Are CGI effects killing the magic of cinema?

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The film industry owes a lot to computer-generated imagery (CGI) in all its glory. The last years saw how CGI was pushed further beyond its limits to create a film completely made with performance capture, transforming actors into photo-realistic 3D characters. This is the breakthrough that the film Avatar (2009) brought to the big screen, and the whole industry was quick to pick up on it.

However, the extent to which CGI visual effects can be used to enhance a film has become a debatable topic. For Armond White, an NY Times film critic, the industry has already reached the surfeit point of limitless digital effects, the period of technological overripeness wherein digital effects saturating viewers in the artifice with little room for imagination instead of bringing them closer to realism. White rues that feature films have much liberty to focus on digital grandstanding, outpacing the narrative meaning, and transforming audiences into children rather than aesthetically responsive spectators as a result. He cites Speed Racer (2008) as a clear representation of the real bummer of technological excess.


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In his critique of the Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), Manohla Dargis writes that the CGI atmosphere lacks the charm and human connection of the 1939 original, initiating an inquiry as to whether or not CGI effects are sullying the magic of the cinema.

While it’s true that CGI translates to storytelling without boundaries, the quandary lies in making it the automatic or default tool for most films. Filmmakers should put a great deal on balancing audiences’ visual experience with the content of the film to prevent it from resembling an interactive coloring book that caters to children.


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Are most films better off with practical effects and less CGI? Join the discussion on this blog on Edward Bass.

The synergy of music and films

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One of the elements that made Kevin Costner’s suicide attempt scene in Dances with Wolves (1990) memorable was the great film score. In the scene, Dunbar, played by Costner, rides a horse, gets in between the two warring parties firing at each other, and attempts suicide in front of the enemy. The scene depicting Dunbar’s miraculous survival, as if it needs more aesthetics, is made even more gripping and powerful by a carefully selected soundtrack that won the film an Oscar for best original score.




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Music, with what it can do to a film, isn’t just  a tool that adds life to a film. More than aesthetics, a score is notably one of the sources of emotions in a film. It’s a means to reach out to the audience; the tool that impacts a movie’s connection with the viewers. It is something that helps smoothen out anything that is deemed undesirable on screen, such as poor chemistry among the characters, ineffective acting, and bad setting. Music is an element that enhances the film experience and a tool that helps viewers make sense out of what they see on the screen.


Summing it up, a good soundtrack could add value to any film, good or bad.



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A recognition goes to some films which are too remarkable to be forgotten because of their soundtrack: Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010), Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975), and Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973). These films got it right when it comes to utilizing music to enhance both the so-called diegesis, or the imagined dimension of the film, and the non-diegesis, or the factual world of the viewers.  


Edward Bass believes that the screen is nothing but a barren composition without music. Click here for more information about film dynamics.