Sitting in a crowded movie theater is seldom worth it, unless you’re wearing cardboard glasses, face the possibility of suffering a severe headache and the film’s villain is a fish-human hybrid.
The Cultural Forum is providing a weekly 3-D movie showing, beginning Friday at 7 p.m. in 180 PLC, with the science-fiction film, “Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
Released in 1954, the popular film features a prehistoric fish-human hybrid who escapes from scientists and captures a female research assistant.
Michael Aronson, a University assistant professor who teaches various film courses, said “Creature from the Black Lagoon” came in the middle of the “golden era” of 3-D movies, which was a short lived period between 1952 and 1955.
“3-D had been around as a technology since the ’20s, but it became popular in the ’50s to differentiate movies from TV, which was beginning to become a threat,” Aronson said.
Original 3-D technology required two cameras and used mirrors to angle shots, but the filming had to be perfectly synchronized to avoid giving massive headaches to audience members, Aronson said.
Alexa Koenings, a University junior and film coordinator for the Cultural Forum, said she wanted to create this series because she believes most students haven’t experienced 3-D movies.
“It’s a phase in art history that hasn’t really carried on into our generation,” she said.
Koenings, who is undeclared but wants to major in fine arts, transferred from the University of Washington a year ago, even though Seattle is where she developed her enthusiasm for film.
“The visuals are sometimes more important than the plot,” she said. 3-D movies “are so aesthetically different than other movies today.”
While Aronson said he finds 3-D movies “artificial,” he praised them for their advances in technology at the time, such as the use of stereo sound.
“Our sense of what cinema is or what movies are can change,” he said, adding that while 3-D is considered “cheesy” today, it was popular in its time.
Priscilla Ovalle, a University assistant film professor, said movie genres not only tell us what was popular during a time period, but viewers can learn about societal issues from movies.
“At the time, creature films were out of fashion, so the studio releasing ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ advertised it as a science-fiction film. The publicity worked and the film is still highly regarded as a sci-fi flick,” she said.
Aronson said one of the reasons science-fiction films were popular in the postwar era was because people had anxieties about the affects of the Atom Bomb. This was reflected in mythic hybrid creatures, such as in “Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
While Koenings admitted she doesn’t know very much about 3-D films, she said she appreciates how the genre attempted something different in cinema, which was the approach she took when making an art film last summer.
“Working with Alexa was really great. She has a lot of ideas,” said Kevin Hazlewood, a University senior who worked as art director on a movie with Koenings.
Koenings, who enjoys drawing and watercolors, said she believes good movies are similar to other artistic mediums.
Aronson said cinema can be a beautiful experience, but he believes the clunky technology of 3-D filming takes away from this possibility.
“I think 3-D movies are only as good as the scripts and ideas at their core,” Ovalle said. “The best 3-D effects will only do so much if the film itself is otherwise unwatchable, but nothing beats a flying saucer in your face.”
The film series will be held on the 2nd, 9th and 15th of February and the same dates in March, which are all Thursdays and Fridays.
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