Josh Reads Books: Post Cinematic Affect by Steven Shaviro

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January 4, 2012 by Josh

Much to my own shame, it has only been recently that I’ve been able to make my first foray into hard film theory. After reading even a simple introductory text (Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses) to the subject, my slight technical training and budding philosophical interest were just barely enough to avoid a theoretical quagmire. My concept of the discipline, prior to good research, was of neat divides, primarily between the psychoanalytic (Zizek) and neoformalist (Bordwell) strands, but the deft historical survey provided by Elsaesser and Hagener was more than enough to shatter that illusion. Film theory unfolds in history just as any other discipline; a theory is proposed in a certain context, only to be opposed or reconfigured in a different one. It is all a quest to define exactly what film is and how it affects the spectator. Elsaesser and Hagener end their text with a brief discussion of the medium of film in the modern digital realm; from the use of non-linear digital editing platforms to the proliferation of home and mobile viewing as opposed to theater attendance. The point is that film is now simply a small patch in the digital landscape.

Shaviro’s book picks up, or rather, occupies the space described by Elsaesser and Hagener’s final chapter. His project is to find films (and one music video) that respond to and describe our current historical conditions under the new “media regime”. His selections would entertain nothing more than dismissive chuckles from most mainline critics and average viewers; these selections being Grace Jones’ “Corporate Cannibal” video, Olivier Assayas’ Boarding Gate, Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, and Neveldine/Taylor’s Gamer.  All of these pieces demonstrate a facet of our current state of affairs:  modality, or the pervasive and shape-shifting quality of capital in late capitalism in the case of “Corporate Cannibal”, the transient nature of persons, identities and places in Boarding Gate,  the dark mirror image of our media saturated society in Southland Tales, and a vision of a dystopian gamespace in Gamer.

The discussion is not limited to the cultural climate, but also turns to the way in which these pieces diverge from classical concepts of cinema. Shaviro, in his study of Gamer, finds that it attempts to capture the experience of a video game in film form. In so doing, the film eschews conventional continuity editing, instead cutting to the rhythms of action sequences for a more visceral effect. Similarly, in the discussion of Southland Tales, Shaviro points out that the image is, at times, subordinate to the audio track, much in the style of cable news where seemingly disconnected b-roll footage is unified by the anchor’s voice-over. These shifts in editing methodology are just part of the myriad ways in which film absorbs and feeds back into the current mediascape.

Shaviro, while making it obvious that he is partial to these pieces, makes no final judgment of aesthetic quality. He sees them as reflections or extrapolations of current reality and inspired illustrations of cultural theory, primarily the work of Gilles Deleuze and his “society of control”, which are cited extensively. Shaviro’s endgame is not merely the use of these media artifacts to illustrate theory, though. In his conclusion, Shaviro briefly discusses the concept of accelerationism. This is the belief that capitalism is inherently self-destructive, but needs to be pushed to its absolute limit in order to finally implode. Shaviro does not espouse this as a political position, but adopts it as an aesthetic one. “Aesthetic accelerationism” is typified by the four selected pieces; they illustrate and push current conditions to sometimes absurd conclusions, “mapping” the consequences of our reality, thereby embodying voices in the discussion

In the end, Shaviro puts together a solid study of a Deleuzian concept of modern society with an attempt to find a place for film in the digital space. Though it is no longer the cultural dominant, nor has been for some time, film continues as a viable medium. The time may be coming where, in the words of Hugh Gray, the screen may more closely resemble the mirror rather than the escape hatch.