3-D Films: Kitsch or Art?

A recent trend in the movie industry is the renewed interest in 3-D film. 3-D technology has certainly improved since the blue-and-red glasses of the 1950s. Some recent films, like Bolt and My Bloody Valentine, took advantage of this and heavily advertised their use of 3-D. However, this is perceived as one of the film industry’s ways to lure audiences to theaters. As a result, consumers wonder if 3-D films are nothing but commodities that the industry is selling and if this trend could even be considered art at all. What history tells us is that this situation is not new and that new technology in film provides another tool to this unique art of storytelling.

Cinema wasn’t always thought of as an art form. At best, it was considered “entertainment.” At worst, maybe “trash” could be an appropriate word to describe it. The film Singin’ in the Rain (1952) helps us look at the conception of art in the early 20th century. In the scene where silent-film actor Don Lockwood meets Kathy Selden, Kathy tells him that she’s a stage actress. He lightly teases her, but she shrugs it off and degrades his work by saying that the stage is at least a “dignified profession” and Don is just a “shadow” on film. Obviously, Kathy makes a clear distinction here between the high art of theater and the low art of cinema.

One essay that provides good insight to this perception of high art and low art is "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" by Clement Greenburg in 1939. In the essay, Greenburg distinguishes high art and culture from “kitsch,” which he defines as “popular, commercial art and literature with their chromeotypes, magazine covers, illustrations, ads, slick and pulp fiction, comics, Tin Pan Alley music, tap dancing, Hollywood movies, etc., etc.” Greenburg acknowledges that all of these art forms were wildly popular with the general public, but their form and content were dumbed down for mass appeal. Greenburg’s idea to protect art and culture from this commodification was to make it avant-garde—where form and aesthetics ruled over content—but there are problems with this argument. It completely belittles other art forms and promotes close-minded to experience. It also ignores art’s relationship with society.

The spiritual, emotional, and intellectual connection between art and society is what makes art important. Without this connection, art becomes meaningless; art becomes decoration. This is why film has remained one of the most popular art forms today. People are able to identify aspects of themselves in cinema. What 3-D stereoscopic technology does in film isn’t removing the artistic elements, but adding a different element to the way we experience cinema. The perception of depth becomes more realistic and it allows the audience to become more submerged in the first-person experience or the third-person bystander. If 3-D technology isn’t annoying and it actually improves the experience of watching film, why shouldn’t we embrace it?

Improved technology in 3-D films will change the way we watch cinema, but this is nothing new. There has always been resistance to change. Many worried that talking pictures would force the noisy camera to become stationary and rob cinema of its graceful camera movements, that audiences would focus on dialogue and ignore the visual elements, and that spoken dialogue would damage the universality of film. During the 1950s, when television caused audiences to stay at home, the film industry reinvented itself with widescreen aspect ratio, color, and less prudent censorship. These features to lure back audiences were not just gimmicks even though they might have seemed so at first—they eventually contributed to the storytelling elements of film. Watching Lawrence of Arabia or Star Wars in full screen black-and-white would not provide a satisfying experience. The same thing could be said about the films of today and of future films using 3-D stereoscopic technology.

It is too early to see how 3-D technology will impact cinema. It may be a trend that quickly passes away like it has in previous decades or it may become the dominant way films are shown. The future is hard to predict, but there are two important things to take away. One of them is that we shouldn’t create artificial distinctions between high art and “kitsch.” Such superficial distinctions limit our experience of art and life. It makes us come off a bit snobby, too. The other important thing is that new technology is not necessarily the enemy. New technology allows new ways to approach, express, and experience art. You may end up loving 3-D films or you may find that they come off completely cheesy. What ultimately decides the fate of 3-D films is in our hands—if you like it, buy it. If you don’t, then don’t.

The author is a student in the School of General Studies majoring in film studies.