Massive Movie Waves and the Anthropic Ocean

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Stefan Helmreich Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Abstract This article examines representations of ocean waves in disaster and science fiction movies, reading these for what they can indicate about shifting ideological accounts of human–ocean relations. I track the technical conjuring of such on-screen waves – made using everything from scale model wave tanks to computer-generated imagery (CGI) – and explicate how these enable waves’ narrative purposes and effects. I argue that towering waves in film have operated as emblems of (a) the elemental power of cosmic, inhuman, arbitrary forces, (b) the return of the social-environmental repressed, and (c) the power and limits of cinematic media themselves. The most recent fantastical waves, rendered digitally, I suggest, now generate reflexive usages that underwrite either optimistic aesthetics of a nature crafted in partnership with humanity or ironic pessimism about human enterprise in the face of looming ecological disaster.

Keywords Anthropocene, animation, disaster, film, waves

Résumé Cet article examine les représentations des vagues océaniques dans les films catastrophes et de science-fiction, afin d’appréhender les changements idéologiques inhérents aux relations Homme–océan. J’examine les aspects techniques de ces ondes océaniques à l’écran – du modèle réduit de réservoir à vagues à l’imagerie générée par ordinateur (3D) – et analyse les effets narratifs de ces dites-vagues. Je défends l’idée que les vagues imposantes dans le cinéma sont représentées comme des emblèmes (a) d’une puissance cosmique élémentaire, inhumaine, aux forces arbitraires, (b) du retour du refoulement social environnemental, et (c) du pouvoir et des limites intrinsèques des médias cinématographiques. Je suggère que les vagues fantastiques les plus récentes représentées

Corresponding author: Stefan Helmreich, Anthropology Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Building E53 Room 335Q, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, USA. Email: [email protected] 222495 SocialSocial ScienceScience InformationInformation 00(0)57(3)57(3)00(0) ofdigitalement the medium. engendrent As film is maintenant challenged des by pratiquestelevision, réflexives filmmakers qui souscrivent(in the 1960s, soit and à l’image more intensivelyd’un optimisme in the esthétique1970s) turn d’une to large-scale nature revisitée special effects, en lien epic avec stories la compassion for the screen, ou un disasterpessimisme movies. ironique As film relatif is challenged à l’entreprise by digital humaine technologies face à l’imminent (games, désastrethe Internet), écologique. waves are again reinvented, now as virtual simulated objects capturing a slice of the digital, emblems of the sublime power of cinema as fantasy (to date, it does not seem as through Mots-clés 3D representations have significantly altered wave movement-images, though it seems animation, Anthropocène, catastrophe, film, vagues that they should – maybe they will soon?). Nowadays, we may have entered a hyper- reflexive moment, when the artifactuality of waves on the screen has become a recursive resource for narrative, either animating an optimistic aesthetic of nature crafted in partnership with humanity (Moana) or underwriting an ironic sense of representation as inade- quateIn ‘Wave to the theory’, politics in of the nature, pages captive of Sight to humanand Sound folly, in ways1996, that screenwriter cannot pretend and film to attach critic toDavid meaningful Pirie suggested ecological that action, Hollywood and that moviemay spell genres human rise doom. and fall in waves. Adapting theories of crowd psychology from the accountant Ralph Nelson Elliott, who in 1938 Companionproposed a model Movie of investor Montage behaviour called the ‘Elliott Wave Principle’, Pirie observed that the genre of the disaster movie, which had fallen into a lull since its 1970s crest, was For a montage of scenes from movies featuring massive movie waves — a montage that delivers coming back, as film companies in the 1990s financed a new cycle of disaster movies an argument about common tropes and effects — see “Massive Movie Waves Mix,” by Jeremie banking on the arrival of new special effects techniques and on a surge of popular mil- Brugidou,banking onavailable the arrival at http://vimeo.com/269392249 of new special effects techniques and on a surge of popular mil- lennial, apocalyptic anxiety. Here, I spin off from Pirie’s claim in a literal-minded way, looking at changing repre- Acknowledgements sentations of waves – ocean waves – in disaster and science fiction movies, mostly, Ithough thank Jeremie not exclusively, Brugidou, Eugeniein American Brinkema, and European Eva Hayward, contexts, David reading Jaclin, Caroline these for Jones, what Clare they Kim,might Melody tell us Jue,about Heather dominant, Paxson, if shifting, Dmitry Portnoy,ideological Michael accounts Rossi of and human–ocean Nicole Starosielski relations. for close readings of iterations of this argument. Thanks also to Ayn Cavicchi and Latéfa Faiz for Movies that feature colossal ocean waves have realized such forms through a range of invaluable help in the production of this piece. special effects, from the use of material and mechanical scale models, to optical and photographic trickery, to computer-generated animations and simulations. I am inter- Funding ested in the technical conjuring of such on-screen waves – using everything from wave Thistanks research to computer-created received no specific imagery grant – from and anyin how funding these agency techniques in the public,enable commercial, waves’ narra or- not-for-profittive purposes sectors. and effects. Movie waves are what film theorist Kristen Whissel would call an ‘effects emblem’: ‘a cinematic visual effect that operates as a site of intense significa- Notestion and gives stunning (and sometimes) allegorical expression to a film’s key themes, anxieties,1. As Jonathan and conceptual Crary observes obsessions’ in Suspensions (2014: of Perception 6). The dramatic, Marey’s roleswork enactedfilmic awaves ‘reciprocal have fulfilled,operation I suggest, of decomposition have been and multiple. reunification: Towering his analysis waves ofin movement,film have withinoperated, the framein shift of- ing ratiosa single and visual phases, field, aspreserved emblems a vector of (a) of the spatial elemental and temporal power coherence, of cosmic, giving inhuman, movement arbi- trarya newforces, form (b) of thelegibility return and of rationality’ the social-environmental (Crary, 2001:140). repressed, with waves as moral 2. Deleuze (1986) suggests that perception, affect and action write themselves into film through messengers paying humanity back for sins against the orders of nature or social justice, such techniques as the long shot (establishing scenes), the close up (registering emotion), and and the(c) mediumthe fantastic shot (trackingpower and action). limits All of are cinematic present inmedia wave themselves. films, as waves are things seen Thefrom beginnings far away, up of close waves (often in and registered on film in are the atfaces once of morethose empiricalactors meant and to humblebe gaping than at theirwaves later ascinematic they arrive), descendants and all along – theirthough, unfolding. also, importantly paradigm-setting in their technical,Compare formal, waves as and movement- epistemological and time-images entailments. to fire. In Étiennethe 1940s, Jules director Marey, Sergei Eisenstein the 19th- century(1986) physiologist posited the flickeringand originator flame asof an‘chronophotography’, allegory for the captivating famous power for ofhis cinema 12-frame- (and per-secondcompare studies Wollen of(1984) the movements on cinema as of fire birds, and photography cats, fish, and as ice).other Leslie animals, (2017) in has1891 recently made La Vaguewritten, anof cloudsunder-a-minute as cinematic film motifs of a and wave how crashing these have into been a clutch enlivened of rocks in both in analogthe bay and of Naplesdigital (Figure film. 1). 3. Marey’sThe original purpose Japanese was version documentary, of the film a wasstep-by-step called Japan study Sinks of (1973) movement, (日本沈没 putting) by Shiro into motionMoritani. a series Retitling, of snapshots, reshuffling, extending revising, theand sortredistributing of experiments the film realized as Tidal byWave Eadweard (Meyer, 1975) makes it much more about the wave than about anything specific to Japan. A 2006 Helmreich 4963

Figure 1. Sequence from Étienne Jules Marey, La Vague, 1891.

Voss, 2013). Techniques of computer-generated imagery (CGI) and digital cinema, which have come into use in the last 30 years or so – and which have become essential to making disaster waves in movies – have extended the parameters of fantasy imaging (and have jumped away from the material of ‘film’), but also largely hew to what Stephen Prince early on (1996) called ‘perceptual realism’, though have also amplified the possibility of creating physically impossible points of view, human and nonhuman, as well as camera-eye travels across widely varied scales (see Whissel, 2014). These impossible views, I suggest at this article’s end, have lately generated reflexive, even ironic, usages.

The elemental, cosmic, inhuman, and arbitrary wave Begin with a canonically 1970s disaster movie, Tidal Wave, from 1973, which has many of the requisite features of disaster movies from this period: an astoundingly out-of-scale elemental disaster, a set of people who are variously trying to save everyone, save themselves, sacrifice themselves, or struggle against or submit to their fate (see Casper, 2011; Kaye 2017; Keane, 2006). The poster for this movie freezes a movement-image that speaks of momentum, threat and imminent danger (see Figure 2). Tidal Wave belongs to a lineage of films that pose waves as inhuman, as massive unthinking intensities that test or snap human hardiness, or that demand that people band together across social divisions thrown into disarray by disaster.3 Close on the heels of Tidal Wave came Meteor, in 1979. In both films, the challenge for filmmakers was to create a large wave that looked realistic, and in each case, the challenge was met with a combination of large splashings of water onto actors, miniature scale models of city- scapes inundated with water, and double exposures that superimposed actors against footage of onrushing waves (see Figure 3). Making this all come together was difficult. The use of real water in scaled-down city models came widely to be regarded as looking fake; water, hydrologists report, does not scale well or convincingly (see Newman, 1977). This is because the molecu- lar structure of water and the force of gravity are not themselves scalable in such models – and trying to correct for this, as Hollywood films have, by slowing down the action (taking more frames per second) cannot work well since not all the processes in play scale at the same rate. What becomes jarring about large wave images like the one in Figure 3, from Meteor, is a sense not only of their material and spatial clumsiness, but also a sense that human time and wave time are not in their on-screen presence calibrated to one another. For a large wave to be convincing, it must exist, with humans, in the same filmic, scalar and narrative time. As Melody Jue writes in her analysis of computer models of ocean water, ‘seawater’s materiality changes with scale’ (2014: 247). So it is too with and on film.4 Grappling with matters of scale in depicting fantastically monstrous ocean waves has been aided by the rise of computer graphics and animation, which permit filmmakers to fuse filmic and computational materials in composite images, which bring different orders of magnitude into the same frame (though see Davis, 2014). Even as filmmakers can avail themselves of physics simulations that render water surfaces with mathematical exactitude, though, they are also able to leave some properties of material water behind, to indulge their and their viewers’ imaginations of what a wave could look like.5 In this 10Helmreich Social Science Information 00(0)49835

Figure 1. Sequence from Étienne Jules Marey, La Vague, 1891.

