Saga Point of view - George Lucas was right not to listen to the embittered fans

Then, if you know so much about cinematography and know what is acceptable or not, where are your "visual" cinematographic works so I can compare them with the OT and the PT and then add to my dictionary what is acceptable or not? I don't know Kuro, but to me it seems that your intentions here are more to educate people, who seems to "know nothing about cinematography", since you said it yourself: "that is acceptable, that is not", as if your impressions and point of view were indisputable facts.

Lucas had its own style, and it wasn't that much different from the original Star Wars of 1977 to the prequels. He took inspiration for his style from a lot of movies done by Kurosawa since he liked them a lot, with a lot of scenes and scenery being more fixed and not that dynamic. Even the action scenes in the original Star Wars were more fixed and lacked dynamism. It surprises me that you haven't noticed this since you made the same remarks for the PT.

Kershner had his own style, he added more dynamic scenes in ESB when compared to the original Star Wars, especially on the action scenes. Marquand had its own style for ROTJ and focused more on bigger scenes with a lot more things on screen like the moment when we see the arrival of the Emperor on the second death star, or when the rebel fleet prepares to jump to hyperspace, etc... Abrams had its own style, which was more action oriented for TFA.

At the end, each director and producer had its own style for the Star Wars movies and added its own identity, and Lucas' style for the PT and the original Star Wars wasn't that much different: scenes and sceneries that are more fixed and not that dynamic, a focus on bigger plans showing the noble side of the scene. His style came from older movies and classics from the 1950's.

So I don't know Kuro, but to me you seem to be complaining about something that isn't worth that much...

 

But you've gotta think... if you swapped Dave Faustino with EpII Hayden, wouldn't the result be more homogenous?

What I said was that the differences outweighed the "similarties".

1) So RLM did a thing where they put a random asteroid field in the background of some dialogue scene, and said this was exactly like what the movie was doing - this might've been a joke, or not, but in your case it's not.

So... when did that ever happen in the movie? Random space rocks? Where?
When did the background ever not fit the content in such a fashion?

The "throne" room had giant battleships fly around the windows, but they weren't sitting on a couch in that scene, and it added atmosphere and tension.

2) I already explained how the interior is already different from Sitcom, even with unreplaced blue - characters act differently, room looks differently, fancy lighting etc.

Um... no, the different looking set explains the lusher look.

It's an aristocratic chamber with lush textures; Palpatine's red office looks a lot boringer, but still nothing like a suburban living room.

Then, you earlier complained about lack of lighting and shadow contrasts, even though these two scenes got it and Married does not, and even without contrasts, most scenes have a moody color to them while Sitcom living rooms... don't.

Not sure and I didn't even count the cameras - the third camera isn't the one that shows both, right?

Anyway, the question is, what's the signifance of this? The two are so different, this rudimentary "similarity" is of peripheral importance.
The only parallel is that the camera isn't a "main actor" here, instead "staying in the background" and "serving the scene".

If there was something about the way the cameras placed that made this aristocratic, prose-filled drama look like an actual sitcom, creating tonal dissonance, then this would be an issue.

What's the criteria again?
TPM did a cool thing with lense/focus a couple times...

So greenscreen doesn't matter and shouldn't be brought up in this discussion

It looks way too serious.

=> Fitting a scene with a serious tone.

What is a "failure"?

Is a drum beat that merely does a background bum chuck and keeps time, a drumming failure, because it doesn't do anything exciting with teh drums?

Because that's what you're effectively arguing here.


In truth, it'd only be a failure if, in whatever form, the rest of the music somehow "called for" a fancier drumming, and its lack stood out negatively.

This can be true to an extent.
However, you need to isolate that extent if you want to have a sensible argument:

However, ROTS especially is played like a costume drama in the dialogue scenes - by design.
So you should rather compare it to costume (melo)dramas, or stuff like palace scenes from GoT, rather than sitcoms.

Why not again?


Comparing to OT scenes would also make more sense than Kane - and, no, not the "Vader sits in his thing" scene, that one stands out

 

I disagree to an extend about ANH and GL's style for the PT. While there are certainly similarities between 1977 GL's directorial style, and GL's directorial style during the PT era, ANH was created at a time, where it was very much a first time right principle, while he PT was made at a time, where GL seemed to adhere to the idea, that issues with a shot can be fixed in post production with the then new digital technology. I think these two approaches are very different, and lead to a different final product.

