Ariel Rogers
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231159173
- eISBN:
- 9780231535786
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231159173.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the industrial and critical discourses surrounding the increasing dominance of cinema by digital technologies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Discussions of digital cinema in ...
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This chapter examines the industrial and critical discourses surrounding the increasing dominance of cinema by digital technologies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Discussions of digital cinema in this period reflect two different trends. On one hand, there was a steady interest in big-budget digital visual effects with films like Titanic (1997), The Matrix (1999), and the first two Star Wars “prequels,” Star Wars: Episode 1—The Phantom Menace (1999) and Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones (2002). At the same time, there was a surge of interest in ultra-low budget filmmaking made possible by the introduction and popularization of high-quality, but inexpensive digital cameras and editing software. The concept of digital cinema was thus popularized as digital technology began to play a prominent role across the different components of production, postproduction, distribution, and exhibition.Less
This chapter examines the industrial and critical discourses surrounding the increasing dominance of cinema by digital technologies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Discussions of digital cinema in this period reflect two different trends. On one hand, there was a steady interest in big-budget digital visual effects with films like Titanic (1997), The Matrix (1999), and the first two Star Wars “prequels,” Star Wars: Episode 1—The Phantom Menace (1999) and Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones (2002). At the same time, there was a surge of interest in ultra-low budget filmmaking made possible by the introduction and popularization of high-quality, but inexpensive digital cameras and editing software. The concept of digital cinema was thus popularized as digital technology began to play a prominent role across the different components of production, postproduction, distribution, and exhibition.
Ariel Rogers
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231159173
- eISBN:
- 9780231535786
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231159173.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book looks at the effect of technological innovation on the cinema experience, specifically the introduction of widescreen and stereoscopic 3D systems in the 1950s, the rise of digital cinema in ...
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This book looks at the effect of technological innovation on the cinema experience, specifically the introduction of widescreen and stereoscopic 3D systems in the 1950s, the rise of digital cinema in the 1990s and the transition to digital 3D since 2005. It explains how widescreen cinema promised to draw the viewer into the world of the screen, enabling larger-than-life close-ups of already larger-than-life actors. This technology fostered the illusion of physically entering a film, enhancing the semblance of realism. It goes on to detail how the digital era has been less concerned with the viewer's physical response and more with information flow, awe, and the re-evaluation of spatiality and embodiment. This study ultimately shows how cinematic technology and the human experience shape and respond to each other over time.Less
This book looks at the effect of technological innovation on the cinema experience, specifically the introduction of widescreen and stereoscopic 3D systems in the 1950s, the rise of digital cinema in the 1990s and the transition to digital 3D since 2005. It explains how widescreen cinema promised to draw the viewer into the world of the screen, enabling larger-than-life close-ups of already larger-than-life actors. This technology fostered the illusion of physically entering a film, enhancing the semblance of realism. It goes on to detail how the digital era has been less concerned with the viewer's physical response and more with information flow, awe, and the re-evaluation of spatiality and embodiment. This study ultimately shows how cinematic technology and the human experience shape and respond to each other over time.
Ariel Rogers
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231159173
- eISBN:
- 9780231535786
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231159173.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter studies the aesthetic transformations accompanying the technological shift in the late 1990s, focusing on two films widely identified as watersheds for digital cinema: George Lucas's ...
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This chapter studies the aesthetic transformations accompanying the technological shift in the late 1990s, focusing on two films widely identified as watersheds for digital cinema: George Lucas's Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace (1999) and Thomas Vinterberg's The Celebration (1998). The pervasive and intricate use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in The Phantom Menace not only provoked a sense of awe in terms of its technological excellence, but also addressed contemporary concerns with the boundaries of human life, inviting viewers to marvel at its devaluation. While The Phantom Menace's use of CGI allows for the proliferation of detail, The Celebration's use of consumer-grade digital video cameras produces a low-resolution aesthetic, especially in long shots and low-light situations.Less
This chapter studies the aesthetic transformations accompanying the technological shift in the late 1990s, focusing on two films widely identified as watersheds for digital cinema: George Lucas's Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace (1999) and Thomas Vinterberg's The Celebration (1998). The pervasive and intricate use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in The Phantom Menace not only provoked a sense of awe in terms of its technological excellence, but also addressed contemporary concerns with the boundaries of human life, inviting viewers to marvel at its devaluation. While The Phantom Menace's use of CGI allows for the proliferation of detail, The Celebration's use of consumer-grade digital video cameras produces a low-resolution aesthetic, especially in long shots and low-light situations.
