This past weekend saw the release of director Josh Trank's found footage film Chronicle in which three rowdy teens get telekinesis and raise trouble. Of course the conflict is that one is using it to seek revenge against an abusive world by tearing out teeth and beating up his father. The issue with the film itself is that it has a boring narrator. Of course the troubled one would hurt people. That alone wrecks the momentum of the story and leaves this feeling like an obvious "woe is me" tale of someone with too much power. There's no big arc, just a lot of "cool" effects.
However, there was one thing that became more bothersome. Something so distracting that maybe the plot wasn't the most of it's problems. It's the found footage concept. This whole story started because some kid got a $500 camera for his birthday and is now using it to film everything. This isn't an art student, but just some whiny kid whose filming everything. However, what starts off as a boring gimmick slowly evolves into a big distraction for the rest of the film.
When you have one camera, it is possible that the film could have maintained a credible vibe. Even with the camera maintaining altitude pressure as they flew in the clouds, it could make sense in this world. It's when several other features were introduced that things become distracting. A video blogger shows up and films a rave. Somehow this becomes important to capturing footage for this movie. However, it's also in that scene that a third mystery camera shows up.
That's where everything goes wrong. If you follow the angles properly, there are three different angles in the rave scene, but only two camera. It's permissible, but by the third act, it is seen more as foreshadow. When the conflicts play out, we are not reduced to two cameras and a "mystery" camera, but a million different cameras. Mind you, this is a found footage story. I highly doubt that the found footage could include: hospital cameras, gas station cameras, and a distant camera with clear resolution filming the finale. There's also one that's very steady filming it closer, but I doubt that it's the original $500 camera that began this movie.
This movie had one gimmick to live up to, and it was to present itself as a found footage story. It failed by it's own rules and as a result lost most credibility. It's true that what happened looked interesting, but when you disrespect the logic you place upon yourself, why should we hold confidence in the film making?
It got me thinking also about what are my true opinions on found footage films. Better yet, American found footage films. We've seen plenty buzz over the past few years, but are they worth it. What appeal can be drawn from this style?
Probably the most known start of this phenomenon was the Blair Witch Project, which came out of nowhere and scared audiences. The reason that the movie worked was not only because the cast featured a bunch of unknowns, but because it lived up to it's rules. It was filming the story of the Blair Witch and everything used had some relative use to the narrative. At no point did it feel like the camera was used in a gimmicky way to film something cool. When you get to the gimmicky side of things, it's then that your found footage movie becomes a little nuisance.
If you look at Chronicle, there is a lot of gimmicky camera moments. While it's understandable for the guy to film the telekinesis scenes, there are many that leave you puzzling why he had the camera on. When he meets his friends for the first time, the camera is already running despite filming what looks to be nothing important. It's a subtle moment that in a normal film would seem fine, but why was the camera running? There are numerous other scenes that progress to something good, but the nuisance beginning comes across as a gimmick, making you wonder why the camera was running in the first place.
How can found footage films work as a narrative without seeming nuanced? Unless you logically work it into the plot of filming something else, like the going away party in Cloverfield, you can't. Chronicle fails because it doesn't have a logical starting point for turning on the camera for most scenes. Even the concept that the protagonist is hiding behind a camera to hide emotional discourse doesn't fly after a few scenes. The only thing that works is that the camera occasionally flickers out and returns on another moment.
With Cloverfield, it progresses into the action. Also, while both are heavily reliant on special effects, it's director Matt Reeves' film that comes out on top because it provides some mystery the whole time. It's one consecutive night and it helps to strengthen the narrative. There's even moments spliced in of an old Ferris wheel that creates a mystery. There are layers in Cloverfield that while maybe not that deep, add a complexity necessary to make found footage films have some legs.
There is also the Last Exorcism, which is a substantial film in that they also had a motive. The protagonist is an exorcist hoaxer who does one last mission for a rural family. It's weird, it's eerie, but it also features a unique atmosphere needed to make the story work as a whole. It may run into more gimmicky moments (like turning off the camera in a hospital), but in the end it works because it also eventually shows that the family is not quite that innocent. There is a twist that makes this film succeed. It may be a little stupid, but it works to strengthen the narrative. Chronicle has no real twist, and instead is just about typical, angst-ridden teens.
However, for those that wish to say that found footage films are here to stay, I must ask why. In truth, every genre has some good and bad, but I cannot see what the good in found footage is. At most it's a cheap way to make movies and keep making Paranormal Activity sequels. However, that's the problem within itself. It's cheap. You can use jump scares and ambiguous cuts to scare audiences without having to explain reasoning. If people got pissed about the ending of Joe Carnahan's the Grey, then I'm sure they hate this genre already.
Also, it's just too distracting. It's true that with Youtube people film themselves more for stupid reasons, but it doesn't work as a movie. Eventually there will be a real found footage movie and all we'll do is cry wolf. There is nothing good to come from this except lazy storytelling and the death of coherent writers. As much as I am for original properties, I cannot see this going further.
Unless they do something that actually constitutes REAL found footage movies. Splice in this stuff with an actual narrative. Chronicle did, but it felt like it came too late. It's risky, but if you do it correctly, it may actually strengthen the movie besides making the camera angles feel more like gimmicks used by Ricky in American Beauty. Even then, knowing Ricky's back story made his obsession relate more to the plot.
How can we splice found footage into a narrative? It hasn't been explored too much in mainstream movies, but in Werner Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man, it uses actual found footage of Timothy Treadwell living among bears. It has all of the realms of Chronicle or Cloverfield, but because it adds substance around it, the story makes more sense. We get an impression of who Treadwell is through his own footage. We also get it through interviews and a narration from Herzog. If you wanted to make found footage fiction films work, you need to build around it. Add a narrator or a story that would incorporate it. Something that makes the story work. You cannot get by on ambiguous cuts the entire film.
While Chronicle isn't the worst offender to the found footage genre, it certainly is a reminder that we shouldn't limit ourselves to one camera. If we do that, we just run the risk of running out of interesting things to film. By constricting yourself, you're not pushing your medium in interesting ways. Also, while it has been proven possible, the narrative will suffer if you just have a camera rolling for gimmicky reasons. Please, stop making what you think is found footage movies and start making movies that have found footage.
Comments
Post a Comment