 

Okay so how did special effects fix the dinner scene from TPM lol

 

And here we go again to "the traditional way vs the use digital technology for film-making" argument for.... the millionth time...

Tell me, aren't you guys tired about this 17 years old argument?

 

Huh? I said there were no special effects in that scene, so Lucas couldn't have been like "lol we'll fix that with CG"... the way DrDre said?

 

Let's just say that I never get tired of "it's the use of digital technology fault" argument when it comes to explain why the prequels were disppointing for some people, while digital technology is being excessively used in nowadays movies, more than 10 years after their release...

 

No, because imo some still perpetuate the the myth, that 1977 GL and 1999-2005 GL had the same directorial style, when it's pretty clear from the documentary evidence, that they did not. While I'm not arguing that one is definitely superior to the other (although I have my personal preference), I think when you write "Lucas had its own style, and it wasn't that much different from the original Star Wars of 1977 to the prequels", you kind of invite these type of arguments.

 

It's not just CGI. It's also the digital splicing of two different takes, or other digital trickery, that was used to create what GL viewed as the perfect take. Either way, the argument is not, that every shot was altered, just that there are many who were.

 

I did find some of the PT directing choices to be a bit odd. Like there's that scene in ROTS where Palpatine appoints Anakin as his representative on the Jedi Council; that scene literally begins with the two of them just walking in silence before Palpatine says something. I don't know if it's something intentional that he's going for or if it's just sloppy editing.

 

Digital trickery and altered shots in post-production are being excessevily used today, even in the new Star Wars movies produced today by other directors than Lucas. Here, for example in Rogue One, they've removed for the second trailer the blood stain on the head of the captured Rebel pilot:



And still, I don't see how it makes Lucas' style different, or wrong, from what it was regarding cinematography, since he only had more tools on his hands, 20 years after ANH when making the PT, and that same technology is still being used for future Star Wars movies.

 

I don't think the claim was that he shouldn't use modern technology. The point was that he might have become a bit lazy/sloppy with his directing because he knew that the technology would allow him to "fix it in post". And this led to a shift in his priorities from trying to make the shot work on set while shooting, to not worrying too much about it until he had it in his computer with all those digital tools at his disposal.

And, if you think about it, it kind of makes sense that this may have happened. After all, we know that Lucas likes to control things to have them exactly as he wants them. The new digital technology allowed him to do that in a way that he never could on set during the actual production. So to me, it's not so unreasonable to think that some of his actual directing (which he doesn't even enjoy that much since it's harder to control each and every aspect of it) may have gotten sloppy due to the new technology making him complacent.

 

Tell me, if you're involved in such a big project as the making of a movie and had a budget and a timeline to respect, will you try to get your work right on the first take, or will you wait later?

Believe me I know what I'm talking about since I work as an engineer and I have to get things right on the first take rather than waiting later to fix something and continue my work as it didn't matter.Otherwise we'll lose money and the project would be behind schedule.

So it's rather simplistic to say that Lucas decided to wait later in post-production to fix things that could have been fixed on stage, especially when he had a big movie to release and when he was spending it's own money to produce it. And it's also really simplistic to say that he would have become lazy because of the use of technology that could be used later . We use a lot more technology in engineering than 20 or 30 years ago. Yet it doesn't make us lazy. It has rather pushed us to perform better and be quicker when doing our work.

 

I really won‘t bother to discuss the grotesque-hyperbolic comparison made above to the idiotic sitcom as I see this as offense to anybody intelligence in this forum, but I‘ll discuss the comparison to Goodfellas and the “Orange“, yes, it is worthy to duscuss. We again talk about apples and oranges as we have different genres here, but still, let‘s talk about exactly these shots here no matter that for comparison we need real shots of the so hated movies, but I‘ll pass this for now.

