Throughout his career, Ang Lee has made intimate films which dealt with family dysfunction. His earlier films Pushing Hands, Eat Drink Man Woman, and The Wedding Banquet examined inter-generational conflict between parents and their offspring, while his American films such as The Ice Storm and Brokeback Mountain explored how the nuclear family was threatened and disrupted by outside forces. What connected all these films together was Lee’s concern for exploring how the central family unit could survive in a rapidly changing society. Critics praised Lee for his work, and heralded him as a contemporary master of small-scale dramas.
Then, Lee surprised many with his embrace of large budget, effects heavy films that at first glance were completely different from his smaller, more intimate films. With Life of Pi, Lee used 3D and CGI technology to create an epic adventure film that veered into fantasy territory. Life of Pi received both commercial success and critical acclaim, and was celebrated as a visually extravagant adventure story. However, upon closer inspection, Life of Pi was also ultimately a film about the family unit; the central premise of the film was about how a close-knit family was torn apart by a tragic event which forever changed the life of the son.
With his subsequent films after Life of Pi, Lee further explored technological advances in cinema by experimenting with high frame rates. Lee filmed Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk using 60 frames per second, resulting in a hyper realistic visual aesthetic. Then, with Gemini Man, Lee went even further and filmed in 120 frames per second. Although on the surface Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Gemini Man seem to have nothing in common with Lee’s smaller films, they are further continuations of Lee’s exploration of the family.
In Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Lee explores how the central character struggles to choose between his biological family and the new “family” he found in his Bravo Squad army unit, led by the surrogate father figures of Sergeant Breem and Sergeant Dime. In Gemini Man, Will Smith’s character is a government assassin who never had a family of his own. He then discovers a surrogate family in the form of another agent by the name of Dani, who becomes his unofficial “wife,” and with the discovery of his younger cloned self, who becomes his “son.” It’s interesting to note how in both films, the main characters find their true families outside of their biological families.
Also, the central conflict in both films involves the protagonists trying to keep the bonds with their newfound family intact against outer forces which threaten to tear apart their surrogate family units. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is about how the media and American society keeps misinterpreting and wanting to take advantage of the “family unit” of the soldiers for their own purposes. Gemini Man is about Will Smith trying to prevent the government from separating him from his surrogate son in the form of his cloned self.
With the thematic consistency between Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Gemini Man with Lee’s earlier critically acclaimed films, the question remains as to why these more recent films were so negatively received? Much of the hostility towards these films can be explained by the technology that Lee used in these two films. High frame rate shooting is traditionally reserved for sporting events or live events such as concerts and awards ceremonies. The reason for this is because high frame rate visuals are very crisp and clear, and thus they make viewers feel more like they are a part of the event.
By applying this same “live” feel to the medium of narrative cinema, Lee is also attempting to make the viewer feel like they are actually experiencing what they are seeing on screen in real time. He wants to separate the usual distance which traditional 24 frames per second film creates for viewers, and instead make us feel like we are fully engulfed in the cinematic experience. Indeed, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is set during an actual sporting event, and the Iraq war scenes feel like CNN live embeds. Lee is immersing us directly into the action of the film.
Traditionally, viewers of cinema want to feel like they are seeing a fictional recreation of real life; this is what 24 frames per second films accomplish by establishing a clear separation between the viewer and what they are seeing on screen. 24 frames per second creates a sheen of film movement and texture which is not like real life. Instead, it gives cinema the texture and feel of a separate, fictional realm of storytelling.
We have been cognitively trained through decades of film viewing to approach and see cinema in this manner. As a result, when we are forced out of our comfort zone and made to feel like we are no longer separated from the illusion of cinema, our natural reaction is discomfort and hostility. Hence, this explains the overwhelmingly negative reception for Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Gemini Man.
On their own merits, both Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and Gemini Man are emotionally powerful and skillfully made explorations about the family unit. It may take a long time for cinema viewers to embrace 120 frames per second filming, or perhaps they will never fully embrace it. However, all art forms evolve and I believe that a more hyper real form of cinema is the next major evolution in cinema. Silent films evolved into sound films, black and white films evolved into color films, and now we are in the digital evolution of filmmaking.
High frame rate was designed specifically for digital filmmaking, and Ang Lee is exploring how we as viewers and filmmakers can continue to see and make cinema which advances the evolution of digital technology. Almost all aspects of our lives are becoming increasingly reliant on an online world that is based on a virtual, digital form of reality. The next evolution in film is a plunge into this digital world through high frame rate technology; Ang Lee is just giving us the extra push to immerse ourselves in this brave new world.
