“Noah” proves how difficult it is to make us go “wow” at the movies today, even with all of Hollywood’s money at your disposal.
Have you heard of Noam Murro? Look him up in IMDb. He’s made a Dennis Quaid bomb called Smart People. He’s made a TV short named HBO Imagine. And he made 300: Rise of an Empire. Now that you’ve probably heard of. As cash-hungry sequels go, it isn’t bad. In fact, it’s better than a cash-hungry sequel has any right to be. It has some entertainingly ripe lines. One character mourns, “We are turning young men into memories.” Another exults, “Today we will dance on the backs of dead Greeks.” Someone even finds an opportunity to use “glabrous” in a sentence. I had to look it up.
The visuals are equally ripe. We’ve thrust into a mid-sea battle, from the point of view of a Persian vessel bearing down on the Greek navy. It’s a cool shot. The camera follows a soldier as he runs and jumps off a cliff and it keeps following him through his fall and continues to track him as he lands on a ship and goes about butchering enemies. That’s a cool shot too. And every time a blade slices through a body – which is roughly once every 6.7 seconds – blood erupts in slo-mo, viscous patterns of red drifting languorously through air. That’s possibly the coolest shot of all.
When a Noam Murro movie comes with all these attractions, it isn’t too much to expect more from Darren Aronofsky, the eccentric auteur behind Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan. But his Noah is a plodding disappointment. I realise that this is a much more serious undertaking than 300: Rise of an Empire, whose villain is essentially a glabrous gent in a gold diaper. Here, the “villain” is God himself. It’s impossible to get more serious than that. But surely it’s not too much to expect some cinematic verve – some ripe lines, some ripe visuals, some cool shots. This is a Biblical spectacular that’s neither too Biblical (Aronofsky takes a lot of liberties with the material) nor too spectacular.
The film isn’t without signature moments. A nightmare in which Noah is drowned with other creatures is stunningly realised. And the ark is a beauty – not the biggish boat we’ve seen in a million pictures but a smallish skyscraper made of lumber (somewhat ironic, in an ecologically minded film), with its various “floors” occupied by various animals. (All in hibernation, thankfully, otherwise all the waters of the great flood outside wouldn’t have been enough to purge all the poop.) But one of the things we expect in myths is a sense of wonder, and there’s not much of that around.
One problem is surely how we see movies today. When The Ten Commandments was released, the parting of the Red Sea must have seemed a miracle, an act of God on par with whatever Moses was witnessing. But we (unfortunately) know better. We know that everything is a special effect, created inside computers, whose ones and zeros are essentially the basis of all cinematic Creation. In Noah, we see birds soar into the ark, we see snakes slither in, we see animals amble in – and we think “special effects,” “special effects,” “special effects.” How we’ve lost the power to be amazed by routine computer-generated imagery.
And how difficult it has become to create an on-screen world that looks new, unique. The ocean-filled screen harks back to Waterworld, as do the brown-grey clothes on Noah and his family – the images are all from the same post-apocalyptic sci-fi handbook. (Sci-fi, after all, is basically myth transplanted into the future.) And from the disaster-movie handbook, there’s the deluge and the screaming hordes begging to get onto the ark. You really don’t expect to be thinking about the Transformers movies in a story adapted from the Old Testament, but look at the lumbering fallen angels called Watchers, and you may have the answer to how Megatron would move if touched by arthritis.
Dramatically too, Noah is all warmed-up leftovers. When a character looks at the sky and pleads, “I am a man made in your image, why will you not converse with me?” we are transported to the Bergman movies, with their stonily silent God. (There’s another bit of imagery from Bergman, in the water that sprouts miraculously from the ground, the way it did in The Virgin Spring.) And when Noah turns crazily despotic – he believes that he and his wife and children, namely all remaining mankind, must perish in order for creation to be “let alone” – and his family plans a revolt, we’re in Mutiny on the Bounty territory, with Noah as Captain Bligh.
Where, then, is Aronofsky? He’s not visible in the weak passages with the lesser villain, a stowaway on the ark who might as well be carrying a placard saying “Random Third Act Tension Generator.” There’s not much tension, either, when one of Noah’s three sons conspires against his father because Noah did not save the girl he loved. (The boy and the girl have one scene together, and they barely register as co-stars, leave alone lovers imbued with such depths of feeling.) It’s only when a daughter-in-law is discovered to be pregnant that Aronofsky gets to sink his teeth into some serious psychological meat. With Noah’s reaction, and his subsequent actions – leading to a climax with a dagger poised over an infant – we finally get the Darren Aronofsky drama we walked in for. But not for long. Studios don’t shell out over a hundred million dollars for movies about a child-murdering madman.
