The Phenomenology of the Grotesque: Jackass 3D’s Cinema of Stereoscopic Attractions

Stereoscopic experience, therefore, drastically alters the positioning of the viewer in relation to diegetic content, creating the illusion that the body of the spectator is immersed within the screen planes rather than observing the planar surface at a fixed distance. The traditional gulf that separates the spectator from film is removed, thus reconfiguring the cinema screen as a multidimensional, malleable membrane with many haptic layers. As such, the experience of watching a 3D feature is intrinsically bodily, and kinetic. The screen no longer seems to be a fixed physical space onto which images are projected, but rather a permeable barrier opening a window into an unpredictable multidimensional world. The viewer feels unmoored by the multiple depth planes, thus denying them the sense that they are mastering easily digestible images.

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Anybody with even a passing interest in contemporary cinema culture will be aware of the prominence of digital 3D imaging in both journalistic and scholarly discourse. Although stereoscopic images have been employed since the early 20th century, they have primarily been marginalized to either low-culture genre features or the avant-garde.1 The huge success of high-profile stereoscopic Hollywood films such as Avatar (Cameron, 2009) and Up (Docter, 2009) toward the end of the 21st century’s first decade led to more stereoscopic features being released worldwide than in any other period of the medium’s history. Respected industry giants such as Scorsese, Coppola, Burton, and Spielberg, as well as celebrated European arthouse filmmakers such as Godard, Greenaway, Wenders, Noe, and Herzog, have worked with the format. The vast majority of cinemas in the UK and US have been equipped with new S3D projection equipment, and there has been a surge of interest in stereoscopic home-viewing equipment, such as 3D TVs and Blu-ray players. Coverage in the public discourse surrounding the innovation has been largely hyperbolic, with some commentators going as far as to proclaim digital stereoscopy a revolutionary technological advancement comparable to synchronized sound and colour photography. In 2009, Jeffrey Katzenberg brazenly predicted that 3D cinematography will soon become the standard mode in mainstream cinema, rather than an exception: “in a handful of years, there will be no 2-D movies – because 3-D’s better.”2 This mentality was echoed in James Cameron’s statement the same year, in anticipation of the release of his 2009 blockbuster Avatar, that digital stereoscopy is likely to make 2D cinematography obsolete as “we are born seeing in three dimensions. Most animals have two eyes, not one. There is a reason.”3 Indeed, Avatar became the biggest box-office success in history, earning nearly $3 billion at the international box office within six weeks of theatrical release.4 This seems to suggest that the format, after many false starts, has finally reached maturity – aesthetically, conceptually, and technologically. Digital 3D seems to offer the realization of Eisenstein’s early prediction that “to doubt that stereoscopic cinema has its tomorrow is as naive as doubting whether there will be tomorrows at all.”5

Yet the immense optimism surrounding stereoscopic cinema has brought with it a wave of equally extreme skepticism. Roger Ebert, writing for Newsweek, decried 3D as an artistically bankrupt format that “is driven largely to sell expensive projection equipment and add a $5 to $7.50 surcharge on already expensive movie tickets.”6 David Bordwell negatively compared the depth construction of 3D images to 2D ones:

In films 3D has always looked weirdly wrong. It creates a cardboardy effect, capturing surfaces but not volumes. Real objects in depth have bulk, but in these movies, objects are just thin planes, slices of space set at different distances from us.7