I should say that I‘ll discuss the shots by viewer‘s point of view as I‘m not proffesional. First the shot of Goodfellas. How on Earth should the viewer know that this woman is the one who chooses that man? All I see is that he chooses her as throphy of course, because he is leading her and we even don‘t see her face!!!
Yes, it is a movie made by Scorcese and as always his object-ification of the women makes me cringe. Is even worse than the director of Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean who just refused to include women in a movies made by men for men, because Lean at least didn‘t bother to have a women just as accessoires in the movies (see above) as Scorcese almost always does. As is here, the woman again is de-faced, de-personificated, subordinated. I can find such shot in PT. There are such in OT (Lea and Jaba) but at least, they are not presented as “happy ending“. And honestly, even in brutal movie as Goodfelllas (that glorifies mafia‘s life, murders and cruelty in a way that Coppola never did) there are much more beautiful shots. This one is ugly because what I see is two people jn glamorous costumes that look out of place in this dirty “backyard“ of the ‘civil‘ life. Scorcese likes to compose such distorted images as the last scene of Departed for example where the ugly rats shows up on the background of a beautiful building with a golden roof... Yes, I know it is his style: to show the ugly angles in a beautiful picture, I just don‘t like it.
Why I like Lucas PT? Because they are beautiful. Pure and simple. If someone likes to see how a woman chooses a man, he/she should just look at the wedding shot in AOTC, when Padme takes Ani‘s mechanical hand. That is the shot.

For the record, I like Apocalypse now. Exactly because those lunatic LSD induced hallucinations, i.e
the scenes of the movie are harmonized (pun intended for Darth Downder) with the shyzophrenic madness of the war. Anyway, is completely another genre, I mentioned it just because I appreciate the cinematic genius of Scorcese, I just don‘t like his style (and his attitude to women).

Now, Kubrick. The intellectual yet cold genius of the American cinema who loves to hate not the women as such but the human beings in general. Thus mentioned, again we fall in the discourse of the ugliness, as Kubrick shows the darkest ugly places of the human soul. So, the shot is dark and grotesque, but I don‘t see domination here, if the boy wanted to dominate he would stand higher than both girls or in the centre with hands on their shoulders, for example. Here he chooses the girl on the right. Pretty ordinary shot in this aspect except one thing: the light. Obviously it is the big difference (if we compare this to PT) Here the light is sick, as those young people see the world in general. In PT the light is pure, natural or absent but there it has no such sick sense as here because the purpose is different. Yes, I like more PT but not because I don‘t like Kubrick, I just hate the book (I speak Russian so it has nothing to do with that), I hate it for the reason mentioned above: is ugly, the characters are ugly, the society is ugly, everything is ugly. No one could make a beautiful movie of such ugly book.

SW is a fairytale and it is full of light and hope. Even the prequels that tell the first part of the story: about the falling and it is pretty depressing and dark, succeed to show the beauty. As Jackson did in LOTR, where the story is also heavy and rather scary. So if someone wants to see a beautifully shot movie, I always mention the PT among others.

 

I don't know about that. Take this clip from "The Beginning" where he creates a "new" shot by digitally using elements from different takes. Based on that, we see that he does, in fact, fix things in post-production that he could have fixed while filming the actors. Not that my clip exhibits poor directing, but it shows that he's willing to do stuff like that. Couple that with his apparent dislike for directing (since he's not great with actors), and you can arrive at the not-so-unreasonable conclusion that he may have let certain things slide on set with the vague notion that he could "fix it in post". Or he may have filmed a boring-looking shot (2 actors in a hallway, walking & talking, shot-reverse-shot, etc.) and thought "It may look boring now, but look at that green screen behind them; surely I'll be able to make it look more interesting later".

Regarding your comment about spending his own money, it might have even been financially better to get shots done the quick & easy way, instead of doing take after take to get it right or spending the time to make it interesting enough. Because one of the problems with TESB's production was that Kershner was taking too long to get the filming done. But if you don't care as much about making the shots interesting, then you can just get them done in a workman-like fashion and get to work on the post-production. It's not the artsy-fartsy way, but it is the more efficient way.

 

Personally, I think you could greatly improve the prequels by replacing Natalie Portman with Christina Applegate.

As I said, that has more to do with the fact that the prequels were shot with high-powered, state-of-the-art digital cameras that obviously would’ve had a greater dynamic range than the video camera used by a typical sitcom from the late 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s, rather than any difference in approach. Lucas simply used fancier, more sophisticated equipment.

