A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on the greatest movie directors of all time. I’ve received a lot of feedback and recommendations for directors that should have made the list, yet in all those suggestions, no one asked for one of the most commercially successful directors, a director with two films in the Criterion Collection to be added to the list—for some reason, no one thought Michael Bay should have made the cut.
Michael Bay is perhaps the most reviled director working in Hollywood today. He’s the go-to director for demonstrating the disparity in what makes money or appeals to the masses and what is appreciated by film critics. Yet I think in so quickly writing him off, in dismissing what he does and what he means, we miss out on the importance of Michael Bay and even some of the legitimate merit of his work.
To understand Bay, you have to begin before his career in movies. In 1986, Bay graduated from Wesleyan’s film school (where he studied alongside Joss Whedon) and promptly went to work as a director for TV commercials. In his illustrious short video career, he made ads for Nike, Levi, Miller Light, Victoria Secret, and the “Got Milk” campaign as well as music videos for Lionel Richie, Meatloaf, and Aerosmith. His work in this field became widely acclaimed, and he quickly became associated with his ability to make things look sleek and expensive.
Much of Bay’s later style can be traced back to these early days in commercials as well as his companions in the medium, specifically Tony Scott (best known for Top Gun) and David Fincher. Both of these influences, as well as Tony’s brother Ridley, are known for their dramatic cinematography through atmospheric lighting and strong use of color, which can be seen throughout Bay’s work. Bay also overlaps with Tony Scott in particular through their shared idealization of masculine men, love of the military, and disdain for governmental red-tape.
These tendencies are nowhere more evident than in Bay’s first three movies, 1995’s Bad Boys, 1996’s The Rock, and 1998’s Armageddon. In each of these, Bay demonstrates his commercial talents, taking a limited budget and producing dazzling visuals through creative lighting practices. In The Rock, we watch as the protagonist (Nicholas Cage) grows from a weak chemist into an alpha-action hero, and the film sympathizes with the villain, a marine general, as he nobly rebels against the ineffectual bureaucracy. Similarly in Armageddon, none of the scientists or politicians are able to save the planet and are forced to rely on a ragtag team of blue-collar workers.
As much as these three movies set the tone for what will inevitably be associated with Bayhem, Michael Bay’s next three projects represent the clearest arc in his career. In 2001’s Pearl Harbor, Bay attempts for the first time to take on serious material, delving into romance and characters, making a classic Hollywood film akin to the recent blockbuster Titanic. However, it didn’t take long in the production process for Bay to forego this challenge, something that proved to be far more awkward than he originally anticipated, and make a straightforward action flick with simple comedy—the style he’s shown to be most comfortable with. In his next film, 2003’s Bad Boys II, Bay has no pretense and makes what is perhaps his most “Bay” film to date, complete with immense carnage, up-skirt shots, rats having sex, and a cameo from Bay himself. The film that comes after this, 2005’s mostly forgotten The Island, is then Bay’s least Bay movie. It is significantly more restrained and represents a major departure from Bay’s usual work while maintaining some of his style. The Island is Bay’s only flop despite being his most mainstream effort.
This pigeonholing leads us into Bay’s current phase of work, the one most of us are familiar with: the Transformers era. These movies reintroduce a lot of the stylistic and thematic trends of Bay’s career—sexualization of women, ineffectual bureaucracy, lauded military personnel, slow motion, lens flares, visual parallax, explosions, etc. Each of the Transformers films has made an ungodly amount of money, thus guaranteeing Bay free license in all of his future endeavors. It is also worth noting that during this phase, between Transformers 3 and 4, Bay released Pain & Gain. Though in scale a major departure from Bay’s recent work, Pain & Gain demonstrates many of the hallmarks of his style as it attempts to mimic confessed idols, the Coen Brothers. The movie ultimately fails as it fetishizes the downfall of its characters but is significant for its aesthetics and color palette.
In learning the history of Bay’s career, his interests and his dispositions become painfully obvious. But to really understand Bay, you have to study his craft. And let me tell you, his technical work is complex.
In addition to the beauty of most of his shots, Bay is a master of creating momentum and scale in movies. He does this mostly by overlaying movement of the camera, the background, and the foreground. He also creates impressive scale in his shots by giving multiple layers of comparison and suggesting further content off-screen. A lot of this is achieved in singular shots, but he brings his creativeness to whole scenes as well.
A key to action scenes is coherency. The audience needs to be able to tell what’s going on for them to be able to enjoy the scene. That’s why this opening scene (skip to 0:45) to probably the worst recent Bond film is generally maligned:
The cutting is too frantic and the geography unclear. The audience can’t tell what’s happening or what’s going to happen, so they can’t feel suspense. Now, with a few exceptions, the same can be said of Michael Bay’s action scenes. Often the geography is confusing and the editing is jarring. But Bay makes up for this in a special way—a way that’s made him a lot of money—he crams everything else into the scene:
Though it’s hard to follow everything that’s going on, Bay delivers a scene with vibrant color, undeniable propulsion, fun characters, intense explosions—the scene is more instinctual and abstract than it is logical. It forgoes immersive logic in favor of immersive feeling.
This approach actually bears similarities to the work of Christopher Nolan (who has himself said that he admires the work of Michael Bay). Though it seems like there could not be filmmakers more different, Nolan—like Bay—prefers practical effects to CGI. They also both stage action similarly, which results in both directors’ films with amazing action if not also geographically confusing scenes.
Nolan and Bay’s similarities in blending practical and special effects lead into Bay’s ability to create convincing visuals. Check out this breakdown of his lighting technique and how it compares to other blockbusters.
Bay is a genuinely talented filmmaker or, at least, visual artist. His cinematography, in the color, lighting, framing, and movement, is all truly lovely. It is this skill that has separated Bay from his imitators—think Battleship and the recent Ninja Turtles movie. If Bay was an untalented hack, it wouldn’t be so hard for others to replicate his style.
Yet just as less talented directors have been unable to replicate Bay, so too has he been unable to replicate the directors he looks up to. This is because, as technically talented as the director is, he has neither the mind for story nor the heart for character. Since he doesn’t understand story, he is unable to pace that visual talent of his. He makes every scene as beautiful as he can. And when every shot is special, none of them are.
If it’s not clear, this is not actually a defense of Michael Bay. He is a gross and severely limited director, but he is also a technical genius. If you’re more interested in this sort of analysis, check out these videos on his technique and career. The more you pay attention to what Bay is doing, the harder it becomes to refuse his skill but the plainer it is that he is a child, making films for middle school boys.