Cinema in the Digital Age PDF
Preview Cinema in the Digital Age
Does the digital era spell the death of cinema as we know it, or its rebirth? Or C the emergence of something else entirely? Cinema in the Digital Age examines i n the fate of cinema in this new era, paying special attention not only to the e technologies that are reshaping film, but to the cultural meaning of those m technologies. Examining Festen (1998), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Timecode a (2000), Russian Ark (2002), The Ring (2002) and others, this volume explores how i n such films are haunted by their own analogue pasts, and suggests that their signature element is not digital perfection but rather deliberate imperfections t h that take the form of blurry or pixilated images, shaky camera work and other e elements that remind viewers that human beings made these films. Weaving D together a rich variety of sources, Cinema in the Digital Age is a deeply humanistic i look at the meaning of cinematic images in the era of digital perfection. g i t a l NICHOLAS ROMBES is Chair of the English Department at the University of A Detroit Mercy. He is the author of The Ramones (2005) and editor of New Punk g Cinema (2005), as well as a writer of numerous articles on cinema and culture. e Cinema in the Digital Age Nicholas Rombes N i c h o l a s R o m b e s www.wallflowerpress.co.uk COVER IMAGE WALLFLOWER The Ring (2002) WALLFLOWER Film Studies © Dreamworks LLC cinema in the digital age-cover.indd 1 8/9/11 11:36:58 Cinema in the Digital Age CinemaintheDigtalAge_pages.indb 1 9/3/09 22:43:40 CinemaintheDigtalAge_pages.indb 2 9/3/09 22:43:41 Cinema in the Digital Age Nicholas Rombes WALLFLOWER PRESS LONDON & NEW YORK CinemaintheDigtalAge_pages.indb 3 9/3/09 22:43:41 A Wallflower Book Published by Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York • Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © Nicholas Rombes 2009 All rights reserved. A complete CIP record is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 978-1-905674-86-2 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-905674-85-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-231-50148-4 (e-book) Book design by Elsa Mathern Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. This book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 00 prelims (original).indd 4 06/10/2011 10:07 Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 The Adorno Paradox 13 Against Method 14 Analogue/Digital Splice 16 Boredom and Analogue Nostalgia 19 The Digital Spectacular 21 Disposable Aesthetics 23 DV Humanism 25 Filmless Films 31 Frame Dragging 34 The Ideology Of The Long Take 38 Image/Text 41 Incompleteness 43 Interfaces 45 iPod Experiment 49 Ironic Mode 51 Looking At Yourself Looking: Avatar As Spectator 55 Media As Its Own Theory 59 Mobile Viewing 65 Moving Space In The Frame, And A Note On Film Theory 67 v CinemaintheDigtalAge_pages.indb 5 9/3/09 22:43:42 Natural Time 69 Nonlinear 73 Pausing 75 Punk 79 Realism 81 Real Time 84 The Real You 88 Remainders 90 Sampling 97 Secondary Becomes Primary 99 Self-deconstructing Narratives 101 Shaky Camera 105 Shoot! [Si Gira] 107 Simultaneous Cinema 109 Small Screens 120 Target Video 122 Time, Memory 124 Time-Shifting 126 Tmesis: Skimming And Skipping 130 Undirected Films 132 Viewer Participation 140 Virtual Humanism: Part 1 142 Virtual Humanism: Part 2 148 Visible Language, Spring 1977 154 Filmography 157 Bibliography 161 vi CinemaintheDigtalAge_pages.indb 6 9/3/09 22:43:42 ‘Assuredly, then, this world is a lie’ – Herman Melville, Pierre, 1852 ‘The Importance of Doing Things Badly’ – Essay by I. A. Williams, 1923 ‘By exchanging digital signals, zeros and ones, these life forms were able to manipulate more and more information. As a result, their survival rate went up. It was unmistakable: they’d acquired language.’ – Koji Suzuki, Loop, 1998 ‘Mistakism’ – term used by Harmony Korine, 2001 ‘I pressed Pause and enlarged the image again.’ – Bret Easton Ellis, Lunar Park, 2005 vii CinemaintheDigtalAge_pages.indb 7 9/3/09 22:43:42 CinemaintheDigtalAge_pages.indb 8 9/3/09 22:43:42 Acknowledgements I am grateful to many people at the University of Detroit Mercy – faculty, students and administrators – whose support and intellectual curiosity have made the writing of this book possible. I am especially fortunate for my colleagues in the Depart- ment of English, as well as Stephen Manning in Political Science, who have helped in various ways. Our many conversations over the years have helped to shape and test the ideas in this book. Dean Charles Marske, of the College of Liberal Arts and Education, has been supportive of this project from the beginning. The students in my film classes have always been open to detecting the nearly invisible boundaries of ideology and I am thankful for their presence in my life. This project was partially supported by funding from the Mellon Funds for Humanistic Studies, University of Detroit Mercy, for which I am grateful. There are several people whose writing has meant a lot to me over the years, including Marcel O’Gorman and Alejandro Adams. Deep gratitude goes to the many people at Wallflower Press, especially Yoram Allon and Jacqueline Downs, whose careful attention to the book undoubtedly made it stronger. I am also deeply grate- ful to Yoram for taking a chance on the non-traditional structure, and sometimes tone, of the book. Most of all, I am grateful for the blessings of my family. My mom and dad provid- ed a loving home where I was encouraged to ask the bigger questions. My children, Maddy and Niko: watching episodes of Twin Peaks with you at the end of our busy days is something I will never forget. And to my wife, Lisa: you are my beautiful mystery. ix CinemaintheDigtalAge_pages.indb 9 9/3/09 22:43:42
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