Muybridge in Palo Alto in the late 1870s, in which Muybridge famously generated a series of stills taken in quick succession to capture the movement of horses.1 It became imaginable to slice time up into framed visualizations and to then suture these together in space – parcelling them out along segmented linear spans of nitrate, celluloid, acetate and other film stock. It also became possible to watch things over and over again, to slow, to pause, to reverse (see Gunning, 1989: 33 on early silent film as ‘a cinema of instants, rather than developing situations’, a condition that online formats such as GIFs may be reactivating, as I discuss below). As philosopher Henri Bergson – a colleague of Marey’s at the College de France in the early 20th-century – noted, in chronophotography, the time of experience, or what Bergson called ‘duration’ came newly to be captured and expressed as space: ‘The terms that designate time’, he wrote, ‘are borrowed from the language of space’ (Bergson, 1946: 4; as in the sequence above, which, read left to right, means to mimic temporal succession). The result, for Bergson, was that, ‘instead of attaching ourselves to the inner becoming of things, we place ourselves outside them in order to recompose their becoming artificially’ (Bergson, 1911[1907]: 332). The wave, taken as a visible, surface object, is portioned into instants and reassembled in the space–time of the viewer, who comes to see the wave-movement-image as at once an empirical record and a lively phenomenon, one that may support various characterizations and narrative uses (cf. Kelty & Landecker, FigureHelmreich 2. Poster for Tidal Wave, 1975 (US version of 日本沈没, from 1973). 5 2004 on life, animation and film). Gilles Deleuze, in Cinema 1: The Movement Image (1986) and Cinema 2: The Time away,Image temporal-sequential as (1989), Mark Hansen draws onor(2004) “horizontal”Bergson, has argued and, connection reading about thefilms across digital from shots image,the or20th scenes’ the century, virtual (Ivakhiv, complicatescan be 2013: lay- 89),eredthis theview,onto/into verticality arguing the actual.that,created with by film, large movement waves signals comes a worldto be inscribed turned sideways. within the still. In the mostlyTidalSo, take later Wave as 20th-century a( more해운대 recent) fromfilms example SouthI treat here,of Korea, the waves unreasonably 2009, are was movement-images publicizedimmense wave with and the a time-images poster mammoth (see Figurecomet-impact-generatedpar excellence 13) emphasizing, for their wavejust pitched this that verticality, presentstrikes New always just York this points City threat in to 1998’s theirof sidewaysness immediate Deep Impact past(compare. In (their one Figuresofswelling the most 5, arrival) 9 widelyand 11, and reproducedwhich their operate immanent stills similarly). from future this The(their movie, film just-about-to-breakness). thebrings wave together is represented reality, 2fiction asMore, at once and the atime moral brute they journey fact, gather a terrifying(this up is film not steps andsimply unyieldingaway linear, a bit unfolding character,from perceptual time, and nor as realism, only a force the or ofsubjective at action,least toys joiningor withinte- it.togetherrior At time one what moment,of a Deleuze viewer, with wouldbut people also call arunning thetime perception-, of from fantasy, the affect-, wave,of the andthe‘unthought, filmaction-image action the stutters, unsummonable, (see Figure slowing 4). downThethe inexplicable,effect and speedingis utterly the fantastical,up). undecidable, In this thoughfilm the (whose incommensurable’ also, to Korean use Prince’s title (Deleuze,is term, the name inserted 1989: of theinto214; beach a and regime alsothe of ‘perceptual realism’, with the computer animated wave given (for example) lighting, colouring and timing coordinates that assimilate it to the scene in which it appears. In the face of this onrushing force, the human characters in the film mostly run away or, in moments of steely resolve or stoic surrender, submit to its immensity. These scenes of humans, singly and in multiple, turn out, upon repeated viewings, actually to govern the speed of the wave in the movie, since the wave must move in calibration and synchrony with required narrative elements – the registration of disbelief on people’s faces, tender goodbyes, last-minute heroics. The sound design underscores this as well, as anxious string music guides the viewer/listener into the sweep of the drama.6 What to make of the gargantuan wave of the 2014 movie Interstellar, which appears when astronauts arrive on an ocean planet and realize that that world comes outfitted with 4,000-foot waves? The wave in the film, as visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin has reported, was:

a combination of very, very detailed, rigorous simulation of what water should actually do using physics simulations to work out how do the waves splash and sweep the spacecraft away, and how does the water surge over the hull of the spacecraft. And that was a quite tricky thing to do, was to work out what would be the surface details that would tell you this thing is 4,000 feet high. And of course this all then had to be integrated seamlessly into the photography that we’d done on the location. (Franklin, in DVD extra on Interstellar DVD)

When you get to something that’s 4,000 feet high, water behaves in a very different way – you don’t get those curling breakers on top, for one thing. So we actually treated the waves as though they were animated characters – our animators who usually work on digital creatures animated the wave itself. (quoted in Hawkes, 2014)

This accounting makes it clear that waves are always characters in movies. And part of their character description is that they exist at their particular scale – a scale that dwarfs human action, individual and collective.7 We can understand waves on the screen, too, through the formal qualities they exhibit, qualities that motivate how the audience is meant to experience the spectacle of their unfolding. In The Forms of the Affects, Eugenie Brinkema (2014) argues that the formal 22106499Helmreich SocialSocial ScienceScience InformationInformation 00(0)57(3)57(3)00(0)11 of the medium. As film is challenged by television, filmmakers (in the 1960s, and more intensively in the 1970s) turn to large-scale special effects, epic stories for the screen, disaster movies. As film is challenged by digital technologies (games, the Internet), waves are again reinvented, now as virtual simulated objects capturing a slice of the digital, emblems of the sublime power of cinema as fantasy (to date, it does not seem as through 3D representations have significantly altered wave movement-images, though it seems that they should – maybe they will soon?). Nowadays, we may have entered a hyper- reflexive moment, when the artifactuality of waves on the screen has become a recursive resource for narrative, either animating an optimistic aesthetic of nature crafted in partnership with humanity (Moana) or underwriting an ironic sense of representation as inade- quate to the politics of nature, captive to human folly in ways that cannot pretend to attach to meaningful ecological action, and that may spell human doom. Figure 3. Still from Meteor, 1979. Companion Movie Montage For a montage of scenes from movies featuring massive movie waves — a montage that delivers an argument about common tropes and effects — see “Massive Movie Waves Mix,” by Jeremie Brugidou, available at http://vimeo.com/269392249

