Time, video, and the end of cinema

Abstract

The discussions of the end of cinema tend to privilege the emergence of digital technology as a turning point. In this paper, I argue for the centrality of the category of the “viewer”, which as a concept makes visible the essence of the medium of cinema. This essence is the preservation of time in which the viewer has a stake in relation to his or her memory. This then shows the limits for a possible discussion of the end of cinema. If there is a certain type of film that leaves no room for the spectator, then this could mark one sense of an end. I take the mainstream entertainment cinema that is based in staging a “spectacle” as an example. The temporality of cinema is also surpassed in the direction of video, which does not preserve time by constructing image-objects but participates in a time-matter in which all is already an image.

Keywords

• time
• audience
• spectacle
• video
• digital culture

References

1. Andrew, Dudley. (1984). Concepts in Film Theory Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. Andrew, Dudley (2009). Time Zones and Jetlag. In World Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives. London: Routledge.
3. Darley, Andrew. (2000). Visual Digital Culture. London: Routledge
4. Dienst, Richard. (1994). Still Life in Real Time: Theory After Television. Durham: DukeUniversity Press.
5. Lazarrato, Maurizio. (2008). Video, Flows, and Real Time. In Art and The Moving Image. London: Tate Publishing.
6. Niessen, Niels. (2011). Lives of Cinema: against its ‘death’. Screen, 52-3, 307-326.
7. Tarkovsky, Andrey. (2000). Sculpting In Time. Austin: University of Texas Press.