Avatar

[Worm of Despite]

On the issue of applicability vs allegory, we're talking about a movie that has "Unobtainium" as its macguffin. It had characters say things like, "shock and awe." That's not even trying to be subtle. It very clearly had an intentional message. This is different from what Tolkien meant by the term "applicability." If Sauron's orcs wore swastikas and goosestepped through Middle Earth, then perhaps there would be a parellel here, but it would clearly have dipped into allegory at that point. Unobtainium isn't like mithril or The One Ring. It's not something created for the sake of its existence in the fantasy world for which it exists. Rather, it's purely symbolic, and can't even be taken seriously as a real substance in Jake Sully's world.

Yup. Environmentalists (which I assume Cameron is, being rich and having seen An Inconvenient Truth) are pretty much incapable of the finer shades of storytelling, so they go with brazen allegory. Though, before he went nuts and made Titanic and spent all his time under the ocean, I will say he knew how to tell a story. Which was sometime last century.

[finn]

I'd go with Avatar for those reasons and that it alone is a clear blockbuster and the biggest and most significant movie event of the year.....surely that's a pretty good reason for getting best picture.

Usually being a blockbuster doesn't mean it has any actual artistic integrity or depth. Ask Jerry Bruckheimer. I'm also wondering what "significant" means here. Significant how? Just because it sold the most seats?

And what's "epic", exactly? I know it's the new easy word to say something is great and big. Perhaps Avatar would be even more socially significant had it shown not one jungle planet but, gasp, two and you get to watch their stories unfold on the right and left side of the screen, respectively. That would've been much more socially significant and epic.

Pearl Harbor was pretty epic too. But what if they showed on one side of the screen the Japanese preparing. Then in the middle screen Germans fighting in Stalingrad--THEN super-slow-mo Zack Snyder-style fighting on Pearl Harbor itself. With Japanese dual-wielding giant samurai swords dipped in the blood of 1000 warriors. Now that would be epic. That would be the best, most significant picture of all time.

An epic has a few definitions, but broadly means the depiction of events on a grand scale as opposed to a local or domestic scale. As such Avatar easily qualifies for the term and if some other movies are wrongly labelled "epic" that should make no diffrerence to movies that clearly are.....but don't just ask me, look it up!

The significance of the movie and its blockbuster nature do not mean it has or has not artistic integrity or depth, but then there are movies that are supposed to have thise qualities which are not necessarily enjoyable theatre experiences and Montressor, imo a number of Australian films fall into that category.

For me the significance was based in the whole rather than the parts. I travelled the world during the release of Avatar and it was a phenomonen everywhere, the visuals and cinematography (albeit CGHI laced) the technological developments in both actor/CGI and 3D and the reactions of pretty much most of the cinema-going population of the planet, including the Chinese re-naming a mountain range was the biggest movie event of the year. So the the story has been told before, show me an original story that does not have roots in the basic 35 - 40 stories that underpin the themes of nearly all fiction, including the other Oscar nominees.

One might argue that the Oscars are not there to reward the merely popular, but nor are they there to be the pronouncements of a condescending elite telling the world that their perceptions are shallow and intellectually lightweight.

[Worm of Despite]

For me the significance was based in the whole rather than the parts. I travelled the world during the release of Avatar and it was a phenomonen everywhere, the visuals and cinematography (albeit CGHI laced) the technological developments in both actor/CGI and 3D and the reactions of pretty much most of the cinema-going population of the planet, including the Chinese re-naming a mountain range was the biggest movie event of the year. So the the story has been told before, show me an original story that does not have roots in the basic 35 - 40 stories that underpin the themes of nearly all fiction, including the other Oscar nominees.

One might argue that the Oscars are not there to reward the merely popular, but nor are they there to be the pronouncements of a condescending elite telling the world that their perceptions are shallow and intellectually lightweight.

The Oscars are sometimes right (such as the Best Supporting Actor they just gave to Christoph Waltz/Hans Landa), sometimes terribly wrong (11 Oscars for Titanic!?). And as I mentioned--yeah; there's basic stories/motifs/character-types out there. But it's what it does with 'em that matters. And, as I said, I don't think Avatar did much. I saw only blunt cliches. And as for the Chinese and their mountains--pff, Communists.