Acknowledgements I thank Jeremie Brugidou, Eugenie Brinkema, Eva Hayward, David Jaclin, Caroline Jones, Clare Kim,Helmreich Melody Jue, Heather Paxson, Dmitry Portnoy, Michael Rossi and Nicole Starosielski for 5 close readings of iterations of this argument. Thanks also to Ayn Cavicchi and Latéfa Faiz for invaluableway, as helpMark in Hansenthe production (2004) of has this argued piece. about the digital image, the virtual can be lay- ered onto/into the actual. FundingSo, take as a more recent example of the unreasonably immense wave the mammoth Thiscomet-impact-generated research received no specific wave grant that strikesfrom any New funding York agency City in in 1998’s the public, Deep commercial, Impact. In orone not-for-profitof the most sectors. widely reproduced stills from this movie, the wave is represented as at once a brute fact, a terrifying and unyielding character, and as a force of action, joining Figure 4. Still from Deep Impact, 1998. Notestogether what Deleuze would call the perception-, affect-, and action-image (see Figure 4). 1.The As effect Jonathan is utterly Crary observes fantastical, in Suspensions though also, of Perception to use Prince’s, Marey’s term, work inserted enacted intoa ‘reciprocal a regime ofwave operation‘perceptual hits), theof decomposition realism’,main character with and the feels reunification: computer guilty for animated his not analysis having wave of been movement, given able (for to within example)save athe friend frame lighting, from of colouringthea 2004single tsunami. visualand timing field, Back preservedcoordinates in South a vectorKorea, that assimilate of the spatial wave and it that to temporal the hits scene Busan coherence, in iswhich a moral giving it appears. test. movement As InClare the faceKima new of(personal thisform onrushing of communication,legibility force, and rationality’ the 7 Decemberhuman (Crary, characters 2017) 2001:140). suggests: in the film mostly run away or, in 2.moments Deleuze of(1986) steely suggests resolve that or perception, stoic surrender, affect and submit action to write its immensity.themselves into These film scenesthrough of 日本沈没 Figurehumans,suchThe 2. techniques impending Postersingly forand as wave Tidal thein multiple, long compelsWave shot, 1975 (establishing individualsturn (US out, version upon and scenes), of repeated collectives the close viewings, , like from up the (registering 1973). localactually fishermen emotion), to govern to and work the speedthetogether mediumof the for wave shotsurvival. (trackingin the Whereas movie, action). the since fishermenAll theare wavepresent rely muston in their wave move own films, inresources calibration as waves to protect are and things synchrony each seen other, from far away, up close (often registered in the faces of those actors meant to be gaping at a withtemporal-sequentialthe required wave sweeps narrative away or the“horizontal”elements greedy antagonists– the connection registration who earlieracross of disbeliefthreatened shots or on scenes’the people’s fishermen’s (Ivakhiv, faces, livelihoods 2013: tender waves as they arrive), and all along their unfolding. goodbyes,with foreign-investment-backed last-minute heroics. The development sound design projects. underscores The wave appearsthis as aswell, a positive as anxious force 89),Compare the verticality waves ascreated movement- by large and time-imageswaves signals to fire a world. In the 1940s,turned director sideways. Sergei Eisenstein that preserves and secures an imagined set of Korean traditional values.6 stringTidal(1986) music Wave posited guides (해운대 the flickeringthe) viewer/listener from flame South as Korea,an into allegory the 2009, sweep for wasthe of captivating publicizedthe drama. power with of a cinema poster (and (see FigureWhat 13) to emphasizing make of the justgargantuan this verticality, wave of justthe 2014this threat movie of Interstellar sidewaysness, which (compare appears compareWaves inWollen disaster (1984) films on cinemaare thus as stern fire and teachers photography (and thisas ice). is true Leslie in (2017)a genre has of recently movie I Figureswhen astronauts5, 9 and 11, arrive which on operate an ocean similarly). planet Theand filmrealize brings that together that world reality, comes fiction outfitted and havewritten not reallyof clouds treated as cinematic here, the motifs surf movie and how (see these Engle, have 2015), been enlivened or the surf in actionboth analog movie. and15 ). a withmoraldigital 4,000-foot journey film. (this waves? film The steps wave away in a the bit film,from asperceptual visual effects realism, supervisor or at least Paul toys Franklin with Large waves hold moral lessons for those people unprepared to face the consequences of it.3.has AtThe reported,one original moment, was:Japanese with versionpeople of running the film from was called the wave, Japan the Sinks film (1973) action (日本沈没 stutters,) byslowing Shiro their lack of foresight, their indecision, or their thoughtlessness about the cumulative downMoritani. and speeding Retitling, up). reshuffling, In this filmrevising, (whose and Koreanredistributing title isthe the film name as Tidal of theWave beach (Meyer, the 1975)a combination makes it ofmuch very, more very about detailed, the waverigorous than simulation about anything of what specific water toshould Japan. actually A 2006 do using physics simulations to work out how do the waves splash and sweep the spacecraft away, and how does the water surge over the hull of the spacecraft. And that was a quite tricky thing to do, was to work out what would be the surface details that would tell you this thing is 4,000 feet high. And of course this all then had to be integrated seamlessly into the photography that we’d done on the location. (Franklin, in DVD extra on Interstellar DVD)

Helmreich 5 way, as Mark Hansen (2004) has argued about the digital image, the virtual can be lay- ered onto/into the actual. So, take as a more recent example of the unreasonably immense wave the mammoth comet-impact-generatedFigure 1. Sequence from waveÉtienne that Jules strikes Marey, New La VagueYork, City1891. in 1998’s Deep Impact. In one of the most widely reproduced stills from this movie, the wave is represented as at once aMuybridge brute fact, in a Palo terrifying Alto in and the unyielding late 1870s, character, in which andMuybridge as a force famously of action, generated joining a togetherseries of what stills Deleuze taken in would quick call succession the perception-, to capture affect-, the andmovement action-image of horses. (see1 FigureIt became 4). Theimaginable effect is to utterly slice timefantastical, up into thoughframed also,visualizations to use Prince’s and to term, then sutureinserted these into together a regime in ofspace ‘perceptual – parcelling realism’, them with out thealong computer segmented animated linear wave spans given of nitrate, (for example) celluloid, lighting, acetate colouringand other and film timing stock. coordinates It also became that assimilate possible toit towatch the scene things in overwhich and it appears. over again, In the to faceslow, of to this pause, onrushing to reverse force, (see the Gunning, human characters 1989: 33 onin theearly film silent mostly film runas ‘aaway cinema or, inof momentsinstants, ratherof steely than resolve developing or stoic situations’, surrender, a conditionsubmit to thatits immensity.online formats These such scenes as GIFs of humans,may be reactivating,singly and in as multiple, I discuss turn below). out, upon repeated viewings, actually to govern the speedAs of philosopher the wave in Henri the movie, Bergson since – a the colleague wave must of Marey’s move in at calibration the College and de synchrony France in withthe earlyrequired 20th-century narrative elements– noted, in– thechronophotography, registration of disbelief the time on ofpeople’s experience faces,, or tender what goodbyes,Bergson called last-minute ‘duration’ heroics. came Thenewly sound to be design captured underscores and expressed this as space:well, as ‘The anxious terms stringthat designate music guides time’, the he viewer/listener wrote, ‘are borrowed into the sweep from of the the language drama.6 of space’ (Bergson, 1946:What 4; to as make in the of sequence the gargantuan above, wave which, of readthe 2014 left tomovie right, Interstellar means to ,mimic which temporalappears whensuccession). astronauts The arriveresult, onfor an Bergson, ocean planetwas that, and ‘instead realize of that attaching that world ourselves comes to outfittedthe inner withbecoming 4,000-foot of things, waves? we Theplace wave ourselves in the outside film, as them visual in effectsorder to supervisor recompose Paul their Franklin becom- Figure 5. Still from Interstellar, 2014. hasing reported,artificially’ was: (Bergson, 1911[1907]: 332). The wave, taken as a visible, surface object, is portioned into instants and reassembled in the space–time of the viewer, who comes to consequencesseea thecombination wave-movement-image of theirof very, day-to-day very detailed, as habits. at oncerigorous It isan a empirical simulationfast violence record of whatreprimand and water a lively shouldof the phenomenon, structuresactually do ofone slowusing that violence physics may support simulations(Nixon, various 2013). to work characterizations out how do the and waves narrative splash and uses sweep (cf. Kelty the spacecraft & Landecker, away, 2004Suchand onhow moral life, does animationmessaging the water andsurge from film). over waves the hashull precedents.of the spacecraft. Take And The that Last was Wave a quite, a 1977tricky filmthing by to PeterGilles do, was Weir, Deleuze, to work about inout Cinema a what white would 1: lawyer The be the Movement contracted surface details Image to that defend (1986) would four and tell AboriginalyouCinema this thing 2: The men is 4,000 Time in feet high. And of course this all then had to be integrated seamlessly into the photography that AustralianImage (1989), court draws(note howon Bergson, the movie and, poster reading – see films Figure from 14 the – like20th Killer century, Wave complicates visually we’d done on the location. (Franklin, in DVD extra on Interstellar DVD) quotesthis view, Hokusai’s arguing Great that, Wave.with film, On thismovement Hokusai comes image to and be inscribedits use in withinsymbolisms the still. of Indis the- aster,mostly rushing later 20th-century historical transformation, films I treat here, and waves more, are see movement-images Guth, 2015). As and the time-images lawyer is What is obvious is this: this wave is a narrative force. But it is more than this. In one drawnpar excellence into the world, for theirof his pitched clients, presenthe is haunted always by points visions to of, their and immediate perhaps even past sees, (their of the more remarkable still images circulated in connection with the film, we see the opaquelyswelling (itarrival) might andbe atheir visitation immanent from futurethe Dreamtime), (their just-about-to-breakness). a tremendous wave coming2 More, tothe wave as a sublime agent bearing toward an individual whose character, we imagine, will wipetime out they Australia. gather up The is notwave simply symbolizes linear, unfoldingthe power time, of nature nor only to destroy the subjective human orenter inte- - be tested by its arrival (see Figure 5). Indeed, the wave itself becomes a character, and prise,rior timebut also of a the viewer, crashing but alsodisaster a time of colonialof fantasy, dispossession of the ‘unthought, and the thereturn unsummonable, to the colo- the special effects people approached it as such. Franklin, again: nialthe power inexplicable, of the repressed. the undecidable, The wave the in incommensurable’ this film is far less (Deleuze, literally represented1989: 214; andthan also in When you get to something that’s 4,000 feet high, water behaves in a very different way – you don’t get those curling breakers on top, for one thing. So we actually treated the waves as though they were animated characters – our animators who usually work on digital creatures animated the wave itself. (quoted in Hawkes, 2014)

