The Virtual Life of Film

D. N. Rodowick

Published by Harvard University Press 2007

The Virtual Life of Film

D. N. Rodowick

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674042834

Overview
Contents

About this book

With the likely disappearance of celluloid film stock as a medium, and the emergence of new media, what will happen to cinema—and to cinema studies? Rodowick considers the fate of film and its role in the aesthetics and culture of the twenty-first century.

Reviews

Lucid and forceful, D.N. Rodowick persuasively argues for the enduring relevance of film theory in an age in which film, itself, has been enhanced, extended, and transformed by new media platforms and forms. Skeptical and dialectical, this profound and graceful meditation reconsiders the photographic ontology of cinema and concepts such as "medium," "virtuality," and "automatism"—its aim not only the preservation and expansion of film studies as a humanities discipline but also a recuperation of the important philosophical questions that have been foundational for film theory. This is "must" reading for anyone interested in understanding the nature and experience of the moving image.
-- Vivian Sobchack, Professor of Film, Television and Digital Media, University of California, Los Angeles

Calmly, intrepidly, Rodowick dives straight into the churning waters of The Virtual Life of Film. Just as cinema anchors new media, so film theory anchors these philosophical speculations that dare to imagine the digital untethered. Neither apocalyptic nor nostalgic, Rodowick appears equipoised as he explores what's behind and in front of this brave new media world.
-- Dudley Andrew, R. Selden Rose Professor of Film and Comparative Literature, Yale University

Over the years Rodowick has provided perhaps the most thorough readings and evaluations of contemporary, post-classical film theory any scholar has offered. The Virtual Life of Film offers his speculations about cinema's digital transformation. An important work, it raises vital issues...In the opening chapters Rodowick offers one of the most nuanced and complex descriptions of the photographic in cinema ever presented.
-- Tom Gunning Film Comment

There is much to stimulate, provoke and argue within a book that successfully taps into the scholarly Zeitgeist.
-- Ian Christie Times Higher Education Supplement

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Illustrations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
I. The virtual life of film Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
II. What was cinema? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
III. A new landscape (without image) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 216

eBook

Published: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 9780674042834