Dominating the negative criticism of the format is the notion that 3D is not an artistic tool but a sensationalistic gimmick, employed by studios for the purpose of monetary gain rather than by film artists to enhance the quality of their features. Indeed, many of these detractors have pointed out that 3D has emerged and dissipated at several points in the past, and use the checkered history of the format to suggest that the current interest will also prove to be a passing fad. Before the turn of the millennium, there were two significant booms of 3D popularity in mainstream filmmaking: the early 1950s, in which features such as House of Wax (De Toth, 1953), Bwana Devil (Oboler, 1953), and Creature from the Black Lagoon (Arnold, 1954) briefly drew spectators to the theatre in droves; and during the early ’80s, with the surprise success of features like Comin’ at Ya! (Baldi, 1981), Jaws 3-D (Alves, 1983), and Amityville 3-D (Fleischer, 1983). Notably, these proved to be short-lived, largely due to the technical imperfections that marred anaglyph forms of stereoscopic filmmaking – such as the cumbersome glasses that reportedly caused headaches and nausea; projection difficulties, which often resulted in a mismatch between the two images that would dismantle the 3D illusion; colour desaturation; and regular mistakes during image polarization that produced slightly misaligned images – and the difficulty of installing large 3D projectors into theatres.8 The many ways in which these flaws were ironed out by the development of digital circular polarising techniques is a fascinating subject of study, but it is an area that has been covered extensively by other scholars, perhaps most notably in Zone’s exhaustive study 3-D Revolution: The History of Modern Stereoscopic Cinema. It will therefore not be the subject of this article, which instead aims to investigate the ways in which the representational strategies of stereoscopic filmmaking have altered the aesthetic constitution and ontological basis of the cinematic image.

Furthermore, the critical discourse surrounding these earlier booms tended to frame the medium as an inferior offshoot of 2D cinema and not a valuable artistic tool in its own right.9 Reviews of House of Wax, for example, attack the film as a “childish and inept piece of work” that indulges in the “schoolboy trick of throwing things at the audience.”10 Such criticisms treat 3D as a frivolous novelty rather than a genuine alternative to or development of 2D cinema. The frequent association of 3D cinema with juvenile trickery and fairground antics suggests, as Paul has noted, a regression to the early cinema of attractions, as theorized by Gunning.11 This is in contrast to the supposedly more sophisticated, narrative-driven cinema that was dominant during the 1950s.12

Figure 1

As Mitchell argues,13 the failure of stereoscopic film to achieve mainstream success was largely a result of the continuous association of the medium with such primitive juvenilia, as opposed to establishing “a developmental model, where 3D would (like synchronised sound) become more established and better used (artistically and technologically).”14 Cultural taste construction, perpetuated by trade journals, marketing materials, and academic texts, has set up the parameters of the aesthetic viability of stereoscopic cinema and has thus circumscribed its potential, framing it as a novelty digression, placed in opposition to the culturally viable normativity of 2D cinema. Such a discourse similarly dominated discussions of 3D cinema during its revival in the early ’80s. The US theatrical poster for Amityville 3-D, for example, flaunts the tagline “Warning: in this movie, you are the victim,” accompanied by an image of the Amityville house, with a large hand reaching out toward the observer (Figure 1). This poster uses sensationalistic tactics to foreground the novelty of 3D film, with a focus on the negative parallax effect, reinforcing the notion that the appeal of 3D cinema is limited to only providing cheap tricks.

This largely explains why the medium has been relegated to the margins of the cinematic landscape for so long. The past two decades, however, have seen a substantial upturn in both the popularity of the medium and critical texts dedicated to its theorization. For the first time, scholarly books were being published dedicated to investigating the technological, artistic, and industrial elements of 3D technologies: Ray Zone’s mammoth volumes Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film, 1838–1952 and 3-D Revolution: The History of Modern Stereoscopic Cinema, which provide a detailed historiography of the medium as well as offering extensive insights into the technological processes of 3D image construction; Miriam Ross’s 3D Cinema: Optical Illusions and Tactile Experiences, which investigates the aesthetic strategies specific to 3D cinema and how the technology shapes the relationship between spectator and screen content; and Owen Weetch’s Expressive Spaces in Digital 3D Cinema, which employs close textual analysis to explore the ways in which filmmakers have used the compositional possibilities of stereoscopic staging to communicate narrative, theme, and character relations. Each one of these texts has made a substantial contribution to the burgeoning field of stereoscopic screen studies, positing new ways to think about the 3D image in relation to its aesthetic construction, its effect on viewers, and its ability to communicate information. However, there has been an overwhelming tendency in critical studies to focus on the use of 3D to accentuate Renaissance space and work within the boundaries of classical narrative and continuity editing. Instead, I wish to shift attention to the ability of 3D techniques to break from the confines of linear storytelling and perceptual realism, to utilize stereoscopic methods to disrupt, complicate, and interrogate traditional structures of cinematic spectatorship. I will accomplish this through close textual analysis of a recent film that employs stereoscopic methods in a particularly exhilarating and innovative way to produce violent sensory phenomena: Jackass 3D (Tremaine, 2013).

