Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

Avatar: Prime Example of the Power of Art

James Cameron’s new movie, Avatar, is a supremely-executed movie.  The spe­cial effects are, in a very real sense, no longer “spe­cial”.  They are spec­tac­u­lar, but they are so well ren­dered, and so seam­lessly melded with live-action, that they become accepted by the audi­ence as being the basic real­ity for the story.  Much of the cur­rent media cov­er­age sur­rounds the dig­i­tal world and dig­i­tal effects used to cre­ate the film.  Yet, I would argue, that is not at all the rea­son why this film is notable or why this film has real power.

Art has a spe­cial place in this world, not sim­ply for its aes­thetic and enter­tain­ment value, but also for its abil­ity to enable us to see new per­spec­tives and for its abil­ity to lit­er­ally change the way we see the world.  Avatar is a movie that exem­pli­fies this power.

No, the movie is not per­fect.  The story could cer­tainly be stronger.  What the movie has going for it, though, are the fol­low­ing strengths:

1. There are clear mes­sages being pro­moted by the story
2. The story is told in an emotionally-moving fashion
3. The story takes place in a fic­tional, science-fiction universe
4. The movie has unbe­liev­ably strong draw for a mas­sive audi­ence of all ages

Let’s take this step by step.

First, no story, no art would have any real value with­out an under­ly­ing mes­sage.  Art always inten­tion­ally com­mu­ni­cates some­thing – a point of view, an argu­ment, some­thing.  In this case with Avatar, there are sev­eral messages:

• Will­ful and wan­ton destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment is wrong
• The dis­place­ment (by force or oth­er­wise) of indige­nous peo­ple for eco­nomic rea­sons is wrong
• Cor­po­rate greed blinds peo­ple to the ethics of what they are doing

Whether you believe these to be true or not is beside the point.  Cameron believes them to be true, because these are the mes­sages in the film, and this is his film, his story.

Next, the story is told in an emotionally-moving fash­ion.  Cameron is a good story-teller. That, ulti­mately, is what makes him good, and why his movies draw in so many view­ers – whether it was Alien, Aliens, True Lies, or Titanic, Cameron has always told his sto­ries well.  By cre­at­ing a good story and pre­sent­ing it to us art­fully, he shapes, pokes and prods our emo­tions – and emo­tions are the key to cre­at­ing last­ing mem­o­ries and the key to chang­ing how we think.

The story takes place in a fic­tional world.  Good science-fiction has always been social com­men­tary.  Avatar is no excep­tion.  By plac­ing the events and peo­ple of the story in a fic­tional world, we the view­ers of the story become less defen­sive.  What­ever the mes­sage is about, it isn’t osten­si­bly about us, about our world, about what we do.  But of course it really is about us, our world, and what we do.  The magic of make-believe is that we are more likely to con­sider the argu­ments with­out being reflex­ively defensive.

Cameron uses stun­ning dig­i­tal effects to cre­ate his fic­ti­tious world and to tell his story.  The movie sim­ply could not be made with­out the tech­nol­ogy and the skill to use it wisely.  But the addi­tional draw, over and above Cameron’s innate sto­ry­telling abil­ity and his rep­u­ta­tion, is the sheer cool­ness fac­tor of it all.  I have seen grown men get excited and giddy from see­ing the com­puter gen­er­ated envi­ron­ment on tele­vi­sion ads.  The computer-generated world pulls in a lot of peo­ple, young and old.

When you put all four strengths together, you end up with a movie that will have last­ing effect.  It is art with power.  You won’t see it right away.  I pre­dict that the great­est impact this film will have on our future is through its impact on the chil­dren who see this film.  Yes, many adults will be moved by the film.  It will have an impact on us.  But it is through the chil­dren, who will absorb the world, the story, and its mes­sages beyond what we adults will, who are going to be most changed by the film.

Avatar has a mes­sage.  Avatar moves us.  Avatar is art at its best, with the power to change us.