direction through technical artifacts, creating a ‘synthetic world perceived by
the spectator’ (Eisenstein, 2002: 44-45).
Technological innovation in cinema should not only be understood as
an altruistic or artistic outcome to improve film technology; it is essentially a
capitalist impulse that combines the generation of profit with the fulfilment
of human needs. Sound, colour or digital imagery would not have succeeded
had the audience not enjoyed them. The conclusion is double, both economic
and social: new technology cannot succeed unless the economic system
requires it and, on the other hand, new technology must fulfil a social need.
In the particular case of cinema, this need can be identified with the creation
of (un)realism (Buscombe, 1978: 5).
In parallel, we find that the use of cameras and the reproduction of
films have changed substantially in recent times. Digital cameras are
affordable for a significant majority of society, offering good quality for
making films and consequently ‘democratizing’ the concept of cinema. Today
everybody can potentially make a film and show it on the Internet or through
mobile phones. Cinema is not such a privileged art anymore; it is open to the
public. Therefore, technology has contributed to opposing stages in the
history of cinema: making the creation of cinema first an elitist and then an
open, democratic medium.
Filmmakers such as Jordan Belson and Stan Brakhage suggest that
technology in cinema works as an extension of human psychology and
physiology. The images projected on the screen are, in some sense, an
appendix of the inner human mind. In fact, the rhythm of a film is 24 frames
per second in accordance with the cadence of the brain waves, imitating, in
this way, human perception. A similar observation can be made about the
editing process because it can be seen to emulate the structure of memories
(Hendriks 2004: 3). After all, the mere act of watching a film means
‘abandoning our body’ and accepting an experience without corporeal
satisfaction of our senses. Cinema has the ability to ‘evade’ us from ourselves
and consequently facilitates the feeling of confusion about the
reality/unreality of our perception.
- 66 -