Ariel Rogers
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231159173
- eISBN:
- 9780231535786
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231159173.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines how the appeal of stereoscopic 3D was formulated in conjunction with its periods of popularity in the 1950s and its reappearance in 2005. The recent reemergence of 3D offers a ...
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This chapter examines how the appeal of stereoscopic 3D was formulated in conjunction with its periods of popularity in the 1950s and its reappearance in 2005. The recent reemergence of 3D offers a reconsideration of the claims made in the previous chapters, since it appears to simply repackage digitally a format that was often associated with widescreen in the 1950s. In particular, since both widescreen and stereoscopic 3D were, at that time, widely conceived as formats that aggressively addressed the viewers' bodies, the recent popularity of digital 3D might be seen as either a contradiction or simply a solution to the concerns about disembodiment that have been voiced in conjunction with the concept of digital cinema.Less
This chapter examines how the appeal of stereoscopic 3D was formulated in conjunction with its periods of popularity in the 1950s and its reappearance in 2005. The recent reemergence of 3D offers a reconsideration of the claims made in the previous chapters, since it appears to simply repackage digitally a format that was often associated with widescreen in the 1950s. In particular, since both widescreen and stereoscopic 3D were, at that time, widely conceived as formats that aggressively addressed the viewers' bodies, the recent popularity of digital 3D might be seen as either a contradiction or simply a solution to the concerns about disembodiment that have been voiced in conjunction with the concept of digital cinema.
Markos Hadjioannou
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816677610
- eISBN:
- 9781452947990
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816677610.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This book explores the relationship between celluloid modes and digital practices in the creation and perception of cinema’s images, as well as the implications of this technological transition for ...
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This book explores the relationship between celluloid modes and digital practices in the creation and perception of cinema’s images, as well as the implications of this technological transition for our relationship with the movie screen and with the models of recording, creating, and interacting with movies that have now become available. It considers the digital media’s distinct modes of production, projection, and reception, as it reconfigures rather than replaces celluloid modes of creation and interaction. As such, it focuses on digital cinema in search of those forms of expression and perception that present a new ontology of the cinematic—that is, as they change the existential relations between the movie image and the world it presents and with which it interacts. It also discusses the debate of digital cinema’s ontology, and the interrelationship between old and new media that is revealed in cinema cultures, as well as the way digital movies depict the world and engage with the individual. Finally, the book explains how we may go about addressing the question of technological change within media archaeologies.Less
This book explores the relationship between celluloid modes and digital practices in the creation and perception of cinema’s images, as well as the implications of this technological transition for our relationship with the movie screen and with the models of recording, creating, and interacting with movies that have now become available. It considers the digital media’s distinct modes of production, projection, and reception, as it reconfigures rather than replaces celluloid modes of creation and interaction. As such, it focuses on digital cinema in search of those forms of expression and perception that present a new ontology of the cinematic—that is, as they change the existential relations between the movie image and the world it presents and with which it interacts. It also discusses the debate of digital cinema’s ontology, and the interrelationship between old and new media that is revealed in cinema cultures, as well as the way digital movies depict the world and engage with the individual. Finally, the book explains how we may go about addressing the question of technological change within media archaeologies.
Igor Krstić
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474406864
- eISBN:
- 9781474421928
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474406864.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The chapter looks at contemporary depictions of slums in digital cinema. Joining recent scholarship (Nagib, Elsaesser, Rombes) that argues for a correlation between the advent of DV and a renewed ...
