Thursday | 09.06.2011 | 20.00 | Passage Cinema

 

The film industry had been waiting anxiously for the December of 2009. James Cameron’s blockbuster ›Avatar‹ had been announced, and a lot of hopes were tied to it: The Film was supposed to help digital 3-D projection to finally make ist break-through, thus giving cinemas a technology that would allow them to distance themselves from other media. Again and again the premiere was delayed due to the lack of properly equipped cinemas around the globe and because Cameron himself had declared that the film should not be viewed without 3D. Meanwhile it was highly uncertain whether Avatar’s science-fiction story could possibly come close to the success of Cameron’s disaster flick/melodrama ›Titanic‹. A smash hit at the box office relies heavily on masses of fans that love a film enough to watch it more than once at the cinema.

 

By now ›Avatar‹ has indeed broken all records at the box office and it took over the spot as the commercially most successful film of all times from the movie ›Titanic‹. With its perfect 3D technology the film even succeeded in getting the audience to watch with their 3D glasses on for 161 minutes straight. Previously, no 3D film had been longer than 105 minutes, because any longer would have been too strenuousfor the eyes. However in one detail, Cameron didn’t succeed: His film isn’t exclusively screened in 3D and many cinemas show it as a normal 2D film. The costs of producing the film were to high to simply waive the returns from that source. And of course ›Avatar‹ works as well with two dimensions as with three, especially since the film does without ostensible 3D effects and highlights on which the dramaturgy hinges.

 

Unlike a while ago, no one is talking about all future films being done in 3D anymore. It is reserved for a number of ›premium products‹, mostly animated films and special effects adventures, which are to be marketed in 3D. And the cinema’s hope to gain an exclusive attraction in the form of 3D has been replaced by disillusionment. By now, the technology has been snatched up by home entertainment systems. There are monitors, players and glasses capable of 3D now and 3D systems without glasses for the home cinema will follow soon. This creates a tragic paradox for the cinema: 3D will only remain to stay if it can be marketed on other media as well. And this will mean a loss of exclusivity for cinema.

 

A lot of discussions about 3D in cinemas ignore that stereoscopy is by far no new technology but just as old as cinema itself. Pioneers like Louis Lumière, Georges Méliès and Max Skladanowsky experimented with 3D and in the 30s, 40s and 50s 3D films were made in France, Germany, Italy, the USSR, Hungary, the UK, the USA and Japan. The several waves of 3D that had swept over the cinemas since 1953 had one problem in common, however: The sensation quickly lost its novelty and the technical effort and the inconvenience of the 3D glasses stood in no relation to the events on the silver screen. Only a small number of filmmakers attempted to create an independent aesthetic from three dimensions, and especially these unspectacular films didn’t make it big at the box office. Likewise the verdict is still out whether new forms of dramaturgy and aesthetics will arise to keep the technology alive in the long run. Recently Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog made 3D documentaries, applying the technology in different manners, but just like ›Avatar‹, Wenders’ ›Pina‹ is not screened exclusively in 3D and Herzog’s ›Cave of Forgotten Dreams‹ even failed in finding a distributor in Germany.

 

The history of stereoscopical film will be narrated in a two hour lecture with lots of 3D film clips: From Max Skladanowsky’s and Louis Lumière’s early experiments over the accidental 3D takes by George Méliès and the German 3D attempts during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the trailblazing films from the 1951 ›Festival of Britain‹ und the Hungarian Plasztikus films, Russian stereo cinema without glasses and Hollywood‘s first 3D wave, 1960s sex films and Asian Space-Vision films from the 1970s to digital 3D cinema and retroactive ›dimensionalisation‹ of two dimensional films. Rare film examples from 1900 to 2005 will be screened. These had been created in vastly different systems and had been impossible to screen for decades, but now, thanks to digital processing, they can be shown for the first time again. A hitherto ignored cinematic history emerges. And maybe the conclusion will arise that the short film could be the perfect medium for 3D: Features often get lost in razzledazzle and rarely succeed in developing a dramaturgy based on the experience of space. Accordingly, the lecture will include clips from feature films as well as short films that experiment with 3D in different genres and way. Among these are unknown films by great directors like Norman McLaren or forgotten little masterpieces by filmmakers previously unknown to the relevant film-related literature.

 

Stefan Drößler