Lars von Trier and Automavision

All right, so don't call me FFT this week, just call me the Scott Foundas Web Portal, aight?

But seriously: Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier's new film, The Boss of it All, hit the screens (screen?) this week in Los Angeles. Foundas' review is lukewarm, but I wanted to cite something that the JZ (you see the film yet, pansy?) pointed out about LvT's new cinema philosophy, which is called Automavision:

"Called Automavision and described in the press notes as 'a principle for shooting film developed with the intention of limiting human influence by inviting chance in from the cold,' the process cedes control over a film’s images and sound mixing from trained technicians to a computer program designed to randomly change settings at the touch of a button. (To wit, Automavision is credited as the cinematographer of The Boss of It All.) "

Uh oh, can't LvT just make a normal fucking movie? I mean, that's when he's at his best (consider Epidemic or Breaking the Waves).

Foundas continues:

"Colors and angles and sound levels don’t match from one cut to the next."

Yikes!

"The images are ugly as sin."

Burn!

But Foundas' conclusion is a bit dicey:

"For von Trier, who once told an interviewer that moviemaking had become too easy because 'all you have to do is buy a computer and you have armies rampaging over mountains, you have dragons,' it’s as if he’s found a cinematic way of showing us how close we are to the time when movies will be directed by machines instead of artists. Perhaps he’s telling us that we’re already there."

Two points: One: Yes, we are already there. Two: Along the same lines of having a mechanical guitarist or drummer, will anyone want to jam with a faux-musician or see a film where the final cut is left in the hands of a robot ...

... or LvT, for that matter.