By Elise Nakhnikian
I don’t think the people at Pixar are capable of making a bad movie—though Cars veered dangerously close to the line—but there are the Pixar movies you like and the ones you fall in love with. And for me, the best are the ones that shake off the constraints of the natural world, like a dog drying off after a dip.
Take Wall-E—at least, up to what my husband calls the Titanic portion of the movie. Until the two little love-bots start running around the space station, calling out each other’s names for what feels like forever, the premise is ingenious, funny, and poignant all at once. It’s also exaggerated just enough to make you think about the growing gap between nature and the American way of life without getting preachy or self-righteous. The setup on the space station is interesting too, until it degenerates into a standard chase scene/showdown, but the great parts of this movie are the huge chunks that need no dialogue at all, just music and sound effects and the occasional coo or cry or clip from Wall-E’s favorite movie, Hello Dolly. The first half hour or so is the best part, a wordless ballet of motion, music, and sound effects. It’s weird and wonderful, instantly recognizable yet strange, like a dream so intense it wakes you up. (This is the kind of movie Max Fleischer would have made if they’d had CGI in his day.)
So are Monsters Inc., The Incredibles, and pretty much all of Pixar’s shorts (Netflix rents a DVD that holds about a dozen). These great Pixar movies are all set in dada worlds that operate by their own rubbery rules. In these worlds, the monsters that kids see in their closets at night are real—and more scared of the kids than the kids are of them. A babysitter faced with a spontaneously combusting toddler winds up with her chin in one hand and a fire extinguisher in the other, spritzing the baby periodically while looking bored as only a teenage girl can look. (Jack Jack Attack) A young alien hovering above Earth in his spaceship practices his abduction technique—badly—on a human teenager who’s so deeply asleep that he never wakes up, though the alien kid flings him around like a pinball, destroying his house in the process. ("Lifted") And a little plastic snowman working to bust out of his snow globe comes off like the bastard son of Buster Keaton and Harpo Marx, radiating hapless intensity while producing a series of increasingly outlandish tools (a hammer? A jackhammer?? A bundle of TNT???) from who knows where. (Knick Knack)
The not-so-great Pixar movies start with much less original premises. Think Ratatouille, very good but not great, right? And what’s it about? Two odd-couple losers pair up and show all the naysayers that they’re winners after all. Or Finding Nemo, the sweet but predictable story of a youngster who learns independence while his overprotective dad learns to let go. Or, worst of all, Cars, that big wet kiss John Lasseter and crew blew to faux authenticity. Every character and relationship in that movie is a cliché, from the postcard-picturesque gas stations and tourist traps of Route 66 to the “homespun” humor of Larry the Cable Guy.
But even when the story and characters are stale, Pixar can make them palatable. Pixar movies are beautiful to look at, with carefully observed textures and movements and ambient sounds. They have fun with music—especially the shorts, which are often built around a song. And they always work in some nice bits of business around the edges. Even the credits are funny.
Pixar’s crew is smart about how they mimic the lighting and camera angles of live-action movies, too, creating drama or heightening the humor with conventions like low angles, slow pans, and key lights. And they’re always in the forefront of CGI technology. It’s impressive to see how far they’ve come in the 20 years since Tin Toy, a short about a rampaging baby as seen by his terrified toys. (The toys look amazingly realistic, but the baby does not, since the look of human skin and hair is a lot harder to replicate than the look and movements of plastic or metal toys.)
But best of all, the Pixar people never lose sight of the fact that technique is just a means to an end. What makes their great movies great are the stories they tell and the vivid worlds they conjure up. Pixar’s best flare like comets: beautiful, bright, unforgettable.
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Elise Nakhnikian is a contributor to Time OFF.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Pixar Picks
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9 comments:
Calling Ratatouille some run-of-the-mill underdog story is an awfully reductive assessment, hey? I agree, from a purely stylistic standpoint, Ratatouille follows convention; its premise is relatively non-outlandish (inlandish?) and, accordingly, it doesn't attempt to feature any sort of ingenuitive visual or auditory effects, a la Wall-E (although, I would argue that those tiny fireworks thingies they used to show Remy's sensory reactions to taste were pretty effing original).
But from a thematic standpoint, there's a whole lot more to the movie than "two odd-couple losers pair up and show all the naysayers that they’re winners after all." What about the relationship between the roles of the artist and the critic that Anton Ego's closing monologue so eloquently meditates upon? What about the provocative idea that talent can come from anywhere and anyone, which still doesn't mean that everyone possesses that talent? True, these themes have the common thread of being more or less inspirational, but so what? Sometimes the warm fuzzies aren't just treacle. Sometimes they have some heft to them, and think that's what Pixar's movies are able to do best: pull at your heartstrings AND your brainstrings.
