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Michael Bay Hollywoods Leading Mainstream Surrealist Director
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23-06-2009 4:03am#1We often hear criticism of the great Michael Bay yet all his critics seem oblivious to the fact that Bay is one of the great surrealists. How many other directors would end a car chase with a boat speeding down an American highway?
Take Transformers 2 released last weekend. Bay goes the extra level and not only gives his machines human characteristics but in one memorable scene his machines even have testicles.
So what do my fellow boardsies think?1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsMd3V0amsIComments
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after watching transformers2, it cemented my opinion that Mikey Bay is a glorified pr0n director with a massive ****ing budget.
Check out some of the ads he has directed for more proof.
I'm not complaing much tho. Bad Boys for life etc etc
oh, fyi, the scene with the ball-sac...cringeworthy. A terrible bit of cinema.0 -
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you left out "women".I used to always joke about Bay being a surrealist, but I don't think his surrealism is intentional.
I have however enjoyed nearly all of the Bay movies I've seen (Pearl Harbour being a glaring exception). The man knows what he's good at; action, explosions, set pieces and 'tee-hee' style humour. 0 -
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uncleoswald wrote: »I don't want the Transformers to look like they did in the cartoon for nostalgia sake but because they looked so much cooler, more functional,
More functional?
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yeah more functional. probably because they were designed as toys and had to easily transform from vehicle to robot. So everything was where it was for a reason. In the movie they look like they were designed by a hyperactive child with the shakes, all angles and corners.More functional?0 -
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The weird thing is ... it didn't have to be this way. I was reading about the production of the first Bad Boys, where Bay first hit the big time. It was a Simpson / Bruckheimer production, and they had written the script too, but (according to the reports) it was Bay who made it better by fleshing out the characters, and getting Smith & Lawrence to improvise dialogue. This is also the film that made Téa Leoni a star: her character (Julie) starts off as a helpless witness, but by the end of the film, she's trading insults and fighting up there on the front lines with the "Bad Boys".
In other words, it was Bay's influence that made Bad Boys more than yet another Simpson / Bruckheimer production ... so what the hell happened?
You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.
―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray
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simpson died.The weird thing is ... it didn't have to be this way. I was reading about the production of the first Bad Boys, where Bay first hit the big time. It was a Simpson / Bruckheimer production, and they had written the script too, but (according to the reports) it was Bay who made it better by fleshing out the characters, and getting Smith & Lawrence to improvise dialogue. This is also the film that made Téa Leoni a star: her character (Julie) starts off as a helpless witness, but by the end of the film, she's trading insults and fighting up there on the front lines with the "Bad Boys".
In other words, it was Bay's influence that made Bad Boys more than yet another Simpson / Bruckheimer production ... so what the hell happened?
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Pearl Harbor, for all its gigantic faults still has one of the greatest action scenes ever put on film in it, and Bay has massive stroke with the US military and NASA when it comes to using their equipment, heres a fun fact, most of the hardware seen in Transformers 2 being used by the Army has been used more often in Bay films than actual warfare
Bay on Die Hard 4: "That F-14 scene was fun but it was very fake looking, I used a real F-14 in Transformers, know why? because I've got the Pentagons number on my cellphone"0 -
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I held off commenting earlier cause so soon after transformers 2 I would have vented poure hate.
But really there is alot to say about Micheal Bay, but also alot of questions that wont be answered for many years until someone properly studies this era of films and we'll get the same write ups as earlier decades did.
I think Bay will become a sort of case study of the new hollywood machine, from the influence of producers in today's blockbusters to his own work of spectacle over content, and (for me) more interestingly his relationship with with other aspects of american life (I find his glorifying of US military, something that is at times quite scary, and it has hit fever pitch in transformers 2*)
But looking over his career, as a movie goer and a fan of filmmaking in all its forms I would say that If I was to draw a line on a chart it would be one that would start quite high and continue to go straight down with each film being worse then the previous, with the exception of maybe bad boys and The Rock (where I felt The Rock was a better film, mostly because of Sean Connery though.) His career also raises a number of questions about where he is influenced, who has control (as Darko raised Spielberg has a part in how transformers ended up.).
Firstly his music videos, over the top full of phoar but heck they are music videos, he's perfect for them. MEatloaf's I would do anything for love is an awesome video and I touch Myself really is the final word on him being a borderline porn director.
But its a good point to actually see his style of filmmaking, movement, with Bay its always about stuff moving, the camera, the characters, the scenary. I think we would be hard pressed to find a still moment in a micheal bay film (i'd be curious if someone can name one for me
)
Meatloaf's I will do anything for love just goes to prove this point:
I mean look at that first verse. The song is slow and quite low (compared to the rest) and yet the lighting and the movement is all going mental, he cant *do still*
It also brings back the issue of *phow* porn with him because his obsession with movement on screen means anytime he does anything involving couples/romantic scenes etc he always has the focus on their motion, the scene in the Rock with Nic Cage and his girlfiend, the romantic scenes in armaggedon etc. All focused on movement hence the whole porn element comes out again because its all very physical.
THough I might add I do worry that he dances quite close to the line of sexism with his representation of women alot of the time. On his films alones I wouldnt say he does, though I dont think he has ever given a reason for attraction/relationship/role in the narrative beyond them being hot. but if you throw in his music videos and all the horror films he produces. Especially the horror films and the changes he makes to the remakes (friday the 13th) really brings him alot closer and more recently Revenge of the Fallen throws him pretty much over it in good fun with a quick run back on to the safe side with conveniant plot mechanics.