This accounting makes it clear that waves are always characters in movies. And part of their character description is that they exist at their particular scale – a scale that dwarfs human action, individual and collective.7 We can understand waves on the screen, too, through the formal qualities they exhibit, qualities that motivate how the audience is meant to experience the spectacle of their unfolding. In The Forms of the Affects, Eugenie Brinkema (2014) argues that the formal Helmreich 5 way, as Mark Hansen (2004) has argued about the digital image, the virtual can be lay- ered onto/into the actual. So, take as a more recent example of the unreasonably immense wave the mammoth comet-impact-generated wave that strikes New York City in 1998’s Deep Impact. In one of the most widely reproduced stills from this movie, the wave is represented as at once a brute fact, a terrifying and unyielding character, and as a force of action, joining together what Deleuze would call the perception-, affect-, and action-image (see Figure 4). The effect is utterly fantastical, though also, to use Prince’s term, inserted into a regime of ‘perceptual realism’, with the computer animated wave given (for example) lighting, colouring and timing coordinates that assimilate it to the scene in which it appears. In the face of this onrushing force, the human characters in the film mostly run away or, in moments of steely resolve or stoic surrender, submit to its immensity. These scenes of humans, singly and in multiple, turn out, upon repeated viewings, actually to govern the speed of the wave in the movie, since the wave must move in calibration and synchrony with required narrative elements – the registration of disbelief on people’s faces, tender goodbyes, last-minute heroics. The sound design underscores this as well, as anxious string music guides the viewer/listener into the sweep of the drama.6 What to make of the gargantuan wave of the 2014 movie Interstellar, which appears when astronauts arrive on an ocean planet and realize that that world comes outfitted with 4,000-foot waves? The wave in the film, as visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin has reported, was:

What is obvious is this: this wave is a narrative force. But it is more than this. In one of the more remarkable still images circulated in connection with the film, we see the wave as a sublime agent bearing toward an individual whose character, we imagine, will be tested by its arrival (see Figure 5). Indeed, the wave itself becomes a character, and the228501Helmreich special effects people approached it as such. Franklin, Socialagain: Science Information 00(0)57(3)57(3)5 ofway, Whenthe medium. as you Mark get toAsHansen something film is(2004) challenged that’s has 4,000 argued by feet television, high,about water the filmmakers digitalbehaves image, in a(in very thethe different 1960s,virtual wayandcan –morebe you lay - intensivelyereddon’t onto/into get inthose the thecurling 1970s) actual. breakers turn to onlarge-scale top, for one special thing. effects, So we actuallyepic stories treated for the the waves screen, as disasterthoughSo, movies. takethey aswere Asa more animatedfilm recentis challenged characters example by– our ofdigital the animators unreasonably technologies who usually (games,immense work the onwave Internet), digital the creaturesmammoth waves arecomet-impact-generatedanimated again reinvented, the wave itself. now (quoted waveas virtual thatin Hawkes, strikessimulated 2014)New objects York City capturing in 1998’s a slice Deep of Impact the digital,. In one emblemsof the most of the widely sublime reproduced power of stillscinema from as thisfantasy movie, (to date,the wave it does is representednot seem as asthrough at once This3Da representations bruteaccounting fact, amakes terrifying have it significantlyclear and that unyielding waves altered are character, wavealways movement-images, characters and as a in force movies. though of action, And it part seems joining of theirthattogether theycharacter should what description Deleuze – maybe would isthey that call will they the soon?). existperception-, at Nowadays, their affect-,particular we and may scale action-image have – a scaleentered (seethat a Figure dwarfshyper- 4). humanreflexiveThe effectaction, moment, is individual utterly when fantastical, theand artifactuality collective. though7 also,of waves to use on Prince’s the screen term, has inserted become intoa recursive a regime resourceofWe ‘perceptual can for understand narrative, realism’, waveseither with animatingon thethe computerscreen, an optimistic too, animated through aesthetic wavethe formal givenof nature qualities (for crafted example) they in exhibit,partner lighting,- qualities6ship colouring with that humanity and motivate timing (Moana howcoordinates )the or underwritingaudience that assimilate is meant an ironic it to to experience thesenseSocial scene of Science representationin the which spectacleInformation it appears. as of inade 00(0)their In the- unfolding.quateface to of the this In politics The onrushing Forms of nature, offorce, the captive Affects the human to, Eugenie human characters folly Brinkema in waysin the (2014) that film cannot arguesmostly pretend that run the away to formal attach or, in aspectsto momentsmeaningful of filmic of ecologicalsteely composition resolve action, orcreate stoicand affect,that surrender, may not spell just submit packagehuman to doom.its it. immensity.A digression These here intoscenes her of readinghumans, of Opensingly Water and in, amultiple, film about turn a out,pair upon of scuba repeated divers viewings, accidentally actually abandoned to govern by the theirCompanionspeed boat of and the eventually Moviewave in Montage the (spoiler movie, alert) since eaten the wave by sharks, must moveguides in my calibration next point. and Brinkema synchrony suggests that the out-of-placeness of humans in Open Water can be read from what hap- Forwith a montage required of narrativescenes from elements movies featuring– the registration massive movie of disbelief waves — on a people’smontage thatfaces, delivers tender pensangoodbyes, argument to the line about last-minute of commonthe horizon heroics. tropes over and The the effects soundcourse — designseeof the “Massive film.underscores The Movie clean Wavesthis line as Mix,” iswell, broken, by as Jeremie anxious first, byBrugidou,string a shark music available fin andguides atthen, http://vimeo.com/269392249 the second, viewer/listener by one of into the the divers sweep using of theher drama. mask to6 look down into the deep,What into to makewhat ofwill the turn gargantuan out to be wave her grave.of the After2014 moviethe first Interstellar appearance, which of a shark, appears BrinkemaAcknowledgementswhen astronauts writes: arrive on an ocean planet and realize that that world comes outfitted I thankwith Jeremie4,000-foot Brugidou, waves? Eugenie The wave Brinkema, in the Eva film, Hayward, as visual David effects Jaclin, supervisor Caroline PaulJones, Franklin Clare a wave flows over the camera lens, and the film for the first time since the couple has risen to the Kim,has Melodyreported, Jue, was: Heather Paxson, Dmitry Portnoy, Michael Rossi and Nicole Starosielski for surface dips below the level of the water … Although an ontological break in the sea surface line close readings of iterations of this argument. Thanks also to Ayn Cavicchi and Latéfa Faiz for has been signaled in the appearance of the fin that rips through it, the breach’s more radical form invaluablea combination help in the of production very, very of detailed, this piece. rigorous simulation of what water should actually do involvesusing physicsthe camera simulations dipping underwaterto work out in how an unattributabledo the waves splashshot, an and image sweep completely the spacecraft delinked away, from even an approximation of a character’s (limited, partial) vision. (Brinkema, 2014: 228) Fundingand how does the water surge over the hull of the spacecraft. And that was a quite tricky thing to do, was to work out what would be the surface details that would tell you this thing is 4,000 ThisThough researchfeet high. abundantly received And of courseno morespecific this chaotic all grant then from inhad form, toany be funding integrated in the agency 2015 seamlessly disaster in the intopublic, film the Sancommercial,photography Andreas orthat, whichnot-for-profitwe’d features done sectors. onan the immense location. wave (Franklin, coming in DVD to wipe extra onout Interstellar much of DVD)California, we have a similar moment when the wave, arriving into San Francisco’s Chinatown with a large cruiseNotesWhat ship ison obvious its crest, is plungesthis: this the wave ‘camera’ is a narrative underwater force. (see But Figure it is more 6, which than this. offers In onea street-level 1.of Asthe Jonathan more view remarkable Crary at the observes moment still in imagesjust Suspensions before circulated the of Perceptionaudience’s in connection, Marey’s vantage workwith point enactedthe is pushedfilm, a ‘reciprocal we under see -the water)waveoperation (and as a sublimesee of decompositionJones, agent 2007; bearing andPierson, reunification: toward 2015). an individual8 hisThough analysis therewhose of movement, is character, a fantastical within we imagine,theperceptual frame willof realismbe atested single at play byvisual itshere, arrivalfield, it ispreserved (seeclear Figure that a vector we 5). have ofIndeed, spatial left the theand wave analogicaltemporal itself coherence, orbecomes indexical giving a character promise movement ,of and old-fashionedthea specialnew form effects film. of legibility Thesepeople andcannot approached rationality’ be images it(Crary, as such.that 2001:140). areFranklin, ‘direct again: and isomorphic transcrip- tions 2. Deleuze of a moment (1986) suggeststhat existed that perception,concurrently affect with and the action camera’ write themselves(Hadjioannou, into film 2008; through see also Mangolte,suchWhen techniques you get2003). to as something theDigital long shotcinema that’s (establishing 4,000 no longer feet high,scenes), offers water thea recordbehaves close up of in (registering time, a very but different rather emotion), way gener and– you- ates athedon’t simulation medium get those shot of curlingtime.(tracking And breakers action). the fluid on All top, transitionare for present one acrossthing. in wave Soair films, weand actually underwater as waves treated are media thingsthe waves is seen an as from far away, up close (often registered in the faces of those actors meant to be gaping at illusion,though one they from were the animatedage of digital characters cinema, – our ‘defined animators by who spatial usually and work temporal on digital continuity creatures wavesanimated as they the wavearrive), itself. and (quotedall along in their Hawkes, unfolding. 2014) and byCompare a rejection waves of as the movement- cut’ (Brown, and time-images 2013: 9). Even to fire so,. In thisthe 1940s, moment director belongs, Sergei still, Eisenstein to the order(1986) of the posited movement-image. the flickering As flame William as an Brownallegory explains for the captivating about the powerpossibility of cinema for digi (and- This accounting makes it clear that waves are always characters in movies. And part of tal filmiccompare representation Wollen (1984) to onskip cinema scales as andfire andpass photography through materialities, as ice). Leslie in (2017) such films:has recently theirwritten character of clouds description as cinematic is that motifs they and exist how at these their have particular been enlivened scale – ina scaleboth analog that dwarfs and 7 humanthedigital (virtual) action, film. ‘camera’ individual passes and through collective. ‘filled’ space (i.e., solid objects) with the same ease with 3.which TheWe originalcan it passes understand Japanese through wavesversion ‘empty’ on of the space. filmscreen, By was showing too,called through Japan space Sinksthe and formal (1973) all that qualities ( 日本沈没 fills it asthey) aby singleexhibit, Shiro qualitiescontinuum,Moritani. that Retitling, as motivate opposed reshuffling, tohow a spacethe revising,audience fragmented and is redistributingmeant by objects, to experience digitalthe film technology as the Tidal spectacle Wave suggests (Meyer, of thetheir unfolding.inherently1975) makes connectedIn The it much Forms nature more of of the aboutthose Affects objectsthe wave, Eugenie and than their aboutBrinkema surroundings anything (2014) (Brown,specific argues 2013:to Japan.that 1). the A formal2006