A Serious Man, by contrast, is inspired by the story of Job, but hot damn did it do so much more interesting stuff than the source material. One could argue the same with Shakespeare.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

And to some extent I do think the public has huge brain farts. You could make a 732-DVD box set called: "Bloopers: The Collective Unconscious". Woops, slavery. Woops, Hitler. Woops, NSync. Garfield. On and on.

[finn]

I too notice the Oscars are sometime right and sometimes not so right.....I wonder who'd agree to the whens and whichs and what's of that!

The purpose of the Chinese illustration was to demonstrate the global nature of the appreciation of this movie. Was the story one which the themes were easy to grasp, sure. Was this as Wayfriend (good post btw)said.....

As for the plot being unimaginitive: I think that there's only two good ways to tell a story in a movie. You can tell a new story which uses familiar elements. Or you can tell a familiar story which uses novel elements. Avatar is clearly in the latter category. It provides so much mind candy that I think it would be unfathomable if the story at least wasn't grounded in familiar themes.

.....I think in all probability it was. But it entertained and delighted and touched so many people that it became the major movie event of 2009. With all respect to the other contenders, few have that appeal, or scope or the ability to touch so many, regardless of culture and language. Lowest common denominator being a universal message....hey i can live with that!

Additionally I seem to recall a time when Hollywood was supposed to be riddled with Communists!

[Worm of Despite]

.....I think in all probability it was. But it entertained and delighted and touched so many people that it became the major movie event of 2009. With all respect to the other contenders, few have that appeal, or scope or the ability to touch so many, regardless of culture and language. Lowest common denominator being a universal message....hey i can live with that!

Additionally I seem to recall a time when Hollywood was supposed to be riddled with Communists!

Now it's just Obama voters...Ugh.

I think Avatar was geared to be a big movie. A cultural event? I'll be surprised it if goes down in the books like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Really surprised. Most of its power came from the word-of-mouth concerning its technology: "Oh, you got to see this, it's got great visuals, huge battle at the end, etc." Touching people...hm. I suppose it did circulate a lot around the town. Not sure that makes it emotionally resonant for me. The whole "30 million people can't be wrong" is often just flat wrong.

[Zarathustra]

An epic has a few definitions, but broadly means the depiction of events on a grand scale as opposed to a local or domestic scale.

I like Donaldson's definition:

Well, what makes something "epic?" Length, of course. But
nothing in literature is that simple. An epic is not "epic" merely
because it is longer than anything else. As Marx observed, "Differences in degree become differences in kind." An epic is
"epic" because it deals explicitly with the largest and most important questions of humankind: what is the meaning of life? why are we
here? who is God and what is She doing? what is the religious and/or moral order of the universe? In fact, back in the days when epics
were more commonly written, their acknowledged purpose was to tackle such questions. The "epic" was the highest form of literature, and was expected to say the highest things.

I suppose Avatar at least tries to deal with a few of these issues. Man's relation to nature and society aren't lightweight issues by any means. I don't like how it was handled, but I recognize that's my personal taste. However, one might argue (trying to be less dependent upon personal taste) that Avatar leans more political and topical than philosophical, universal, and timeless--especially since it refers to specifically American culture and American politics. So while I wouldn't begrudge anyone thinking my assessment is motivated by my personal politics and social views (I certainly haven't hesitated in making my opinion known) I still think I can make a case that Avatar is not epic. Topical, trite, and thinly-veiled in its attempt at depth, I don't think it qualifies. It is less about what it means to be human, and more about what it means to lean a particular way in our modern political climate. While being political is indeed part of being human (a very important part, in my opinion!), I think that there is nothing universal about a strictly left-leaning anti-capitalist, pro-environmental myth. I don't think that is an answer to the question of what it means to be human, but more an answer to the question, "what do I (as a rich Hollywood director) think about this particular popular issue?"

[Edit: Avatar just lost at the Oscars. Cameron's ex-wife beat him with a war movie. Funny.]

