‘The Revenant’ is the best 3D movie told in two dimensions
JANUARY 12TH, 2016 — POST 008
Immersion. Some might argue it should be the goal of all motion media, from cinema to games. Between the Oculus Rift and YouTube’s efforts into 360˚ video, we’re witness to great technological strides toward true immersion. Inevitably however, technology will surpass whatever strides are made. Technology dates rapidly and as such technological paradigms might only be instantaneous. Even if the promise of Oculus Rift is delivered with this first consumer edition, it’s only one release cycle until its paradigmatic status has the potential to be upended.
Nowhere is this fact more annoyingly present than in CGI effects. It’s a well-acknowledged truth that CGI will date, but practical effects won’t. Kubrick’s 2001 still looks as incredible as the day it was shot because he had all that stuff built for real, not in a computer. Even if a CGI effect can resist dating, the sheer permeance of the technology has only served to acclimate the eye of the viewer to its detection. It’s everywhere, so we can spot it all the easier. There’s just something about it. We know it’s not real when it’s not practical, and are thus thrown out of the experience. This sets up an ironic problem. The goal of the implementation of technological advancements into the way we tell stories is toward immersion. And yet, the more something is made in a computer, the less likely we are to buy into the experience simply because its fakeness is all too evident. Is it possible to develop practical techniques that highten immersion whilst minimising the reliance on CGI technology?
The Revenant really feels like the movie of the moment. With Leonardo DiCaprio taking Best Actor at the Golden Globes, one amongst the movie’s three at the event, we just might see him finally get the Oscar the internet has been screaming for him to win for years. Additionally, with Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu coming off the back of a Best Picture win with Birdman last year, Iñárritu is in the mood for collecting silverware. And he might well do it again with The Revenant. Whilst the long and complicated takes, the mythic narrative, or the performances of DiCaprio and Tom Hardy are worth mentioning, what was most surprising was just how far beyond the plane of the silver screen the world spanned. That is to say, how deep an image Iñárritu was able to capture.
Working alongside Director of Photography Emmanuel Lubezki, Iñárritu succeeds in using more of the frame than anything in recent memory. I don’t mean this in the sense that he crowds the frame, rather the consistent use of wide angle in seemingly endless wilderness has every micron of space, from the lens filter to the speck of a tree in the distance working. There are countless moments where the camera is literally touched by drops of water, the condensation of an exhale, or a bead of blood. Couple this with long takes in which action is correographed in every plane and The Revenant is the most immersive cinematic experience of the year.
The bet today is that VR technology will open the possibility of wholly new immersive cinematic experiences. When you consider the always-moving camera of the action set-pieces of The Revenant, there is a sense in which it is a piece of proto-VR cinema. Because of the depth of the image, you are convinced that you would be able to turn the camera, or your head in a VR headset, a full 360˚ and discover the story for yourself.
It is encouraging to think that this kind of approach could translate to VR, that those experiences don’t necessitate excessive polygons to convince the viewer. Because why do it with a computer when you can do it all in camera?
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