Rob Said:

Kirk, I have a "rant" I want to put up on the website, but I need your help.

Kirk Replied:

What is it?

Well, Robin and I rented "The Bourne Identity" and "The Bourne Supremacy" the other night.

Yeah?

Well, we loved "Identity" in the theater, and it was great at home, but I'd never seen "Supremacy" at all.

Yeah.

Well, what the hell? Couldn't they hold the camera still for two seconds? All that stupid jerky camera work gave me a headache and totally ruined what could've been a great movie.

So that's what you want to rant about? The camera work in "The Bourne Supremacy"?

Well, yeah. But not just there. It's way overused. They do it on every crime drama on TV; They do it in every film that is trying to be artsy; They even do it on commercials all the time. Remember way back on the "Dockers" commercial? We used to call it "the drunk camera man".

Yeah, it is overdone. The problem is that I don't agree with your specific example.

What!?!?!

I agree that it can be annoying, especially when they do it just to be doing it. But in "The Bourne Supremacy" I felt like they were using hand held cameras for a good reason and I really liked it.

What possible reason is there for not being able to hold a camera still? Couldn't they afford a tripod? My video camera only cost a few hundred bucks and even it has digital stabilization on it. Even I can hold a camera still.

Whoa. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying I disagree with you. If you want to put a rant on the website, please do. I don't have to agree with you. Darren disagrees with most of my ugly cars list.

But how can you possibly believe that damn shaky camera is good?

Look, I'm not the only person who liked it in "Supremacy". A lot of critics cited the camera work as something they really liked about the film. (1 | 2 | 3) If you're going to rant about it, you need to be aware of that.

OK, fine. Why do you think that it's good?

Well the argument goes something like this: Hand-held cameras add a sense of urgency to a scene, because they make you feel like you're there.

But I don't feel like I'm there, because I'm too bugged that they couldn't hold the camera still. I'm too busy looking at the camera work to feel any sense of urgency.

I think the idea is that it gives a sense that it could be a documentary. That a camera person just happened to be there to catch the action. Think about "Blair Witch Project". Because they used hand-held cameras, you got drawn into believing that this actually happened.

But in "Blair Witch" it was justified, because they were trying to make it all look that way. But do you really expect me to believe that a cameraman just happened to be in the room with these two spies who are fighting.

I don't think that they're trying to fool you into really thinking that. I think it's more subconcious. For a populace that has been trained by watching "COPS", a hand held camera just makes you feel like you're watching something real and immediate.

But instead it ends up being distracting. I spent the whole movie being mad about the camera moving. I wasn't drawn in at all.

Well, I suppose that your experience pretty much negates the theory, but it worked for me. Before "Bourne Supremacy", the director, Paul Greengrass, did a movie called "Bloody Sunday".

About the U2 song?

No. It was about the event that inspired the U2 song. A massacre in Derry, Ireland back in '72.

But here's what they did: They basically re-enacted the events of that day and then just had hand-held cameras film the whole thing. When you watch it, it's hard to shake the feeling that you're watching real documentary footage.

I can see why that would be good. And I can see why it was good for "Blair Witch". But why did he have to do it for a fictional movie, where there's no way a camera person could have caught the events? Are you saying they're just trying to fool me?

Well, here's the deal - I don't agree with you, but if you want to write something up about it, I'll turn it into a webpage.

Hell, call Darren. See if he agrees with you. Maybe he'll help you write it up.

Fine. I'll get back to you.