[Worm of Despite]

News flash: Avatar does not win Best Picture. The Academy earns a few points in this Despiser's book; but still not enough to overlook their 11 nods to Titanic. Also--this Foul reporter is saddened that A Serious Man lost. But The Hurt Locker is a fine film.

[finn]

Z: epic had a number of definitions that were contextual to poems, plays. films, books etc. nonetheless they were broadly similar. I enjoyed the short thread that was moved into the Tank, but I do think you could take the themes and reduce them another level and rather than look at how the bad guys were characterised, look instead at the good guys beating the bad guys aginst the odds; a pretty common theme.

Politicising the movie? Well yeah I see were you're coming from but what if we apply that to a whole host of movies using that same theme. However I don't doubt what you say about Cameron's politics and I recall the Abyss being somewhat similar in theme.

LF: I'm afraid they lost points in mine (tho' we do agree re: Titanic). As I said I watched the Hurt Locker last night and it is a very good film, but I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as I enjoyed Avatar.....and I think that popular reaction will be the same worldwide where the goings on in Iraq are of little to no interest to many.

Nonetheless, well done to all winners...... giving best director to a women...tokenism or should that go to the tank?

[Worm of Despite]

LF: I'm afraid they lost points in mine (tho' we do agree re: Titanic). As I said I watched the Hurt Locker last night and it is a very good film, but I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as I enjoyed Avatar.....and I think that popular reaction will be the same worldwide where the goings on in Iraq are of little to no interest to many.

If this is so, I have to utterly marvel at the partiality and immaturity of the world. Seeing as Hurt Locker was neither biased against or for Iraq but just a piece of art--a film that never once leaned right or left. If anything it's against war in general--how draining it can be both mentally and physically and nothing to do with something so easily topical as Iraq (which would've been boring and easy).

Yet more points lost for the collective unconscious (if your prediction of their reaction holds true).

I have a question for all of you who like Avatar. Did you like Titanic, or did you join in the waves of people, who, after its glow faded, finally admitted it wasn't such a great movie (which is the major consensus now, much like one wakes up from a hangover and goes, "Whew, what did I ever...."). Could it be--that if Avatar wasn't sci-fi or fantasy, you might find the same things that made Titanic hollow? Because I see both films lacking a real heart; both being productions that had a lot of money thrown at them, then gained an audience like wild-fire through word-of-mouth. I will give Cameron one thing: he is perhaps the greatest self-promoter since Paul McCartney.

[finn]

The reaction I speak of will I think, be disappointment that a movie that provided one of the best theatre experiences in (at least) the past year will go unacknowledged by Hollywood as such. I came out of the cinema after Avatar and was wowed. I recall thinking that that was the best thing I'd seen in a good while a real treat to the senses and a damned good bit of entertainment.

The politics of pro or anti war/Iraq in Hurt Locker will be irrelevant to most, many of whom will not have seen it and whose lives will not be especially bettered by watching a war movie despite its theme, unbiased nature and the quality of the visual art. No-one in my office had seen it and some had not even heard of it this morning when I lauded it as a good night at the cinema. It'd be interesting to see its stats in a month or two and look at them across the world.

I find the objections to Cameron to be not unreasonable, especially if your politics play as key a role in your lives as they seem to do in America, but some of the guys work is good, I saw no similarities between Titanic and Avatar, but was delighted to watch the Abyss, loved True Lies and both the Terminators were fun; I don't care how he votes or to what extent he promotes himself. I'd be interested to know how many people went to see Avatar more than once, I know I did; I think the number would be significant and that would perhaps allay the word-of-mouth argument. I don't think this was a "sheep" phenomena but a film that reached many people and entertained and provided a lot of enjoyment, a lot more than the winner of this Oscar, fine film tho' it is.

No comments on the tokenism?

[Zarathustra]

I have a question for all of you who like Avatar. Did you like Titanic, or did you join in the waves of people, who, after its glow faded, finally admitted it wasn't such a great movie (which is the major consensus now, much like one wakes up from a hangover and goes, "Whew, what did I ever....").

