Zack Snyder is a genuinely good director. He doesn’t always make good movies, but when he does, he makes them with a great eye for visual and digital composition and an always present respect for the craft of filmmaking. His most recent projects have come under some scrutiny, and for good reason, but I wanted to take a moment to celebrate what I think is almost the best sequence that he has put to screen. It’s not even in a film that is particularly good, but it is a sequence that was powerful enough to reframe the film for me and actually for a while caused me to enjoy the wonders that it had to offer. I am talking about the Terraform Machine Takedown sequence in Snyder’s first foray into Superman, Man of Steel. The premise of the scene is simple. The villain of the piece, General Zod, has placed two terraforming machines on either side of the planet. Superman has dispatched himself to destroy one, while other armed forces will destroy the other one which has touched down over the city of Metropolis. The following scenes are thrilling beyond anything any other Superman film has to offer, and the peak of the scene is one of the greatest moments in superhero mythmaking ever put to screen. The sequence begins with the machines landing and shooting beams into the Earth. We sense the scale and danger in them because of the way that one towers above the large skyscrapers of a city and the way the other spews smoke and soot into the sky. These are giant machines, unfeeling, but always ready to destroy us. They are intimidating, apocalyptic, the type of thing only the efforts of a Superman could stop. Snyder clues us into their gravity altering power by allowing us to witness the objects that they lift in painterly composed CG shots. If any director can make the majestic danger (sublime) of a death tower into the sky, it’s Zack Snyder. There’s a grace here that is not found in the similar works of Michael Bay. There’s an understanding of the beauty of images and the horror that can come from said images. The minute or so of this image ticks by with a sluggish speed. What do the next seconds hold? What are the horrors about to be witnessed? Smartly, Snyder doesn’t hold that beauty long. By compressing that beauty into only a few images and then releasing the jarring horror of its loud destruction, Snyder does bludgeon his audience, but he does it with purpose. Now, even I can say that the inflated destruction of the sequence is a bit sickening, but there is some purpose to what he has done in adding some terrifying and sickening truth the near natural disaster that he has created. The grating sounds of mechanism rise above the score and the destruction unfolds, in all its sublime beauty and horrifying results. There’s a fear behind all of it, the feeling of being picked up and slammed into the ground hard, something that the Terraforming Machine is doing to the objects and people around it. If there’s a reason that Snyder has ultimately chosen to assault his audience with sound and picture, it is to place us in the mind space of the victims, ready to be inspired by the hero that will save us. Whether that has any place in a Superman movie is debatable, but that doesn’t mean that there is no value to what Snyder has done here. After a short exposition dump, the film transfers into what will make up the most of this action scene, Superman and the other army forces attempting to stop their individual terraforming machines (which is intercut with Zod turning on this weird chamber that is just bogged down in the whole dumb mythology). Suddenly, we enter a dark clouded sky, where our hero can’t even breathe, much less fly. Snyder’s thrilling camera swoops down with the Man of Steel only barely allowing him the chance to catch himself before he hits the ground. Snyder gives us a moment to see the power of the terraformer and what Superman will be fighting back against effectively setting up the stakes for the entire action scene following. The army's missile attacks on the terraformer over the city are especially well framed for an action blockbuster. Again, while his style reflects that of his colleague Michael Bay, Snyder is simply better at this dynamic and kinetic action. The motion of the camera is always squared toward the target and or attached to things moving toward the target, and the intercutting of wides and more dynamic shots frame the events well, especially as the gravity effects the missiles, pulling them towards the civilians. Again, contextually, for a Superman movie that kind of sucks, but it doesn't mean that the film is badly shot or directed. We cut to plenty of ground level shots to show who’s really in danger and we get one of the Daily Planet as they see a missile collide with a building across from them and decide to leave their building. This is one of the most important parts of the sequence because it is the part that is utilized at the climax of the sequence. The