I like this movie a lot and I like the way that the split screen was done; however, give credit where credit is due. Ang Lee's Hulk championed this use of splitscreen back in 2003, it may very well have been used before. Also Speed Racer in 2008. The special features in this film made it seem that, "Oh, yeah, we invented this for this movie."
shareSplit screen is much older than 13 years. Just off the top of my head, it was I used heavily - and in fairly elaborate ways - in "Grand Prix." It wasn't wildly uncommon as a method for showing both sides of a phone call on TV shows and fairly non-notable movies decades ago. Given the relative obviousness of the technique, I suspect it's not much younger than movies themselves.
As for this movie, the two things I'd note:
- The technique of having characters reach outside of their split-screen frames, which was nifty, but distracting, and served no particular purpose other than to show off someone's computer chops;
- The gratuitousness of the split screens in general.
Yes, I know that the use of split screen is old, I didn't mean to imply I didn't. I meant the overlap technique.
I don't think split screen is gratuitous. I don't think that dutch angles are gratuitous. I don't think that split diopters are gratuitous. I don't think that 3D is gratuitous. I don't think that bullet time is gratuitous. I don't think that shakey cam or multiple cameras are gratuitous. These are all techniques, tools in the tool bag and thier use should not be boohooed.
I dislike the way that some movies EMPLOY these techniques, but I don't think they are distracting or simply a way to show off someone's chops, and in this movie I think the technique was used very well. I thought it was used well in Hulk and Speed Racer.
I am merely speaking to the problem I noticed in the special feature: that they were taking credit for inventing this way of doing split screen. If you have seen the movie and seen the special feature then I am talking to you. But I am not here to argue that splitscreen itself is a new technique nor do I wish to get into a pissing contest about weather computer enhanced splitscreen overlap should or shouldn't be used.
My layout might not have been entirely clear: I meant to say that the split screen was gratuitous in this movie. Particularly the overlapping technique, but also its use in general. It didn't do anything except call attention to itself.
In other movies ("Grand Prix," for one) split screen has been used quite well. I haven't seen "The Hulk," but I could imagine the overlapping trick being emulative of a comic-strip technique in an effective way.
OK. Now, I certainly did like it in this movie and the others I mentioned, the computer enhanced overlap split screen that is---we need a term for it :( Anyway, if you didn't like it here you probably won't like it in Hulk or Speed Racer.
Those movies were popular targets of the critics at the time of their respecitve releases and it is super popular to rag on them for their visual styles.
I find that if something undisputably HAS visual style then this becomes the touchstone for criticism.
I then find it ironic that these movies which I love are striking visually but garner bad criticism while something like Avatar gets wild acclaim. Now, I love JC's Avatar, but I HATE that these same critics who bash what are to me great films wouldn't do the same for that film, which would have been easy for them to do. Honestly, I think that something isn't stirring the juice, I believe the industry was heavily invested in the success of Avatar and so the critics made sure to bolster it.
That's my theory.
And I've gotten off topic...