More, ‘characters in digital cinema no longer stand out as unique agents against the space that surrounds them, but instead become inseparable from their space’ (Brown, 2013: 2). Humans and waves can become similar sorts of filmic characters (Figure 6), with the first-person drowning image in San Andreas simply another character move – and even a kind of nostalgic reference to the now quaint conceit of the human-controlled camera (Geostorm, from 2017, even offers one of its colossal waves from the imagined point of view of a surfer in the barrel of a gargantuan, inhuman tube). As Lev Manovich argues, ‘the relationship between animation and film has been reversed following the advent of digital technology, such that if animation was once a subset of cinema, live action analog film is now the subset’ (Brown, 2013, paraphrasing Manovich, 2001: 302). 6 Social Science Information 00(0)

aspects of filmic composition create affect, not just package it. A digression here into her reading of Open Water, a film about a pair of scuba divers accidentally abandoned by their boat and eventually (spoiler alert) eaten by sharks, guides my next point. Brinkema suggests that the out-of-placeness of humans in Open Water can be read from what happens to the line of the horizon over the course of the film. The clean line is broken, first, by a shark fin and then, second, by one of the divers using her mask to look down into the deep, into what will turn out to be her grave. After the first appearance of a shark, Brinkema writes:

a wave flows over the camera lens, and the film for the first time since the couple has risen to the surface dips below the level of the water … Although an ontological break in the sea surface line has been signaled in the appearance of the fin that rips through it, the breach’s more radical form involves the camera dipping underwater in an unattributable shot, an image completely delinked from even an approximation of a character’s (limited, partial) vision. (Brinkema, 2014: 228)

Though abundantly more chaotic in form, in the 2015 disaster film San Andreas, which features an immense wave coming to wipe out much of California, we have a similar moment when the wave, arriving into San Francisco’s Chinatown with a large cruise ship on its crest, plunges the ‘camera’ underwater (see Figure 6, which offers a street-level view at the moment just before the audience’s vantage point is pushed underwater)HelmreichHelmreich (and see Jones, 2007; Pierson, 2015).8 Though there is a fantastical perceptual50213 93 realism at play here, it is clear that we have left the analogical or indexical promise of old-fashioned film. These cannot be images that are ‘direct and isomorphic transcrip- tions of a moment that existed concurrently with the camera’ (Hadjioannou, 2008; see also Mangolte, 2003). Digital cinema no longer offers a record of time, but rather gener- ates a simulation of time. And the fluid transition across air and underwater media is an illusion, one from the age of digital cinema, ‘defined by spatial and temporal continuity and by a rejection of the cut’ (Brown, 2013: 9). Even so, this moment belongs, still, to the order of the movement-image. As William Brown explains about the possibility for digital filmic representation to skip scales and pass through materialities, in such films:

the (virtual) ‘camera’ passes through ‘filled’ space (i.e., solid objects) with the same ease with which it passes through ‘empty’ space. By showing space and all that fills it as a single continuum, as opposed to a space fragmented by objects, digital technology suggests the Figureinherently 6. Still connected from San nature Andreas. of those objects and their surroundings (Brown, 2013: 1).

More,Figure ‘characters 1. Sequence in from digital Étienne cinema Jules no Marey, longer La Vague stand, 1891. out as unique agents against the space that surrounds them, but instead become inseparable from their space’ (Brown, 2013:Muybridge 2). Humans in Palo and Alto waves in the can late become 1870s, similar in which sorts Muybridge of filmic characters famously (Figuregenerated 6), a withseries the of first-person stills taken drowning in quick successionimage in San to captureAndreas the simply movement another of characterhorses.1 It move became – andimaginable even a kind to slice of nostalgic time up referenceinto framed to visualizationsthe now quaint and conceit to then of suturethe human-controlled these together in cameraspace (–Geostorm parcelling, from them 2017, out along even segmentedoffers one oflinear its colossal spans of waves nitrate, from celluloid, the imagined acetate pointand ofother view film of astock. surfer It in also the barrelbecame of possible a gargantuan, to watch inhuman things tube). over Asand Lev over Manovich again, to argues,slow, to‘the pause, relationship to reverse between (see Gunning, animation 1989: and 33film on has early been silent reversed film asfollowing ‘a cinema the of Helmreichadventinstants, of ratherdigital than technology, developing such situations’, that if animation a condition was that once online a subset formats of cinema, such as liveGIFs7 actionmay beanalog reactivating, film is now as I the discuss subset’ below). (Brown, 2013, paraphrasing Manovich, 2001: 302). FilmicAs philosopher recreations Henri of recent Bergson real – tsunamis,a colleague as of in Marey’s2010’s Hereafter at the College and 2012’sde France The in Impossiblethe early ,20th-century both of which – noted,tell tales in chronophotography,of people surviving thethe timeIndian of experienceOcean tsunami, or what of Figure 7. Still from Hereafter, 2010. 2004,Bergson and calledboth of ‘duration’ which seek came a certain newly verisimilitude,to be captured andretain expressed an accounting as space: of ‘Thewaves terms as inhumanthat designate energies, time’, script he their wrote, tales ‘are of human borrowed resilience from theby placing language individual of space’ persons (Bergson, at the1946: centre 4; ofas their in the stories. sequence In each above, of these which, Euro-American read left to right, productions, means tothese mimic are nottemporal just anysuccession). people; they The are result, white for European Bergson, familieswas that, caught ‘instead up of in attaching a disaster ourselves that, even to theas itinner is arbitrary,becoming is codedof things, in its we outlines place ourselves as that which outside more them usually in order befalls to recompose the struggling their becomthou- - sandsing artificially’ of the third (Bergson,world (in the1911[1907]: stills reproduced 332). The here, wave, individual, taken as fleeing a visible, white surface bodies object, are stagedis portioned against into settings instants that and suggest reassembled tropical invacations the space–time gone wrong: of the monsoon-readyviewer, who comes bal- to conies,see the palm wave-movement-image trees (Figures 7 and as 8)). at onceEuropean an empirical families, record their andlot thrown a lively in phenomenon, with local bodies,one that survive may support only by various luck and characterizations wits that are meant and narrative to be coded uses (cf.as universal,Kelty & Landecker, even as their2004 narrative on life, workanimation is accomplished and film). by staging them as bodies out of their usual geo- graphicalGilles place Deleuze, and daily in Cinema time (see 1: The Ghosh, Movement 2016 on Image the tension (1986) between and Cinema disaster 2: The stories Time andImage the form (1989), of bourgeoisdraws on Bergson,narrative, and, which reading assumes films a regular from the day-to-day 20th century, cadence). complicates9 thisThe view, technical arguing details that, behind with film, the on-screenmovement waves comes in to Hereafter be inscribed and withinThe Impossible the still. In are the diagnosticmostly later of what20th-century the films films aspire I treat to do: here, to get waves humans are movement-images and disastrous waves and intotime-images some- Figure 8. Still from The Impossible, 2012. thingpar like excellence the same, for scale. their Here, pitched however, present older always techniques points to of their using immediate real water past return (their (Failes,swelling 2010), arrival) since and we their are immanentnot meant futurehere to (their see aggregatejust-about-to-breakness). humanity (which2 More, – with the nearlythetime other they250,000 films gather people I have up is perishingtreated not simply here. in thelinear, Taking 2004 unfolding atsunami page from time,– was Deleuze’s nor certainly only theCinema one subjective scale 2: atThe whichor Time inte - theImagerior event time (1989), happened of a whichviewer,, and discusses but not alsoso much imagesa time in ofthethat fantasy, concentrated are made of theto reflecturban ‘unthought, spaceson time thethat itself unsummonable, disaster – images mov of- iesmemories,the seem inexplicable, to dreams,favour). the fantasiesFor undecidable, The Impossible– we thecan incommensurable’understand, director Juan the Antoniowave (Deleuze, of BayonaThe 1989: Last ‘recreated Wave214; ,and which the also tsunami with a mixture of digital effects and real water surges’:

‘We created miniatures that were destroyed by a huge wave that we created in a water tank in Spain’, he says. The Spanish director admits it was ‘crazy’ to commit to working with real water rather than a computer-generated wave, but he wanted the story to be authentic. This meant Naomi Watts and Tom Holland, who play mother and son Maria and Lucas, were gulping water in a massive water tank for five weeks (Curtis, 2012)

