Taking film into another dimension

The history of 3D movies parallels the general history of
films and cinematic technology. From its early inceptions in the late
19th and early 20th century, to its so-called golden era in the 1950s,
to its deployment in the early part of the 21st century, the gimmick
has been vying for a place in mainstream cinemas for almost as long as
movies have been projected on screens for commercial audiences. This
year 3D has returned with a vengeance with releases from a mixed bag of
genres: horror films like My Bloody Valentine, the re-release of
Pixar’s Toy Story and Toy Story 2 and this week’s The
Nightmare Before Christmas. Coming up next: Jim Carrey’s A
Christmas Carol and James Cameron’s Avatar in December.

Three-dimensional films’ earliest defining quality—from the 1890s
to its 1950s heyday—was cumbersome or precarious technology. William
Friese-Greene’s method (for which the first patent was filed in the
late 19th century) involved two projectors, showing the film
side-by-side, with the viewer wearing stereoscope glasses that smooshed
the images together. In 1922, The Power of Love became the first
3D film shown to a paying audience at the Ambassador Hotel Theatre in
Los Angeles, as well as the first film to utilize the dual-strip
projection method (two strips of film run in unison, developed by the
film’s producer, Harry K. Fairall, and cinematographer, Robert F.
Elder) and the iconic red/green anaglyph glasses.

In intervening years the technology was honed and
cultivated—stalled only by WWII—until 1952, when writer/director
Arch Oboler’s Bwana Devil, about British Railway workers in
Kenya being attacked by blood-thirsty lions (Tagline: “A LION in your
lap! A LOVER in your arms!”), debuted as the first full-colour 3D film
and kick-started the golden era. From 1952 to ’55, many notable 3D
films—with a wide spectrum of respectability—were released,
including the Vincent Price horror House of Wax (1953), the
Howard Hughes-produced The French Line (1954), which played up
star Jane Russell’s busty sex appeal (Tagline: “It’ll knock BOTH your
eyes out!”) and, from the NFB, Norman MacLaren’s shorts Now is the
Time (to Put on Your Glasses) and Around is Around (both
1951).

Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954) was originally
shot with the same specialty rig as Bwana Devil, but its 3D
release was scrapped by the studio in response to the waning interest
in 3D projection—a victim of its own fussy demands and unreliable
execution. At the time, two prints of the film were still requited to
be projected simultaneously, a process that had to be monitored
tirelessly by projectionists, in case it became out of sync, causing
eye strain and headaches for the audience. As well, audiences had to be
seated directly opposite the screen as the image darkened when viewed
from an angle, limiting wider houses from booking 3D films.

Though gains were made in 3D exhibition after the 1950s (notably,
the advent of the more manageable single-strip projection method), what
is, in fact more relevant to today’s 3D’s revival are the prescient
similarities in the competition for entertainment dollars. In the early
1950s, television claimed multitudes of cinema-goers, while in 2009,
cinemas vie for the attention and time of a public with multiple
options like cable, DVDs and the internet. Back then, producers
employed gimics like 3D and heralded new technologies like widescreen
photography to create bigger, more expansive film experiences.

Today, technology like high definition, CGI, 3D and motion capture
feeds early buzz for films. (Think about the “game changer” talk
regarding James Cameron’s upcoming Avatar.) The 1950s enjoyed a
period of great genre filmmaking—sci-fi and horror,
particularly—with House of Wax and The Creature from the
Black Lagoon (1954) gestating out of the 3D years. While the last
decade isn’t defined by one particular genre, it does have one
overarching ploy to get people in seats: big-budget remakes.
Technology, it seems, is a reaction to what ails the marketplace.

This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2009.