Since the concept of “post-cinema” was put forward by Francesco Casetti in the 20th century, the experience of the film has also been constantly changing, due to the replacement of photography methods, the more and more extensive ways of audience consumption of film, and most importantly, the There is a change in media and information communication technology. The last aspect mentioned here can refer to the ‘digital theory’ mentioned by Henry Jenkins in the book <Film Theory: An Introduction>. (2017)Although this book was published in 2000, he seems to have predicted what happened in the 21st century. In the context of the digital age of the 21st century, digital technology and image production are fully integrated and developed, and they continue to evolve with practice. Today, “post-cinema” does not only focus on the changes in digital technology for image production. It also focuses on the evolution and development of the narrative plot.

We are in the digital age, and narratives in the digital age can use digital tools to create more possibilities than ordinary people can imagine. As Lev Manovich said, “The shot is no longer the end, but the raw material to be processed in the computer., where the real scene construction will take place.” (2016)From this, the post-cinema in the digital age has begun to transform our perception of reality in people’s lives, due to the advancement of technology, people’s perception and film experience have been continuously enhanced, People’s judgments about video content are no longer simply fictional or unreal. I think the changes brought about by the digital age make the audience more engaged and create a real sensory feast, allowing us to perceive the other world in some of the created scenes. Take “Tenet” released by director Christopher Nolan in 2020 as an example.

While “Tenet” uses some digital tools to create special effects scenes, it uses an original and scientifically based form in storytelling. Of course, he can use digital technology to erase unwanted things and let the original What does not exist is created, but director Nolan’s storytelling is fascinating, not just a simple narrative, but to create order in chaos, and at the same time, under the combination of digital technology and video shooting, director Nolan A flashback world is created, where the concept of time entropy in physics is used, while he employs a method called “time-clamp motion” to ensure that action and film can run forward and backward at the same time. Until the end of the story, we don’t know the original appearance of the whole story in the entire timeline. This model breaks away from the rules of traditional storytelling, creating a new original, unfamiliar unique cinematic art.

As Shane Denson and Julia Leyda write, digital cameras and editing technology are integrated into the “aesthetics of gaming, webcams, surveillance video, social media, and smartphones… The aesthetics of contemporary cinema are not just analogy-digital technology and media created an environment that more completely disrupted the power geometry and cultural logic of the twentieth-century cinema.”(2016)

by Zhiqing Cao 13/11/2022 (ID:33722458)

Reference

Denson, S., & Leyda, J. (2016). Perspectives on Post-Cinema: An Introduction.

Manovich, L. (2016). What is digital cinema?

Stam, R. (2017). Film theory: an introduction. John Wiley & Sons.