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Celluloid No More: Reflections on Cinema as a Digital Medium in the 21st Century

Studium Generale | Lecture Series
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During this lecture series, we will reflect on film through the lens of digital cinema. When George Lucas released his Star Wars prequel Attack of the Clones in 2002, he stood at the cradle of a new revolution in film. It was the first major motion picture ever made entirely with digital technology. Lucas saw endless possibilities in the move away from celluloid and toward an immaterial, digital era of filmmaking in which directors would gain greater control over their creative process.

In 2009, his vision of the future largely became reality: almost every cinema worldwide abandoned 35mm projectors in favor of state-of-the-art DCP projection. All of this was done to screen James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) — to this day one of the largest digital films ever made.

Since then, we largely stopped thinking about film as a digital medium. With the rise of streaming services, we’ve only become more accustomed to films as digital products. At the same time, it is precisely now — some 25 years after the major changes initiated by Lucas and others — that it’s important to look back and reflect on the materiality and ontology of the medium of film. What is cinema in the 21st century? How has the digital turn influenced techniques, camera technologies, stylistic choices, and strategies of filmmakers? How does the medium relate to other communication technologies such as the internet? In this series, film expert Hugo Emmerzael will guide us through these themes.

The individual lectures:

  1. Monday 2 March – The Digital Revolution: Attack of the Pixels
  2. Monday 9 March – Endless Possibilities: The New Frontier of Digital Cinema
  3. Monday 16 March – Unfriended: Cinema’s Tense Relationship with the Internet
  4. Monday 23 March – Framing Globalism and Capitalism through Cinema: TIME IS LUCK 

Lecture 1 — The Digital Revolution: Attack of the Pixels (2 March)
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At the beginning of the 21st century, George Lucas had devious plans. While making his second Star Wars prequel, Attack of the Clones (2002), he invited leading film directors to a meeting about the digital revolution in cinema. Among those who gathered at Skywalker Ranch to discuss film as a digital medium were Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Michael Mann. Oliver Stone is said to have remarked at the time: “You’ll be known as the man who killed cinema.”

Attack of the Clones was the first major film to be shot entirely on digital cameras. By 2009, Lucas’s envisioned digital revolution was complete when James Cameron’s Avatar forced movie theatres around the world to replace their 35mm film projectors with digital projection. Now that digital film has become the norm, and films shot and projected on celluloid have become the artistic exception, a pressing question emerges: what does this material shift mean for the nature of this art form? How can we think about cinema as a digital medium?

Drawing on historical and contemporary examples, this first lecture delves into the physicality and ontology of cinema. It traces the history of film through its materiality—from its earliest developments to the digital art form it has become today.

Lecture 2 — Endless Possibilities: The New Frontier of Digital Cinema (9 March)
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Digital film technology is developing rapidly. Spectacular blockbuster franchises such as The Lord of the Rings and Transformers showcase the boundless possibilities of digital effects, making it possible to create entirely new worlds. At the same time, artistic filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola and Agnès Varda embrace digital cinema as an inexpensive, fast, and innovative medium for more experimental works that question our relationship with the world around us.

In short, digital cinema allows us to see the world differently. In this second lecture, we explore the relative freedom filmmakers gained with the use of digital cameras and effects. Drawing on a wide range of examples, we outline a digital playground that we can explore together in a critical way. How did this technology change the style of established auteurs? And which noteworthy film experiments over the past decades have pushed the medium into unknown territory?

Lecture 3 — Unfriended: Cinema’s Tense Relationship with the Internet (16 March)
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In the digital age, cinema is barely distinguishable from other audiovisual media we consume on our televisions, computers and smartphones. This lowered hierarchical position of cinema in relation to more social and interactive media, becomes apparent in works by filmmakers who question our relationship with the internet and digital media.

Themes such as social control, surveillance, and the boundlessness of the internet dominate both experimental and mainstream films. Works such as Demonlover (Olivier Assayas, 2002), Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001), and Unfriended (Levan Gabriadze, 2014) depict the internet as a murky, dangerous swamp. Because the internet transforms so rapidly, films also constantly change alongside it. In this lecture, we delve into the constantly shifting relationship between cinema and new media. Through a wide range of examples, we experience how cinema offers a critical lens through we can view the new dominant technology of our era.

Lecture 4 — Framing Globalism and Capitalism through Cinema: TIME IS LUCK (23 March)
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Our relationship with time and space has been undergoing profound changes since the rise of the internet. The synchronicity of a globalized, internet-driven world determines the pace and rhythm of life. Meanwhile, neoliberal globalist capitalism weighs heavily on the political structures that dominate the world. Cinema captures the unrest and tension of this era and reflects, in a fascinating way, on our shifted perception of time and space.

In this fourth lecture, we use digital cinema as a critical reflection on time, capitalism, and globalism. We examine how films visualize the vortex of time, how global power structures are captured on screen, and how cinema challenges the capitalist system from within. A special focus in this lecture is devoted to the work of Michael Mann, and in particular his undervalued masterpiece Miami Vice (2006), one of the purest reflections on the chaotic flux of the 21st century. 

Additional screening of Miami Vice (25 March)
Tickets for Miami Vice
In connection with this lecture series, we will also screen Miami Vice as a one-off event on Wednesday 25 March, accompanied by a video introduction by Hugo Emmerzael. Attendees of the lecture series get a reduced ticket price.