Lifeboat of Pi 
Thursday, April 26, 2012 at 1:02PM
NATHANIEL R in 3-D, Ang Lee, Life of Pi, Lifeboat, cats, zoology

Despite having not read "Life of Pi" in its previsual form -- I know I know --  I found myself unduly excited this morning seeing this image from the Ang Lee adaptation. Is it because I love cats? Unfilmable books? Ang Lee? All about the above? ☑

24 Frames has an article about it involving a Scorsese/Lee conversation about Lee's 3D learning curve. Here's the image.

Despite his belief in the format, Lee was open about his struggle to adapt to the technology. While filming "Life of Pi," he said, the 3-D cameras were cumbersome, and he compared working with them to "operating a refrigerator." 

I gotta be honest with you. I love Marty Scorsese almost as much as any random film buff but his current incarnation as "Mr. 3D" may lead to divorce. Irreconciliable Differences. I preferred Marty when his cause was film preservation. 3D just takes me out of movies, ironically flattening their visual interest for me. It feels like a straight jacket to me or rather, a toothpick propping my eyes open, forcing me to see things I don't want to see. Maybe I need to use my own imagination to add the depth, I don't know. I just hate it. I keep trying to love it because powerful and great filmmakers like Scorsese and James Cameron (a hero of young me and I still love his movies) will never give up till all movies require glasses.

But 3D just makes the movies less magical for me. Sniffle. I adore Titanic and seeing it in 3D just made it... smaller. It no longer felt like THE MOVIEST OF MOVIES but just "a movie".

I'm only tolerating 3D because I have to. 

Someone toss me a Lifeboat. Life of Pi needs less 3D and more Tallulah! Can I get an amen?

Alfred Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT OF PI

Have any of you read the book? I understand that young "Pi", an Indian boy, finds himself on a boat after a shipwrech with only a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger. Since only Pi and Shere Khan are in the official image I'm assuming the tiger ate the other animals already?

If I were to be shipwrecked on a boat with four animals those maybe aren't the four animals I'd choose. I'd think I'd go straight herbivore across the board. Not that you can choose in a shipwreck.

But if I had to go with famous movie animals...

Life of NathanielR

Someone to entertain, someone to protect, and someone who might rescue me and look great doing it.

And there's no way it'd be anything but a 2-D picture.

Don't leave me floating in this ocean all alone... Which movie animals could you handle a shipwreck with and have you resigned yourself to movie glasses forever?

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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