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The chapter looks at contemporary depictions of slums in digital cinema. Joining recent scholarship (Nagib, Elsaesser, Rombes) that argues for a correlation between the advent of DV and a renewed return to realism in world cinema, the author rejects the notion that the advent of digital technologies marks a ‘loss of indexicality’, as claimed by some (Rodowick; Manovich, Grusin). Instead, the author argues that today’s independent (festival, art or new wave) cinemas (e.g. Dogme 95) enter into a post-postmodern phase since they attempt to re-materialise the filmic signifiers, precisely by refashioning the filmmaking practices and principles of earlier movements such as Italian neorealism or cinéma vérité. To illustrate this, the chapter looks at how Manila’s slums have been represented by the filmmakers of the ‘Philippine New Wave’ (e.g. Mendoza) and at Pedro Costa’s Fontainhas Trilogy, which depicts a slum once located on the outskirts of Lisbon. The chapter concludes that these filmmakers use digital technologies, albeit very differently, to reanimate a political kind of cinema that has been declared dead, turning their films into acts of resistance to the digital confections of today’s entertainment industries as well as to the blatant social inequalities of our ‘planet of slums’.Less
The chapter looks at contemporary depictions of slums in digital cinema. Joining recent scholarship (Nagib, Elsaesser, Rombes) that argues for a correlation between the advent of DV and a renewed return to realism in world cinema, the author rejects the notion that the advent of digital technologies marks a ‘loss of indexicality’, as claimed by some (Rodowick; Manovich, Grusin). Instead, the author argues that today’s independent (festival, art or new wave) cinemas (e.g. Dogme 95) enter into a post-postmodern phase since they attempt to re-materialise the filmic signifiers, precisely by refashioning the filmmaking practices and principles of earlier movements such as Italian neorealism or cinéma vérité. To illustrate this, the chapter looks at how Manila’s slums have been represented by the filmmakers of the ‘Philippine New Wave’ (e.g. Mendoza) and at Pedro Costa’s Fontainhas Trilogy, which depicts a slum once located on the outskirts of Lisbon. The chapter concludes that these filmmakers use digital technologies, albeit very differently, to reanimate a political kind of cinema that has been declared dead, turning their films into acts of resistance to the digital confections of today’s entertainment industries as well as to the blatant social inequalities of our ‘planet of slums’.
Tilman Baumgartel (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9789888083602
- eISBN:
- 9789882209114
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083602.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
The rise of independent cinema in Southeast Asia, following the emergence of a new generation of filmmakers there, is among the most significant recent developments in global cinema. The advent of ...
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The rise of independent cinema in Southeast Asia, following the emergence of a new generation of filmmakers there, is among the most significant recent developments in global cinema. The advent of affordable and easy access to digital technology has empowered startling new voices from a part of the world rarely heard or seen in international film circles. The appearance of fresh, sharply alternative, and often very personal voices has had a tremendous impact on local film production. This book documents these developments as a genuine outcome of the democratization and liberalization of film production. Contributions from respected scholars, interviews with filmmakers, personal accounts and primary sources by important directors and screenwriters collectively provide readers with a lively account of dynamic film developments in Southeast Asia. Interviewees include Lav Diaz, Amir Muhammad, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Eric Khoo, Nia Dinata and others.Less
The rise of independent cinema in Southeast Asia, following the emergence of a new generation of filmmakers there, is among the most significant recent developments in global cinema. The advent of affordable and easy access to digital technology has empowered startling new voices from a part of the world rarely heard or seen in international film circles. The appearance of fresh, sharply alternative, and often very personal voices has had a tremendous impact on local film production. This book documents these developments as a genuine outcome of the democratization and liberalization of film production. Contributions from respected scholars, interviews with filmmakers, personal accounts and primary sources by important directors and screenwriters collectively provide readers with a lively account of dynamic film developments in Southeast Asia. Interviewees include Lav Diaz, Amir Muhammad, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Eric Khoo, Nia Dinata and others.
Tilman Baumgärtel
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9789888083602
- eISBN:
- 9789882209114
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083602.003.0013
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This article was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer in September 2006, and caused such uproar in the local film scene, that the newspaper felt obliged to print a number of statements by ...
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This article was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer in September 2006, and caused such uproar in the local film scene, that the newspaper felt obliged to print a number of statements by directors and producers in consecutive issues, that are documented in extracts here.Less
This article was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer in September 2006, and caused such uproar in the local film scene, that the newspaper felt obliged to print a number of statements by directors and producers in consecutive issues, that are documented in extracts here.
