When
society looks back to this period of filmmaking, will they see great
work? Will they perceive the depth of character, talent and genius
that informed the works of Ibsen, Checkov, Pushkin, Moliere, de la
Barca, Jan deBont and Michael Bey? Or will they see a noble artform
brought to its knees and destroyed by waves of computer animated
visual effects full of sound and fury and signifying very little.
Only
time will tell but let us not forget that it took decades before
critics saw even masterpieces like The Mummy (1933) with clear
eyes and recognized its genius.
So
it may be with the current crop of endless X-People, Fantastic 4,
Avengers, Bat People and so forth. There may be substance behind
their otherwise superficial facade waiting to be discovered.
I
think that there is such depth and I propose to you as an example an
otherwise overlooked scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).
When I first saw this film I did not understand why it was made. It
seemed not shallow, but paper thin shallow, without an idea in its
head beyond the mere empty greed of the studio executive and his or
her insatiable desire to exploit children for every penny they were
worth.
But
sometimes great work needs time and space to flower and demonstrate
its greatness and I had occasion to watch this film several times in
pursuit of another idea, one that demonstrates a linkage between the
campaign against sugar in the American diet with a similar conspiracy
against films about superheroes, when I noticed a scene of great
pathos and feeling hiding among the explosions and pointless plot
elements.
The
scene involved the Scarlett Johannsen character as a foil for the
attention of the uber - robot and AI intelligence, Ultron, the
nominal villain. In this scene, he plays the part of the villain who feels the need to explain his evil
plan for world domination or destruction to our hero, or in this
case, our heroine.
Our
token woman or lust object, one of three women with a speaking role
in the entire film, lies unconscious on the floor after a battle.
She groans, not realizing where she is, Ultron's laboratory, and
Ultron notices she is awake and begins his great soliloquy.
We
are at approximately 1:29:17 into the film.
ULTRON
I
wasn't sure you would awaken. I hoped you
would,
I wanted to show you.
I
know, I haven't anyone else.
I
read a lot about the meteor, the purity of them.
Boom!
The end. Start again.
The
world made clean for the new man to rebuild.
I
was meant to be new.
I
was meant to be beautiful.
The
world would have looked to the sky and seen hope.
Seen
mercy.
But
instead they will look up in horror, because of you.
You've
wounded me. I give you full marks for that.
But
like the man said ... what doesn't actually kill you ...
METAL
EXOSKELETON EXPLODES TO REVEAL THE NEW ULTRON
just
makes me stronger.
CLOSES
PRISON DOOR
Admittedly
this scene ends in a noisy way not entirely compatible with the early
monologue, but this is by far the most human and interesting acting
in the entire film with the possible exception of when Ultron has his
heart ripped from his chest, by the other woman superhero, near the
end of the film.
Ultron
is just a fool for women, it would seem.
Why do they make these movies?
No comments:
Post a Comment