Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener’s discussion on “Digital Cinema and Film Theory Digital Cinema” seems less captivating and less original than earlier chapters, which resemble a literature review that weaves together the theories of Lev Manovich, Vivian Sobcheck, Jay David Bolter, Richard Grusin, and Henry Jenkins. Considering the intertwining of different theories, I sense a profound uncertainty within Elsaesser and Hagener’s perspective, prompting more questions than answers in a rapidly shifting world.
“Digital Cinema and Film Theory Digital Cinema” shifts away from film theory, instead emphasizing film’s role within the broader media context. Film is integrated into a larger discourse, becoming one of the interconnected elements of media theory. The main contribution of this chapter lies in this perspective. A significant limitation of film theory is its singular focus on the film itself, which hinders the opportunity to interconnect with other media forms. The development of digital cinema has forced film scholars to leap out of the deep chasm of cinema’s single medium. Digital cinema, compared with celluloid cinema, dismantles the continuity, reconfigures the relationship between film and spectator, amplifies the senses of the viewers, and blurs the boundaries between filmmakers and receivers with technology. The paradox is constantly evolving in the process of digital cinema’s development. On the one hand, the rise of digital cinema combined with the increase of self-generated media makes Video Essays possible, which allows the viewer as a producer and opens up a public sphere of cultural productions.
On the other hand, digital cinema signifies a “change inside out” in the film industry, reshaping how movies are recorded, perceived, exhibited, and indexed. Digital effects now serve as the “digital foundation” for film design, as software has supplanted traditional hardware, redefining the ontology of cinema. Software impacts not only the image creation process through compositing and editing but also transforms the viewer’s experience with elements such as interactivity, streaming, and non-linear viewing.
From my perspective, the chapter exhibits a unique ambiguity and uncertainty not commonly found throughout the book. While this ambiguity may be inappropriate for academic writing, it undeniably reflects an anxiety stemming from the swift technological advancements of our time.
Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory makes the theorizing of cinema even more challenging. The core of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is an attempt to break with the bias of Anthropocentrism in traditional sociology by arguing that non-human objects, technologies, and natural phenomena are also actors rather than just passive tools or contexts. The digital cinema can be seen as a “hybrid”: it is both a product of software and algorithms, and a cultural practice with filmmakers’ agency and viewer’s interpretation. According to Actor-network-theory, software is also an actor, and its autonomy has somehow been extended to the real world. Not only are the protagonists in the movie transformed from physical images of people photographed on film to humanoids created by software but also the real-world human bodies are gradually transformed into a kind of hybrid. As Sobchack examines in her essay “The Cinesthetic Subject, or Vision in the Flesh – Senses of Cinema”, viewers perceive the film using multiple senses. As the perceiving subject, the audience can understand the film through a bodily visual experience, experiencing a sense of dual presence—both what is seen on the screen and the perception in one’s own body. Digital cinema enhances the film’s attractions by engaging the audience’s senses through the activity created by actor-network, software, machines, filmmakers, and viewers. When Marshall McLuhan claimed that the medium extends human perception, he likely could not have foreseen how this extension would evolve into a dependency so profound that individuals would struggle to disengage from the overwhelming sensory stimulation the medium offers.
The insecurity of Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener’s writing also connects to the limitations of the discourse. As Gilles Deleuze points out, perhaps what follows in film theory should be that cinema can be philosophized in unique ways. The film can not only present extended thought experiments or explicate philosophical concepts, but it can be philosophy. However, film theory is required to develop an updated discourse that is consociated with this tendency. Or, as Vivian Sobchack puts it, “If semantics meets its limit here, a phenomenology of imagination could perhaps take over.”
Reference:
Elsaesser, Thomas., Hagener, Malte. Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses. United Kingdom: Routledge, 2010.
Sobchack, Vivian. “What My Fingers Knew: The Cinesthetic Subject, or Vision in the Flesh.” In Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture, 1st ed., 53–84. University of California Press, 2004.
shuqin Yan 
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