Ariel Rogers
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231159173
- eISBN:
- 9780231535786
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231159173.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book examines how the concepts used to describe and evaluate cinematic experience, such as realism and embodiment, were mobilized in conjunction with the coming of widescreen and stereoscopic 3D ...
More
This book examines how the concepts used to describe and evaluate cinematic experience, such as realism and embodiment, were mobilized in conjunction with the coming of widescreen and stereoscopic 3D in the 1950s, the emergence of digital cinema in the 1990s and early 2000s, and the diffusion of digital 3D since 2005. It locates cinematic experience in the interplay among the movie on the screen, the viewer, and the social and material structures that change how this encounter is understood and felt. Addressing how cinema appeals to viewers, especially during periods of major technological changes, also requires consideration of films and modes of representation that conspire to structure the viewers' encounters with cinema. Thus, the book also explores how the films themselves manifest and anticipate the technological changes.Less
This book examines how the concepts used to describe and evaluate cinematic experience, such as realism and embodiment, were mobilized in conjunction with the coming of widescreen and stereoscopic 3D in the 1950s, the emergence of digital cinema in the 1990s and early 2000s, and the diffusion of digital 3D since 2005. It locates cinematic experience in the interplay among the movie on the screen, the viewer, and the social and material structures that change how this encounter is understood and felt. Addressing how cinema appeals to viewers, especially during periods of major technological changes, also requires consideration of films and modes of representation that conspire to structure the viewers' encounters with cinema. Thus, the book also explores how the films themselves manifest and anticipate the technological changes.
Khavn de la Cruz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9789888083602
- eISBN:
- 9789882209114
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083602.003.0010
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
Four Manifestos by Filipino Independent Director Khavn de la Cruz
Four Manifestos by Filipino Independent Director Khavn de la Cruz
Ray Zone
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813124612
- eISBN:
- 9780813134796
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813124612.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introductory chapter discusses the four general periods through which the “grammar” of stereographic narrative has evolved. The four periods discussed are the Novelty Period, the Era of ...
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This introductory chapter discusses the four general periods through which the “grammar” of stereographic narrative has evolved. The four periods discussed are the Novelty Period, the Era of Convergence, the Immersive Era, and the era of Digital 3-D Cinema. It also states the main purposes of this book, one of which is to demonstrate the fundamental importance of stereography to the development of motion picture technology.Less
This introductory chapter discusses the four general periods through which the “grammar” of stereographic narrative has evolved. The four periods discussed are the Novelty Period, the Era of Convergence, the Immersive Era, and the era of Digital 3-D Cinema. It also states the main purposes of this book, one of which is to demonstrate the fundamental importance of stereography to the development of motion picture technology.
Ray Zone
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813136110
- eISBN:
- 9780813141183
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813136110.003.0023
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The historical basis in fact for the beginnings of digital 3D cinema are traced along with its first announcement to the motion picture industry in 2005. Artistic possibilities and technical issues ...
More
The historical basis in fact for the beginnings of digital 3D cinema are traced along with its first announcement to the motion picture industry in 2005. Artistic possibilities and technical issues of quality 3D presentation in digital cinema are surveyed.Less
The historical basis in fact for the beginnings of digital 3D cinema are traced along with its first announcement to the motion picture industry in 2005. Artistic possibilities and technical issues of quality 3D presentation in digital cinema are surveyed.
Tilman Baumgärtel
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9789888083602
- eISBN:
- 9789882209114
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083602.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
The article gives an overview of the recent upsurge of independent cinema in Southeast Asia. I argue that these films are examples of a new transnational cinema forthe lack of alternative: as the ...
