Another Day: CARS

I’ve decided to start a new feature. In this space, my thoughts on films I watch on dvd are usually recorded in either my Doubleback series, or in Back to Basics. But I wanted to start an infrequent series, where I take films I see on dvd and express some long form thoughts (sorta combining the formats of Double and Basics). In some ways these will be reviews, but my thoughts might also find themselves wandering towards production, context, and legacy.

So take a look after the jump won’t you, for the first in this series – a film widely regarded to be Pixar’s ugly duckling.

What did CARS ever do to us?

Every time I read anything about Pixar’s canon of work, CARS is always mentioned with a shudder. If Pixar is The Corleone Family, CARS is clearly Fredo. Heck, it might even be the gnocchi-makin’, Andy Garcia cousin-lustin’ Mary. It is dismissed; barely mentioned…an ugly duckling in a pond full of swans.

Having just watched it for only the second time, I’m left puzzled at the venom.

CARS actually features some of the best animation Pixar has ever done. Yes, really. The film is bookended by animated NASCAR races, and within these sequences is some direction that is subtle, but also truly exciting. Watching these sequences reminded me of footage I see on ESPN on a Saturday afternoon. But there’s the rub; It’s one thing to say that it looks exactly like stock car footage, and a whole other thing to remember that directing it to look that way takes an amazing amount of skill.

These sequences are more than just high-resolution rendering. They include sweeping and panning camera work. They include cameras mounted to the hoods of cars and nestled at trackside for shots that capture the cars zipping overhead. Hell, they’re so detailed they’ve even included the rubber marbles the cars shed skipping along the edges of the track as races go on. In short, these sequences are as exciting and well-executed as anything Pixar has ever done.

The beauty of CARS doesn’t end with these “Rubbin’ is Racin'” moments. Indeed, in that long stretch of open road in between those two races, Pixar takes us through some of the most beautiful artwork they have ever created. It rolls down the windows and bombards us with fresh country air and vanilla skies. We zip past lakes so still they could be mirrors, and expansive canyons and valleys usually seen in coffee table books.

These scenes are no accident. This isn’t Pixar trying to distract us from a story of talking cars with a “look what we can do” squeaking plush toy. These scenes are the artists who have dazzled us for a decade at their best. They are doing what they do best, to drive home the real point of this story of talking cars.

The story, often overlooked and written off, is one of a town that has been passed by. There are hundreds of towns across America like Radiator Springs – possibly thousands. Dots of hope on a map that sprung up with the great westward and southern expanse that led the country to prosperity in the early part of the 20th century. Sadly though, as Sally Carrera the Porsche points out, the world went and got itself in a great big hurry. People wanted to get from A-to-B faster and faster, and soon interstates were siphoning the heavy traffic away from these heartland highways…and with the traffic, the customers.

Indeed, this story is easy to write off when it’s being told by a Fiat that sounds like Monk, and a tow truck that sounds like a Cable Guy…but that doesn’t make it any less poignant. Towns like Radiator Springs are still hurting – probably now more than ever. And while CARS is a wonderful ballad for them, the film’s product placement doesn’t exactly translate to revenue for towns off the interstate.

The only thing I can come up with, is that while this story is steeped in Americana, and includes a lot of funny moments (“He has three Piston Cups!” “He did what in his cups??”)…somehow the film’s detractors couldn’t let go and allow themselves to fall for animated cars. There’s something just too unnatural that won’t let audiences at large be amused, moved and entertained by a canoodling Porsche and Stock Car. This might be true, but it didn’t stop anyone from going headlong for talking fish.

Perhaps the ambivalence towards CARS comes from the fact that something has to be the least-liked Pixar film. Perhaps it comes from people only having watched it once, and then writing it off. In either case it’s a pity, because while I came into it with memories of “okayness”, I found myself smiling and laughing almost the entire way along…and indeed moved in ways that Pixar has recently gone on to perfect.

Perhaps CARS will never get out of the Pixar basement…but it’s a basement I’d gladly revisit often.

Rating: * * *