Michael Bay: Auteur or Adrenaline Junkie?
Chances are that sometime in your life, you’ve watched a film or TV show. No matter what movie you watch or what genre you enjoy, every single one of them had to have a critical role filled; that of the director. While a director may work on many different genres of movie, there’s always that one theme or pattern within every movie made by that director. By formally analyzing movies made by the same director, these sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant connections can be made and it establishes the director’s signature, developing him as an auteur, concretely determining a specific, unique artistic style. By analyzing Michael Bay’s movies, specifically The Rock and Transformers, we can determine what recurring themes, if any, allow him to fulfill the auteur category.
Throughout his films, Michael Bay has established himself as an auteur through the use of gratuitous; exaggerated explosions, adrenaline-packed action scenes that utilize a purposefully unstable camera, and the use of a female love interest archetype within his films.
Analyzing The Rock
Chase Scenes: Camera Angles and Explosions
The first film that falls under scrutiny is The Rock, which demonstrates all aspects of Bay’s signatures. The film, being an action film, plays to his affinity for explosions and unstable cameras well throughout the whole movie. However, what is probably the best scene to focus on is the chase scene in which Sean Connery flees from FBI agents to reach his daughter — Connery’s non-romantic love interest in the film — because it demonstrates all three affinities Bay has crafted into his trademark. Throughout the scene, numerous pan and dolly shots are shown from multiple angles and with gratuitous and extremely exaggerated explosions, but despite differences in shot, one consistent aspect shines through — an intentionally jittery camera. The most obvious example of this within a scene is when it cuts to a close-up of the actor’s faces as they drive, where the camera actually seems to have a purposefully exaggerated instability that helps pump the scene up and show the audience that this is a scene to be excited about. Throughout the scene, numerous cars are demolished during a montage segment of various medium and close-up shots of Sean fleeing within his stolen Humvee, as well as deep space composition shots of his pursuers gaining on him. From a trike buggy that shoots a fireball twenty feet high to a trolley that rolls over a car and bursts the car into flames, the pyrotechnics used within the scene reached absurdly unrealistic levels. As the movie progresses, these trends continue uninterrupted, almost to a level of repetition that gets uncomfortable.
Combat Scene: Intentional Instability
Another good scene to look at in The Rock, regarding camera instability, is a combat scene between a marine and Nicolas Cage. The two interlock in a hand-to-hand struggle throughout a very quickly edited montage sequence. During the scene, after a medium shot showing Cage take the marine to the ground and toss him through a window in another medium shot before cutting to a POV close-up ground shot from Cage’s point of view as he’s being strangled by the marine. From there, it cuts between the marine’s and Cage’s point of view, all while the camera appears as if it had been placed on top of a water bed to record this pivotal scene.
Two Sides of a Story: Love Interests and Parallel Cuts
To really look at the love interest aspect deeper, we also need to look at the heavy use of parallel editing between the infiltration team that consists of Connery, Cage, and a handful of expendables, and the control center back in San Francisco. During suspenseful scenes within the movie, like one of the ending scenes after a single bomb was dropped that destroyed half of Alcatraz, shown from an aerial point of view, Cage had been knocked into the water and all parallel editing shifted very dramatically from looking at the perspectives of the FBI agents within the San Francisco command center to Cage’s love interest. Using a medium open-frame shot, she is seen curled up in a fetal position, perfectly centered within the frame, as she awaits with terrified anticipation news about her husband-to-be and whether or not he survived the explosion. There are plenty other moments when the parallel editing favors the love interest over the agents, but this is by far the most memorable.
Ebert’s Review
In the department of explosions and action, renowned film critic Roger Ebert would definitely agree with my aforementioned statements, with his official review stating, “The plot moves efficiently between firefights, explosions, torrents of water, hand-to-hand combat, interrogation, torture, imprisonment, escape and scientific mumbo-jumbo …”. As a direct compliment to the director himself, Ebert added, “Director Michael Bay … orchestrates the elements into an efficient and exciting movie, with some big laughs, sensational special effects sequences, and sustained suspense.”