More
The article gives an overview of the recent upsurge of independent cinema in Southeast Asia. I argue that these films are examples of a new transnational cinema forthe lack of alternative: as the political and social situation in the countries where they have been made does not allow for their inclusion into the mainstream of the national cinema, they have turned to an international market to find an audience. I argue that a new generation of film-makers has been empowered by the easy and cheap access to digital video. Thanks to digital cinema technology, film-makersfrom South East Asia have the opportunity to produce their alternative and often very personal works. Using Arjun Appadurai's influential essay ‘Disjuncture and Difference’ (1996) as a theoretical framework, I discuss some of the specific traits of recent independent films from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore and the Philippines, and point out their genuinely transnational nature with regard to distribution and reception.Less
The article gives an overview of the recent upsurge of independent cinema in Southeast Asia. I argue that these films are examples of a new transnational cinema forthe lack of alternative: as the political and social situation in the countries where they have been made does not allow for their inclusion into the mainstream of the national cinema, they have turned to an international market to find an audience. I argue that a new generation of film-makers has been empowered by the easy and cheap access to digital video. Thanks to digital cinema technology, film-makersfrom South East Asia have the opportunity to produce their alternative and often very personal works. Using Arjun Appadurai's influential essay ‘Disjuncture and Difference’ (1996) as a theoretical framework, I discuss some of the specific traits of recent independent films from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore and the Philippines, and point out their genuinely transnational nature with regard to distribution and reception.
Ray Zone
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780813136110
- eISBN:
- 9780813141183
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813136110.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The introductory Prologue defines four separate eras for the evolution of stereoscopic cinema. A prior volume examined the Novelty Period for 3D films. The present volume considers the three ...
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The introductory Prologue defines four separate eras for the evolution of stereoscopic cinema. A prior volume examined the Novelty Period for 3D films. The present volume considers the three subsequent epochs of stereo cinema with 1) the Era of Convergence, 2) the Age of Immersion and 3) Digital 3D cinema.Less
The introductory Prologue defines four separate eras for the evolution of stereoscopic cinema. A prior volume examined the Novelty Period for 3D films. The present volume considers the three subsequent epochs of stereo cinema with 1) the Era of Convergence, 2) the Age of Immersion and 3) Digital 3D cinema.
Tilman Baumgärtel
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9789888083602
- eISBN:
- 9789882209114
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083602.003.0016
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
Interview with Lav Diaz
Thomas Elsaesser
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- October 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190600181
- eISBN:
- 9780190600211
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190600181.003.0015
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, Comparative Politics
This chapter uses Melancholia as a case study for two related issues. First, it aligns a typically European “sense of an ending”—about the sustainability of a certain way of life—with epochal shifts ...
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This chapter uses Melancholia as a case study for two related issues. First, it aligns a typically European “sense of an ending”—about the sustainability of a certain way of life—with epochal shifts in the cinema’s self-understanding as a realist medium, now “in collision” with the cold and lunar images of digital cinema. Second, the chapter tries to show how this crisis nonetheless gives rise to a sense of hope, insofar as an altered status is proposed for European cinema, namely that of a “thought experiment.” At once speculative and self-reflexive, von Trier’s cinema as thought experiment invites and accommodates a variety of hermeneutic approaches. It permits one to “think the unthinkable” while adhering to systemic constraints and sets up rules that redefine what we understand by “realism” and “reference.”Less
This chapter uses Melancholia as a case study for two related issues. First, it aligns a typically European “sense of an ending”—about the sustainability of a certain way of life—with epochal shifts in the cinema’s self-understanding as a realist medium, now “in collision” with the cold and lunar images of digital cinema. Second, the chapter tries to show how this crisis nonetheless gives rise to a sense of hope, insofar as an altered status is proposed for European cinema, namely that of a “thought experiment.” At once speculative and self-reflexive, von Trier’s cinema as thought experiment invites and accommodates a variety of hermeneutic approaches. It permits one to “think the unthinkable” while adhering to systemic constraints and sets up rules that redefine what we understand by “realism” and “reference.”
Mark Bernard
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748685493
- eISBN:
- 9781474406444
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748685493.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the Saw films as they appear on DVD and how they differ from other horror films. American journalists often included the creative minds of the Saw series — James Wan, Leigh ...
