Master of the universe
By Peter Jackson,
Sydney Morning Herald, 19 December 2009
In Avatar, film sorcery has finally caught up with
James Cameron's imagination.
The suspension of disbelief. That phrase has
long been used as a way of describing the necessary relationship between
filmmaker and the audience. It's a quaint, slightly cynical concept, in which
both participants admit that "we know this is a lot of nonsense but let's
forget about that for a couple of hours and allow ourselves to have some
fun". The suspension of disbelief is an unspoken contract that has served the
needs of moviegoers and moviemakers for more than 100 years.
But occasionally a movie comes along that takes
us by the scruff of the neck and propels us headlong into an experience so
strong and profound that such agreements are rendered instantly redundant. These
are the movies that live with us our entire lives and, some would argue, shape
our lives - films that touch both heart and mind and compel us to surrender
completely to the power of the experience. This has happened to me maybe 10 or
12 times in my life and doubtless, for each of us, the list of these watershed
movies is unique and particular to our life experience.
One of the great strengths of cinema is its
diversity; there are films to suit all tastes, films that connect on many
different levels, films that appeal to different age groups and cultures, and
films that speak very powerfully to specific audiences. However, every once in
a while we will see a movie that transcends cultural barriers, genre and taste;
a film that lives on in the minds of the audience, years after the fact; a film
with a story, characters and dialogue so memorable that it creates its own
mythology. An ocean liner splitting in half; a man falling away from the camera
and plummeting into the sea; a box of long-stemmed roses flying apart to reveal
a sawn-off shotgun; a watery tentacle snaking across a room; a playground
atomising in a nuclear blast; a woman and a man standing on the bow of ship,
faces to the sun, arms outstretched - these are the images that stay with us
long after the lights have come up. These are the stories we remember and
treasure and relive over and over again. Stories that, for many of us, become
defining moments in our lives.
During the 12 years since Jim Cameron made one of
the most extraordinary films of all time, the phenomenon that was Titanic, we
have seen him working with new technologies to make 3D documentaries, in which
he explores the undersea environments of some of the world's deepest oceans. We
had no idea at the time that we were, in fact, witnessing the nascent
development of Jim's next feature film but, in retrospect, that's exactly what
was happening. Jim was preparing for Avatar - building and developing
groundbreaking 3D technology that could enable him to capture, on film, images
that had thus far only existed in his imagination; images that, until now, were
too complex and too difficult to render on film in a 3D universe.
In terms of cinema, Avatar represents a giant
leap forward in the world of filmmaking. Cameron has created a mind-boggling,
beautiful, dangerous, alternative reality that has never before been seen on
screen. As an audience, we find ourselves immersed in the 3D landscape of
Pandora, an alien planet inhabited by strange, graceful creatures and
terrifying monsters. The jungles of Pandora glow with bioluminescent plant
life; it is an environment that is as frightening as it is beautiful and it is
home to the Na'vi, an indigenous alien race who come into conflict with humans
from Earth wielding futuristic weaponry.
Avatar is a fascinating mix of drama and
science. Everything in the film has been designed and built with the utmost
care and attention to detail - not just the costumes but even the buttons on the
costumes. Not just the trees of Pandora but the leaves on those trees and the
tiny insects crawling on the leaves. This is a world with an entire ecosystem,
where animal and plant life has established itself in forms both familiar and
wondrous, where there are gases in the atmosphere and minerals in the ground.
It is a world that has evolved over time and that abides by its own internal
laws of nature and logic. But at its heart, Avatar is a story that speaks to a
universal truth about our place in the world and the things we value and the
things we choose to destroy. It forces us to confront the issue of who we are
and what we want and to acknowledge the simple truth that, as a species, we are
bound to a common fate, and so the future of humanity is in our hands. The
message of this film is: character is destiny.
Filmmaker Peter Jackson's digital effects
company, Weta, supervised the special effects in Avatar. This is an edited
extract from The Art of Avatar: James Cameron's Epic Adventure by Lisa
Fitzpatrick (Abrams, $49.95).
The Banshee
The Banshee is the most important creature in the
film, because as the story unfolds we see that the Na'vi are a flying culture
and that they are closely bonded with their winged mounts, as a medieval knight
was with his horse. Some of the earliest designs were quite alien, more like
stingrays or living jet fighters. Then, as we tried to wrestle the shapes back
to something more familiar, they quickly became too familiar pterodactyls and
dragons. The goal became to mix the familiar and the alien in a unique way; to
serve the metaphor and create a sense of familiarity for the audience but to
always be alien in the specifics.
The metaphor I proposed for the Banshee was
neither pterodactyl nor dragon but eagle a great bird of prey, a raptor whose
diving attacks are swift and deadly. In execution, the Banshee took on aspects of
familiar flying creatures. It has the membranous wings of a pterosaur; the
hook-like claws of a fruit bat; the bright eyes and splayed wing tips of an
eagle. But it also has the jaw mechanism of a barracuda, the colouring of a
poison-dart frog and the hinged teeth of a viper. And its nostrils, inducting
straight into the chest cavity like the intakes of a jet engine, are unlike
anything on Earth. The audience is reminded always that one is on a truly alien
planet.
James Cameron