Is it a bad thing his obsession with movement? I dont think it is, movement on screen is quite complicated to do well, and he does it well, his professor from university praised him for it and encoruged it and it can be appealling.
But
It is severly f*cking with all the other aspects of his filmmaking.
Working through his films.
bad boys and the Rock were both under Don Simpson, and I really feel that he must have kept Bay in check in some manner, or some other constent, because once he died both Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer started making crappier and crappier films. But yeah both films pretty much cliche dumb action films, but as we later find out getting the balance of fun/tension/narrative seems to be an art that has almost died by today.
Moving on we have his four films under Bruckheimer alone, Armeggedon, Bad Boys 2, Pearl Harbour and The Island. The obvious first issue is whatever glue (*cough* Don Simpson *cough) that kept the balance of his films slowly begins to unwind. Armeggedon is just a bit too long, but overall it almost hits its marks in pacing. pearl harbour as many people have said is really too long and overshoots whatever pacing it should have been aiming for. Bad Boys 2 seems fondly remembered here but it also overshoots its mark by quite a chunk as well. The Island is an oddity because by all accounts it really does feel like a film everyone involved phoned in which might have saved the film from a worse faith as it didnt overstay its welcome, and is generally only remembered for its awfull product placement.
And then we have the two transformers films. Here is Bay unleashed I believe. Because in the first film I felt that it is very clear what is a *Bay decision* and when its spielberg making the final call. Pretty much the early stuff with Sam and his family feels like a spielberg project, like how other films he only produced have these spielberg moments (like The Goonies, poltergiest and back to the future) its the same type of family interaction, the same relationship between the unkown and the child. The only thing missing was the single parent. But the thing is in the first film these were the bits I liked. The bits I didnt like were the ones that were clearly not spielberg influenced. The whole segment in Quate, the section 7/us government/hackers bit, the final battle. These are sections that you can find equivilent segments in earlier Bay films (compare Nasa in Armeggedon when they discover the meteroite with the segments with the intel/government in Transformers.)
Then there's transformers 2, really I might be giving Spielberg too much credit in the first film, maybe with it being such a large investment he felt he needed to be a bit more hands on despite being only the executive producer, because here in 2, he is completely the executive producer and nothing more. Gone are the playfull family scenes, instead they are replaced with much cruder, less entertaining and wholly unappealling family gags, the difference between the scenes in 1 and 2 is so vast that it could fill a university assignment comparing them. In one, scenes like buying the car were a good mix of story progression, humour and small bits of sincerity. The scene with Bernie Mac is a good contrast with the packing for college scene. The first one, progressess the story with the main plot playing in the background to the immediate (bumblebee's role in the scene), it has a bit of ( sometimes questionable) humour from bernie mac and there is a small sprinkle of family sincerity that makes you almost believe they are real father and son. In contrast in 2, its a one tune joke with blunt force trauma humour, its role in story progression is irrelevent up until the very end where he finds the shard and starts the next action sequence.
So 2 has all the aspects from 1 I liked sucked out and replaced with much poorer equivilents and the bits I dislike have multiplied and its here where in my opinion that Bay's craft hits rock bottom with his style conflicting with his role, Bay knows what he is good at, but he has progressively over his films chipped away what he was bad at (except with pearl harbour where he confirmed he has bad at them) until transformers 2 where he stopped chipping and opted for a sledgehammer, removed all the areas he was poor at and focused on his strengths. Sadly some of those areas where sort of essential for keeping audience attention for 2+ hours, he could have survived without them in a 90 minute film, but with over 2 hours on its belt, issues like characterisation become crucial to a film's narrative.
*I decided to slip any more commentary on Bay's *GO Joe* military enthusiasim. Honestly I cant qork out if its a Hollywood thing, a 9/11 thing or just Bay himself. The obvious answer is its a 9/11 thing that since 9/11 the US military has enjoyed an easy time at the movies. I wouldnt agree with that personnally as I can name off films well before 9/11 that gave the US army the same treatment, especially in cases where if the film was made outside the US military involvement would have gotten a good whooping.
An easy comparison for this is the US adaption of Godzilla compared to the originals. In Japan us military vs Godzilla = destroyed japanese army. In the US, Godzilla vs US army, Godzilla run away and later killed by US airforce. There are many more cases where outside the US, the army is not treated with upmost respect such as the original 28 days later, elements of the british army at the end of the world turn into a bunch of rapists.
SO I would think there is enough merit to consider it more of an american thing then simply a 9/11 response (which might have just reinforced it.)
On Bay, well the only film where he shows the military in a less then pleasing light is obviously The Rock, between the navy seals being wiped out, the antagonists being us military soldiers and the noticeable slimey CIA chief. The film doesnt have the same *by Jingo* of his later work. Again I might be giving too much credit, but this is under Don Simpson who has played with similar storylines before.
But from Armeggedon onwards all his films become increasingly more *go joe* I doubt its Micheal's personal reaction to 9/11 because it starts with armeggedon and pearl harbour and they are both pre 9/11.
EDIT:
oh and any claims on the awesome of the action scenes in pearl harbour, I point you to Tora Tora Tora0 -
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