The most “suicidal” thing to happen to 21st-century cinema, according to Roger Ebert: “It adds nothing essential”
Fads, crazes, trends, and bandwagons are part and parcel of cinema: they always have been, and they always will be. However, there was one 21st-century development that left Roger Ebert seething, with the critic raging against the machine to tear it to shreds.
If there was any solace to be found, it was that it didn’t lead to the industry-wide shift that was initially forecast, so even though Ebert isn’t around to see it, his worst fears weren’t realised. Still, it was a pain in the arse for a while, especially when you could almost see the dollar signs in everyone’s eyes.
As time goes on, it’s becoming clear that film is an increasingly cyclical business. What was old will eventually be new again, and once it’s been forgotten about and enough time has passed, it’ll become new again. Despite initially peaking as far back as the 1950s, 3D has never really been declared extinct.
That said, it’s not inaccurate that Hollywood’s latter-day obsession with the extra dimension is entirely James Cameron’s fault. He designed Avatar to be seen in 3D to give viewers the experience he’d envisioned, and because it became the highest-grossing movie of all time by quite some distance, almost every other major blockbuster was slapped with a shitty post-conversion.
That’s why Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland cleared a billion, and that’s also why the Clash of the Titans remake earned almost $500 million in the months that followed, because it had fuck all to do with their artistic merits. It was never going to last forever, but at the height of the saturation in 2010, Ebert had seen enough.
“3D is a waste of a perfectly good dimension,” he ranted. “Hollywood’s current crazy stampede toward it is suicidal. It adds nothing essential to the moviegoing experience. For some, it is an annoying distraction. For others, it creates nausea and headaches. That’s my position. I know it’s heresy to the ‘biz’ side of showbusiness.”
All valid points, and ones that many cinemagoers agreed with. Of course, the easiest way to stop an unwanted trend in its tracks is for audiences to vote with their wallets, which they did, since the number of high-profile releases that even provide the option of being seen in 3D has significantly dwindled.
Ebert wasn’t against 3D as a concept, specifically singling out Cameron’s Avatar, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, and Werner Herzog’s documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, as being worthy of the extra dimension because they were made by auteurs who’d developed those productions with the format in mind, instead of having it foisted upon them by a studio desperate to squeeze some extra cash out of the public.
It’s not what anyone would call an especially revelatory take on where cinema was heading, since you could throw a stone in most places and hit someone who fucking hated the general pointlessness of the post-Avatar obsession with needless 3D, but at least it didn’t end up becoming anywhere near as “suicidal” as he’d initially forecast.
