There are filmmakers working today that not only see themselves as storytellers, but they see themselves as the folks carrying the torch in the fight to push the medium of film forward into the future. You have James Cameron inventing technology and doing ridiculous special effects work in his films, such as “Avatar” and the future sequels. And of course, you have Ang Lee, who has been on the front lines pushing high frame-rate and 3D as the next step in the immersive theater experience. For Lee, he believes this is the only way theaters are going to survive.
Speaking to EW, in honor of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” celebrating its 20th anniversary, Lee talked about how theaters are struggling now. And he understands that people want to go to the cinema to watch films and most people are rooting for theaters to survive. But he thinks the key is to give theatrical audiences something they just can’t get on their TV.
“I believe we always need [the movie theater],” said Lee. “It’s our church, our temple. It’s a ceremony. It’s in our nature, the congregation. But now television’s so convenient. You have to come up with something you cannot experience at home. Not only the crowd, not only the size, but the ceremonial effect. It has to upgrade.”
He added, “I think the next step, logically, is the immersiveness which you cannot do with a TV screen. But how do you get [audiences] to participate, rather than just viewing? How do you engage? That’s something we should work on to get them to the theater.”
We already know that Lee’s answer to the immersiveness question is HFR and 3D technology. We’ve seen him try to do that with “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” and, of course, 2019’s “Gemini Man.” Unfortunately, neither of those films were able to push the technology as far forward as Lee hoped. Of course, part of that is because theaters themselves just aren’t equipped to show films in such a way, which speaks to Lee’s suggestion.
“People want to go to the theater,” Lee concluded. “That’s the thing. They want to be on our side.”