We Felt the Earth Move Under Their Feet: Cloverfield

Cloverfield (200 follows the 2007 releases of I Am Legend (also set in New York City) and The Mist (which uses similar , if not suspiciously identical creatures), and despite the use of obvious and detracting CGI, it is perhaps the most effective.

The story is simple: several friends gathering one evening at a farewell party for their friend are thrust into chaos that suddenly befalls the city (not to give too much away). But, the distinctive crux of director Matt Reeves and writer Drew Goddard’s Cloverfield is authenticity of experience. And, at least in the earlier ad campaigns, an accompanying strategy of limited information. Months before the films opening, the trailers quickly introduced basic characters and abruptly shifted to suggestions of disaster, details of which remained scant. The flying, decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty could, given setting and recent memory, leave audiences with the impression that Cloverfield is a film about a terrorist invasion of New York City. The earliest previews didn’t reveal the films title, and some only hinted devastating action through on-screen and off-screen character reaction.

The film itself is presented as a first-hand documentation of events and everything is shot in the style of amateur recording with a digital video camera, triggering warnings to theater patrons that they made experience side-effects from the abundance of shaky footage. And to further develop the “authentic experience,” there is no soundtrack manipulating mood (except several minutes after rolling the final credits) and there are no opening credits. The footage instead is intended as found documentation of disaster that is now evidence of history held by the Department of Defense, as indicated by the time code and confidentiality disclaimer as the film begins. But, perhaps the most effective, realistic narrative elements are the absence of neat resolutions and happy endings as well as the limited explanation of the origins of the invading creatures. If the techniques and technicians were still available, this movie might have done better to abandoned the phony CGI in favor of the sadly obsolete miniatures, prosthetics and stop-motion models

The cast, composed of standard WB-esque images of young perfection, were once fairly unknown faces, which at least prevent distraction from that “authentic experience” in ways that the Blair Witch Project (1999) could, although the filmmakers of Cloverfield had to rely on several other devices, since there would be no question about whether the film presents evidence of true events the way debate first surrounded the late 90s horror film. The cast were also forbidden from seeing the script until signed onto the project, with screening tests being based on readings of other scripts.

Cloverfield is, most simply, intense and potent and despite the aforementioned trend of recent films of invading creatures and scientific anomolies, it grossed over $16 million on opening day, setting a record for blockbuster earnings in January and receiving critics’ applause. With the limited marketing strategies and secretive production strategy already exhausted in for the first film, it could be suggested that a sequel will be anything less than the ignored subordinate to a much better first film, though lessons may be drawn from the analogous Blair With Project 2:Book of Shadows (2000). But, director Reeves, who spoke on the issue, suggested at least two ideas he envisioned, both dealing with intersections of characters and events and, more importantly, maintaining a sense of “authentic experience” through consistent devices like first-hand footage.