The Next Big Thing
The animation in Pixar’s ‘Wall-E’ is exceptional. The detail is more, rather than less, than the eye can absorb and the rendering of distressed, battered and grubby surfaces parallels the scuffed production design that distinguished the ‘Alien’ movies when they first came out. The film’s director, Andrew Stanton, has said “Life is nothing but imperfection and the computer likes perfection, so we spent probably 90% of our time putting in all of the imperfections, whether it’s in the design of something or just the unconscious stuff. How the camera lens works in [a real] housing is never perfect, and we tried to put those imperfections [into the virtual camera] so that everything looks like you’re in familiar [live-action] territory.”
Disney used to do detail, albeit not particularly grubbily. (He wasn’t averse to dust, though – see cottage-cleaning scenes in ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (1937). Dirt is probably okay if its removal can be ideologised.)
By the ’50s shadow detail and foreground texturing was on the wane – ‘Cinderella’ (1950) is going the way of the greetings card and bland, athleticised Aryanisation is taking over the depiction of faces and bodies.
After a partial return to form with ‘Peter Pan’ (1953), it was downhill to ‘Lady and the Tramp’ (1955) and subsequent decades of giftwrap art.
In 1991 Disney did a three picture deal with Pixar, the first fruit of which was the three-dimensionalised and instantly successful ‘Toy Story’ (1995). Although the business relationships between the companies have changed over the years (a good outline of that here) Pixar’s CGI has returned Disney to its role as administrator of the portal to the corporate virtual.
‘I challenge anyone to hold its performances up to those of the critically acclaimed The Dark Knight, and, excluding Heath Ledger for the moment, say what the difference is. There’s the same vacuity, the same open invitation to allegory. One has to assume they’re told to act this way, since both films are full of actors with proven talent. All that’s purchased are their names and faces (I wonder if that’s in the contract). They inhabit their parts with all the smoothness of an automaton, a styleless mode of performance apparently designed for easy exchange with animated versions, comic book images, videogame avatars, concepts.’
27.08.2008