The effect of a tsunami arriving at a hotel resort was accomplished using real pumps and dumps of water (see Ocean Innovations, 2015). Tanks of water were loosed on actors on set. Actors filmed scenes in swimming pools, which were then composited onto larger settings. A one-half scale model of a hotel was created and inundated with thousands of litres of water. But digital effects were in use, too – for example, there is a change in point of view, from ‘objective’ to camera-subjective after the wave arrives; the screen goes blank and then an image re-emerges, of underwater confusion, complete with muted bubble sounds. In Hereafter, much was achieved through compositing images of real water with CGI. In some cases, even the actors had computer-generated features added to them. Again, waves and people, both become animated effects, tuned to act in the same temporal world.10

Waves as moral messengers, or missives from the Anthropocean Bringing humans and gargantuan waves into the same time frame offers explicitly humanist – that is to say rationalist, emotional and ethical – narrative opportunities, and Helmreich 13

2210503HelmreichFigure 6. Still from San Andreas. Social Science Information 00(0)57(3)57(3)13 of the medium. As film is challenged by television, filmmakers (in the 1960s, and more intensively in the 1970s) turn to large-scale special effects, epic stories for the screen, disaster movies. As film is challenged by digital technologies (games, the Internet), waves areHelmreich again reinvented, now as virtual simulated objects capturing a slice of the digital, 7 emblems of the sublime power of cinema as fantasy (to date, it does not seem as through 3D representationsFilmic recreations have ofsignificantly recent real altered tsunamis, wave as movement-images, in 2010’s Hereafter though and 2012’sit seems The thatImpossible they should, both – maybeof which they tell will tales soon?). of people Nowadays, surviving we themay Indian have enteredOcean tsunamia hyper- of reflexive2004, and moment, both of when which the seek artifactuality a certain ofverisimilitude, waves on the retain screen an has accounting become a of recursive waves as resourceinhuman for energies, narrative, script either their animating tales of an human optimistic resilience aesthetic by placingof nature individual crafted in personspartner- at shipthe with centre humanity of their (stories.Moana In) or each underwriting of these Euro-American an ironic sense productions, of representation these areas inade not just- quateany topeople; the politics they areof nature, white captiveEuropean to humanfamilies folly caught in ways up in that a disastercannot pretend that, even to attach as it is arbitrary, is coded in its outlines as that which more usually befalls the struggling thou- toFigure Figuremeaningful 6. 7. StillStill ecological from from San Hereafter Andreas. action,, 2010. and that may spell human doom. sands of the third world (in the stills reproduced here, individual, fleeing white bodies are Companionstaged against Movie settings Montage that suggest tropical vacations gone wrong: monsoon-ready bal- Forconies, a montage palm of trees scenes (Figures from movies 7 and featuring 8)). European massive families,movie waves their — lot a montage thrown thatin with delivers local anbodies, argument survive about commononly by tropesluck and and witseffects that — aresee meant“Massive to Moviebe coded Waves as universal,Mix,” by Jeremie even as Brugidou,their narrative available work at http://vimeo.com/269392249 is accomplished by staging them as bodies out of their usual geo- graphical place and daily time (see Ghosh, 2016 on the tension between disaster stories Acknowledgementsand the form of bourgeois narrative, which assumes a regular day-to-day cadence).9 The technical details behind the on-screen waves in Hereafter and The Impossible are I thank Jeremie Brugidou, Eugenie Brinkema, Eva Hayward, David Jaclin, Caroline Jones, Clare Kim,diagnostic Melody ofJue, what Heather the films Paxson, aspire Dmitry to do: Portnoy, to get Michaelhumans Rossiand disastrous and Nicole waves Starosielski into some for - closething readings like the of iterationssame scale. of this Here, argument. however, Thanks older also techniques to Ayn Cavicchi of using and real Latéfa water Faiz return for invaluable(Failes, help2010), in the since production we are of not this meant piece. here to see aggregate humanity (which – with nearly 250,000 people perishing in the 2004 tsunami – was certainly one scale at which Fundingthe event happened, and not so much in the concentrated urban spaces that disaster movies seem to favour). For The Impossible, director Juan Antonio Bayona ‘recreated the ThisFigureFigure research 7. 8. Still Stillreceived from from Hereafter noThe specific Impossible, 2010. grant, 2012. from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profittsunami with sectors. a mixture of digital effects and real water surges’:

the‘We other created films miniatures I have treated that were here. destroyed Taking bya pagea huge from wave Deleuze’s that we created Cinema in a 2:water The tank Time in Notes ImageSpain’, (1989), he says. which The discusses Spanish director images admits that are it madewas ‘crazy’ to reflect to commit on time to itselfworking – images with real of 1.memories, Aswater Jonathan rather dreams, Crary than observesafantasies computer-generated in –Suspensions we can wave,understand of Perception but he thewanted, Marey’s wave the ofwork story The enacted toLast be authentic.aWave ‘reciprocal, which This operationmeant Naomi of decomposition Watts and Tom and Holland, reunification: who play his mother analysis and of son movement, Maria and within Lucas, the were frame gulping of awater single in visual a massive field, water preserved tank fora vector five weeks of spatial (Curtis, and 2012)temporal coherence, giving movement a new form of legibility and rationality’ (Crary, 2001:140). 2.The Deleuze effect (1986)of a tsunami suggests arriving that perception, at a hotel affect resort and was action accomplished write themselves using into real film pumps through and dumpssuch techniquesof water (see as the Ocean long shotInnovations, (establishing 2015). scenes), Tanks the ofclose water up (registeringwere loosed emotion), on actors and on the medium shot (tracking action). All are present in wave films, as waves are things seen set. Actors filmed scenes in swimming pools, which were then composited onto larger set- from far away, up close (often registered in the faces of those actors meant to be gaping at tings.waves A one-half as they arrive), scale modeland all ofalong a hotel their was unfolding. created and inundated with thousands of litres of Comparewater. But waves digital as movement- effects were and intime-images use, too – to for fire example,. In the 1940s, there director is a change Sergei Eisensteinin point of view, from ‘objective’ to camera-subjective after the wave arrives; the screen goes blank Figure(1986) 8. positedStill from the The flickering Impossible flame, 2012. as an allegory for the captivating power of cinema (and andcompare then an Wollen image (1984) re-emerges, on cinema of as underwater fire and photography confusion, as ice). complete Leslie (2017) with muted has recently bubble sounds.written In of Hereafter clouds as, cinematicmuch was motifs achieved and how through these compositinghave been enlivened images in of both real analog water and with theCGI. digitalother In some filmsfilm. cases, I have even treated the actors here. hadTaking computer-generated a page from Deleuze’s features Cinema added to 2: them. The Again, Time Image3.waves The (1989), originaland people, whichJapanese both discusses versionbecome of images animated the film that was effects, are called made tuned Japan to to reflect Sinks act in (1973) onthe time same (日本沈没 itself temporal – )images by world. Shiro of 10 memories,Moritani. dreams, Retitling, fantasies reshuffling, – we revising, can understand and redistributing the wave the filmof The as Tidal Last WaveWave (Meyer,, which 1975) makes it much more about the wave than about anything specific to Japan. A 2006 Waves as moral messengers, or missives from the Anthropocean Bringing humans and gargantuan waves into the same time frame offers explicitly humanist – that is to say rationalist, emotional and ethical – narrative opportunities, and Helmreich 7

Filmic recreations of recent real tsunamis, as in 2010’s Hereafter and 2012’s The Impossible, both of which tell tales of people surviving the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, and both of which seek a certain verisimilitude, retain an accounting of waves as inhuman energies, script their tales of human resilience by placing individual persons at the centre of their stories. In each of these Euro-American productions, these are not just any people; they are white European families caught up in a disaster that, even as it is arbitrary, is coded in its outlines as that which more usually befalls the struggling thousands of the third world (in the stills reproduced here, individual, fleeing white bodies are staged against settings that suggest tropical vacations gone wrong: monsoon-ready bal- conies, palm trees (Figures 7 and 8)). European families, their lot thrown in with local bodies, survive only by luck and wits that are meant to be coded as universal, even as their narrative work is accomplished by staging them as bodies out of their usual geo- graphical place and daily time (see Ghosh, 2016 on the tension between disaster stories and the form of bourgeois narrative, which assumes a regular day-to-day cadence).9 The technical details behind the on-screen waves in Hereafter and The Impossible are diagnostic of what the films aspire to do: to get humans and disastrous waves into something like the same scale. Here, however, older techniques of using real water return (Failes, 2010), since we are not meant here to see aggregate humanity (which – with nearly 250,000 people perishing in the 2004 tsunami – was certainly one scale at which the event happened, and not so much in the concentrated urban spaces that disaster movies seem to favour). For The Impossible, director Juan Antonio Bayona ‘recreated the tsunami with a mixture of digital effects and real water surges’:

