst of the present, of course today is going to come up short. In fact go back to older lesser appreciated action films and they are just as bad as the hyper kenetic insane ones now.
Also nearly all your comments only apply to poor films and directors and muddle up the issue of filming style with quality and spectacle which are separate issues.
Similarly you pretty much ignore the issue of changing technology in this as all this is down to improved cameras pretty much.
Basically it is a dominant fashion, it will change. I also think you are overstating the lack of non-‘chaos’ cinema as there are plenty of films with a far less frenetic style.
Also have you considered you personally may have poor spatial awareness when watching film scenes? I never find this an issue in ‘choas cinema’ directed by good directors like greengrass and nolan.
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@Chris My only point is how the advancement of filmmaking technology has kind of allowed so called ‘Chaos Cinema’ to exist. Digital cameras are smaller, lighter and more mobile and computers allow for much more precise editing.Maybe the slower, more deliberate staging of action in older films was borne more out of necessity than a filmmaking aesthetic.
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This is the fallacy of the age. Yes, so many stylistic tendencies arose out of practical necessity, but they were developed and refined over decades of filmmaker-audience call and response–similar to the delicate “conversation” that Stork says picture and sound should be having. But lighter cameras and non-linear editing technology allowed businessmen and salesmen with no real stake in this conversation (other than the desire for more efficient delivery of content and profit) to hijack it for their shallow purposes.
Now filmmakers and audiences have largely internalized this crass visual language, and we’re all cheaper for it.
And what do you mean by “more precise editing”? Was there something imprecise about this old thing? http://youtu.be/-6pIwzU9isQ
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You don’t mention Saving Private Ryan but I think that launched the chaos cinema era. Well, Saving Private Ryan was the first film that did it well. The awful Shoemaker Batman movies is the first time I really remember seeing it.
What people failed to notice about the opening sequence was that the chaos was purposeful and controlled. It was supposed to give us a feel for what the attack was really like. The later battle for the bridge is much more coherent and maintains its focus.
I also think the backlash against chaos is one of the reasons the Star Wars prequels were as popular as they were. Whatever you might say about Lucas, he know how to shoot an action sequences so that it’s both exciting ad coherent.
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Hi,
Agreed with some points but not everything. Interesting nonetheless.
My only point is how the advancement of filmmaking technology has kind of allowed so called ‘Chaos Cinema’ to exist. Digital cameras are smaller, lighter and more mobile and computers allow for much more precise editing. Maybe the slower, more deliberate staging of action in older films was borne more out of necessity than a filmmaking aesthetic. I mean try shaking one of those old Panaflex cameras and see how far that gets you.
Oh and watch how Zack Snyder directs action. A vastly underrated director.
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Personally, I find the TRANSFORMERS movies unbearable, but I’m guessing that Stork enjoys the long, uninterrupted takes of full-body robot action. They truly have far more in common with SINGING IN THE RAIN than a BOURNE movie.
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Nicely done. Insert Antichrist reference ‘Chaos Reigns’ here.
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@Michael: “Films that effectively use these techniques, i.e. The Hurt Locker, are also hurriedly discussed. No mention of the equally distinct visual styles of Nicolas Winding Refn, or the amazing single shot fight scene in Oldboy. How about the action sequences in Coen Bros’ True Grit or No Country For Old Men? All of your points about “chaos cinema” are true, but I feel like you’re taking one style of action movie and saying that it is true for ALL action movies.”
The author is defining a very distinct type of filmmaking, then criticizing what he thinks are its inadequacies while also offering one example of a film of that type that he thinks really works: THE HURT LOCKER. Oldboy and Refn’s films aren’t mentioned because they cannot be considered chaos films. They are more in the classical mode cited at the beginning of Part 1 — more in the stylistic school of BULLITT, THE WILD BUNCH and RAIDERS than DOMINO, BLACK HAWK DOWN and Michael Bay/Paul Greengrass.
I don’t think the action genre is as stylistically varied right now as you and some other commenters are making it out to be.
Chaos Cinema, as Stork describes it, has become the default mode for big budget action films, and for many kinds of films, period. You could even say it has become “the new classical.” It is the house style for that kind of movie. Tony Scott pushes it about as far as it can go, sometimes interestingly, sometimes annoyingly; I don’t like most of what he does in that mode but at least there is a sense of deliberateness there, so I would not lump him in with Bay and his ilk — at the very least I would put an asterisk by his name. But it’s not my piece.
I also think “disorientation” is quite a different thing from chaos. FULL METAL JACKET is disorienting. BLACK HAWK DOWN is chaotic.
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For all their chaotic tricks, action films have lost the thrilling sense of building tension and using explosive action to relieve that tension. These new directors are poster boys of attention deficient. The results are loud, relentless, in-your-face movies–and no amount of throwing explosions at the screen improves lame lack of story and character.. Hollywood seems to completely miss the point — they aren’t losing audiences just because of internet and video games…they are losing audiences because these new action movies are so hollow and boring. Excess, sensory overload, and editing techniques that “were once considered sloppy and amateurish” are STILL sloppy and amateurish! Thank you for the articulate article.
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“Please think i’m smart cause I’m saying old movies are better than new movies derp derp derp”. This is bullshit, I’ve literally never seen a movie where the space or action was incomprehensible. Then again, I watch with my eyes open.
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I can’t agree. You’re 100% right when it comes to directors such as Michael Bay, Ridley Scott and Paul Greengrass–whose films make up a substantial majority of your evidence. But coherent action films, i.e. Ronin, are quickly dismissed as outliers. Films that effectively use these techniques, i.e. The Hurt Locker, are also hurriedly discussed. No mention of the equally distinct visual styles of Nicolas Winding Refn, or the amazing single shot fight scene in Oldboy. How about the action sequences in Coen Bros’ True Grit or No Country For Old Men? All of your points about “chaos cinema” are true, but I feel like you’re taking one style of action movie and saying that it is true for ALL action movies.
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This was a well-made, intelligently researched video essay. However, it seems somewhat biased against modern films. Yes, the quick cuts and shaky cams are overused, but it’s a style that not only defines our generation of films, but also helps the audience feel what happens. To automatically dismiss and tell us that this “takes away” from the film is a bit presumptuous, in my opinion. It all depends on the context of the film and how well it is executed.
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http://www.steamroom-movie.com
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Good piece of work!
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