Set near San
Francisco in 2026, eight or ten years after Rise, the world of Dawn
of the Planet of the Apes takes place after the majority of humanity has
gone extinct due to a Simian flue (which is explained at the beginning in one
of its most chilling sequences) and the Apes reign. It starts with a close-up
on Caesar’s eyes. He’s wearing war-paint. With the other apes they’re getting
ready for a hunt, though they’re using pretty advanced military hunting tactics
to catch their prey. During this hunt they end up meeting a small group of
humans, who are out in the woods to find a dam to get electricity for their
community. Afterwards there is a an attempt at reconciliation, internal
conflict, power struggles and humanity pushed to its extreme. For what could
have been just another franchise film Dawn
is actually a lot closer with its complexity and drama to a William Shakespeare
play, which its main character gets his name.
And Dawn ends the same way that it started
on Caesar’s eyes, looking out towards a terrible world, where the apes are now
forced into an unnecessary war, which he will have to lead. It is this mixture
of melancholy and leadership that comes across through Caesar’s gaze that makes
the whole enterprise so affective. In the background warships are coming and
after the credits there is a pained ape grumbling (could Koba still be
alive?). More so than any other fiction film last year, or even any documentaries, Dawn along with Chris Nolan’s Interstellar captures cinema’s imaginary potential of the
science-fiction film to put forward humanity’s biggest concerns and its hopefulness.
In anticipation
for the third installment, along with re-releases of the whole series and a new
book on all of their productions, one of the best new resources is the
Blu-ray of Dawn of the Planet of Apes.
It’s just packed with special features! There are over two hours of bonus
special features, a director audio commentary, and deleted scenes along with
other extras. These are great just to see its director Matt Reeves and to hear
him talk about his relationship with the franchise, footage of him on set
filming, and for his ideas on cinematic storytelling. But it’s also full of
great information on the mechanisms of filming these large tent-pole
franchises, exciting locations and fascinating sets, and use of technology with
performance capture and CGI.
The bonus features,
which are between ten to fifteen minutes, include eight featurettes: Journey to Dawn, Andy Serkis: Rediscovering
Caesar, Humans and Apes: The Cast of Dawn, The World of Dawn, The Ape
Community, Move like an Ape: An Artist’s Medium, Weta and Dawn, and The Fight for a New Dawn. These are like
a film school for amateurs.
The star of
these special features is its director, one of the best working ones today, Matt
Reeves. You get to see him talking about the film all dressed up in a bow tie,
big glasses, and slicked back hair. You get to see him on set directing,
wearing a big coat on set, a neckerchief, and a huge black leather cowboy hat. In
the studio with an un-tucked schleppy white shirt. You hear his soft, curious,
and affirmative voice as he’s commenting over the film. It sounds like he just
loves talking about the film, the apes, the different stages of the project,
the roots of the film, and he acknowledges the importance of all of his collaborators.
Reeves has been
a big fan of the Apes series since
he was a kid. His introduction to it was the television series and then that
brought him back to the movies, and he would quickly go out and buy all of the
dolls and toys. He even says that as a boy he desperately wanted to be an ape
and to get a John Chambers prosthetic make-up treatment.
He’s a film geek
director, like Guillermo del Toro and Gareth Edwards, who puts his love of
cinema into the projects that he decides to make, and someone that takes the
idea of horror and science fiction films seriously. The audience already
knows how the reboots are going to end, that’s where the Charlton Heston film ended,
so Dawn will be more about “how”
things got there, what went wrong. Through this the film examines human nature
and the nature of violence.
Reeves changed
the story as initially it started with the humans, but he wanted
it to start with Caesar and the Apes. Point of view is really important for
him. This makes the Ape Ceremony and the birth of the new son really important.
Reeves is
described as “like an old-fashioned theater director,” as he does a lot of
rehearsal with his actors. As like it’s brought up, performance capture doesn’t
work if the performances aren’t good. Reeves really trust his actors and gives
them his full attention. Having worked with Keri Russell on Felicity, a more intimate show compared
to his more recent large-scale productions, working again with the actress, he
knows to search for the emotional center of each scene. The ones with the
actress especially stand out – she’s the heart of the film. Reeves
collaboration here with Russell emerged for a failed project between the two on
a wartime photographer film.
Reeves is really
hands on director. You get to see him working closely with all of his
collaborators, while working on the set, with the technology, and on the fight
sequences. You can see him
explaining to Andy Serkis that he needs to scramble more on a rooftop and see
him making silly noises to get Jason to get him to react before he has to repeat
a scene alone for over one-hundred takes. Reeves even gives his friend and composer
Michael Giacchino, after completing the score, Caesar’s spear from the film as
a gift.
Reeves ideas on
filmmaking and his discussion of the film is fascinating. On the beginning of
the film he describes it like, “Almost like a silent movie.” There are also a
lot of Western, Kurosawa and Kubrick references throughout the film. On the
introduction between Malcolm and Caesar, Reeves describes the scene like it’s
from a classic Western. Reeves, “It can function like an epic western.” The
classic mythic forms of the western genre are compared to the work of John Ford,
but with a new photo-realism. Gary Oldman’s first scene is described to be
right out of The Searchers. Reeves
has been a fan of Oldman since Sid and
Nancy. While Jason Clark has been admired by Reeves since Brotherhood and Zero Dark Thirty.
Reeves sees the focus on the apes and Caesar’s story as being Shakespearean, Kurosawa-ian, and similar to The Godfather. When Koba invades the castle it is compared to Kurosawa’s Ran. While the scene of Jason going into the camp to see Caesar is compared to Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Apocalypse Now.
Reeves brings up
Kubrick a lot in terms of human evolution, from the primitive to Darwinism. On
its opening where humanity gets destroyed is like the beginning of 2001, which is accentuated in Dawn with the rise of this new breed of
intelligent apes. On getting the movement and gestures for the apes Reeves
closely looked at the sad documentary Project
Nim.
And the ideas behind
the production of Avatar are also
present during the production, nonetheless because they were even filming some
of the performance capture in James Cameron’s studio where a poster of it hangs
high.
It’s surprising
that Spielberg is only brought up once. The M11 tank war scene, from Blue Eyes perspective,
is compared the loss of innocence during a combat like in the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. But there are
other scenes that are really Spielbergian too. When Malcolm is going into the rainy
forest wearing the classic Indie hat it is pure Jurassic Park. The strong use of warm hues and backlighting recalls
the cinematography of Janusz Kaminski. The long-take during a combat of Malcolm
returning to the castle to get the backpack recalls Munich. And the whole father and son reconciliation is pure
Spielberg! More so then last year’s Godzilla,
which seemed to just take Spielberg and copy-and-paste, Reeves organically
takes Spielberg’s lessons and makes it think and puts it into practice. (I feel
like it being a 20th Century Fox film is one reason Spielberg is not
brought up as much). Reeves has discussed his Spielberg influences elsewhere,
for example, working on Let Me In
with Kodi Smit-McPhee, Reeves had a conversation with Spielberg about working
with children actors. And, of course, there is Cloverfield too.
I could probably
go on further at length about the sophistication and pleasures of getting the
chance to re-watch Dawn of the Planet of
the Apes on home-video and in such high quality image and rich soundtrack.
As well these notes just hit the surface of all the great supplementary material
on the Blu-ray DVD. It's a must-own film and one of the best DVD releases of 2014.
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