Why it’s high time we start­ed appre­ci­at­ing the art of 3D cinema

Ask the aver­age film­go­er what they think of 3D at the cin­e­ma, and the answer is like­ly to fall some­where between ​“it’s fine but doesn’t add much” to ​“I hate it and wish it would go away for­ev­er.” Thir­teen years after James Cameron’s par­a­digm-shift­ing block­buster Avatar — still the high­est gross­ing film ever — the 3D wave has long since crest­ed and bro­ken, leav­ing a deeply uncer­tain lega­cy in its wake.

Among its many crit­ics, 3D inspires an intense, almost fanat­i­cal antipa­thy. But to those who still enjoy them, 3D movies are poor­ly under­stood and unfair­ly maligned. When exe­cut­ed skill­ful­ly and utilised with intent, 3D adds a lay­er of aes­thet­ic engage­ment and emo­tion­al affect not present in 2D films – but audi­ences, faced with a sur­plus of sub­par 3D con­tent, have under­stand­ably failed to appre­ci­ate its real value.

As Avatar: The Way of Water nears release, Cameron is bet­ting that he can reignite inter­est in 3D movies, and ini­tial signs are promis­ing. The orig­i­nal Avatar was recent­ly re-released into the­aters, and it grossed an impres­sive 75 mil­lion dol­lars world­wide. Regard­less of whether or not the next Avatar is anoth­er multi­bil­lion-dol­lar smash, the film is cer­tain to spark a new round of debate on the mer­its of 3D movies. Now seems the appro­pri­ate time to exam­ine them afresh and ask what exact­ly makes a 3D movie good.

When think­ing of 3D, the first thought many will have is of see­ing images pop out of the screen. The his­to­ry of 3D movies is lit­tered with count­less fly­ing tom­a­hawks, glass shards, and sev­ered body parts hurtling towards the view­er; the effect is fun but gim­micky. How­ev­er, what tru­ly defines a 3D film is inte­ri­or depth — the effect of the film’s phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment reced­ing into the screen. It’s in the ren­der­ing of filmic space, and not in-your-face pro­jec­tiles, where we find the format’s heart.

An incom­plete list of note­wor­thy 3D films of the past thir­teen years includes Avatar, Grav­i­ty, The Mar­t­ian, Hugo, Prometheus, Life of Pi, The Hob­bit Tril­o­gy, The Jun­gle Book, Dredd, and The Walk. These films have two notable qual­i­ties in com­mon. First, with the excep­tion of Grav­i­ty, they were all native­ly shot as 3D. While the qual­i­ty of 2D-to-3D con­ver­sions has improved great­ly over the years, the lan­guage of 3D film­mak­ing remains fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent to 2D. Even a well-con­vert­ed 3D film will still exhib­it direc­tion and edit­ing choic­es that belie its 2D ori­gin, mak­ing for a sub­op­ti­mal view­ing experience.

The sec­ond and more impor­tant qual­i­ty these films have in com­mon is the pri­ma­cy of the phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment in rela­tion to the over­all sto­ry. 3D cre­ates a sense of spa­tial immer­sion not present in 2D films, but this only mat­ters when space is a key com­po­nent of the sto­ry. And it’s here where the true val­ue of 3D lies — in the mag­ni­fi­ca­tion and per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of place.

The main char­ac­ter of Avatar isn’t the par­a­lyzed Marine Jake Sul­ly — it’s the plan­et Pan­do­ra itself. The chief antag­o­nist of The Mar­t­ian? The Mar­t­ian land­scape, which seeks to kill marooned astro­naut Mark Wat­ney at every oppor­tu­ni­ty. Set­ting is like­wise para­mount in Grav­i­ty (out­er space), Hugo (rail­way sta­tion), Dredd (Mega-City One), etc. By accen­tu­at­ing the story’s set­ting, 3D imbues it with a weight and imme­di­a­cy not present in 2D films. When decid­ing whether to see a movie in 3D, it’s use­ful to ask whether it meets this cri­te­ria. If it seems like the phys­i­cal set­ting of the movie isn’t espe­cial­ly impor­tant to the sto­ry, there’s a good chance that 3D won’t add much to the view­ing experience.

Return­ing to the ques­tion of 2D vs. 3D film gram­mar, the lan­guage of immer­sive film­mak­ing dif­fers from tra­di­tion­al film­mak­ing in a num­ber of ways. Most sig­nif­i­cant­ly is the elim­i­na­tion of the frame — or rather, the trans­for­ma­tion of the frame into a rec­tan­gu­lar vol­ume of vary­ing dimen­sions and depth. The screen becomes a kind of stage, or a dio­ra­ma; in each shot, the fore­ground, mid­dle ground, and back­ground are vying for atten­tion. Of course, stag­ing in depth isn’t unique to 3D film­mak­ing, but with 3D there is an impe­tus to build depth into near­ly every shot.

Fur­ther­more, com­mon tech­niques such as jit­tery hand­held, zooms, or over-the-shoul­der shots don’t work very well – 3D cin­e­matog­ra­phy demands pre­cise and steady com­po­si­tion, block­ing, and cam­era move­ment. Like­wise, 3D edit­ing is slow­er and more con­tem­pla­tive, as it takes longer to absorb the visu­al infor­ma­tion con­tained in a sin­gle shot. If you’ve ever seen a 3D con­ver­sion that left you cold (or nau­seous), it’s prob­a­bly because the 3D was an after­thought. Visu­al qual­i­ty aside, native 3D cap­ture is supe­ri­or to con­ver­sion because the direc­tor is view­ing a 3D mon­i­tor on set and think­ing in depth — it’s built into the frame­work of the movie.

The very best 3D movies com­bine a height­ened atten­tion to place with a spe­cif­ic focus on immer­sive aes­thet­ics. The Avatar movies tick both box­es, although if you’re firm­ly anti-3D, these argu­ments may not sway you. But for the 3D agnos­tic, Avatar: The Way of Water presents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-engage with the format’s pre­em­i­nent liv­ing prac­ti­tion­er. It’s an open ques­tion whether Cameron’s return to Pan­do­ra will be a repeat suc­cess. Naysay­ers point to the orig­i­nal movie’s lack of ongo­ing cul­tur­al rel­e­van­cy — who still cares about Avatar? It’s no coin­ci­dence that 3D movies are ephemer­al phe­nom­e­na; with pro­jec­tors and used tele­vi­sions the only options for 3D at home, view­ers are typ­i­cal­ly left to watch infe­ri­or 2D ver­sions of films that were designed for depth.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M For Mur­der, his only 3D film, wasn’t wide­ly seen in its native for­mat until decades after its ini­tial release; its rep­u­ta­tion as minor Hitch­cock was great­ly enhanced when final­ly seen as intend­ed. If 3D movies are to endure, it’s essen­tial that they be seen in 3D (in the­aters and at home), and val­ued as such.