Clover Dangerfield

Today's post takes a look at the hot film of the moment, Cloverfield, produced by everyone's current favourite filmmaking pinup, Lost creator J.J. Abrams; which I see as a little unfair towards its director, Matt Reeves. Nobody thinks of Schindler's List as Schindler's List produced by Branko Lustig do they? I'll jump right into it, cause I just spent 3 hours writing the below and can't be bothered to give any fluidity to the addition of this post-written introduction and I'm starting to not be able to think of any words over 4 letters in length without the use of a thesaurus.

One observation I couldn't shake from my thoughts whilst watching the film was how heavily it smelt like Valve's Half-Life (the first one - more on that later) which I see as no bad thing, due to the biting impact and top-notch level of craftsmanship exuberated within the game, so I'm all for ripping stuff off if it results in even just a handful of more palatable productions at the end of the day. I guess if nobody ever ripped anything off, everyone would still be running around in leopard-skin loincloths, painting bison on cave walls with blood from their spouse's newly-caved in skull. I suppose 'drawing influence from' would be the more amiable term in such a situation as this.

The one key ingredient in Half-Life's trademark technique of using a direct, unfaltering first-person to frame the narrative which Cloverfield fails to take note of as it 'draws inspiration from' the method is to never, ever show the face of this aforementioned first person. Not to disregard the array of selling points present within the series such as the general haunting aesthetic, the atmospheric (- possibly the laziest word ever?), claustrophobic level design and the bravely appropriate colour pallete; it is arguably the immersive, insular feeling envoked by the use of this 'first-person only' trick that is responsible for so much of the game's weight and magnitude.

Half-Life itself sets down the rules for using this technique, displaying that you can push it just about as far as showing a single image of the protaganist's face on the loading screen and that's pretty much it. To take it any further, for instance to have the character turn the camera round and deliver an address, face clearly shown, as Cloverfield does a few times, shatters any effect assimilated by the technique.

The success of the method lies in the assumed ambiguity of the protaganist, allowing the viewer to slot themselves neatly into this person's boots; any over-abuse of this ambiguity can have only negative effects. I believe Half-Life 2 also proves testament to this, with its over-characterisation (meant in terms of both frequency and humanisation of characters) resulting in far less an insular experience.

This failing doesn't however seem to detract too considerably from the film, it still remains an extremely agreeable and interesting filmic event to partake in. I think the fact that you leave feeling that you have indeed partaken in something, a cinematic experience, rather than just watched a film, is proof of the areas in which the film succeeds. Noticeably, the most enjoyable sections of this film are when our wise-cracking cameraman shuts up for a few seconds and just takes in the carnage surrounding not only him, but also us. I find the grounding asides excuseable due to the success of these sections of the film.

The only other major shortfall for me was that the cast were way too good-looking. Now this could just be some bitterness drawn from my own lifelong chiselled-jaw and designer-stubble impairments but I think the glut of beautiful people in this film wrecks a lot of the ground gained through the successes on other fronts.

I hear a lot of people shouting about how the film is ruined by the showing of the monster; that it's not a terrifying enough beast, the CGI is crap, even that it sucks you receive no closure in terms of where it came from or what happens to it after the bomb drops. This moaning is why Alfred Hitchcock never lets you read his top secret plans in The 39 Steps. It doesn't matter what the plans are, the only thing that matters is their presence as a driving force within the narrative. To reveal them, just as to reveal the origins of the Cthulu-esque behemoth in Cloverfield would, aside from a slight sense of satisfaction at the given closeure, ultimately bring nothing but disappointment. This technique is called a 'MacGuffin'. See also Pulp Fiction's much sought-after briefcase.

If anything I think the 'bad' monster actually allows you to appreciate and revel in the fun you had with the mystery and hype of the build up; to go in to the cinema knowing as little as possible about a film can actually be quite nice sometimes, it makes you realise,as soon as your hopes are dashed by some shoddy CGI that for a brief time, you believed again that you really could be terrified by a filmmakers vision and I think the anticipative moments of the film are pretty damn tense, if not genuinely scary. I would almost go as far to say the anticipation and concept behind the film actually turn out to be more fun than the event itself. Kind of like your 14th birthday.

There is a little bit of cheating going on with the much advertised Cinéma vérité shaky handheld Blair Witch-esque camerawork, being the use of unnaturally steady establishing shots, used in contrast and accompaniment to the uneasy shaking image shot by our real-world cameraman. They are of course still from the perspective of our associate and luckily, are sparingly enough used to go nigh-unnoticed. I actually think they are 100% neccesary in the fabrication of the environment and readability of the film, to leave them out would result in far less of a grounding within the world put forward.

Basically, I found this film to be a very interesting experiment. It's in no way original and I don't think it professes itself as such, openly advertising its loaning of long-forgotten techniques (such as trailers that don't show you every single worth-watching bit of the film for instance) with a view to bundling them up along with a few new ideas and presenting them to a fresh audience.

The film clocks in I think at just over an hour; a prime example of the many convention-busting quirks that show that this really is a film with no fear of boldly-going-where-lots-of-films-have-gone-before-
-but-no-films-have-gone-recently and taking risks with a view to creating an experience significantly more intriguing and beguiling than most you'd find on the market at the moment.

If you laid out all my posts end-to-end, not only would they fail to reach the moon but I still wouldn't even have a post for every day of the month, not even the charade of a month that is February with its poxy 28/29 days, which is just embarassing. Though not as embarassing as the fact I had to look up how many days there are in February. I am working towards changing this recent drop-off in activity; I'm not going anywhere or doing anything until about Marchish it looks like, so we should have a steady flow of questionable content 'till then.

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