Given that all plots have been played out, all stories told, all situations presented in numerous permutations and combinations, is it at all possible to make an event movie that feels “new”? The makers of The Lion in Winter – without doubt, one of the event movies of 1968 – must have surely mulled over this question. After all, this was yet another historical drama, a genre that was the “special effects extravaganza” of its day – the special effects, of course, coming in the form of huge sets and huger stars (in this case, Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn). How to make this different? Well, dogs are a start. In the midst of gleaming historical pageants, how intriguing to step into a dimly lit castle overrun with mongrels. How interesting to witness thrones made of wood and not gold, clothes made from rough-hewn fabric and not shiny silk. And how refreshing to see “sets” that don’t look like sets. When the King of England meets the King of France, it’s on squelchy mud, a big puddle between them. The entire production seems to take a cue from the Queen’s line: “It’s 1183 and we’re barbarians!” This is vision. This is how you make a difference.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… is a weekly dose of cud-chewing over what Satyajit Ray called Our Films Their Films. An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2014 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Rajesh
April 4, 2014
When a movie poster says, from the technicians of so and so movies (which were all ‘computerised’ cinemas), what more to expect than a lot of cg or special effects or whatever which has been worked out in front of a green screen.
“And how refreshing to see “sets” that don’t look like sets. When the King of England meets the King of France, it’s on squelchy mud, a big puddle between them”
– May be Hollywood is warming up to the beauty of realness impact in European period movies, lead by French or Dannish and even British ones. There are incredible cinemas which make us feel these so called great Kings were all just ordinary humans or barbarians doing their job in normal environment.
80’s Malayalam classic ‘Vyshali’ tried the ‘real’ sets. The only thing it didnt do was eliminating the space or distances kept between the King and those around. In ‘Urumi’, Santosh Sivan brought down these spaces too, in scenes which were reminiscent of the French classic ‘La Reine Margot’.
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Rajeev Hari Kumar
April 4, 2014
“How we’ve lost the power to be amazed by routine computer-generated imagery.”
Brilliantly said. If there’s one thing most big-budget films deliver unfailingly, it has to be special effects that, a couple of decades ago, might have seemed jaw-droppingly good. Now, these jaw-droppingly good effects are a staple of most big-budget films, and we’ve reached a point where we’re no longer in awe of these effects. That being said, some films do manage to induce that “wow” factor with their effects. The middle-of-the-sea battles in Pacific Rim, for instance, were impressive. And Smaug in DoS was the very embodiment of terror ( aided, no doubt, by Benedict Cumberbatch’s chilling performance ). Otherwise though, there’s that sense of same old same old every time I watch a big-budget Hollywood film.
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Ceaser
April 4, 2014
Water, water, everywhere
Brangan,it seems that u r running out of punchy titles. This is the same title u gave 4 agneepath rvw.
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Anuja
April 5, 2014
I’ll sound antediluvian for saying it, but special effects just don’t impress me much whether I am watching Ben Hur or Avatar or (put in just about any Hollywood blockbuster you can think of) and the wow factor associated with such films does little for me. It all comes down to emotional content baby!
Most of us go to the movies to be transported from our crappy, mundane lives to another realm where we can feel something entirely different from our usual anxiety and stress even if its anxiety and stress over Frodo Baggins’s situation or the manufactured emotional atiyachar of a hottie on a hunt for Mr. Right. And no we cannot make the journey if our heart is not in the ride to fantasy land. Which is why something like the Transformers is just a whole lot of noise reminiscent of the annoying video games the men and/or boys in your life are addicted to and rather than make your troubles seem far away, they are a painful reminder of the umpteen irritations that your life is comprised of and you feel extremely ill disposed to all involved in the project.
Reading this over, I am not sure it was glabrous (yet to look it up) but it certainly is garrulous 😊😊
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Ravi K
April 5, 2014
I am actually more impressed by invisible VFX that don’t call attention to themselves. CGI armies of thousands look like video game characters.
Check out the seamless effects in The Wolf of Wall Street:
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MANK
April 5, 2014
Brangan,
I dont think you can completely blame Arnofsky for Noah. The battles he had to fight with Paramount over his idiosyncratic vision is now legendary. Also the pressure brought about by religious groups against the film was immense. The studio gave in to the pressure and watered down his version and he was not happy about it.Even though he hasnt gone hammer and tongs about it in the press surely not to rock the box office prospects of the film, I am sure he will eventually speak out about it in the future.
Speaking of The Lion in Winter , i feel the realism in the movie was more dictated by the times it was made. The big glossy historical extravaganza was already pass with several big failures like Cleopatra and Camelot. it came out during the emergence of new hollywood, smack in the middle of Bonnie and Clyde and Midnight cowboy. So it must have been as much a commercial decision as much as an aesthetic one to give a realistic feel to it. Also several taboo subjects like homosexuality and Incest is openly discussed in the film, something thats not done in these kinds of films at the time.the influence of european auteurs like Pasolini is very much visible here.Pasolin’s Medea, Arabian Nights and Gospel according to Mathew are the most bizarre and down& dirty historical movies i have ever seen., most definitely Arabian Nights, i have never seen another Arabian nights film like that before or after.