WavesFilmic as recreations moral ofmessengers, recent real tsunamis, or missives as in 2010’s from Hereafter the and 2012’s The ImpossibleAnthropocean, both of which tell tales of people surviving the Indian Ocean tsunami of 82004,Bringing and humansboth of which and gargantuan seek a certain waves verisimilitude, into the same retainSocial time an Science accounting frame Information offers of explicitlywaves 00(0) as inhumanhumanist energies,– that is toscript say rationalist,their tales of emotional human resilience and ethical by – placing narrative individual opportunities, persons and at athe good centre portion of their of thestories. waves In ofeach recent of these disaster Euro-American and science fictionproductions, film are these explicit are not moral just devices;any people; waves they become are white characters European that families carry messages caught upto humanity.in a disaster Sometimes, that, even it asis toit isa localizedarbitrary, humanity,is coded in as its in outlines 2016’s asThe that Wave which (Bølgen more), usually a Norwegian befalls moviethe struggling about a thoufjord- monitoredsands of the for third the worldslipping (in (and the stillsimpending) reproduced collapse here, of individual, its surrounding fleeing mountains, white bodies which are townspeoplestaged against ignore settings as theythat suggesttry to continue tropical tovacations squeeze gone a living wrong: out monsoon-readyof the local and balthe- precariousconies, palm tourist trees industry (Figures (the 7 and poster 8)). explicitly European poses families, the wave their aslot a thrownfrothing in and with chaotic local formbodies, bearing survive down only on by the luck clean and lineswits thatof human are meant artifice, to be unruly coded nature as universal, threatening even the as human-ruledtheir narrative world work of is aaccomplished modernist hotel. by stagingSee Figure them 9). as Unlike bodies films out of such their as usualHereafter geo- andgraphical The Impossible place and, dailyin which time moral (see Ghosh,journeys 2016 begin on after the tension a disastrous between wave disaster hits, in stories films 9 likeandFigure Thethe 1.form Wave Sequence of, the bourgeois wavefrom Étienneoffers narrative, a Jules climactic whichMarey, culmination,assumesLa Vague, a1891. regular a moral day-to-day lesson that cadence). puts human characters’The technical failures details to act behind into relief. the on-screen11 waves in Hereafter and The Impossible are diagnosticWaves as of a what narrative the films climax aspire for storiesto do: toof gethuman humans foolishness and disastrous also appear waves at theinto global, some- Muybridgething like the in samePalo Altoscale. in Here, the late however, 1870s, olderin which techniques Muybridge of using famously real watergenerated return a geopolitical scale. The biblical narrative of Noah and the flood is almost always1 an obvi- series(Failes, of 2010), stills taken since in we quick are notsuccession meant hereto capture to see theaggregate movement humanity of horses. (which It became – with ousimaginable echo. A tocanonical slice time movie up into here framed is The visualizations Day After Tomorrow and to then, from suture 2004, these which together features in anearly climate-change 250,000 people created perishing wave that in hitsthe 2004New tsunamiYork. – was certainly one scale at which spacethe event – parcelling happened ,them and notout so along much segmented in the concentrated linear spans urban of nitrate,spaces thatcelluloid, disaster acetate mov- andThe other wave film in Thestock. Day It Afteralso becameTomorrow possible arrives to as watch a mix ofthings a wave over and and a slumping over again, flood to (seeies seem Figure to 10), favour). a mixture For The of the Impossible realistic ,and director the fantastical, Juan Antonio an apparition Bayona ‘recreatedof a disorder the- slow,tsunami to withpause, a mixtureto reverse of digital(see Gunning, effects and 1989: real 33 water on earlysurges’: silent film as ‘a cinema of inginstants, sublime. rather It isthan still, developing of course, situations’,calibrated to a individuallycondition that scaled online human formats narratives. such as GIFsThat becomesmay be reactivating, obvious when as Ithe discuss wave’s below). motion is out of view and we see individual characters‘We outrunning created miniatures waters that, that moments were destroyed ago, were by a abouthuge wave to engulf that we them. created Physics in a water and hydro tank in- AsSpain’, philosopher he says. TheHenri Spanish Bergson director – a colleagueadmits it was of Marey’s‘crazy’ to atcommit the College to working de France with real in dynamics are subordinated to narrative – even as an ethos of perceptual realism formats thewater early rather 20th-century than a computer-generated – noted, in chronophotography, wave, but he wanted the timethe story of experience to be authentic., or what This howBergsonmeant we arecalledNaomi supposed ‘duration’Watts and to Tom trackcame Holland, the newly story’s who to be playaction. captured mother The and wave-image sonexpressed Maria and hereas Lucas,space: is still were ‘The a gulpingmove terms- ment-imagethatwater designate in a: massivealways time’, waterimplicitly, he wrote,tank for inexorably ‘arefive weeks borrowed in(Curtis, motion. from 2012) theWe languageviewers know of space’ that waves (Bergson, do not1946: and 4; cannot as in thestand sequence still. We above, know which, that gravity read leftcannot to right, suspend means things to mimicforever, temporal and so wavessuccession).The effect suspended of The a tsunami result, on the arrivingfor screen Bergson, atrepresent a hotelwas that, resorta kind ‘instead was of stillaccomplished of momentattaching before ourselvesusing reala torrent; topumps the innertheir and sublimitybecomingdumps of and waterof things, threat (see weisOcean in place their Innovations, ourselves imminent outside 2015).collapse. themTanks in of order water to were recompose loosed theiron actors becom on- ingset.There Actorsartificially’ is filmed a larger (Bergson, scenes message in 1911[1907]: swimming at work pools,332). in The Thewhich Day wave, were After taken then Tomorrow ascomposited a visible,. In onto surfacethis largerfilm, object, setwe- viewersistings. portioned A one-halfare intopressed scaleinstants to model see and our ofreassembled atodays hotel wasand in createdtomorrows the space–time and inundatedas themselves of the with viewer, thousandsmoments who comes ofof litressus to- pensionseeof water. the wave-movement-image before But digital a fully effects realized, were as climate-change-inducedin at use, once too an –empirical for example, record flooding there and is a Anthropocene.alively change phenomenon, in point The of waveoneview, that from of may The ‘objective’ support Day After various to camera-subjective Tomorrow characterizations is anthropocenic after and the narrative wave – arrives;anthropoceanic uses (cf. the Kelty screen &. ItLandecker,goes has blank ‘the human’2004and then on and life, an the imageanimation sins re-emerges, of andhumanity film). of inside underwater of it – confusion, and not just complete any humanity, with muted as it bubble happens,sounds.Gilles but In Deleuze,the Hereafter humanity in, muchCinema of thewas 1: global achieved The Movement industrialized through Image compositing North, (1986) as, imagesand at Cinemathe of end real 2:of water Thethe film, Timewith theImageCGI. President In (1989), some cases, ofdraws the even on United Bergson,the actors States and,had confesses computer-generatedreading films that from climate thefeatures 20th change addedcentury, has to comethem.complicates Again, about becausethiswaves view, and of arguing people, overconsumption boththat, becomewith film, from animated movement overdeveloped effects, comes tuned countries,to tobe act inscribed in thewho same withinmust temporal now, the still. humbled, world. In the10 turnmostly to laterthe (less-hard20th-century hit) films global I treat South here, for waves succour are movement-images and support (see and Keane, time-images 2006; Rust, 2013). This wave, then, is a character that embodies a return of the repressed to parWaves excellence as moral, for their messengers, pitched present or always missives points tofrom their the immediate past (their answelling assumed arrival) Northern and their viewer. immanent Following future Whissel, (their just-about-to-breakness). we can say that wave2 fitsMore, in thethe categorytimeAnthropocean they of gather ‘effects up isemblems not simply [that] linear, are unfoldingdeployed totime, give nor a spectacularonly the subjective representation or inte- to scenarios and events that strongly imply, or threaten to bring about, ‘the End’ riorBringing time of humans a viewer, and but gargantuan also a time waves of fantasy, into theof the same ‘unthought, time frame the offersunsummonable, explicitly (Whissel, 2014: 18) – ‘the end of freedom, the end of a civilization, the end of an era, thehumanist inexplicable, – that is the to sayundecidable, rationalist, the emotional incommensurable’ and ethical (Deleuze, – narrative 1989: opportunities, 214; and alsoand or even the end of human time altogether’ (Whissel, 2014: 60).12 The wave of The Day After Tomorrow is a force that is devastating, but also ground clearing, signalling the beginning of a new era – though also a narcissistically Northern one, since, in the real world, low lying islands of Earth are already feeling the rise of sea level and the incursion of waves.13 2214125058 SocialSocialSocial Science ScienceScience Information InformationInformation 00(0) 57(3)57(3) 00(0)00(0) ofa thegood medium. portion As of filmthe waves is challenged of recent by disaster television, and sciencefilmmakers fiction (in filmthe 1960s,are explicit and more moral intensivelydevices; waves in the become 1970s) charactersturn to large-scale that carry special messages effects, to humanity. epic stories Sometimes, for the screen, it is to a disasterlocalized movies. humanity, As film as isin challenged 2016’s The by Wave digital (Bølgen technologies), a Norwegian (games, the movie Internet), about waves a fjord aremonitored again reinvented, for the slipping now as(and virtual impending) simulated collapse objects of itscapturing surrounding a slice mountains, of the digital, which emblemstownspeople of the ignore sublime as powerthey try of tocinema continue as fantasy to squeeze (to date, a living it does out not of seemthe local as through and the 3Dprecarious representations tourist industryhave significantly (the poster altered explicitly wave poses movement-images, the wave as a frothing though and it seemschaotic thatform they bearing should down – maybe on the they clean will lines soon?). of human Nowadays, artifice, we unrulymay have nature entered threatening a hyper- the reflexivehuman-ruled moment, world when of athe modernist artifactuality hotel. of See waves Figure on the9). screenUnlike has films become such asa recursive Hereafter resourceand The for Impossible narrative,, eitherin which animating moral journeys an optimistic begin aesthetic after a disastrous of nature crafted wave hits, in partner in films- shiplike with The humanityWave, the ( waveMoana offers) or underwriting a climactic culmination, an ironic sense a moral of representation lesson that puts as inade human- quatecharacters’ to the politics failures of to nature, act into captive relief. to11 human folly in ways that cannot pretend to attach to meaningfulWaves as aecological narrative action,climax andfor storiesthat may of humanspell human foolishness doom. also appear at the global, geopolitical scale. The biblical narrative of Noah and the flood is almost always an obvi- Companionous echo. A canonical Movie Montage movie here is The Day After Tomorrow, from 2004, which features Fora climate-changea montage of scenes created from wave movies that featuring hits New massive York. movie waves — a montage that delivers an argumentThe wave about in Thecommon Day Aftertropes Tomorrow and effects arrives— see “Massiveas a mix ofMovie a wave Waves and Mix,” a slumping by Jeremie flood Brugidou,(see Figure available 10), aat mixture http://vimeo.com/269392249 of the realistic and the fantastical, an apparition of a disorder- ing sublime. It is still, of course, calibrated to individually scaled human narratives. That Acknowledgementsbecomes obvious when the wave’s motion is out of view and we see individual charac- I thankters outrunning Jeremie Brugidou, waters that,Eugenie moments Brinkema, ago, Eva were Hayward, about to David engulf Jaclin, them. Caroline Physics Jones, and hydroClare - Kim,dynamics Melody are Jue, subordinated Heather Paxson, to narrative Dmitry Portnoy,– even asMichael an ethos Rossi of perceptualand Nicole realismStarosielski formats for closehow readings we are ofsupposed iterations to of track this argument.the story’s Thanks action. also The to wave-imageAyn Cavicchi hereand Latéfais still Faiz a move for - invaluablement-image help: inalways the production implicitly, of this inexorably piece. in motion. We viewers know that waves do not and cannot stand still. We know that gravity cannot suspend things forever, and so Fundingwaves suspended on the screen represent a kind of still moment before a torrent; their Thissublimity research and received threat no is specificin their grantimminent from anycollapse. funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profitFigureHelmreichThere 9. English is sectors. a larger language message poster atfor work The Wave in The (Bølgen) Day, 2015. After Tomorrow. In this film, we15 viewers are pressed to see our todays and tomorrows as themselves moments of sus- Notespension before a fully realized, climate-change-induced flooding Anthropocene. The neverwave arrives, of The but Day is only After hinted Tomorrow at by foreshadowingsis anthropocenic on – cave anthropoceanic paintings, in. the It agitated has ‘the 1. As Jonathan Crary observes in Suspensions of Perception, Marey’s work enacted a ‘reciprocal statehuman’ of the and white the sinslawyer, of humanityas a meditation inside on of time, it – and thenot timejust ofany colonial humanity, and postcoloas it hap-- nialoperation history, whichof decomposition is never really and reunification: post. his analysis of movement, within the frame of pens,a single but thevisual humanity field, preserved of the aglobal vector ofindustrialized spatial and temporal North, coherence, as, at the giving end of movement the film, thea Presidentnew form of of legibility the United and rationality’ States confesses (Crary, 2001:140). that climate change has come about The2.because Deleuze suspended, of (1986) overconsumption suggests backwards, that perception, from overdeveloped repeating affect and action countries, wave write themselvesand who themust into now, film humbled, through reflexiveturnsuch to techniquesthe (less-hardcinematic as the longhit) fantastic shotglobal (establishing South for scenes), succour the closeand supportup (registering (see Keane,emotion), 2006; and Rust,the 2013).medium This shot wave,(tracking then, action). is a characterAll are present that inembodies wave films, a return as waves of the are repressedthings seen to Cinematican fromassumed far playaway, Northern with up close the viewer. (oftenmechanics registeredFollowing of time in Whissel,the has faces motivated of we those can actors reflexive,say thatmeant wavefantastical, to be fitsgaping in and atthe ironiccategorywaves representations asof they ‘effects arrive), emblems of and waves. all along [that] The their areUr-text unfolding. deployed here is to perhaps give a spectacularJean Epstein’s representation 1947 film, Leto TempestaireCompare scenarios waves and. In as eventsthis movement- short that drama, and strongly time-images a folkloric imply, to figurefire or . threatenIn the– a 1940s,tempestaire to director bring or about,Sergei storm-tamer Eisenstein ‘the End’ – is(Whissel, able(1986) to controlposited 2014: thea18) storm flickering – ‘the that end isflame arrivingof freedom, as an inallegory a thecoastal endfor thevillageof acaptivating civilization, in Brittany. power the Weof end cinema see of this an (and oldera, manorFigure compareeven cradling 10. the WollenStill end a crystalfrom of (1984) humanThe ball Dayon cinemathat timeAfter holds Tomorrowaltogether’ as fire an and image, 2004. photography (Whissel, of a bay as2014: tossedice). Leslie60). by12 waves (2017)The wave has(Figure recently of The15, written of clouds as cinematic motifs and how these have been enlivened in both analog and top).Day HeAfter blows Tomorrow at/into isthe a ball,force and that the is devastating,film cuts to a but scene also of ground waves clearing,slowing and, signalling eventually,digital reversing film. (Figure 15, bottom) (see Keller and Paul, 2012). The old man is, of 3.the The beginning original Japaneseof a new version era – thoughof the film also was a callednarcissistically Japan Sinks Northern (1973) (日本沈没 one, since,) by Shiroin the course,real world, cinema low itself lying – islands viewing of fromEarth far, are from already up feelingclose, speeding the rise ofup, sea slowing level anddown, the reversing.Moritani. Retitling, reshuffling, revising, and redistributing the film as Tidal Wave (Meyer, incursion1975) makes of waves. it much13 more about the wave than about anything specific to Japan. A 2006