I didn't like Avatar, but I'd like to answer that question. I did--and still do--like Titanic very much. I've given my reasons elsewhere, so I won't derail this thread by making a long Titanic post here. Let me just say that I think Titanic was a hell of lot more epic than Avatar. If you didn't leave that movie thinking about life and death, the paradoxical finitude and redemptive joy of love, the value of sacrifice for others, and our class structure on display in this floating microcosm of civilization, then I don't know what movie you were watching. I can't think of a better metaphor for the creeping approach of death--the final end we're all aware of and yet we block out of our minds with the social drama of our lives--than this sinking luxury ship.

[wayfriend]

I'm glad you liked it; personally I can't see how it resonates with people (it practically made me gag), but hey, different strokes for different folks.

But one thing that you cannot deny is that it resonates with a lot of people, in a lot of different ways. A movie doesn't do that unless it connects with the audience, and then says something profound to us when connected. Something profound which we consciously choose to pick up and use to re-examine the world we live in.

And what's "epic", exactly? I know it's the new easy word to say something is great and big. Perhaps Avatar would be even more socially significant had it shown not one jungle planet but, gasp, two and you get to watch their stories unfold on the right and left side of the screen, respectively. That would've been much more socially significant and epic.

I disagree. The essense of fantasy is that you can reduce things to one stage, where the players are allegorical, and then demonstrate important things.

One thing I didn't say yet, which I had meant to, was what those important things are in Avatar.

Avatar, to me, was ultimately about that old nugget, what does it mean to be human? Sully learns to accept aliens as people, as "human" as he is, while many of the the people that came to the planet with him do not. Before the end, his fellow homo sapiens become inhuman in the way they dehumanize and attempt to destroy the Na'vi. When Quarich sips his coffee watching the home tree fall in flames, and we see the Na'vi screaming anguish into the heavens, the question of what it means to be human has been raised in stark detail for us to examine. And Sully, in the end, recognizes that, as a human, he has more kinship with the Na'vi.

(The Na'vi had to be primitive. If they had been our technological equals, we would have had to respect them for what they can do to us. They say that a true judge of a man's character is to watch how he treats people who can't stop him (to rephrase with some poetic license). Because the Na'vi were apparently backwards and of no consequence, homo sapiens was left to choose to either respect them for who they are and what they were, or not to respect them as people at all.)

That's epic worthy stuff. It's not a new story, to be sure, but with epic ideas you have to keep retelling the stories.

I am sure there are people who watched Avatar and thought Sully was nuts, aliens are not people, us-against-them is how the real world works, and that in the end his endictment of homo sapiens was a liberal fantasy. Those people understandably didn't enjoy the movie. (Not saying that's the only reason for not enjoying the movie, before you try.)

But that's not how I saw the end. Sully wasn't rejecting homo sapiens at large. But becoming Na'vi was his best path out of his particular situation. He regained his limbs, he kept his soul mate, he got to remain a hero to the people he helped save, got to stay on a planet he came to love. The epic message here is about being able to see humanity in all it's forms, so that a person could even consider Sully's choice as a possible choice. Sully was sure he was remaining a human.

On the issue of applicability vs allegory, we're talking about a movie that has "Unobtainium" as its macguffin.

What could be more clearly metaphoric than that? The evil corporate dude was called Selfridge, whose self comes first. The general was named Quarrich, who loved a quarry-rich predator's existence. And we had the august Dr. Augustine too.

But the fact that Cameron was thinking about how his movie "applied" to the Iraq war is not an argument that his movie was allegorical rather than applicable. If it has applicability, assuredly he would be able to apply it to the Iraq war; if he couldn't do so, he would have failed. But the fact that people find it applicable to so many other things means that he succeeded in not tying it to the Iraq war, which it would have been if it had been an allegory.

[Orlion]

Nice commentary, wayfriend. I'd like to add that with the problem of being human, the choice of a lot of the humans was to become machines. Powerful, efficient, but also cold and devoid of "humanity." And all their goals led to establishing this more and more. They weren't trying to save the human race, but obliterate it. As a result, Sully's betrayal is towards this idea, towards the destruction of the soul rather then against humanity. Of course, the antagonists had all ready defined humanity in terms of machines and as result viewed Sully's actions as betraying humanity... but their views are skewed

The more I think of it, the more I like this movie... don't know if I could see it again, but it is better then I initially gave credit to it... though it's also not the best sci-fi movie... that's Forbidden Planet

[Cail]

I didn't like Titanic. Avatar was so bad that upon reviewing the rest of Cameron's body of work, I feel comfortable saying that he's made exactly one great movie (The Terminator), and one good movie (True Lies). The rest of them are preachy crap that're dressed up in decent action set-pieces.