Many detractors of the 3D medium make a mistake in assuming the sole aim of stereoscopic craft is perceptual realism, rather than acknowledging the creative potential that imaging compositing holds. One of the primary issues taken up by Kroeker is that 2D film is capable of creating a sense of depth perception without the need of stereoscopy, using “depth cues” such as subject positioning, motion parallax, lighting, and the layering of different focal planes.15 This perspective is echoed by Harpole, who argues: “Depth illusionism is created in films in several highly specific ways. These methods are based upon the inescapable fact that spectators perceive films with the same physiological and psychological equipment with which they perceive real life.”16 Although Harpole and Kroeker make valid points, their view of stereoscopy is overly restrictive. Though it is true that traditional planar cinema has the ability to construct images in depth, the medium of 3D holds the power to alter the relationship between viewer and filmic content in ways that extend far beyond the simple illusion of heightened depth perception.

In his perceptive piece on strategies of spectatorial identification and mimetic affect in the Jackass series, Richmond comments on the overwhelming “bodily intensities” experienced while watching the reckless on-screen stunts, with their emphasis on bodily shock, fear and pain.17 Richmond’s analysis explores the sensory overload that characterizes the Jackass series, recognizing how the extreme bodily trauma endured by the cast is comparable to – though much milder than – bodily sensations experienced by the spectator, such as a shiver down the spine, anticipatory sweat, and nausea. Building on Richmond’s observations, this chapter will explore the third film in the franchise through the lens of phenomenological analysis. It will argue that Jackass 3D provides a fascinating example of what Ross terms the “hyper-haptic” 3D film, with its focus on embodied sensation, haptic affect, and tactile experience.18

Although these aspects are important to earlier films in the Jackass franchise, Jackass 3D is unique in its use of stereoscopic aesthetic strategies to heighten the sensory impact of the stunts and reinforce the physical pain of the performers. Jackass 3D thus draws on the hyper-haptic qualities of the 3D format to alter the relationship between spectator and screen content in a way that encourages a more intensely embodied perspective through which the grotesque action can be experienced. Studies of cinematic phenomenology pioneered by scholars such as Merleau-Ponty, Marks, and Sobchack will provide a critical framework for my study, as well as writings on the kinaesthetic intensities of 3D cinema by scholars such as Trotter and Sandifer. The aesthetic strategies employed by Jackass 3D to produce tactile textural surfaces and intensified bodily reactions will be explored through close textual analysis of several key scenes that use the specific qualities of 3D depth cues in particularly fascinating and effective ways.

The recent interest in phenomenology in cinema scholarship has redirected academic writing from an emphasis on optical visuality to embodied perception and sensory spectatorship. In The Skin of the Film, Laura Marks argues that while traditional narrative cinema presents images at a clear, fixed distance from the viewer and enables them to consume the screen content on a purely optical level, haptic visuality engages the viewer in a sensual, bodily form of spectatorship.19 In conventional narrative cinema, images are primarily used as a means to envelop the viewer in a whole and unified diegetic world, and sensory effects are placed secondary to the drive of the narrative. In her seminal study The Address of the Eye, Vivian Sobchack argues against the centrality of the optical in film studies, which has resulted in a dominance of theories of spectatorship that revolve solely around the gaze. For Sobchack, the act of spectatorship is “always synaesthesia and synoptic by virtue of its finite and circumscribed embodiment of intentional consciousness.”20 As such, sight cannot be divorced from our other senses, as our visuality is always informed by our awareness of our other senses during the act of viewing a cinematic text. It is the aim of phenomenological film scholarship to explore the many ways in which films communicate meaning through inter-sensory effects. As Marks argues:

It is common for cinema to evoke sense experience through inter-sensory links: sounds may evoke textures; sights may evoke smells (rising steam or smoke evokes smells of fire, incense, or cooking). These inter-sensory links are well termed synesthetic.21

