AVATAR

While researching texts written about the use of design, composition, and color in movie industry and how it relates to social observation, I found a few authors who published articles about the empathy created by films and how is it created. For instance, in the article “How movies trick your brain into empathizing with characters” the author states that there are two types of empathy, and the first one, when the person can empathize even to the hostile characters (Miller, "How Movies Trick Your Brain Into Empathizing With Characters."). In my opinion, it can be clearly seen in James Cameron’s “Avatar”. My goal in this paper is to show how with the help of technology, light and visual stylistics James Cameron made his audience to sympathize hostile tribes of “Pandora”.

James Cameron’s “Avatar” is such a controversial topic to discuss that instead of a brief passage or the article "on the current topic," it should be written the solid study in psychology and modern politics, using the "Avatar" only as a visual, all clear illustration. Cameron's film -  is a fairy tale, so the audience shouldn’t be too skeptical about what is going on on the screen. But as it is said that a fairy tale is a lie, so the subtext is often more important than the external outline of the story. Cameron's task was to introduce to millions of viewers a simple idea: the European civilization - is a false path that leads to a dead end, happiness is also in a harmonious unity with Mother Nature.

James Cameron, of course, deserves the highest grade for his job. Over the years, it has done a tremendous work. "Avatar" is probably the first movie, where the line between reality and computer graphics if is not erased, but not so noticeable. Digital Jungle looks almost as a beautiful present and digital actors are very similar to the real. There were invented hundreds of plants and dozens of animals, beautiful, unusual, and again - too real. How true it was noticed, the film "Avatar" - is a one solid special effect. How beautifully is represented an alien planet - all these lights, fireflies, flying mountains? What is interesting that the human mind can handle abstract categories, seeing only their own idea and conjecturing all the necessary definitions? Without us, the audience, there is no magic - all the miracles happen within us. As any Hollywood film of this level - it is a complex project, with carefully calculated impact on the audience. Psychologists selected the actors in such a way so that they can elicit sympathy from the audience arbitrarily varied in education, ethnic composition, and social status. Just looking at the inhabitants of Pandora we see emphasized anthropomorphic features to make it easier for the viewer to associate himself with the Na'vi, with their customs and the way of life of savages make it easy to draw a parallel with the primitive tribes of the Earth. For instance, if James Cameron represented the Pandora inhabitants looking like something not as attractive as they were in the film we wouldn’t feel so much empathy and attraction to them. As the research has shown, people who rated their emotional state during watching the film, they experienced such type of empathy that really can have a strong influence on what they actually experience (Miller, "How Movies Trick Your Brain Into Empathizing With Characters.").

Naturally, there is a love line for a beautiful Na'vi, and moral choices, and the battle for the ideals in the end. It's not that we have seen such a hundred times, even in other scenery and in this case, made with overwhelming technical support. Yes, the love story is not as romantic as in "Titanic", but this is fully offset by the very unusual nature of love and the environment around. This most unusual compensates for everything else. A leisurely action, coupled with the panorama of the jungle and stone giants Pandora perceived as the author's intent, not as a hole in the script. The director wants the audience to rest at a cinema and view the new incredibly beautiful world where harmony is more important than technology.

                                          Works cited

Miller, Greg. "How Movies Trick Your Brain Into Empathizing With Characters." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 9 Feb. 2014. Web. 10 Jan. 2016.