Spectacular Digital Effects: CGI and Contemporary Cinema - Hardcover

Whissel, Kristen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0822355744 ISBN 13: 9780822355748

Publisher: Duke University Press Books, 2014

Synopsis

By developing the concept of the "digital effects emblem," Kristen Whissel contributes a new analytic rubric to cinema studies. An "effects emblem" is a spectacular, computer-generated visual effect that gives stunning expression to a film's key themes. Although they elicit feelings of astonishment and wonder, effects emblems do not interrupt narrative, but are continuous with story and characterization and highlight the narrative stakes of a film. Focusing on spectacular digital visual effects in live-action films made between 1989 and 2011, Whissel identifies and examines four effects emblems: the illusion of gravity-defying vertical movement, massive digital multitudes or "swarms," photorealistic digital creatures, and morphing "plasmatic" figures. Across films such as Avatar, The Matrix, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jurassic Park, Titanic, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, these effects emblems heighten the narrative drama by contrasting power with powerlessness, life with death, freedom with constraint, and the individual with the collective.

About this title

Review:

"The narrative is engaging, and Whissel's analysis of the effects emblem makes a valuable contribution to the scholarly literature of the field. . . . Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty."--B. H McMillin "Choice "

"Whissel's book is an illuminating study and a reminder that onscreen spectacle can deliver philosophical as well as visceral heft."--Ben Kooyman"Media International Australia" (12/13/2016)

"Spectacular Digital Effects seeks to redeem oft-maligned computer-generated imagery in blockbuster cinema, arguing that the spectacle of digital effects enhances rather than detracts from the narrative. This aim is a much-needed move for balance in the field of media studies, and the conceptual framework, based in the historical study of emblems used in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, is a new and interesting way to think through digital effects."-- (04/01/2015)

"[B]y offering a focused analysis of the allegorical potential of effects sequences, Spectacular Digital Effects does more than expand a field that has recently received a great deal of attention in film and media studies. The book makes a valuable contribution to developing a new conversation about the complexities of spectacular effects in the cinema."-- (04/10/2015)

About the Author:

Kristen Whissel is Professor of Film and Media at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema, also published by Duke University Press.

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0822355744
• ISBN 13: 9780822355748
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224