Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk - Ang Lee slows down time

The book by Ben Fountain was pretty great. Billy Lynn, a Specialist in the US Army, freshly returned stateside, is being used in a rah-rah victory tour after his squad’s performance in Iraq. The events in the book detail Lynn’s experience at the Dallas Cowboy’s Thanksgiving game, during which he is the centerpiece of a halftime show.

Based on Life of Pi, and the trailer above, Ang Lee is probably the perfect director for this story. I’m excited.

Here’s the part where I’m not so enthusiastic. I hated - like really despised - the 48fps presentation of the Hobbit movies from Peter Jackson. 3D was bad enough, but 48fps made everything look cheap and community theater tacky. (And yes, I understand that I’m arguing for less clarity since 24fps is objectively less clear than 48fps.) The sets and wardrobes really suffered in 48fps in my opinion.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is being made for 3D, 4K, 120fps. The good news (to me, for now) is that it’s so advanced, there are very few theaters that can accommodate Lee’s technical demands.

[quote]
But even the most advanced digital cinemas aren’t equipped to project a movie in Lee’s envelope-pushing format, so for the NYFF screenings, there will be a custom installation at the AMC Lincoln Square. Not only will the NYFF cognoscenti be the first to see the new format in all its promised glory, but they also may ultimately be among a relatively small number of moviegoers to see it in its full specifications.[/quote]

I’ve heard the novel is good, it feels weird that it’s not like… based on a real story or anything, but I dunno why.

The choice to use 120fps is extremely strange. Why go to such an extreme when it can’t be shown that way except to an extreme select group of people? Hubris?

— Alan

I’m really looking foward to this. The novel (novelette? It’'s short) is incredible. I’m not sure how I feel about the action scenes being fleshed out - in the book, the precipitating event is described only with faint strokes - but I guess it’ll help sell tickets.

I hope the technical FPS gadgetry doesn’t take away from the message. It’s interesting to think back on the themes in the book which (I think) was published before the whole ‘Pentagon pays NFL for patriotism displays’ thing came out, a development which only highlights the vision of humanity (alternately selfish and selfless) and America that threads through the book.

Looks like this … didn’t do so well?

Perhaps if they had filmed it at 180fps.

This sounds amazing. Like in a train wreck way.

[quote]
But despite the weakness of its satire, Billy Lynn’s would be nothing more than a disposable folly on Lee’s resume if not for the director’s bizarre, inexplicable decision to shoot the movie in Hobbit-esque high-definition. The technical details of this are actually quite uninteresting—think of the camera cranked up to ludicrous speed for maximum clarity and supposed lifelikeness—and the results are as uneasy on the eyes as convenience store surveillance footage. The thought of a visual masterpiece like Life of Pi being shot in this format instantly ruins the movie in your mind. The format offers astonishing depth of field (while presenting poor Steve Martin’s face like a topographical moon map), but to what end? So that we can see even the tiniest detail—of a big ugly football stadium? As it stands, the only sharp thing about the film is its pixels.[/quote]