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This chapter examines the Saw films as they appear on DVD and how they differ from other horror films. American journalists often included the creative minds of the Saw series — James Wan, Leigh Whannell and Darren Lynn Bousman — in the Splat Pack. Any analysis of the Splat Pack and its relation to media industries would be incomplete without a consideration of the Saw films because, out of all the films in the Splat Pack cycle, they are the most concerned with media. The Saw films are designed to resemble interactive, new media products that encourage audience interaction, employing storytelling techniques shaped by new media. Yet these films are uniquely suited for the DVD platform, where their cyberintimations are given full digital expression. The chapter considers how the Saw films are plugged into two new media iterations of Tom Gunning's idea of a ‘cinema of attractions’: the DVD as ‘digital theme park’ and YouTube as a digital cinema of attractions.Less
This chapter examines the Saw films as they appear on DVD and how they differ from other horror films. American journalists often included the creative minds of the Saw series — James Wan, Leigh Whannell and Darren Lynn Bousman — in the Splat Pack. Any analysis of the Splat Pack and its relation to media industries would be incomplete without a consideration of the Saw films because, out of all the films in the Splat Pack cycle, they are the most concerned with media. The Saw films are designed to resemble interactive, new media products that encourage audience interaction, employing storytelling techniques shaped by new media. Yet these films are uniquely suited for the DVD platform, where their cyberintimations are given full digital expression. The chapter considers how the Saw films are plugged into two new media iterations of Tom Gunning's idea of a ‘cinema of attractions’: the DVD as ‘digital theme park’ and YouTube as a digital cinema of attractions.
Martine Beugnet
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748676118
- eISBN:
- 9780748695096
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748676118.003.0012
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter, written by Martine Beugnet, responds to the common complaint that watching movies on a smartphone is ‘uncinematic’, and investigates precisely the cinematicity particular to such ...
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This chapter, written by Martine Beugnet, responds to the common complaint that watching movies on a smartphone is ‘uncinematic’, and investigates precisely the cinematicity particular to such devices. While, for instance, the tiny screen of an iPhone is paradigmatic of spectatorial habits in the digital age, it is equally redolent of the kinetoscope’s peephole apparatus prior to the emergence of the film theatre. Although the very antithesis of the collective viewing practices of cinema audiences, the iPhone as a screening device envelops these practices within a broader and more individuated experience of cinematicity. Beugnet proposes to leave the debate about ‘proper’ ways of screening films to one side, and to concentrate instead on the specific characteristics of watching films on very small screens and with sound-isolating devices. Drawing on haptic theories of visuality as well as on the history and aesthetics of miniature art forms and the curio, the chapter examines issues of mobility, manipulability and distracted-versus-attentive viewing, before focusing on the effect of miniaturization on the film image itself.Less
This chapter, written by Martine Beugnet, responds to the common complaint that watching movies on a smartphone is ‘uncinematic’, and investigates precisely the cinematicity particular to such devices. While, for instance, the tiny screen of an iPhone is paradigmatic of spectatorial habits in the digital age, it is equally redolent of the kinetoscope’s peephole apparatus prior to the emergence of the film theatre. Although the very antithesis of the collective viewing practices of cinema audiences, the iPhone as a screening device envelops these practices within a broader and more individuated experience of cinematicity. Beugnet proposes to leave the debate about ‘proper’ ways of screening films to one side, and to concentrate instead on the specific characteristics of watching films on very small screens and with sound-isolating devices. Drawing on haptic theories of visuality as well as on the history and aesthetics of miniature art forms and the curio, the chapter examines issues of mobility, manipulability and distracted-versus-attentive viewing, before focusing on the effect of miniaturization on the film image itself.
Garrett Stewart
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226201214
- eISBN:
- 9780226201351
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226201351.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Long before the 2013 NSA scandal about electronic surveillance, narrative cinema had become a weathervane of social phobias in regard to national security, drawing on a long history of surveillance ...
