Green Zone

"Green Zone" is a film from the hand-held-and-maybe-rattling-trolley-carrying camera of director Paul Greengrass. And, my God, what a bone-rattling experience it is; you feel as if you're on a roller-coaster with the sound of gunfire, shell fire and mortar bombs bursting around and about you. I'm afraid it is not an experience I enjoyed, though the film's story held me a bit, and I must say I won't be going to another Greengrass film again. Unless, of course, he gets to put the camera on proper stable bases and uses the usual techniques to create atmosphere and tension.
I recall reading an article on film-making a long time ago in which the writer said that the use of the zoom should be forbidden. He explained why but I can't remember the reasons he gave. It might have had to do with a sudden feeling in the audience jarring them away from their "willing suspension of disbelief" to the knowledge that they are watching only an unreal film. I can only remember one occasion in which John Ford used a zoom effect and that was in "The Searchers" when John Wayne's character evinces deep and sudden hatred at the sight of a woman gone mad (having been abducted by Indians years before); the camera, from a long shot, zoomed up to Wayne's bitter face now in close-up. It worked at the time but having seen it a few times since I can't say I'm fond of it now. Itis making a point, essential to an understanding of his character but you are too aware of the trick of the zoom for the point to be made with any depth.
Greengrass uses the zoom all the time. And if he's not zooming in on everything that moves, then he's panning and swinging in arcs and rattling the camera up and down.
I know what he's trying to do: he's trying to make the audience feel the experience of actually being there at the front line of the battle. It doesn't. It makes me feel that I'm watching a documentary while at the same time knowing that it isn't a documentary.
I suggest a dose of a month or so of films by Ozu who hardly moves the camera at all, certainly never zooms, never pans, rarely even cuts.
I recall Paulene Kael's remarks when her film-reviewing career came to an end with The New Yorker: she said she would miss Bill Murray but she was pleased that she wouldn't have to sit through another Oliver Stone film again. I'd feel the same about Paul Greengrass if I was retiring from reviewing of films.