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God help me, I watched Ang LeesGemini Mantwice.
A couple of days later, however, I saw the film again.
This time, the same chase felt flat, lifeless, phony.
Suddenly, I could tell that Junior was largely a digital creation.
His movements seemed fake and cartoonish.
The bike stunts felt like, well, stunts.
Will Smiths anguished, breathless responses were programmed and unconvincing, as if hed suddenly forgotten how to act.
Oddly enough, this second time, I was watchingGemini Manin the directorspreferredviewing format.
Even the explosions felt weirdly small and inconsequential.
real life) and the illusion of motion (a.k.a.
But in this case,realisticdoes not always meanbetter.
Its the same thing that happened withBilly Lynn.
Our suspension of disbelief the very thing that we need for the art form to work dissipates.
At 120fps, we can clearly see the characters limited range of expression.
A whole vernacular has developed around the classic frame rate.
Without it, the cinematic enterprise falls apart.
Niles told me of tests hed done showing the same footage at different frame rates to viewers.
With 24 frames, people liked the actors better they felt the performances were better.
In effect, this was the same experiment I carried out with myself when I sawGemini Mantwice.
Heres the weird thing: Ang Lee knows all this.
He understands that high frame rates actually require a different approach to cinematic language.
Its a different media with different perception, different requirements, he recentlytold IndieWire.
Digital doesnt want to be film, it wants to be something else.
I think we need to get past that and discover what it is.
Its an Ang Lee film!
It has no business being shot or shown at high frame rates.
There is a potential model for how high-frame-rate cinema might work.
Filmmakers were aware that these images did not look like celluloid.
As does, interestingly, the shaky cam aesthetic used in many mainstream studio movies.
But maybe the technology is currently too expensive to justify anything other than big-budget spectaculars.
Audiences did eventually get tired of the hyperveritestyle in narrative movies.
And maybe theyre right.
(Im buying some cyanide pills, just in case.)
But also consider this: Maybe new isnt always better.
Maybe, just maybe, a technology thats advanced isnt always a technology thats superior.
Maybe some things work for a reason.
