Written by Liah Twumasi Danquah | 33772944

Post cinematic affect can be understood as the shift in emotional engagement and sensory experience influenced by digital technologies and contemporary media. As Steven Shaviro argues, “filmmaking has changed” through “computer and network based, digitally generated new media” changing the way audiences experience affect (2010,pp.7). Unlike traditional cinema, which relies on linear narratives and structure, post-cinematic media immerse viewers in sensory overload and nonlinear structures of narrative.  

Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is a great example of this concept. It is an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure film, which disrupts classical storytelling by letting viewers control the protagonist’s choices. The result of this is a narrative where endings vary and audiences are “overwhelmed and traversed by affect” simply because they play a part in the characters fate (Shaviro, 2010, pp8). In this scene, viewers are asked to select the cereal that the main character, Stefan, eats for breakfast. Although this decision seems very small, it alerts the viewer’s senses as they are expected to make a choice. It is interesting to think that your decision can affect the character and may create more of an emotional connection to that character and what could happen to them.

Combined with the hyper-stimulated visuals and ominous soundtrack, this scene produces an overwhelming sensory and emotional experience. As Beatriz Peña-Acuña explains, the interactive narrative offers  “open contents, audiovisual fragments that are meant to be reconstructed by the audience” (2020, pp12). 

In Bandersnatch, the nonlinear storytelling and the overstimulating demands on the viewer show how post-cinematic affect reshape emotional and sensory engagement. Through the films innovation, it doesn’t just tell a story but it forces us to feel the chaos of our own generated film world. 

References:

Shaviro, S. (2010) Post cinematic affect. Winchester, UK ; Washington, USA:

0-Books.Beatriz Peña-Acuña (2020) Narrative Transmedia. IntechOpen.