[Zarathustra]

Avatar, to me, was ultimately about that old nugget, what does it mean to be human? Sully learns to accept aliens as people, as "human" as he is, while many of the the people that came to the planet with him do not.

That's a good point. Part of being human is waking up to the value of life and sentience in others. . . a kind of "nameste" acknowledgement ["I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me."]. My problem was that Sully didn't really see this in humans. And I got the impression that Cameron didn't, either.

Before the end, his fellow homo sapiens become inhuman in the way they dehumanize and attempt to destroy the Na'vi.

Yes, exactly. Cameron humanized the Na'vi by dehumanizing humans. It seems to undermine and contradict his point. Compare this to how Donaldson has reinterpretted the Urviles so that they are no longer unambiguously "evil." Black and white portrayals that ignore and disrespect the humanity in people achieve the opposite of answering the "what it means to be human" question.

When Quarich sips his coffee watching the home tree fall in flames, and we see the Na'vi screaming anguish into the heavens, the question of what it means to be human has been raised in stark detail for us to examine. And Sully, in the end, recognizes that, as a human, he has more kinship with the Na'vi.

Then the movie seems to be more about the "new nugget," what it means to be Na'vi, rather than the old nugget, what it means to be human. The Na'vi don't really even stand as a metaphor for a kind of human we can be, because they are themselves an unrealistic, naive idealization. They're what we like to think American Indians were like, when we romanticize the noble savage. But it never did--and never shall--exist, because it strips the humanity from people to think of them in these idealized, perfectly-in-tune-with-nature terms. The human condition is one of finitude and mortality, freewill in an (apparently) physically deterministic universe. Our condition is not harmony with our surroundings, but rather a paradoxical combination of inescapable depedency and undeniable striving-against. To be human is to be faced with limits that we are driven by our nature to transcend. The Na'vi never confront the Void. They don't need an answer to it, because they live in an "earthly" Paradise. There is no need to ask what it means to be human in that world, becuase they're not confronted with the trials that make us human. The only trial they had to confront was an invasion of humans. But that wasn't their fault. They have no faults.

On the issue of applicability vs allegory, we're talking about a movie that has "Unobtainium" as its macguffin.

What could be more clearly metaphoric than that? The evil corporate dude was called Selfridge, whose self comes first. The general was named Quarrich, who loved a quarry-rich predator's existence. And we had the august Dr. Augustine too.

But being clearly and specifically metaphorical is allegory, not applicability.

But the fact that Cameron was thinking about how his movie "applied" to the Iraq war is not an argument that his movie was allegorical rather than applicable. If it has applicability, assuredly he would be able to apply it to the Iraq war; if he couldn't do so, he would have failed. But the fact that people find it applicable to so many other things means that he succeeded in not tying it to the Iraq war, which it would have been if it had been an allegory.

Well, I think the waters are muddied here because the movie isn't really applicable to the Iraq war. There was no mass-murdering Na'vi dictator who invaded his neighbors and gassed 100s of 1000s of his own people, and then used UN sanctions to enrich himself while his people suffered. So there's no comparison, despite how Cameron tries to force one. His comparison of the Americans in his story to real Americans is just as mythical as his comparison of the Na'vi to a human ideal. Therefore, I think it fails fundamentally in being applicable, despite the director's blatant attempt at allegory.

If a movie is going to be "applicable" rather than "allegory," it should be applicable to any historical war, and not merely one in particular. It is the specificity, the one-to-one relationship that makes this allegorical rather than universally applicable. With terms like "shock and awe" and American capitalists invading a foreign land for their resources, this is only about one particular war (and one particular liberal interpretation of that one particular war). It couldn't be a metaphor for WWII, for instance. Hell, it couldn't even be a metaphor for Vietnam. It's only about one historical war, and for that reason it robs itself of any chance at being universal.