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MANK
April 5, 2014
Rajesh chetta, evadeyayirunnu?, kore nalayallo kandittu?.
Vaishali was a true surprise as i watched it after the wave of ramayana and mahabharate TV serials and was quite taken aback by the change in the ambiance of the film which takes place during the time of Ramayana..And speaking of realistic sets Shyam benegal’s Bharat ek khoj employed realistic and sometimes theatrical settings to showcase the stories from indian history. The same with Dwiwedi’s Chanakya serial.but what is so particular about ‘eliminating the space or distances kept between the King and those around’?.I am no expert on this, but in some of the old indian and European paintings that i have seen, there does seem to be a some distance kept between the king and others.
@Ravi
Not only WOWS,Martin scorsese always uses special effects very well and very much in the service of his movies. Gangs of new york , Shutter Island and Hugo are all good egs.
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ramitbajaj01
April 5, 2014
ur review of 300 resonated with my taste. i am feeling confident of my view now. thanks 🙂
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vikram
April 5, 2014
Well said…I make it a point to stay away from such consciously constructed cgi epics with credits saying starring/ directed by academy award nominee or winner…
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Madan
April 5, 2014
I have not seen this film and I don’t know that I am interested. But on the larger topic of visual effects, I remember coming back from the Tinker Tailor movie feeling fairly impressed. Then I saw the BBC TV series and felt that the movie, by contrast, had been made with too much gloss. I mean, the lighting in the film was just too much, the colours were too rich; the TV series looked bleak and kind of drab which was very appropriate for a Cold War-based spy thriller. Speaking of which, look at the opening shots in this Hound of Baskervilles TV movie. Wonderful use of lighting to set the mood.
Every scene (or film for that matter) doesn’t necessarily need very rich production values and a surfeit of superb-looking films can have an annoying uniformity about it. That is increasingly becoming a problem with Hollywood (well, Tinker Tailor was British but…). Maybe it’s also an old school v/s new school kind of thing. I think a little bit of dirt and grime doesn’t hurt to make the film look more ‘real’ but then there are also viewers who want airbrushed perfection in everything even if its being perfect is not all that important artistically.
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Rajesh
April 5, 2014
@Mank – football season climaxilekku neenguvalle, cant find time even for reading all the football blogs. 🙂
space between kings and the ones around — will try to explain – when we watch Indian/hollywood period movies, we always see the King as someone unreachable to the visitors, even to family members and others around, alle? and that is how we always read about kings. It is only when watching European period movies I saw how differently this could be done. The kings behave as barbarically or ordinarly as an illiterate subject/soldier of his. Of course, this may not have been the reality. But making us to wonder these ancient heroes were like this, and to even lend a strong sense of realness, I like it that way.
In Urumi, there are shots in which the local ruler and the visitor are all there in very tight frames. This was very not traditional of Indian period movies. One of those frames, immediately made me think about la reine margot.
I find these spaces very interesting, thats all. But for sure, Mr. Sivan watches movies outside hollywood.
Hugo was one movie which used computers well. I wish he made it in French though.
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Rajesh
April 5, 2014
@Mank – not sure if its clear. when I say unreachable- most have to keep a distance from KIng alle? like 10 or 20 meters. In a midrange close up shot of the king, it will be impossible to have a visitor or a soldier too, as that would be un royal in traditional movie making.
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RC
April 5, 2014
Brangan, didn’t you use the same title for Talaash? 🙂
I cannot decide if the director wanted the audience to sympathise with Noah, or his family.
Till about the last 20 mins I was expecting an ending culminating in a parallel to the today’s state of world. Men who abused their gifts, men who believed in and tried to exercise their supremacy felt like parallels to various nations today. The human king’s insistence on grabbing the ark is something like a super power country invading an oil rich country.
Can’t put a finger on it but the ending just didn’t work for me.
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Upnworld.com
April 6, 2014
“Hibernation – purge – poop”
– a hilarious exception to the rule of execrable scatalogical jokes. So rarely do you have a critic recalling a scene from Jungfrukallan – atypical Bergman -I’d forgotten that scene you brought up. As for “Noah”, the trailers raised my suspicions – Aronofsky is a personal storyteller -dunno if he has done a Spielberg- will have to watch to confirm.
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brangan
April 9, 2014
Rajeev Hari Kumar: Of recent films, I thought “LIfe of Pi” came closest to a religious experience, even though I’m not a great fan of the other aspects of the film — the narrative, etc.
Upnworld.com: Curious. Why do you call “Virgin Spring” atypical Bergman? Surely it has all the themes he went back to over and over…
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