The Director as visualizer...

Why do so many movies have so unsatisfying stories these days? There are many reasons to be sure. I think one is because the current crop of directors that populate the Action genre are really visualizers and not storytellers. You always hear that a movie is a story told visually. And that's true but for a movie to work the visuals must contribute meaning. They must serve the story that the screen play is trying to tell and not be an end in themselves.

To many action sequences are shot not because they contribute this meaning but because the visuals are stunning and the stunts and CGI create a spectacle that the movie studio's can then market and sell to an audience. Examples of this would be the wave in "A perfect Storm" or the White House being demolished in "ID4"

It takes a special talent to read a screenplay and be able to visualize the movie from it. I don't think that any director sets out to make a 200 million dollar vanity action sequence for themselves. I do believe that everyone sets out to make a great movie. But I also believe what goes wrong is the way this new crop of Action directors pick the movies they want to make.

They receive a screenplay. They read it. They try to visualize the movie they could make from it. When they do this they revert to their natural tendency to emphasis the visuals. The story calls for a chase in the London Underground. Now maybe they have been to the London Underground and had a idea about a unique way of shooting a chase scene down there. So they start concentrating on how they would do it. What the shots would be. How they would technically be able to get that close-up of the hero's face while the train screams by at 100 miles an hour.

Or maybe they have seen a million of chase scenes in the London Underground. They are board by it. So they think to themselves how can I jazz this up so it's exciting to me and everyone else. They hit upon and idea like this incredible train wreck with unbelievable CGI. The movie studio now has a hook to sell the movie and poof the movie is green lit.

But the problem is they have already lost the reason why the scene is there in the first place. Why are the characters chasing each other. How is the sequence set up by the motivations of the characters. How do the hope and fears of the characters play into the scenes. What is at risk for them and what is to be gained. And most important how does this sequence propel the story forward and not stop the story dead in it's tracks. How does it contribute meaning to the story and the character's arc's.

It takes a special talent to hold all these idea together at once and not let one overtake the others. You must have meaning and spectacle together. And the directors that can do that are the ones making worth while Action movies today.