Daily Planet characters are the one’s who we as the audience are going to be concerned about dying, giving the scene even more stakes. The terraformer dispenses arms which will reach into the sky to grab Superman. It’s a terrifying image to see, especially in Superman’s weakened state, but it also corresponds visually with the terraformers themselves, which almost reach down to the planet. Superman himself is also wishing to escape being dragged down by his lineage in the scene, implying that the arms represent almost Zod’s grasp holding him down. Snyder’s camera allows for the height that we go to become evident as he uses lots of wide shots before cutting to an overhead shot of Superman being dragged down by the arms. The situation in the city is even more frightening. Buildings are falling, airplanes are being pulled from the sky, and even as things become more chaotic, Snyder’s direction still holds up in its compositional tact. Wide shots of airplanes flipping back from the terraforming machine, blends beautifully with the thundering score. The camera shoots into a close up of an affected plane and then, as the plane spins off, shoots back to give us scale. There’s narrative intention to these moves, even if they are dizzying. The pilots of those planes are being thrown around in the same horrifying ride that we are. Even when the camera gets to the shaky cam street level, Snyder still takes the time to establish the geography of the scene, as grim as that may be. A building is toppling over on top of the Daily Planet characters and they must run away from it. The building is established in a POV shot that eventually looks like a wide shot of the building, which is intercut with characters that can be seen occupying the street that is expanding behind them. Snyder is establishing where the rest of the scene will take place in the reverse shots until the characters actually run down the street with the building toppling behind them. Then, unfortunately, insert stupid shaky cam exposition mythology dump between Jor-El and Zod. Snyder really likes to do his POV shots, and the next is one of his best. The camera seems attached to the arms coming from the terraformer in a shot as it chases Superman. The best thing about this shot is that there’s some drive or purpose to it showing the speed at which the arms are going and providing us with the idea that Superman is not winning this battle, which recontextualized with the damage of Metropolis and the danger that the Daily Planet characters are in raises the stakes even more. Superman is thrown into the center of the terraforming beam and slams into the ground, which then dissolves into Perry White of the Daily Planet standing up and staring his death in the face, juxtaposing the fall of Superman with the existential panic of our stand in for humanity, but it’s the juxtaposition of the heroisms of both the human characters and Superman that will make the scene. Perry attempts to help a coworker out from the rubble of Metropolis as the gravity ray gets closer and closer. The stakes have reached a logical high. Snyder focuses us on the faces of the Daily Planet characters. We feel their fear. We feel their hope slowly dying. But then the music swells and the emotional climax of the scene is reached. Snyder uses a low angle shot to accentuate the importance of Superman rising. As he rises in this moment he lifts not only himself but the hope of the characters who are about to die. Of all humanity. Snyder cuts back to humanity, we fear for them, but our hope is rising. And suddenly as the camera zooms in, almost as if it personifies the cries of the humanity that Superman can’t let down, he rises to blast into the terraforming machine, as the members of the Daily Planet reach a peace in their soon to be avoided deaths. What I find most interesting about the climax of this scene is not the wide shots or the cool sweeping shots that Snyder employs, but instead the close ups that he utilizes. As well directed as the “roller coaster” action is, and as much intention goes into its overindulgent panache, Snyder as a director still understands that you need characters to connect with the action. You need us to feel the fear, the hope, the strength and the peace, that all of these characters do, or we just won’t care, and as uncaring as most of Man of Steel is, for a brief eleven minutes, leading to an emotional climax like no other superhero movie before, it comes to life, probably because of the work of Zack Snyder. Bibliography: 1. Man of Steel. Dir. Zack Snyder. Perf. Henry Cavill. Warner Home Video, 2013. DVD. The Essay covers from about the 1 hour and 43 minute mark to the 1 hour and 55 minute mark. Also, below I put the GREAT trailer to this film that holds the hope of the described moment.
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AuthorStephen Tronicek. Archives
July 2017
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