Sitting on a couch, shot reverse shot, one character gets up and walks a few paces stage right just as the shot reverse shot of them sitting on a couch is starting to get tedious and monotonous. It’s the exact same setup.

OK, let’s look at this scene from THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING:



It’s not CITIZEN KANE, but it’s more dynamic than anything in the prequel trilogy. Peter Jackson employs a variety of techniques in order to give the scene a real sense of urgency. He uses frequent cutaways, varying camera angles, he moves the actors around as the scene progresses. They’re not just lounging about on a couch. If Lucas had directed LOTR, I’m willing to bet that this is how he would’ve set up and blocked that scene:



Look, I have plenty of criticisms regarding the way Jackson handled THE HOBBIT (or, as I call it, THE DESECRATION OF TOLKIEN), but, at least when he was making LOTR, he really knew how to direct the hell out of a scene to get just the effect that he wanted. Even on THE HOBBIT, he still seems to have a better grasp of directing than Lucas had on the prequels. The problem is that he lost all sense of restraint, all sense of respect for Tolkien, and completely forgot how to do pacing.

The carbon freezing scene. Again, a variety of angles, dramatic lighting, actors moving within the frame and interacting with it, actual blocking, lots and lots of steam (Irvin Kershner specifically mentions this in the audio commentary, “I use a lot of smoke and steam to build atmosphere. It’s a cheap trick but it really works.”), etc.

 

Especially since they won't apply it fairly? Certain...people screech about the digital technology in the PT but pretend it's not used, or "used more judiciously" (whatever that means) in TFA and their other pet movies. I gotta hand it to Disney: they really hit a nerve with their false "return to old-school filmmaking" and "minimal CGI" and "real desert" propaganda for TFA...so much so that certain...people are refusing to let go of it even after it's been debunked more times than I care to count.

 

I've always found it funny how some people use the behind the scenes content of the DVD of the PT to interpret things their ways and to criticize Lucas and the PT, like if everyone have suddenly become geniuses in film-making.

This clip of the post-production work of TPM could be interpreted in many ways. We can also say that Lucas having thought of something on stage when filming the actors directly, have thought of another thing when watching the product on post and has changed his mind after regarding certain aspects of this scene. But due to the availability of the actors and crew, he couldn't once again film that one specific scene on stage. So the quickest and easiest way would have been this technique.

 

Wait a minute. Is not that essential for any director in any movie, to have the things as he/she wants it? (except some experimental arthouse movies,of course). As I said before, I‘m a viewer, not a professional, still I couldn‘t imagine that any director wouldn‘t present to the audience the movie as he wants it to be but for example as he doesn‘t want it to be? It makes no sense for me. Why put any effort in direction in this case? He will just make the shots and whatever happens, this is the movie.
About the modern technology: as always, Lucas was the first who dared to use it. His practical effects in OT weren‘t classics then, but a revolution. So why is so surprising that Lucas again used revolutionary effects in his next movies?

 

Like I had said in my post, that specific clip was not evidence of poor directing. But I arrive at my theory that Lucas' directing got a bit lazy based on a few things:

1.) Lucas is known to digitally "create" new shots during post-production.
2.) Lucas is not the best at working with people and actors.
3.) Lucas likes to be able to have 100% complete control.
4.) Many of the shots in the PT were shot in a boring way.

So I take these 4 points, not in isolation, but together, to arrive at my hypothesis that the newer technology enabled Lucas to be a bit lazier with his shot construction and perhaps made him think that he didn't need to take the time to film an interesting, dynamic shot when he could just make it interesting in other ways once he got to post-production. I use the word "enabled" because I believe that the digital technology allowed Lucas to shy away from doing things he wasn't great at (directing) and focus more on things where he felt 100% in control (post-production/editing). Of course, none of this is "proof"; these are just my own thoughts based on what I've seen.

 

This is most jarring in the "you're sounding like a separatist" scene. Ouch.

The face-morphing etc. is basically just another editing technique, you still shoot the takes, but if you like the 1st half of one and 2nd half of 2 you don't need to get take 3 until both work.

The above argument, however, needs to get dropped some time soon, because it doesn't hold up - the same stuff goes on with scenes where almost no bluescreen is there, and it looks in the movie the way it was shot originally - so, that's not a factor here.

