Part Two: A Defense of Funny Glasses
Also known as stupid glasses. Not smart like sunglasses or the billions of aids to clear sight that we prop on our noses every day. Funny glasses only discriminate and separate two images thrown onto the same surface one to each eye so they can be related (by we who are gifted with two working eyes that can work together) in order to see depth. So that a flat surface reflecting light and hard put to claim any dimension at all for itself can almost magically afford us a moving picture of things in deep space. You think DaVinci would not have appreciated finding a pair of such specs in his mail? Isn’t it our loss that Eisenstein and Welles never got to work in illusionary 3D as much as we see how they press the limits of the 2D screen? They may have preferred having that limit to press on, yes, and they might have discovered who-knows-what possibility beyond. I only wish I could see what genius would do in unlimited space and for that, at present, I would leap to put on a pair of stereo specs.
It’s only a trick and so is all of cinema in all its aspects. Books are tricks then. Words conjure up things out of air and even the air. We are creatures of imagination and we enjoy exercising the faculty as we enjoy exercising our bodies. We even came up with God, short for good and this despite evidence to the contrary, surely an imaginative accomplishment of sorts. We delight in the trick once the spectacles are on, an enormous return for this very modest demand on our dignity. Who came up with this putdown? I’m betting the film-studios themselves, protecting their investment in 2D movies when it seemed they’d never get over the technical hurdles of 3D. Attempts at 3D were made from the start of the movies. Audiences who had grown up with the stereopticon expected no less. Charming personalities and marvelous stories distracted us in the meantime and we learned to read the screen as much for meaning as for spectacle. Those who value the movies as evolved fear general loss of the ability to read images in a relentless 3D environment so that even our finest films will be as discarded as the finest of silent films were. Some important cinema voices are now downplaying the 3D revolution; their arguments are specious which only means they’ll be more irrational in defending them. Walter Murch is saying it’s dangerous to be looking at the screen surface while shifting interocular distance to see other levels in imaginary depth. Oddly, we can do it and people did it without knowing they were daring calamity for the whole long life of the stereopticon and on into Viewmaster days. Emotions are involved -does Murch see 3D?- and as I once heard a gay activist say, there’s no point in talking sense to emotion.
People who grow up missing a sense often perfectly make-do. They don’t know what they’re missing. Almost a fifth of people have problems seeing 3D and they like the movies as they are. Sorry about that but should there be no music because some of us are deaf? I see there are 2D versions being screened in some theaters and available on DVD. That should be enough. Let 3D be.
Do you respond to sculpture? To architecture? The woods and ocean? The true corporeality of the sexes? What could be better than a pert behind looming at you? as a visual treat alone, of course (I don’t wish for images to replace actualities in our lives any more than they do now). The to and fro of intercourse, and what could be more important to any species? is spatially expressed, the original comin’ at ya. Sports all happen in depth and are better appreciated when near and far can be readily determined. Ray 3D Zone of 3D comics fame speaks of “spatial narrativity” and while we may enjoy the banter of comedians facing us on a stage, narrative action is best pictured in retreat and approach. A good 3D movie is dramatically expressive on the Z-axis.
The most derided viewing spectacles are anaglyph, with opposing colors pulling apart overlaid images. I’m composing new depth experiences for presentation via anaglyph which, unlike polaroid specs, do not require a metal-surface screen. Thou mocker of anaglyph, get off it! Use of anaglyph to see 3D goes back to the 1800s, its a simple, inexpensive and brilliant technique. Observe a child approaching a pair of red/green glasses: no repulsion, no problem, only interest.
Oh, how about a movie where the wind blows in our faces….
by Ken Jacobs