The descriptive philosophy of Merleau-Ponty is particularly central to modern conceptions of phenomenological cinema studies. His writings work against conceptions of Cartesian disembodiment – the theory that existence and selfhood are determined by mental processes and can therefore be divorced from the outside world and bodily sensation.22 This line of thinking is encapsulated in Descartes’s iconic quote “everyone can mentally intuit that he exists, that he is thinking.”23 For Merleau-Ponty, such a split between mind and body is untenable, as thought is inextricably intertwined with bodily sense and the human subject can only come to an understanding of themselves through situatedness within the physical world. For Sobchack, cinema is a particularly useful medium through which the dynamics of phenomenological sensation can be explored, as the language of the medium is rooted in all of the “modes of embodied experience,” such as sight, sound, and physical sensation. Furthermore, the mechanisms of direct human experience are used as the fundamental basis of cinematic language – that is, the situating of lived experience in the properties of the physical environments and their associated sensations. As the spectatorship process is constructed around an interaction between the “skin” of the film and the skin of the viewer, film is a fascinating vehicle to recreate the essence of physical embodiment.

The trailer for Jackass Number Two (Tremaine, 2006) tellingly features a cameraman visually gagging while looking at an off-screen stunt, a moment that is freeze-framed and then overlaid with a title card that describes the film as a “disgusting, repulsive, grotesque spectacle.” The spectator is encouraged to participate in the extreme sensory experiences captured and hence share in the anxiety and pain of its key performers. As intense bodily sensations and physiological interactions have always been at the centre of the Jackass franchise, theories of phenomenology in media offer a useful theoretical framework for analysing Jackass 3D. As the central group subject their bodies to grotesque and unusual trauma, so too is the viewer expected to experience intense physiological sensations in relation to the on-screen content through haptic reciprocity.

The great emphasis on embodied experience in Jackass 3D is tied to the complete rejection of traditional narrative. The film is comprised of a series of temporally isolated, self-contained stunts; the spectator is addressed directly throughout; and there is no attempt made to hide the fabricated nature of production to create the illusion of a stable and unified diegetic world. Each skit, which runs roughly two to five minutes, centres on a single act that is framed as being deeply impressive, painful, or grotesque. This typically takes the form of a stunning display of physical agility, a disgusting act of bodily degradation, or some combination of both. Each stunt is structured simply: a brief introduction that draws anticipation, the stunt itself, and a brief aftermath, typically lingering on the damage caused by the stunt, either to the environment or to the performer themselves.

As these stunts are divorced from any overarching linear narrative and presented as self-contained spectacles, the attention of the viewer is diverted away from their narrative function and toward an appreciation of them on a purely aesthetic level. Jackass 3D entirely eschews diegetic absorption in favour of a sustained mode of exhibitionistic address. In this sense, the film is closely aligned with Gunning’s conception of the Cinema of Attractions. While the viewer of a more conventionally narrative film may be lulled into perceiving the sights as the building blocks of a grander narrative, the spectator of Jackass 3D is bombarded with sensory phenomena purely aimed to stimulate their senses and align them with the embodied sensations of the masochistic performers.

The spectacular quality of the stunts in Jackass 3D is primarily physiological: the viewer is encouraged to feel their senses at play as they become attuned to the bodily trauma of the on-screen performers and share in their discomfort. In this sense, Jackass 3D is a fascinating example of a cinematic text that moves away from the “the prevalent visual paradigm” of distanced spectatorship in favour of a “more holistic embodied approach to the practice of looking.”24 As Marks argues, conventional narrative cinema seeks to keep on-screen objects at a fixed distance from the viewer, so that they may appear clearly delineated and easily identified. Images are arranged with clear spatiotemporal relations; the viewer can clearly recognize the on-screen space and position themselves within it. This mode of optical visuality provides us with distinguishable objects for visual consumption; entire forms being visible and easily recognised as specific objects. In this tradition of visuality, the images can be clearly read, with the objects on screen being easily perceived and their importance to one another easily acknowledged. For Sandifer, this form of distanced 2D imaging creates a gulf between the observer and the artwork in which “the actual viewer becomes decoupled from any necessary spatial relationship to the painting or its subject.”25

