Film, Consciousness, History

Abstract

Cinema is both an artistic creation and a technological invention, but also a metaphorical form of expression of consciousness. If God created man in his own image, then man also created cinema in his image. The organic form of visual memory, the illusion of movement, and the passage of time are analogous to human consciousness and lifetime. Just as language shapes thoughts, so cinematic technology shapes artistic expression. So now are film artists becoming more experimental and radical in face of the new dominant technology. Film is reacting to the changes in dominant technology in another way, too. The old and new technologies are complementary; they have different specificities. Film is closer to the mechanics of our perception, it wins in intuitive coherence, preservability and image quality; while video and digital cinema have dominated the marketplace, is faster, easier and cheaper to use. Only their peaceful coexistence can allow for a rich landscape of audiovisual expression and creation, lest we be doomed to a babelic cacophony of obsolete standards and formats. Despite the new phenomenon and paradigm called ‘post-filmic’, the cinema transcends the boundaries of film and digital and expands into the realm of coexistence that forms human memory and consciousness, time and space, perception and cognition.