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Long before the 2013 NSA scandal about electronic surveillance, narrative cinema had become a weathervane of social phobias in regard to national security, drawing on a long history of surveillance both as theme and as audiovisual machination that saw its first heyday with the Weimar cinema of Fritz Lang. This book’s analytic return to apparatus theory, and especially to suture theory’s contrapuntal logic of seeing unseen, contributes to a new view of digital optics in this regard: one of contemporary cinema’s most urgent cultural as well as technological flashpoints. By comparison with the prose treatment of audiovisual surveillance in George Orwell and John le Carré, this “narratographic” analysis of some three dozen films moves from Lang’s M (1931) to Rear Window (1954) and on to Lang’s own last film, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960), including Peeping Tom from the same year, and from there through The Conversation (1974) to Caché (2005) and beyond to the latest Bourne film (2012). Backed by major cinema theorists from Jean-Pierre Oudart through Gilles Deleuze to Jacques Rancière, investigation probes the medium-deep relation of screen framing to various modes of regulatory supervision and constraint, as climaxed in such post-9/11 fantasies of retroactive time-travel surveillance and its resulting terrorist interception as Deja Vu (2006) and Source Code (2011). The book’s subtitle thus indicates three fields of consideration in media studies that telescope into a single phrase of interlinked and overlapping visualizations whenever cinema locks down on the coterminous framing of e-spionage and screen montage.Less
Long before the 2013 NSA scandal about electronic surveillance, narrative cinema had become a weathervane of social phobias in regard to national security, drawing on a long history of surveillance both as theme and as audiovisual machination that saw its first heyday with the Weimar cinema of Fritz Lang. This book’s analytic return to apparatus theory, and especially to suture theory’s contrapuntal logic of seeing unseen, contributes to a new view of digital optics in this regard: one of contemporary cinema’s most urgent cultural as well as technological flashpoints. By comparison with the prose treatment of audiovisual surveillance in George Orwell and John le Carré, this “narratographic” analysis of some three dozen films moves from Lang’s M (1931) to Rear Window (1954) and on to Lang’s own last film, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960), including Peeping Tom from the same year, and from there through The Conversation (1974) to Caché (2005) and beyond to the latest Bourne film (2012). Backed by major cinema theorists from Jean-Pierre Oudart through Gilles Deleuze to Jacques Rancière, investigation probes the medium-deep relation of screen framing to various modes of regulatory supervision and constraint, as climaxed in such post-9/11 fantasies of retroactive time-travel surveillance and its resulting terrorist interception as Deja Vu (2006) and Source Code (2011). The book’s subtitle thus indicates three fields of consideration in media studies that telescope into a single phrase of interlinked and overlapping visualizations whenever cinema locks down on the coterminous framing of e-spionage and screen montage.
Markos Hadjioannou
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816677610
- eISBN:
- 9781452947990
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816677610.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This book has explored the technological specificities of the digital without defining them as technological determinisms. Rather than see the transition from celluloid to digital cinema as a ...
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This book has explored the technological specificities of the digital without defining them as technological determinisms. Rather than see the transition from celluloid to digital cinema as a contrasting or distinctive rupture in the theory of visual media, it has considered the new technology as a different setting of formal and conceptual structures that reflect on, and constantly interact with, a celluloid environment. It has shown how aesthetic and narrative constructions that had been developed long before the arrival of new media in cinema have become part of new creative explorations, instead of vanishing. In trying to interpret the technological change brought about by the transition from celluloid film to digital media in the production, distribution, and reception of moving images, the book has discussed the theories of Charles Sanders Peirce, André Bazin, and Roland Barthes on photographic and filmic indexicality, as well as Gilles Deleuze’s concept of “time-image.” It has also analyzed aspects of materiality, spatiality, and temporality through the prism of the interrelationship between image and subject.Less
This book has explored the technological specificities of the digital without defining them as technological determinisms. Rather than see the transition from celluloid to digital cinema as a contrasting or distinctive rupture in the theory of visual media, it has considered the new technology as a different setting of formal and conceptual structures that reflect on, and constantly interact with, a celluloid environment. It has shown how aesthetic and narrative constructions that had been developed long before the arrival of new media in cinema have become part of new creative explorations, instead of vanishing. In trying to interpret the technological change brought about by the transition from celluloid film to digital media in the production, distribution, and reception of moving images, the book has discussed the theories of Charles Sanders Peirce, André Bazin, and Roland Barthes on photographic and filmic indexicality, as well as Gilles Deleuze’s concept of “time-image.” It has also analyzed aspects of materiality, spatiality, and temporality through the prism of the interrelationship between image and subject.
