Throughout the years, films have become the dominant form of storytelling in our culture. Originally incapable of something as simple as sound or color, films today are able to depict any possible idea that may creep into our imaginations. But have films actually changed all that much over time? Is a film today truly any different than, say, a 1965 classic like For a Few Dollars More?  There is a legitimate argument to be made that they have not, as the “three-act structure” is still widely taught to and followed by most filmmakers even to this day. But while story structure is indeed important, it is only a portion of what makes a movie. After all, film is a visual medium, and is just as reliant (if not more so) on the images it can put on the screen as it is to its ability to properly convey a compelling plot. And it is the evolution of this aspect of filmmaking that has caused such a significant change in films as a whole within the last several decades. Most notably coinciding with the evolution of another industry – technology.

A New Era of Effects

The introduction of computer-generated imagery, or “CGI”, has had a profound impact on the film industry. While in years past a filmmaker could have their career vaulted into stardom by making a low-budget film with phenomenal practical effects, today a film stands no chance of becoming a blockbuster unless they are drenched in CGI. As noted by Owen Slater, the same filmmakers who built their career on practical effect films like Aliens have since opted for massive-budget films entirely centered around CGI, a la Avatar. And when CGI films are generating box office returns in the billions, who can blame them? The advantages provided by CGI are not solely limited to financial success, either. James Cameron described the premise around The Terminator to be based on the idea of an unstoppable killing machine who was indistinguishable from any other person in a crowd.

But while Arnold Schwarzenegger does a great job as the unstoppable killing machine, it’s a bit difficult to suggest that a gargantuan-sized man with a thick Austrian accent would be easily able to blend in with a crowd. It was not until the film’s sequel, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, that the gift of CGI allowed Cameron to cast a normal-looking man like Robert Patrick while also being able to make him into a terrifying killing machine with shapeshifting powers. There was simply no way for Cameron to accomplish this before the inclusion of CGI, and as a result he had to compromise his initial ideas for the first Terminator film.  However, this shift towards CGI is a bit of a double-edged sword, as subtlety and nuance have all but fallen by the wayside ever since.

The ability to use CGI to portray absolutely anything on screen has created an especially notable change in the horror genre of films, as there is no longer a need to rely on generating suspense by hiding the monster in the shadows. Films such as Alien had tremendous practical effects, but were still limited by how much they could do with their monster. As a result, the filmmakers decided to emphasize atmosphere by keeping their threat constantly lurking in the background to build suspense, which Roger Ebert notes in particular to be the key to the film’s success. As seen with the “Alien” sequels made during the CGI era, subtlety and atmosphere have long since been abandoned. Instead, these films have shifted the entirety of their focus on how impressive they can make their Xenomorphs look rather than find a creative way to make them threatening. The limitations of practical effects have hindered films like The Terminator in the past, but the lack of limits for CGI films have similarly crippled restraint and creativity. Especially when regarding directorial influence.

All Visuals, No Vision

While CGI has allowed films today to flood the screen with dazzling visuals, they have done so at the cost of their humanity. While there are exceptions, your typical mainstream film today will look virtually identical to its counterparts from a directorial standpoint. When CGI can allow you to easily show whatever you wish, there is no longer a need for a director’s unique style to carry the film as it would in the past. Innovative directors like Stanley Kubrick are no longer a necessity to sell a large film, as this has since been replaced by a requirement to have impressive CGI visuals. Sydney noted the thought-provoking nature of films like Inception, but it’s worth noting that even a film with a great story and director still needs to have incredible CGI effects to sell it to a modern mainstream audience. And while Inception is indeed an enjoyable film, it lacks the personality of a Kubrick film like The Shining. This is the result of a man obsessed with portraying his vision at any cost – even the sanity of his actors.

Rather than simply relying on CGI as a crutch to depict the creepy imagery seen throughout The Shining, Kubrick instead uses his own creativity and style to create a film all his own. While this kind of directorial influence was fairly prevalent for mainstream films in Kubrick’s time, it is virtually unheard of today. And with this lack of unique directorial styles within mainstream films, so too has appreciation for the more surreal and auteur-ish films gone as well.

If Stanley Kubrick would be considered a breath of fresh air for the film industry today, Andrei Tarkovsky would be seen as an outright madman. Though he was clearly inspired by the atmospheric surrealism of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tarkovsky took the idea of a “film experience” to its absolute limits when he made Solaris. Tarkovsky is renowned for his experimental approach to filmmaking, described as “inventing a new language” that “reaches a pathological intensity”. And while there are still filmmakers who follow in a similar vain, the appreciation for what they do has waned throughout the years. In Bailey’s review of the 2002 Solaris remake, it is interesting to note that while the film maintained a similarly slow pace to the original, the filmmakers still felt the need to inject updated CGI effects in order to make it marketable. It is yet another grim reminder that story and directing are no longer what is sought after from films today, as the advancements in CGI technology have become the primary product of the film industry.

Gotta Make Money to Spend Money

In an ideal world, films would only be made because a group of people had a story they really wanted to tell. This is of course never going to be the case, nor has it been in the past. The film industry has always been a business, but the increased emphasis on technological influence has made it more of an industry than ever before. Films like The Terminator or The Shining were given a shot despite having an unknown (at the time) director like James Cameron or the bizarre and off-putting style of Stanley Kubrick. Why? Because films that predated the CGI-era cost a fraction of what they cost to make today. Even after accounting for inflation, your modern mainstream film will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make. And due to the vast increase in competition for films today (thousands of cable channels, streaming services, Youtube, etc.),  millions more need to be spent on advertising costs. These kind of financial commitments tend to incentivize taking as few risks as possible, as a film failing to make its money back is a significantly larger disaster than that of a $19 million budget like The Shining. There are still films made with low budgets that can rake in (relatively) enormous returns – most notably the Blumhouse films – but mainstream filmmakers expecting to see billion dollar plus box office revenues need to spend a lot of money, and with minimal risk.

Conclusion

Films may not have changed much from a story structure perspective over time, but the industry as a whole has become radically different. The introduction and inevitable takeover by CGI has completely warped both the priorities and end result of films being made ever since, for both good and bad. It is admittedly incredible what computer animators are able to create these days, and filmmakers are no longer constricted by what they can physically get their hands on. But, as with all changes that happen over time, we begin to forget what made something so special to begin with. Creativity. Innovation. A willingness to take risks. These have been the foundation of some of the greatest films ever put on screen, and unfortunately these traits have become more and more outdated as the film industry becomes more financially-driven. Advancements in technology were bound to happen, and it really isn’t even the fault of CGI that filmmaking has changed so much over time. It is the movie-going public that has demanded this change, and we have done so with our wallets time and time again. But with that harsh reality comes an equal amount of hope. For if we are responsible for films becoming what they are today, we are just as capable of changing them even more.