Haptic modes of cinema, in contrast, disrupt this viewing practice by presenting the viewer with images that are not easily decipherable, thus provoking a sustained engagement with their textures and thus heightening the sensory interaction. A lack of optical certainty in the filmic image provokes a multisensory response, as the viewer in drawn closely to the “skin” of the haptic screen and other senses become engaged.26 Haptic effects are created through tools of abstraction such as the foregrounding of tactile textures, the obscuring of essential elements of the image, extensive use of shallow focus, and the decision to linger on objects for extended periods that divorce them from their narrative function. By “pointing to the limits of visual knowledge, [the films] frustrate the passive absorption of information, instead encouraging the viewer to engage more actively and self-critically with the image.”27 The haptic cinema screen, then, complicates the traditional relationship between viewer and screen content based on Renaissance space and distanced perspectival structures. By refusing to produce clearly observed objects and signs, the haptic screen does not produce an easily perceptible visual space, delivering obscure images high on sensory impact. By disorientng the viewer, the screen space encourages a more complex and bodily participation. Engagement with haptic modes transforms the flat cinema screen into a “membrane” that is “impressionable and conductive, like skin.”28 Although Marks explains that narrative cinema tends to operate through optical visuality rather than haptic visuality, in most features elements of both modes are present.

Ross argues that the 3D screen produces a form of visuality that exists beyond the traditional and haptic screen. Although the individual depth planes tend to be in high definition and perfectly clear, the multitude of depth planes disrupts the traditional, distanced mechanisms of optical cinema.29 The projection of depth planes out into auditorium space destabilizes the conception of a flat planar screen onto which flat images are projected, therefore encouraging a more embodied relationship between the viewer and screen content and eliciting a direct touch response. As Ross writes, the mechanics of stereographic perception complicates the clear binary between the two modes of viewing:

On the one hand, the tendency to create extended illusionistic depth in commercial stereoscopic films couples with a dismantling of the screen plane so that the planar skin of the film is no longer discernible. In this way, the presentation of distinct forms in deep space occurs and an optical visuality is encouraged.[…] Nonetheless, fundamental to stereoscopic cinema is the ability to bring content closer to the viewer (particularly with negative parallax placement) and the dismantling of the screen plane equally operates to destabilise a sense of fixed distance between viewer and film. The abundance of depth planes thus provokes an immersive effect, distinct from narrative immersion, through which the viewer’s body is located within and in relation to, rather than separated from, the film.30

Stereoscopic experience, therefore, drastically alters the positioning of the viewer in relation to diegetic content, creating the illusion that the body of the spectator is immersed within the screen planes rather than observing the planar surface at a fixed distance. The traditional gulf that separates the spectator from film is removed, thus reconfiguring the cinema screen as a multidimensional, malleable membrane with many haptic layers. As such, the experience of watching a 3D feature is intrinsically bodily, and kinetic. The screen no longer seems to be a fixed physical space onto which images are projected, but rather a permeable barrier opening a window into an unpredictable multidimensional world. The viewer feels unmoored by the multiple depth planes, thus denying them the sense that they are mastering easily digestible images.

With its heavy emphasis on shocking sensory phenomena, Jackass 3D aggressively subverts habitual modes of viewing and instead assaults the viewer with a stream of violent haptic imagery. The methods used to encourage the viewer to engage closely with the sensorial and material aspects of the stereoscopic image are exemplified in the jet engine sequence. The scene begins with a shot of Ryan Dunn sitting on an armchair, placed in the frame at a 90-degree angle (Figure 2). The composition is flat and planimetric, with the chair positioned against a bare grey wall. The background of the image appears in major positive parallax space, the subject in slight negative parallax space, and the speaker in major negative parallax space. The layering of depth planes encourages the eyes to encounter what David Trotter describes as “the visualisation of tangibility,” as the intensified sense of depth makes the spectator feel as though the space is fully tangible and graspable.31 The camera remains stationary, allowing our eyes to scan the surface texture of the protruding aspects of the image through rich tactile exploration. The presence of the speaker and the left armrest in negative parallax space creates a point of contact between the viewer and Dunn; the spectator is encouraged to share Dunn’s embodied perspective and experience the materiality of the space as he does.