[wayfriend]

Cameron humanized the Na'vi by dehumanizing humans. It seems to undermine and contradict his point.

That's only if you insist that the humans so dehumanized were meant to represent all of humanity. They don't, not as far as I can tell - they are too shallow and one-sided. As I said earlier, I find them to be charicatures of aspects of humanity rather than real people. As such, I don't find it shocking that greed dehumanizes those that stand in the way of greed, or that mercenaries dehumanize those they are hired to oppose. Nor do I find it a condemnation of humanity as a whole.

Nor it is even a condemnation of greed or mercenaries or anything else. If anything, it's a condemnation of uncontrolled dehumanizing greed, of unthinking dehumanizing mercenarism. And I can't think of reasonable objections to that.

No, if the movie meant to put humans on trial, it would have depicted normal everyday people destroying the Na'vi, not blatant characatures of corporate greed and unbridled agresssion. Because they don't stand for us.

They're what we like to think American Indians were like, when we romanticize the noble savage.

Again, I don't see that as being the thrust of the movie. IMO The Na'vi weren't designed to be aboriginal because that makes them superior. They were designed to be aboriginal, again as I said above, because it puts them at the mercy of those who invaded their planet. By doing so, it reveals the true nature of those invaders. The invaders have absolutely no reason to respect the Na'vi except for whatever respect they wish to grant based on their ethics. Thus, their ethics are fully truly exposed.

Well, I think the waters are muddied here because the movie isn't really applicable to the Iraq war.

If it isn't congruent with the Iraq war point for point then as an allegory of it it totally fails. As you yourself suggest.

But as an epic with applicability, it is solid. It doesn't have to correspond point for point with the Iraq war to have applicability. Or any war. But that it is applicable to some aspects of the war, and applicable to things outside of the war (such as colonialism, or environmentalism) shows that it has it.

[Worm of Despite]

And what's "epic", exactly? I know it's the new easy word to say something is great and big. Perhaps Avatar would be even more socially significant had it shown not one jungle planet but, gasp, two and you get to watch their stories unfold on the right and left side of the screen, respectively. That would've been much more socially significant and epic.

I disagree. The essense of fantasy is that you can reduce things to one stage, where the players are allegorical, and then demonstrate important things.

I was being sarcastic. Just making a point that some people seem glued to the fact that merit somehow equals being more overblown than a Wagner opera (which I think Avatar is; it definitely reminded me of Wheel of Time's later novels in pace; I like a bit more economy). My problem with Avatar, dissections aside, is it met all my expectations. I read next to nothing on it, yet it failed to move beyond my predictions of the kind of movie it would strive to be. There’s nothing worse than reading a book and knowing the turn of the next page. It didn’t surprise, didn’t do anything with its “old nuggets”.

I kept waiting for the battle, at one point. The first hour or so was great, then it just stretched out old motifs (and did nothing with them), until I lost point of interest.

I’m glad so many folks enjoyed it. Don’t get me wrong. I found it a pretty good movie, but not one I’d go through again. You argue as if there is some empirical proof the movie is great. There's not. Its allegory is not about human nature but social construct. Regardless of how many people it "resonates" with. I think a lot of religious texts are pretty dry, and I won't think otherwise, despite the masses who uphold them.

I didn't like Dances with Wolves, and I sure as heck don't like Dances with Wolves in Space.

[wayfriend]

You argue as if there is some empirical proof the movie is great.

Well, I argued that there was some sort of empirical proof the movie could be classified as epic in someone's opinion, yes I sure did. Because I fully expected this thread's audience to demand I prove that claim if I made it. If it's nothing to you, then no sweat.

[Worm of Despite]

You argue as if there is some empirical proof the movie is great.

Well, I argued that there was some sort of empirical proof the movie could be classified as epic in someone's opinion, yes I sure did. Because I fully expected this thread's audience to demand I prove that claim if I made it. If it's nothing to you, then no sweat.

Well, epic's one thing. Whether great or not is unprovable.

[finn]

.....by those of either opinion!

Good posting, especially Wayfriend and Z.