As a movie lover, I have sometimes wondered what it was like to be at one of the first screenings of The Jazz Singer. What was it like to witness for the first time a motion picture that actually talked? It was likely an overwhelming experience - the effect of hearing Al Jolsen's voice coming from his moving image was so new and impressive, that the quality of the movie itself might not have mattered. But the Warner Brothers knew that there were only so many theaters installing sound equipment for their new feature. It would have to play just as well in all the theaters without sound. This practical economic decision probably saved talkies - if the first sound feature had been a stinker, people would have been impressed with the process, but they may have dismissed it as a curiosity.
Wings of Courage is the first dramatic feature film to be made in the IMAX 3D format, which provides breathtakingly three-dimensional image and sound. It's the true story of a French mail pilot (Craig Sheffer) whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1930. When rescue planes were unable to spot him, he made the desperate decision to try to make it out of the mountains on foot.
Director Jean-Jacque Annaud (The Bear, Name of the Rose) is attracted quite naturally to this kind of story, as he enjoys a good challenge himself. Filming in IMAX 3D is at the pioneer stage. Using a film frame ten times the size of normal 35mm, the twin mounted camera case is roughly the size of a refrigerator, and just as difficult to move around. It is also very noisy (making sync sound impossible), only holds 3 minutes of film, takes hours to reload, has no viewfinder, and tends to break down with alarming regularity. To make a film in studio in this format is difficult, but to make an outdoor adventure film took a lot of guts. It was also quite a gamble, considering that when they started out there were only 2 theaters in existence where the film could be shown.
But the difficult new hardware, along with all the problems associated with shooting outdoors in remote locations, weren't the only challenges met by Annaud. IMAX 3D requires the development of an entirely new film language. Unlike normal 3D, in which object pass behind or out of the film frame, the huge screen used for IMAX 3D almost totally eliminates the edges of the screen from view. With the viewer sitting within the film frame, the old rules of composition and editing go out the window. The changed point of focus in a quick cut is hard on the eyes, and a normal close-up shot would become incredibly intrusive.
Annaud compensates for these differences by treating scenes more like live theater, and deliberately sought out actors with extensive stage experience. Along with Sheffer (whose presence has matured considerably since starring in Nightbreed and A River Runs Through It), the cast includes Tom Hulce, Elizabeth McGovern and Val Kilmer. With the noise of the camera throwing off line readings, and the more than usual use of extreme body language, the performances are nearly a throwback to silent film acting. Sheffer, who has the most screen time but the fewest lines, fares better than the others. Also, some scenes are stolen from everyone by one of the better canine performers.
The scenes of planes flying around mountain peaks deliver all the thrills of the best amusement park rides - but that's only to be expected in an attraction of this type. The real surprise of the IMAX 3D comes in the amazing intimacy provided to interior scenes. The actors lose that larger-than-life quality we expect from movies, and instead take on a sense of contiguity close to that of real life - only the artificial movie atmosphere reminds you that at no point will you be asked to shake hands with Kilmer or McGovern. This unexpected quality is as fascinating as it is disquieting. The mind boggles at the thought of what filmmakers such as Dario Argento or Russ Meyer would do with the format once they get their hands on it.
Due to its expense and experimental nature, Wings of Courage runs only 40 minutes. This is a detriment of character development - relationships don't hold the emotional impact that they would have in a full-length feature. However, the relatively short length helps in the area of 3D eye fatigue, a problem yet to be solved. Annaud plans to make a trilogy of these IMAX 3D features with a man-versus-nature theme - the next is to be shot in Tibet with Brad Pitt - and at some point the three will likely be combined as a conventional 2-hour feature.
Although nothing unconventional, I believe the producers have done well in choosing this particular script for the first IMAX 3D project. A story with more fantastic elements would have been detrimental to their chief goal: showing that the new format is not just a sideshow oddity, but a legitimate new way for a real story to be told. Wings of Courage is a fine, sure first step in what may be quite a long journey.
As technology continues to expand the range of our art forms, we should remember not to neglect the art while tending to the form.
For information on Wings of Courage visit the Moodygardens Web site.
Written by Brian Thomas