Film Networks and the Place(s) of Technology

Interrogation of the complex links between film networks and technology is a recent and promising trend within cinematic geography that moves beyond concerns with relative accuracies of place representation, reel-real distinctions, and singularly focused textual readings associated with constructions of place. This chapter contributes to the emergent dialogue by regarding film and technology as part of a broad, relational network comprised of diverse objects and knowledges, such that they can be read both as a product of processes and as being productive of other processes. The nature of this complex and multiscale network is examined by providing an assessment of interrelations that bind film financiers, producers, distributors, personnel, viewers, and public institutions into a series of smaller and still-complex networks, all of which are deeply embedded within a varied array of economic, political, and cultural settings. Three examples within this larger field are explored within such a frame: the early years of film, the Hollywood System, and “global” cinema and its discontents. The key features of each are considered in terms of its relationality between the components of each network to the larger system, and in terms of the respective technological apparatus brought to bear in their respective realizations.