Vanishing Cinematic Genres
Remember the old ads: SEE The Sacrifice of a Hundred Virgins! The Fall of Babylon! Mighty Armies Clash in the Fiercest Battle Ever! You don’t see ads like that any more. For one simple reason: they don’t make movies like that any more. Hollywood spectacles were, at their worst, at least entertaining.
Vanishing Cinematic Genres
PART I: THE SPECTACLE
Remember the old ads: SEE The Sacrifice of a Hundred Virgins! The Fall of Babylon! Mighty Armies Clash in the Fiercest Battle Ever!
You don’t see ads like that any more. For one simple reason: they don’t make movies like that any more. Hollywood spectacles were, at their worst, at least entertaining. At their best, they were often prime examples of the cinematic film, dealing with classic themes: man’s attempt to cope with or change his environment; a society’s, resistance to social change; the age-old question on the nature of the Universe-is it chaos or cosmos?
A spectacle may be defined as a film designed to overwhelm the viewer through massive visual images. A true spectacle is set in some exotic or strange landscape peopled with unique, often heroic, characters Who must come to grips with their massive environment, to conquer/it or be conquered. The spectacle creates in the viewer ambivalent feelings: he is at once swept up in the scope of the landscape and action, and yet, because he knows it is only a movie, is detached from that very, landscape and action.