The Politics Behind the Digital Technology in Films

Not wanting to simply regurgitate for you guys what was being presented when I attended the 2009 Dennis Turner Memorial Lecture given by Professor Garrett Stewart, I was afraid I might have to because I couldn't think of anything to link it to something dealing with our class discussion. That is, until the very end when the question and answer session came about.

Just to give you a brief summary, the lecture was entitled “Cinema’s Digital Turn” and it dealt with the history of film and how in it's early days it stemmed from still photographs. The process of photography has been and continues to be included in the filming process today. He went on to describe the various ways of representing images and filming techniques from celluloid to computer generated animation to digital methods showing examples of each as he went along while reminding the listeners that such representations are symbolic. That is, cinema is a symbolic representation of images. Stewart went on to explain that the power of the viewer is incorporated into the filming process. This basically means that the viewer has the power to rewind, fast forward, and create a still frame. This process, he explained, is psychic as well as mechanical. This lead him to his over all point of how portable digital media, particularly hand held digital cameras, have changed the way films are produced as well as viewed. This refers to the fact that the audiences as well as the characters become viewers when examining films within films.

The concept of filming inside films allows the audience to see the film through the eyes of those characters doing the filming. This creates anachronisms within narratives, which refers to the discrepancy between the order of events in a story and the order in which they are presented in the plot. Anachronisms are basically flashbacks and flash forwards. He goes on to mention that this has been a cinematic trend of the last decade and a half citing movies like "The Valley of Elah" and "Jarhead" as examples of such methods. In both movies digital devices were used within the movies altering how we view films. This trend, as Stewart pointed out, has been more prevalent in films dealing with war and particularly terrorism. Real life soldiers have this technology available to them and this is depicted in these films giving the films elements similar to those of documentaries making them seem more real. Filming inside films also creates paranoia of surveillance as well as adding the element of a shapeless narrative or a purposelessness of the footage within the film. There isn't a plot in the films inside films, only a circle of violence and terrorism. This is a perfect example of using technology to make a political statement.

So what does all this mean when it comes to our purposes?

Someone asked the question if the technology in which films are made (celluloid or digital) makes a difference in how we view or interpret films? He mentioned that there are various ways we can express the written word listing some of the ways ranging from a pen, pencil, quilt pen, typewriter, to movable print. Does this change how we encounter or understand the written word? Recollecting our online discussion of last week's reading dealing with the studies of the National Endowment of the Arts, does the medium in which we encounter books make a difference when it comes to our reading of the text?

In her summary to our online discussion, Dr. Maruca stated:

How is this different? How do we know this it is different? Very little research has been done (some is just starting) on how screen reading might be different from paper reading. Is it a physical difference in cognitive processes, a behavioral one (linking and scanning), are we just talking about different genres of writing (posts vs. chapters, for example)—or are all of the above interconnected in convoluted and complex ways? The NEA, in its quest for simplicity and measurable outcomes, ignores this still nebulous area of screen reading, but with their assumption that what one does on the Internet is not reading, they basically exclude a large and growing category of literacy.

For films, as for the written word, there is no difference in the narrative or perhaps the meaning of the narrative, however there is a difference in how we experience the narrative. That in itself makes it different.


The following were handouts that were passed at the lecture.