Moreover, you criticize Wall-E for its second half devolving into the usual zany, on-the-lam rescue mission found in a lot of animated movies. And I agree, although that didn't so much detract from my enjoyment of the movie. But by the same token, shouldn't Ratatouille be commended for its remarkably consistent tone, where its mad-dash scenes complement its more contemplative ones, and vice versa, rather than chop the movie into two halves, as Wall-E seemed to, one quiet and the other loud? I realize the great lengths I'm going to defend Ratatouille may come off a little fanatical, but I really do value clean, elegant storytelling, and I think you're shortchanging Ratatouille a bit by not addressing that.
I have to agree that I thought Ratatouille was a better movie than Wall-E, in that its effective, funny, and consistent throughout. It doesn't shoot for the same level of "never seen before" moments as a movie like Wall-E or even The Incredibles, but I don't think that's the only way someone should judge a movie (or at least, I don't find it to be a judgement that works for me). Wall-E has moments of brilliance and just as many moments that simply don't work, or are stretched out waaaay too long. In many ways, it is a mess.
I tend to go back to the old Howard Hawks definition of a good movie - it has to have at least three great scenes and no bad ones. I think Ratatouille is a lot closer to this than Wall-E.
Also, I feel Pixar gets too much credit on name alone. If Dreamworks or another studio had put out Cars or A Bug's Life, they'd be properly criticized as derivative fluff, and not good movies.
Pixar all the way!
"Also, I feel Pixar gets too much credit on name alone. If Dreamworks or another studio had put out Cars or A Bug's Life, they'd be properly criticized as derivative fluff, and not good movies."
I would argue the opposite, actually. If Cars did not have the expectation of excellence placed on it by the Pixar brand, I think it would have been received as a "pretty good kids' movie" and left alone, rather than having been considered a crushing disappointment in some circles.
A Bug's Life came out before the Pixar pedigree had been well-established (their only feature-length film to date had been Toy Story), so I don't think it makes sense to include here. Anyway, I saw it at the time without having a good idea of who the animation studio was and enjoyed it thoroughly.
I’d like to put in a firmer vote of confidence for Finding Nemo, especially since I see it as so similar to the more universally praised (deservedly so) WALL-E. In contrast to Brad Bird’s more heady Incredibles and Ratatouille, Nemo and WALL-E (both directed by Andrew Stanton) stem from much more traditional archetypes and stories: a poor-boy falls for rich-girl love story, and the father searching for his lost son. These movies aren’t good because of their clever plots or their complex characters. In fact, it’s worth considering what makes WALL-E so great, considering that it has an extremely pared-down plot and little-to-no character development (usually a prerequisite for being such a critically-acclaimed film). Don’t get me wrong; I think WALL-E is a masterpiece. But it is such because it fosters what is lost in pretty much all of contemporary cinema: a sense of wonder.
The best moments of WALL-E, in my opinion, are the unabashedly grand shots of outer space, of the polluted earth, and of the uber-modernist hunk of plastic that occupies the latter part of the film. I don’t know about anyone else, but the opening images of planets and galaxies, set the hokey and eager “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” nearly brought me to tears. Wonder is what drives the ship’s captain on an all-night binge through the encyclopedia. The real triumph of WALL-E is that it applies the same sense of magic and wonder to the love story of WALL-E and EVE- WALL-E is in rapture of EVE’s beauty, EVE is fascinated by WALL-E’s devotion. The movie is spectacle.
Finding Nemo is in the same vein. While the story of a neurotic parent dealing with his fears to track down his on is heartwarming, it’s ultimately not much more than an excuse to tour the vast underwater landscape the Pixar animators have created. And it is indeed beautiful: the scene where Nemo embarks out through the reef at the beginning of the movie takes my breath away every time. Just like WALL-E is littered with “wow”s (or beeps to that effect), Nemo is also full of “whoa”s: simple expressions of awe. One could certainly argue that the huge cast of characters in Finding Nemo is just an extension of the same concept: all of these personalities for us to discover and enjoy. It’s really inspiring in a way that superpowers and kitchen appliances aren’t. For me, at least.
Pixar might be the only real filmmaker out there today working so hard to produce a sense of wonder, awe, and beauty: an aspect of film that was firmly entrenched in the art form when it was in its infancy. Sure, part of this is Pixar unashamedly showing off its incredible technical achievements. But in our jaded society, I think that loving a movie because it is so earnest and beautiful is hugely refreshing, and I can’t think of many recent films that do this better than WALL-E and Finding Nemo.
doug-doug, you have totally captured the exact reasons why WALL-E and Finding Nemo are my favourite movies from Pixar (and let's face it, among my favourite of all time). Wonder is the perfect word for it, and though I also enjoy Brad Bird's contributions to Pixar, which are sometimes more highly praised than Andrew Stanton's, I think enjoyment of those films comes more from the mind, thriving on the wit and interesting ideas posed in the films. And while I love smart movies that make me think, there's something so much more unique about the kind of visceral, emotional, and yet non-manipulative quality to Stanton's films which makes me love them on a whole other level.
