I just read Anne Thompsons’ article in the Aug. 6-12 weekly issue of Variety about Paul Greengrass’ much-talked about blockbuster, The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). The hyper-visceral handheld camerawork and editing has people buzzing (both metaphorically and literally). Which is fine. The cinematography in that film is top-notch – even if I do advise folks prone to getting motion-sickness (such as myself) to sit in the back-row.

At least The Bourne Ultimatum has the guts to make a case against the timely issue of the erosion of our civil liberties and takes a “valiant” stand against torture. I put the word “valiant” in quotation marks because it is valiant when compared to a Republican debate wherein the candidates are all trying to out-Gitmo each other to look tough, saying such things as how they’d call on Federal Agent Jack Bauer to help us in case of attack. (Hello? Did anyone else read that New Yorker article about how our very own U.S. military brass stepped in to ask the producers of “24” to tone down the torture because it was resulting in sadistic recruits? For some weird reason, this does not seem to be helping the U.S.) However, The Bourne Ultimatum’s stand against torture it is not so valiant when you realize that your sympathy, as an audience, is only being kindled toward outrage when you realize that (gasp) Americans are also being tortured and killed, not just foreigners! Still, the kindling of a conscience starts at home, I guess. But I have digressed. I had my own form of outrage when Thompson further referred to The Bourne Ultimatum’s form of spastic cinema as “intimate, in-your-face camerawork.” I certainly agree with the latter. But the former? A $130 million-dollar action film starring Matt Damon wherein no shot lasts longer than five seconds: intimate? Excuse me?

In 1958 avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage (1933-2003) shot a 42-minute long film called Anticipation of the Night. Now this certainly qualifies as “intimate.” It was a kinetic bundle of images meant to represent (in the words of the director) “the day’s events as recalled by an infant who is, as yet, unable to organize his thoughts.” It has a lot of jump-cuts and handheld camerawork. When I first saw it in a class taught by Brakhage, back in the early nineties, I was so overcome with motion-sickness that I felt like making “I survived Anticipation of the Night” t-shirts. But I was nonetheless fascinated. According to Brakhage, the screening of this film went on to cause a riot when it was shown at the 1959 Brussels World Fair. Brakhage was especially savaged by such French directors as Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Resnais who, from Brakhage’s telling, you’d think were the first to toss their chairs at the screen. Ironically, Resnais found great use for some of Brakhage’s techniques in Hiroshima mon amour (1959) and Last Year At Marienbad (aka: L’ Année dernière à Marienbad, 1961), as did Godard in Breathless (aka: A bout de soufflé, 1960) and many titles beyond that.

In 1965 English director Peter Watkins releases The War Game – a film that felt so visceral and real that it won an Oscar for “Best Documentary” in 1967, despite it’s being about a nuclear attack on Britain. (For those weak on history: this event did not happen.) In 1966 Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo (1919-2006) released The Battle of Algiers (aka: La Battaglia di Algeri) – a film that used available light, real locations, and newsreel film stock to great advantage. It feels like a documentary and was nominated for an Oscar in 1969 for “Best Director.” It was also used by U.S. Federal Agents, after 9/11, as a valuable tool to show recruits the difficulties associated with being an occupier in a foreign land. It was also Greengrass’ inspirations for The Bourne Ultimatum. And, one suspects, also his previous United 93 (2006) and Bloody Sunday (2002).

I have no issues with talented directors making use of documentary-like styles to energize their films. Sometimes it works to great effect. Kubrick and Spielberg are just two big names that have “been there and done that.” But, to me, and more and more, it seems like an endless stream of low-budget, reality-based tv shows have now had their unholy matrimony with inept blockbusters aimed squarely at our multi-tasking youth, and their unholy union has brought forth a toxic sludge of something that I refuse to call “intimate” cinema. 

On one side of the do-it-yourself spectrum, I guess you could call The Blair Witch Project (1999) “intimate,” insofar as that is the polite term for the feeling of being trapped in a tent with a drooling idiot. I might prefer the terms “annoying cinema” or “stuck-with-very-irritating-people cinema.” But, on the other side of the spectrum , can we agree that when multi-million dollar budgets are used to give you diced-up, kinetic motion – all purely done to give you a thrill-ride designed to pump-up the heartbeat and give you visceral exhilaration – that this is not “intimate”? I’d prefer another term. Maybe: “spastic cinema.” Or: “spazema.” It doesn’t quite have the ring of “Cinerama” – but it gets the job done. And quickly. Which is key to a spazema experience, which (poetically, I think) also rhymes with “enema.” Anyway, the term spazema can also be used whether you are talking about a Michael Bay film or one of the many “fast zombie” films now out there. (Confession: I prefer my zombies slow. It mimics overpopulation more accurately, in my book. 20 years ago we had 5 billion people. Now we’re reaching toward 7 billion people. See how that works? One moment it’s a slow meandering zombie with a few buddies that you don't really worry about and you take a lunch-break, listen to some Muzak, and then in only what seems like a “suddenly” moment: you’re surrounded.)

Anyway, should you burn out on this new spaz-cinema (or spazema) style that seems to be taking over the big screen, not to worry, I have just the antidote: go rent a film by Béla Tarr or see Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). These masters will settle your nerves right back down, for they are not afraid to let you sit, in time, to enjoy, or inhabit, or study, (or, even, go crazy) in a given space (even if it’s outer space, as the case may be).