Analyzing Transformers (2007)
Love Interests and Parallel Editing
Moving on to Transformers, another blockbuster action by Bay, there are immediate implications of a love interest as well as the action sequences the movie has to offer. In the very first opening scene, we see a series of parallel-editing point of view shots looking through a video call between US Army soldier — played by Josh Duhamel — and his wife with their child. Some shots are directly from the point of view of the webcam, but the others are either from Duhamel’s or his wife’s perspectives. In this scene, Duhamel’s motivation to survive is fueled by the chance to see his wife and hold his baby in his arms for the first time.
Blackout’s Rampage: Explosions and Violent Cameras
The call is interrupted by the first Decepticon encountered in the film, Blackout, taking the form of a US Military chopper. He jams the radars of the base, ending the call before it cuts to a low-angle (at least, a low angle in relation to the 35–45 foot-tall Blackout) shot looking up at the newly discovered threat from the perspective of the US Military men and women who had driven to intercept Blackout after he landed. From there, he uses a mix of directed-energy weapons and missiles, with a wide-angle pan shot showing the beautiful 50-foot explosions from the missiles, occasionally swapping to medium fixed shots showing detonated, flipping humvees. As the soldiers run away from the constant assault and explosions, a fixed shot showing the fleeing soldiers grows slowly less stable as the explosions encroach the camera until the camera is violently seizing the scene around, meant to disorient the viewers and instill a feeling of dramatic action. Likewise, throughout the movie, even the slightest dent on a car or pavement creates a storm of sparks, especially in the scene where Bumblebee is being towed away. The continuous dolly shot follows them through the streets of a city as Bumblebee knocks cars away from their path with a glorious rain of sparks with each hit.
Growth through Adversity: Bonding Love Interests
While the action and pyrotechnic elements in this film are very obvious, the love interest of Shia in this film doesn’t start off as a mutual relationship. Rather, Shia motivates change in Megan as the movie progresses. At certain points in the movie, the camera gets a close-up shot of them trying to hold hands, then an extreme close-up near the end of the film, directly after an explosion, of them reaching for each other. Combine this with the soldier and his wife, this action movie pulls strongly towards romantic undertones throughout the film.
Michael’s Affinity for Love
While his films demonstrate, and critics jubilate, his use of pyrotechnics and his action scenes, not much is said about his affinity for love interests. As best said by Jack Giroux in his article regarding the subject, he states, “Many of his movies have relied on the power women have, both in love and action.” He then goes on to explain the roles women have played in Bay films, with the most important explanations being about the two films that matter the most, with Giroux elaborating, “in The Rock, one of Bay’s most thrilling action sequences comes from John Patrick Mason (Sean Connery) simply wanting to see his daughter; and Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel) fights so he can return home to his wife and daughter in Transformers.” This on top of the pivotal relationship Shia has with Megan Fox in the movie Transformers shows that Bay not only focuses on romantic love interests, but non-romantic ones as well, and many times the archetypical females play a pivotal role as a key motivator within Bay’s movies.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the goal of every director is to be considered an auteur and leave their mark on the cinematic world. For Michael Bay, this is no different. His ability to craft an action-packed world dripping with adrenaline-soaked sequences that utilize a less-than-stable camera, off the chain explosions and pyrotechnics, and manage to fit a romance that drives the plot of the entire film is a spectacular accomplishment, and should not go unrecognized. While some may say that Bay’s styles are simply the mark of a childish man addicted to making things go ‘boom’, those people fail to look past the harsh exterior of his films and view the masterpieces that lie below the surface. If anyone in modern history deserves the title of Auteur, Michael Bay should be it. The blood, sweat, and tears he put into building his own signature within his movies alone are a testament to his mastery of the cinematic arts.