I enjoyed each entry in the enjoyable original post; but most the insight that Doug-Doug gave on WALL-E and Finding Nemo. I personally find Nemo only to be among the best less important films from Pixar. I found its genius only in its consistent quality and its very good laughs; but Doug-Doug makes a couple good points about it to consider.
Now, if I am to defend only one family oriented animated movie as art, it would have to be Ratatouille. The incredible work in WALL-E reaches far in its artistic endeavor like few others have attempted, but it falls short of Ratatouille´s heights as a movie for its lack of perfection and its contentedness with following certain clichés which only seem commercially inclined or failingly leaning towards what supposedly is successful (i.e. adding whacky characters we couldn’t care less about; boring, meaningless chase scenes that show the first time Pixar utterly fails with action sequences; and completely unnecessary and unwanted is-he-dead drama).
Ratatouille’s ought to be Pixar´s most accomplished screenplay having a delectable dialogue, a subtle but intelligent humor, character development like never seen in a Pixar movie, and a perfect pacing and tone that effectively mix (good) action, humor, story, character development, and a build-up to a low-key but engrossing climax. It was mentioned that Ratatouille was less visually stunning than most, but its visuals are the more striking for playing in a realistic and detailed universe for almost two whole hours with its creators carefully and winningly devising the fully created cinematography with its camera movements and all the aesthetic and pacing aspects of its beautifully crafted images to provide meaning, lively characters and situations in a concrete universe, and a subtly captivating pace. Moreover, Ratatouille is not the typical movie where all characters’ existence revolves around a central character or conflict. Each character seems to have its own concerns that simply come together in a restaurant where a rat cooks. What could be called the central situation is just the ground where many characters coexist to together have an effect on the specific outcome sought for not by the main character but by the artists.
Following Doug-Doug’s assertion that Pixar movies attempt to create “a sense of wonder, awe, and beauty”, Ratatouille does it beautifully though not so much this time towards an aspect of the universe; but towards actual Art which in itself might be said seeks to explore the universe. It shows fascination towards the creation of something powerful and meaningful; the wonder over just the possibility of creating something unique, coherent within, and commanding; the beauty and the power of art not just to devise the different, but something that is evocative of the universe and its truths, something that contains within much more than the elements it is made of. The movie lets us both taste that fascination of the endless possibilities of art and also savor the beauty of its accomplishment.
The film´s simplicity is only a beautifully deceptive one. The movie is for me personally one of Pixar´s most accomplished display of artistry in a portfolio where, as it can be seen from this whole discussion, more than one of their works would be vital to show the specifics of their artistic and creative prowess.
Heresy: I still haven't seen WALL-E and am hesitant to do so. In spite of all the assurances that "It’s also exaggerated just enough to make you think about the growing gap between nature and the American way of life without getting preachy or self-righteous," I have a failure of confidence in anyone's ability to actually pull that off. I resent the idea of an abandoned, polluted Earth so much that it keeps getting in the way of me seeing the film.
I concur with Doug-Doug on the visceral beauty and wonder evoked by Finding Nemo, but The Incredibles remains my favorite Pixar, for theme, dialog, plot, characters, and art design, all of which I adored.
Having said that, I have to concur with the original post that Ratatouille just doesn't do it for me, mainly because of the ridiculous and unnecessary
"illegitimate son of the great chef" subplot. Think about it: they could have dropped that subplot and left the rest of the movie intact, and for the better. Linguini's talent would've been hailed as sui generis, which the audience already knew it was, since the talent was actually Remy's. Frankly, I was glad that the entire thing went over my kids' heads but someday they'll be watching the DVD and want to know what the creeps were doing with the hairs they plucked off the dead chef's toque. I don't want to have to get into DNA paternity testing when I'm watching a kid-targeted animated film. That was a major mis-step IMO, right up there with the "polluted, abandoned Earth" from WALL-E.
I read somewhere some time ago that all the Pixar movies we've seen so far (except for Toy Story 2) were all conceived in one long bull session among the majors there; WALL-E was the last of them, the one they never expected to actually be able to make. So, what next? Is there another stack of cocktail napkins with blurry sketches that will launch them (and us) into the next great wave of animation, or is this it?
About Ratatouille: as well as alap's points about the film's discussion of the role of criticism (surprising they went unremarked on a blog about criticism :P ), let's also not forget the beautiful rendition of modern-day Paris. Arguably the most visually successful and sophisticated of all the Pixar movies, with a honourable mention for Wall-E's opening sequences on the polluted earth.
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