Movies are evolving ever more into 3D, a shake-up of the medium that has been compared to the advent of sound or colour in motion pictures.
If digital 3D is so revolutionary, however, it will need to go beyond fantasy and animated blockbusters to drama and live action comedy. Explorations of Pandora may seem like the stuff of three-dimension wizardry, but what of a domestic drama such as Precious or a character-driven movie such as An Education?
When colour was widely introduced to Hollywood moviemaking in the 1930s, it first was used predominantly in musicals and other films thought to be perfect platforms for rainbow hues. Many filmmakers are predicting a similar genre expansion for 3D.
"We see in depth, for the most part. We go to the theatre it's in depth. Why couldn't a film like Precious be in 3D? It should be," says Martin Scorsese.
3D actually predates cinema stereoscopic photography was developed in the mid-19th century but it fused only occasionally with motion pictures before the 1950s. There was an explosion of 3D films between 1952-1955, an era kicked off by 1952's Bwana Devil, a drama set in British East Africa about big-game hunters pursuing lions on the loose.
There have been dramatic films made in 3D, too, perhaps most notably Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder (1954). Most saw it in 2D, but it included one memorable effect of Grace Kelly's hand coming out from the screen in a pivotal moment. Based on a stage play with one interior setting, Dial M for Murder could be a blueprint for contemporary filmmakers adapting 3D to non-action movies.
In the 1990s, IMAX expanded 3D, literally across giant screens. The process was awkward but created life-size images that made the viewer a part of the scene.
‘Just another tool'
1995's Wings of Courage, a 40-minute movie about a downed pilot that starred Craig Sheffer and Val Kilmer, was the first IMAX 3D fictional film. Reviewing it, The New York Times wrote that "of course" 3D was not the future of movies, "at least until those headsets turn into something more comfortable".
3D's increasing expansion in moviemaking is ubiquitous. Some 20 films will be released in 3D this year, with more in 2011. Studios are looking into their vaults to reissue classics in 3D. Theatres are making more screens 3D capable.
"It's just another tool. In fact, I'm very interested in kind of exploring it on some other levels, because it's like sound," says Tim Burton, whose Alice in Wonderland was made in 2D but converted to 3D for theatrical release. "3D is just another element to draw you in a little bit more, that's all."
Not everyone is sold on 3D. Critic Roger Ebert has called it "a waste of a perfectly good dimension". Though he gave Avatar a good review and mostly applauded its use of 3D, he has questioned the technology's benefits.
"There seems to be a belief that 3D films are not getting their money's worth unless they hurtle objects or body parts at the audience," Ebert wrote in a 2008 review. "Every time that happens, it creates a fatal break in the illusion of the film. The idea of a movie, even an animated one, is to convince us, halfway at least, that what we're seeing on the screen is sort of really happening. Images leaping off the screen destroy that illusion."
Critic David Thomson postulated that Avatar stands directly opposite the family dramas of a filmmaker such as Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu. "More and more of our movies... bear very little reference to life as lived," he wrote.
Nevertheless, many filmmakers sense a challenge in melding 3D with drama. "It's right out there, somebody just needs to do it," says Chris Columbus, who directed the 2005 concert film 3D Rocks. "If Coraline was and Up was a subtle version of what you'd expect for 3D, why couldn't a traditional drama work just as well?"
Celine Rattray, president of newly formed Mandalay Vision, a division of Mandalay Entertainment that focuses on independent film production, says she has begun looking at how 3D can be worth the cost for the kind of independent picture that usually plays at the Sundance Film Festival.
Yes, even the traditionally gritty, character-driven films of indie cinema could begin tackling 3D in the coming years, especially when the costs diminish even more.
"I believe that one day in the not too distant future that every movie will be made in 3D," she says. "3D will become the norm in the same way that colour became the norm and movies with sound became the norm."
This historic shift in moviemaking and moviegoing has nevertheless seemed ephemeral, not unlike its airy, glimmering effect.
Even Scorsese says "I'd love to do one," so long as he could still move the camera the way he would like to.
"It just seems natural that we'd be going in that direction," Scorsese says. "It's going to be something to look forward to, but to be used interestingly."