The placidity of this image is disturbed when a huge gust of air (later revealed to be produced by a nearby jet engine) is introduced from off screen, gradually pushing the objects toward screen left, and causing physical stress for the human subject (Figures 3-4). The speaker in the foreground of the image is forcibly pushed off screen. As the speaker was previously the bridge between the viewer and the on-screen space, its sudden disappearance unbalances the image, creating an immediate feeling of unease. Dunn clings onto the armrests while great pressure is put on his skin and hair follicles, producing rich, rough textures that visually communicate his anxiety and discomfort. This signposting of Dunn’s extreme fear through stereoscopic depth cues encourages an empathetic sharing of physical sensation, thus inviting close identification. The multidimensional nature of the image invites the viewer to experience the sensation of touch in a manner impossible to accomplish in 2D cinema.

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

The sculptural, deeply layered quality of stereoscopic screen space intensifies the textual qualities of content, thus heightening what Bruno describes as the “tangible, tactical role in our communicative ‘sense’ of spatiality and motility” created by haptic vision.32 Therefore, rather than being able to observe imagery from a safe and removed distance, the viewer is forced to experience imagery through the immersion in a permeable field screen. This unmooring of perspective upsets the easily intelligible nature of 2D images, thus stimulating the sensory processes of the audience. The corporeal nature of the inhabitable space created by stereoscopic composition intensifies the kinaesthetic reactions created by the phenomenological affects in Jackass 3D. These methods of employing haptic affect to cause intense, non-ocular bodily responses result in the symptoms of excessive sweating, vomiting, and flinching, among others, described by Richmond. Thus, although the images may not be obscured as in the form of haptic cinema outlined by Marks, the multidimensional composition of the images renders them challenging to consume, as the viewer finds it difficult to fully conceive of their aesthetic constitution.

At many points in the film, the emergence effect is used to craft overwhelming sensory impact. One such instance of this occurs when Johnny Knoxville throws red peppers up into the path of the jet engine, propelling them with extreme force into the body of his fellow performer, nicknamed Danger Ehren. The composition positions Danger Ehren in the foreground of the wide shot, in extreme negative parallax space, with Knoxville very small toward screen right, in extreme positive parallax space (Figure 5). The peppers are thrown at extreme speed across the field of vision before hitting the human subject, at which point they explode into pieces in the foreground. The bright red colour of the peppers contrasts with the otherwise washed-out colour palette of the composition, making them particularly powerful “transdiegetic objects,” to borrow a term from Moulton.33 According to Moulton’s definition, a “transdiegetic object” is a filmic object that appears to exist in the space between the spectator and the screen plane, thus creating a close symbiotic link between viewer and diegesis. The force with which the peppers are propelled inspires an overwhelming sensory response within the viewer, who feels that they are the subject of a violent material confrontation. The peppers seem to jut toward the viewer before exploding, at which point they burst into small fragments that scatter across the foreground. The positioning of Ehren in extreme negative parallax space stereographically aligns us with his perspective as the victim of this force. The viewer is encouraged to share in Ehren’s physical pain, producing within them physical sensations such as flinching, wincing, or anticipatory anxiety. Such images require the viewer to situate themselves within the irregular 3-dimensional space, and therefore as the recipient of the textural manifestation of material force. The protrusion of stay objects into negative parallax, thus piercing the planar screen, heightens the intensity of these sensations.

Figure 5

The abundance of visceral sensations called upon in Jackass 3D in relation to the on-screen action employs haptic affect to encourage a spectatorship that extends beyond the optic. The feature thus exemplifies Marks’s theories of a cinema that “invite[s] the viewer to respond to the image in an intimate, embodied way, and thus facilitate the experience of other sensory impressions as well.”34 Phenomenological affect in stereoscopic cinema is rooted in man’s corporeal positioning in the physical world, which results in the individual perceiving the world through a bodily consciousness. Because the consciousness of each person is tied intrinsically to the body, perceptions are experienced by multiple senses simultaneously, rather by any single one in isolation. For example, seeing a particular fabric will automatically call to mind the experience of touching a similar fabric. This intermingling of the senses if described by Merleau-Ponty as the “unity of the senses.”35 Thus, the image of Ehren being hit by the football draws the attention of the spectator to the tactile sensation of a similar physical pain. The sense of touch is thereby interwoven with the sense of touch in the body-subject. The image of vomit projected onto the lens evokes the smell, revulsion, and watery eyes experienced when being in close physical proximity to actual vomit. Stereoscopic depth cues thus work in tandem with haptic images to intensify these intersensory interactions, resulting in a radically kinaesthetic engagement.