 

The near desperation of trying to find something to argue on display here is certainly some of the most ludicrous in the extreme I have ever encountered.

Talking about the movies in a critical way is one thing and there are people who like and enjoy the movies but think they have flaws but for those who despise them so much and in every aspect what is the attraction about wanting to talk about them now over 10 to almost 20 years since they were released?

I suspect long after TFA and many of the new movies are all but forgotten for the latest SW movie coming out 10 years from now the talk about the prequels some 20 to 30 years after release will still be going on.

Supposedly?

This rather makes my point.

One of the greatest storytellers in human history actually.

I don't see the point of using the old and tired technique of "my subjective views are facts" when we both know they aren't for either of us.

Lucas isn't merely good with coming up with ideas he is great. He did have a group of people who helped him on the PT and they did just as terrific a job helping him on the PT and the other group did on the OT but Lucas is the one with the hands on the wheel. He's fine with letting others take the wheel for a time but when he needs to his hand is back on.

LK does a fine writing job but there is no use in pretending that he is anywhere in the league of Lucas as TFA shows. Lucas can come up with everything to do with his movies over and over again while LK left to his own devices with JJ could only do what Lucas had already done. Maybe if they really had wanted to they could have come up with something of their own but that wasn't their task from the start so it's hard to say. JJ's ambitions from everything he has said seemed to be to me very modest from the start.

If you don't see the absolutely flowing emotions and excellent direction of the actors to convey that they you don't. All I can say is that I do. The deep emotional resonance of the PT is overall far above anything seen from any of the other 4 SW movies. Especially with HC as Anakin in AOTC and ROTS.

Well everything in the movie actually.

Like I said I'm glad the movies that you watch and the ones that I do are entirely different. The ones I watch the actors are in total integration with their environments and they exist with them while the OT working on a vastly smaller scale can pull that off well a majority of the time and when it doesn't I have no real problem accepting it because if they could have done more then they would have. I have no problem accepting the dated look that places the OT even with the SE changes at a visual scale unlike the PT or the new movies.

Here's an idea. How about doing what I do and think that both are great?

I find it absurdly easy to do so.

Why two different scenes doing different things are in comparison here anyway?

How about doing something like this?







Now talk about how "lousy" the ANH scene is. Personally I like them all.

This is exactly what I can get behind as an argument. I don't agree with the poor directing premise in the least because if he is doing exactly what he wants (which is what he did with the PT more than any other film-maker in the history of movies more than likely) then the argument is still based on that he didn't do things the way you would like. Well he wasn't doing it for what anyone else would like. He did it for what he would like which is not the style of JJ:

1) Lucas created shots all over the place in ANH and all his movies. That is and was always his style. He makes his movies in the edit. With digital this increased to virtually every single shot.

2) With actors that was true for ANH. By the time of the PT in that respect he was almost a totally different guy and obviously as the leader of SW he always worked well with all the other people.

3) Obviously.

4) Can't say I ever noticed. I was too busy being excited by each and every shot. The fluidity of his style is mesmerizing to me.

 

I used the term "green screen" but what I'm really getting at is that he may have ran with the idea that he could get away with lazy shot composition since he could punch up the shot in post-production.

But you're right, there are some shots that are virtually unchanged from how they were filmed...like the fireplace scene. There are even a few moments like this in the original Star Wars, like when Ben sits down on a couch to explain the Force to Luke; but we can't really say that the movie is filled with them. So while Lucas may have always had a "let's just get the shots done" kind of approach, there seems to be way more of this kind of uninteresting shot construction in the PT.

I'm talking about scenes like these:



In these scenes, there's nothing interesting about the way they were shot other than the background visuals. That's what I mean when I say that it's not so hard to imagine that Lucas may have knowingly filmed these kinds of boring shots thinking that he'd make it look more interesting in post-production, which he did attempt to do.

 

Seemingly intelligent, idealistic, principled Senator chooses violent psychopathic murderer because…

I got nothing. I guess the plot requires her to.

