Can George Clooney save 3-D?

Kai Ryssdal Oct 4, 2013
HTML EMBED:
COPY

Can George Clooney save 3-D?

Kai Ryssdal Oct 4, 2013
HTML EMBED:
COPY

There’s a little irony to add to government shutdown and film premiere news today. Though NASA has furloughed 97 percent of its workforce, “Gravity,” a 3-D space film with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney comes out this week.

Wesley Morris, Grantland’s film writer, hopes the use of 3-D won’t re-inspire its use throughout cinema. 

“This should be a really good example of a movie that should make other people say, ‘We shouldn’t bother if there’s no reason for it,'” Morris says. “I think if you can find a way [to use 3-D] that’s not just throwing things into your face for two hours, or do that horrible thing … where they shoot the movie in standard definition and retro-fit it in 3-D, so it looks terrible.”

But overall, Morris thinks the film was a “complete moviegoing experience.” 

“From a physics standpoint, it is apparently very good and very plausible … but for me, as a moviegoing experience,” he says, “this is a very good directing performance by Alfonso Cuarón.”

One thing director Alfonso Cuarón has said is that “Gravity” can’t be viewed like a normal movie. Morris thinks that has to do with the film’s submersive experience. 

“He hasn’t made a movie in seven years. The last time he made a movie, we weren’t watching them on our phones,” Morris adds. “He made a movie that is virtually phone-proof, in that it helps to be sensorally overwhelmed by the 3-D, by the sound design, by the visual effects.”

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.