Jackass 3D fluctuates between images that are optically clear and those that are abstract and difficult to decipher, sometimes within a single sequence. One such example occurs in one of the film’s most stomach-churning moments, in which Steve-O and Dave England engage in a game of “Bee Tetherball.” During this scene, a beehive is tied to the string of a tetherball set, and the two performers bat it back and forth. The game is mostly covered in a single master shot, Steve-O being positioned in the foreground, stretching into negative parallax space, while Dave England is positioned on frame right in positive parallax (Figure 6). The batting motion of the players repeatedly juts the beehive into overt negative parallax space, before being hit back into positive parallax space. This creates an uneasy rhythm, as the beehive recurrently appears to puncture the planar screen and forcibly juts into auditorium space. The gulf between spectator and screen that would ordinarily ensure a safely distanced view of visual information is collapsed, positioning the viewer in proximity to extreme danger. As this is happening, stray bees fly around the diegesis of the screen, flying across various levels of planar depth. Although the stereoscopic images are, in fact, limited to a frontal screen, the employment of objects like the bees that move freely between various visual planes creates the impression that they could potentially circle the entire viewing body. This reinforces the 3-dimensionality of the stereoscopic field screen, thus encouraging an intensified sense of shared, haptic touch. As the game progresses, the two performers become stung, leaving visible red bruises on their body, appealing to the viewer’s sense of touch and encouraging them to feel a sensation of shared agony.

Dave England eventually flees in pain, and the scene cuts to a loose handheld tracking shot of him running across another part of the field (Figures 7-8). The motion of the camera is haphazard as it struggles to capture England’s frantic movement. As this is happening, the camera zooms in rapidly to reframe from an extreme wide shot to a tighter wide, the inter-axial distance increases, and there is a rapid shift in focus as the cameraman zeroes in on its subject. It is thus difficult for the viewer to orientate themselves spatially and grasp a full knowledge of the aesthetic constitution of the shot. The process of distinguishing these obscured images is difficult, encouraging a more bodily response that extends beyond the optical. While the former shot created abstract effects through the manipulation of depth cues within a static composition with clear spatial planes, here an aggressive haptic affect is communicated through obfuscation.

Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 8

To conclude, a reading of Jackass 3D through the lens of phenomenological analysis is effectual, as such an approach illuminates the ways in which the feature dispenses with the aspects of filmmaking traditionally perceived as essential to narrative cinema (a linear plot, continuity editing, clear spatial-temporal relations) in favour of an immersion within pure sensory phenomena. The film therefore engages the mimetic function in an especially violent manner. The viewer is thus encouraged to engage in an empathetic shared response with the masochistic performers featured in the film, resulting in a radically embodied mode of spectatorship. The viewer is placed within depth fields that encourage them to experience the rich multidimensional field screen in all of its material tangibility, positioning them in alignment with the material experiences of the on-screen performers in a manner impossible to capture in traditional planar film.

While the vast majority of successful mainstream films operate through fairly straightforward narrative modes that privilege continuity editing, linear plots, character identification, and safely contained affective spectatorship, Jackass 3D is noteworthy for its attempts to disrupt conventional structures of genealogy, narrative storytelling, and spatiotemporal relations. Through this analysis, I have complicated preconceived notions of the limitations of stereoscopic filmmaking and the conventional narratives regarding its development over the course of the 20th century. 3D cinema, then, is a dynamic artistic tool with the capacity to produce a great variety of unique creative effects and greatly reconfigure the relationship between viewer and film content. Considering how radically the medium breaks from conventional notions of film form that have governed criticism for decades, it is vital to establish new scholarly approaches that fully consider the unique nature of the mode.

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Images are screenshots from the film’s DVD.