The End of Cinema?: A Medium in Crisis in the Digital Age (Film and Culture Series) - Hardcover

Gaudreault, André

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0231173563 ISBN 13: 9780231173568

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 2015

Synopsis

Is a film watched on a video screen still cinema? Have digital compositing, motion capture, and other advanced technologies remade or obliterated the craft? Rooted in their hypothesis of the "double birth of media," Andre Gaudreault and Philippe Marion take a positive look at cinema's ongoing digital revolution and reaffirm its central place in a rapidly expanding media landscape. The authors begin with an overview of the extreme positions held by opposing camps in the debate over cinema: the "digitalphobes" who lament the implosion of cinema and the "digitalphiles" who celebrate its new, vital incarnation. Throughout, they remind readers that cinema has never been a static medium but a series of processes and transformations powering a dynamic art. From their perspective, the digital revolution is the eighth major crisis in the history of motion pictures, with more disruptions to come. Brokering a peace among all sides, Gaudreault and Marion emphasize the cultural practice of cinema over rigid claims on its identity, moving toward a common conception of cinema to better understand where it is headed next.

About this title

Review:

Gaudreault and Marion make a nuanced argument for rethinking the very nature and impact of the digital revolution on cinema. Their book is an unusually thorough and balanced analysis. It should be required reading.--Richard Abel, University of Michigan

Readable and refreshingly entertaining.--Philip Kemp "Times Higher Education "

Anyone involved in the debates surrounding the shift from 35mm film stock to digital production practices and exhibition formats will need to confront André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion's arguments. A provocative and timely book, the authors remind viewers that the 'cinema' has never been a static technology.--Richard Neupert, University of Georgia

This thought-provoking volume... will appeal mostly to scholars and serious students of film.--Choice

About the Author:

Andre Gaudreault is a professor in the department of art history and cinema studies at the Universite de Montreal, where he is director of GRAFICS and director of the journal Cinemas. His books include From Plato to Lumiere: Narration and Monstration in Literature and Cinema; Film and Attraction: From Kinematography to Cinema; American Cinema, 1890-1909: Themes and Variations; and A Companion to Early Cinema. Philippe Marion is a professor at the Universite catholique de Louvain. His research focuses on the fields of media narratology and the comparative analysis of media and media discourses. His books include Traces en cases: travail graphique, figuration narrative et participation du lecteur; L'Annee des medias 1996, L'Annee des medias 1997 and L'Annee des medias 1998; and Schuiten filiation.

About this edition

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0231173563
• ISBN 13: 9780231173568
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256