Film already conveyed depth, and it did so through composition

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that the problem the format claims to solve was solved long ago. A flat image conveys depth by means entirely under the director's control: the arrangement of near and far elements, overlap, the behaviour of focus, the parallax that appears when the camera moves, the fall of light, and the scale of figures against their surroundings. These cues are so effective that audiences never experienced flat film as flat; they experienced it as a view into a space. On this account stereoscopic depth is not a missing dimension being restored but an extra cue laid over cues that were already sufficient. The argument continues that the extra cue competes with the craft rather than assisting it. Composition for a flat frame organises attention by putting things where the eye should go, and the shot can be read at once. Separating the image into planes gives the eye a second task, so the viewer spends part of each shot resolving the space instead of following what the shot is about. Proponents note that this is why the effect is most conspicuous in sequences where little else is happening, and least noticeable in the scenes a film actually turns on. The conclusion is that the format answers a question nobody was asking. What audiences respond to is where the camera is, what is held in the frame and what is withheld, and none of those is improved by making the planes literally separate. Proponents argue that a technique which adds an effect without adding meaning is by definition unnecessary, however impressive it may be the first time.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics reply that the argument would have justified rejecting every addition to the medium, since sound, colour and the wide frame were each resisted on the grounds that composition already did the work. They add that the claim about competing attention describes bad stereoscopic photography rather than the format itself: where depth is planned at the point of shooting, the separation of planes is one of the ways the eye is directed, and audiences resolve it without effort. On that view the effect being most visible in quiet sequences is evidence about how it has been used rather than about what it can do, and a technique should be judged by its best practitioners rather than its worst.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] That flat composition conveys depth adequately does not show an additional cue adds nothing, any more than the adequacy of black and white showed colour was pointless. [Rejecting P2] The extra task the premise describes largely disappears where depth is composed at the point of shooting rather than added afterwards, so the objection is to a practice rather than to the format. [Rejecting P3] Audiences also respond to the sense of being inside a space rather than in front of it, which is exactly what the premise leaves off its list. [Rejecting C] At most it follows that a film can work without stereoscopic depth, which is true of every technique and is not a reason to call it unnecessary.