In GOODFELLAS, it makes sense. We see the glamor of the Mob lifestyle, how quickly he’s able to get into this packed nightclub by going through the kitchen, how he’s so rich at a such a young age that he can hand out $20 tips like it’s nothing. And pay attention the song Scorsese plays on the soundtrack- “Then He Kissed Me”. It’s a song about how a young woman falls in love with a charming young man, and Scorsese is clearly using this to tell us that this is the point when Karen falls for Henry. We are seeing this from her point of view. And Scorsese shows us just how alluring, seductive and appealing this lifestyle is. Of course, Scorsese conveys this information to us through music and imagery. He allows us to experience it for ourselves. He doesn’t just do it through flat exposition dialogue, the way Lucas does. If Lucas had directed GOODFELLAS, we would’ve gotten a boring, static, shot reverse shot scene where Karen says, “I truly deeply sincerely honestly genuinely positively absolutely really really love you. Really, I do.” And he’d just expect us to accept this nonsense at face value.

And yes, Scorsese is a million times better than Lucas. But maybe GOODFELLAS is the wrong Scorsese film for you. I’d recommend checking out TAXI DRIVER. That’d be right up your alley, since the main character of that film is just like Anakin Skywalker.

Frankly, I find Lucas’s style to be boring and static. Scorsese has a very vibrant, dynamic style that puts you into the character’s head. TAXI DRIVER and RAGING BULL make heavy use of what I’ll call the “subjective camera”, where we see what the character sees as they see them. Here are two prominent examples of that.





And yes, Scorsese makes films about truly horrible people. But he acknowledges it and doesn’t embrace those attitudes. Instead, he examines them, explores the psychological underpinnings of those attitudes, and then conveys his insight to the audience. With Lucas, we’re just supposed to accept that Violent Murderer Man is still a good person because…

Because…

I got nothing. The plot requires it, I guess.

And with Lucas, there’s a very disturbing undercurrent that almost glorifies abuse and domestic violence. No matter what your husband/boyfriend does, you should apparently always stick by him. When Betsy dumps Travis Bickle, Scorsese never attempts to demonize her for it. Travis does, but the scene where he goes into her office and lashes out is presented as frightening and disturbing…as it should be! When Vikki LaMotta finally leaves her abusive husband, it’s portrayed as a good thing.

Um, did you actually watch the clip? The scene starts with Alex off to the side, leering at them, like a predator observing his next target. Alex then worms his way in between them, before grabbing both of them and persuading them to come to his apartment for a quickie. You said, “if the boy wanted to dominate he would stand[…]in the centre with hands on their shoulders”. He does exactly that! That’s how the scene ends! “What you got to play your fuzzy warbles on? I bet you got, say, pitiful portable picnic players. Come with Uncle and hear all proper! Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones! You are invited!” (For the record, that is how you update Shakespearean dialogue!) How can I take you seriously when you don’t even watch the damn clip?

And I have to strongly disagree about Kubrick being this “cold, unfeeling intellectual”. A horrible misconception spread primarily by critics who do not understand his work. Just looking at CLOCKWORK, I don’t understand how anyone can call this film cold. It’s a very energetic and vibrant film. In fact, I’d even go so far as to call it hilarious. It’s basically a comedy, albeit a very dark and morbid one. This scene still makes me laugh out loud every time I see it:



If Lucas had directed this scene, it would’ve been flat, boring, static exposition scene done in shot reverse shot. But Kubrick uses this scene to convey information to the audience visually, whilst also doing the job of getting some exposition out of the way. We see Alex in the supplicant position to Mr. Deltoid, as Deltoid frequently invades Alex’s personal space and puts his hands all over him, right to the point at the end where hr grabs Alex’s crotch. Not only is it hilarious, but it brilliantly foreshadows what will eventually happen to Alex when he submits to the Ludovico technique. I’d argue that A CLOCKWORK ORANGE does a far better job of mixing some very serious political themes with goofy slapstick than the prequel films do (and most of the slapstick comes from Kubrick, not the book).

