Conclusion

If we return to a tripartite model for cinematic forms that divides them into the traditional flat screen, the haptic cinema screen and the hyper-haptic 3D field screen, it should be clear by now that stereoscopic cinema’s operation as the last type of form is unique and distinct from the other two. However, it is never in opposition to or entirely separate from the traditional flat screen and the haptic cinema screen, but, rather, overlaps with them, borrowing from and contributing to diverse cinematic and visual culture formations. Stereoscopy’s hyper-haptic depth fields are just one part of a film’s multiple processes whereby engagement is fostered through visual fields, character identification, narrative and sound. In each film viewing there are multiple complex layers that produce meaning, affect, audience investment, and diverse pleasures and displeasures. Within this context there is no one type of 3D film, but, rather, multiple histories of stereoscopic moving images that reach back to the nineteenth century. Although the popular press often prefers a straightforward account of 3D cinema that develops through a number of boom and bust periods in the US, there is a global spread of 3D cinema histories that often interlink through the shared knowledge and development of stereoscopic technologies but equally diverge along idiosyncratic paths.