And of course, let’s talk about Alex himself. Alex is really the heart of the film. By any objective measure, Alex is a truly horrid, despicable human being, and Kubrick does not shy away from that fact. Alex is also portrayed as being very charismatic, reasonably intelligent (if a bit naive), ebullient, confident, passionate, cultured, and filled with a lust for life. Alex is by no means a good person, but he is compelling, and there are times, especially during the latter half of the story, when he becomes quite sympathetic, as he has the humanity sucked out of him, his very soul robbed from him. Look at the scene where Alex is conditioned against Beethoven (his favorite composer) as the cruel doctors coldly and uncaringly look on or the scene where Alex’s parents kick him out of his house. They’re genuinely moving, much more so than anything in the prequel trilogy. Now, obviously much of this comes from Malcolm McDowell’s brilliant, career-defining performance. McDowell is equally adept at portraying intelligence, charisma, energy, enthusiasm, viciousness, naïveté, vulnerability, defenselessness, and despair. McDowell doesn’t hit a single wrong note in the film. Frankly, as horrible a human being as Alex is, I actually find him to be a more sympathetic and likable character than Anakin Skywalker. Again, no doubt this is largely due to the way Malcolm McDowell plays him, but the fact is that even when Alex is at his most pathetic or self-pitying (“Where was I to go who had no home and no money? Home, home, home. It was home I was wanting and home I came to, O my brothers.”), I legitimately felt sympathy for him. With Anakin, I just wanted to smack him. Even when he’s trying to shift the blame for his reprehensible behavior (“It was all their idea, brother sir! They forced me to do it! I’m innocent!”), he comes off as more charmingly childlike than obnoxiously petulant. The film is full of humor and pathos, two qualities the prequels sorely lacked (and not for lack of trying).

If anyone qualifies as “cold, unfeeling, sterile, inhuman robot director”, it’s George Lucas, not Stanley Kubrick. Aside from the Emperor, there are no vibrant human characters in the prequel trilogy. Everything seems forced and artificial. There’s a detached sterility to the whole endeavor, and no real human emotion (again, aside from the Emperor and occasionally Obi-Wan). Hell, Kubrick explicitly condemns dehumanization (the Ludovico technique), whereas Lucas very much embraces it (the Jedi). I’d say that Lucas comes off as far more of a misanthrope, since Lucas seems to insist that being a human being will lead you to becoming some evil, out-of-control mass murderer, whereas Kubrick at least supports Alex’s right to be a person, even if he condemns the choices that Alex makes.

Now there is ugliness in the world, I’ll agree. And I think it’s perfectly legitimate to make films that deal with that. That’s what art is about! It’s supposed to be challenging and provocative.

What Lucas does is take some truly ugly things and try to pretend that there’s a hidden beauty there. I find that to be very unsettling, and not in a good way. What someone like Scorsese does is approach ugly subjects with honesty. There is real ugliness in this world. Now if a filmmaker wants to engage with that, and address it in an honest way, that’s fine. But if you’re gonna pull your punches, or try to pretend that the ugly is actually secretly beautiful, then just don’t deal with it at all. Stick to making films about Mickey Mouse and the Dancing Bears.

 

I'm a little peeved by this conversation, I'll admit, because there seems to be an automatic presumption that a stationary or more static style of cinematography is automatically lazy. I firmly, firmly disagree. One of the biggest problems I have with a lot of movies today is just how much motion they put in the camera work - too many quick cuts, zooming in, the "camera" looping around. To me, it often obscures action scenes and it also, in terms of scenes of discussion, can be extremely distracting where you are bombarded with images that cut from one or another or changing shots rather than focusing on what the characters are saying.

In terms of action scenes, one of the things I would say Christopher Nolan, for example, is terrible at is shooting them because his are impossible to follow. Movies that I like, such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier often utterly ruin the fight choreography by quick cutting and moving the camera around so much that you can barely watch the fight unfold. Then there's people like JJ Abrams who keeps everything going at such a breakneck pace and injects so much motion in his camerawork that there is never any time to quietly enjoy a scene and reflect on the characters and what is happening.

This is in stark contrast to one of my favorite films of all time - Lawrence of Arabia (I'm gonna plug it again!). I freaking love this movie. David Lean will compose a shot and hold it...and hold it...and hold it some more! During discussion scenes, sometimes he'll pull back and just show a wide shot and then the audience has to focus and engage with the film; it's much more interactive in a way. Or he'll just film people walking down a hall. Either way, the film doesn't suffer for it.

I just think it's unfair to immediately say that Lucas' style is lazy when there are good reasons to employ a more static camera.