Figure 11. Poster for 2012 released in 1989.

This effect has a descendant – a mutated, digital one – in the 1989 science fiction film The Abyss. In this movie, extraterrestrial visitors to Earth who are capable of sculpting Helmreich 5061393

Another wave in this lineage might be the one generated from an instability in the Earth’s core, a wave that comes to life in the movie 2012 (released in 2009), a catastrophe, in the movie’s narrative, foretold by the Maya, perhaps avatars for modern civilization’s disavowed and forgotten predecessors, speaking to the present through the Mayan Long Count calendar. 2012 hints that waves come when humans are unprepared, unmind- ful of history and geology. In one of the posters for the film, the American White House falls under threat not only from a giant wave, but also from its freight, a seagoing human technology – an aircraft carrier – that stands as a broken symbol of human arrogance in the face of natural forces (see Figure 11). In many of these movies – whether featuring inhuman or all-too-human waves – spectacular destruction is visited upon cities (see Figures 2, 3, 4, 10, 12), sorts of hyperculture inundated and undone by hypernature. Killer Wave, from 2007, makes the notion of a human-made wave literal. In this movie,Figure 1.the Sequence wave is notfrom simply Étienne the Jules effect Marey, of humanLa Vague (in)action,, 1891. but is deliberately created by the villains of the film, who hope to cash in on construction contracts for rebuilding destroyed cities (one might even think of the waves of zombies that one sees in World WarMuybridge Z, the aggregate in Palo Alto embodiment in the late of 1870s,human infoolishness; which Muybridge see Whissel, famously 2014). generated14 (It is also a 1 worthseries ofnoting stills that taken the in publicity quick succession image on tothe capture DVD casethe movement for Killer Waveof horses. – see ItFigure became 12 –imaginable echoes Hokusai’s to slice time famous up into 1829 framed woodblock visualizations print, Greatand to Wavethen sutureoff Kanagawa these together (some in- thingspace we– parcelling can also saythem of outFigures along 2, segmented 4, 9 and 11). linear Both spans the printof nitrate, and the celluloid, poster showacetate a monstrousand other filmwave stock. coming It alsoin from became the left, possible placing to human watch vehiclesthings over in peril and – over a fisherman’s again, to boatslow, in to the pause, print, to an reverse upturned (see car Gunning, in the poster). 1989: Geostorm33 on early (2017) silent speculates film as ‘a about cinema what of mightinstants, happen rather if than technical developing attempts situations’, to control a thecondition world’s that weather online fall formats into evil such hands; as GIFs the filmmay showsbe reactivating, Dubai destroyed as I discuss by a below). massive wave. TheAs philosopher moral message Henri of Bergsonocean waves, – a colleague coming to of sweep Marey’s the atEarth the Collegeclean, does de Francenot, as in Thethe earlyDay After20th-century Tomorrow – ,noted, always in need chronophotography, a scientific, climate-change the time of drivenexperience warrant., or whatThat isBergson the case called in big ‘duration’ wave disaster came moviesnewly to for be people captured who and do expressednot accept as climate space: change ‘The terms – or whothat designatelook to fundamentalist time’, he wrote, religion ‘are for borrowed their eschatology. from the language 2012: Doomsday of space’, for (Bergson, example,1946: a Christian4; as in the rapture sequence film above,(Everhart, which, 2008), read features left to right,in its meansposter toadvertising mimic temporal a large wavesuccession). coming The to result, inundate for Bergson, a city. Resonances was that, ‘instead with the of Noachianattaching ourselves flood are to thick. the inner San Andreasbecoming might of things, even we be placeinterpreted ourselves as a outside cosmologically them in order agnostic to recompose disaster film, their openbecom to- religiousing artificially’ interpretation (Bergson, (with 1911[1907]: San Francisco 332). Theas Sodom wave, andtaken Gomorrah?). as a visible, Wesurface might object, read theis portioned form of the into disaster instants in and that reassembled movie – in which in the cruise space–time ships flyof thethrough viewer, the who air, containercomes to shipssee the fracture wave-movement-image bridges – as shorthanding as at once humanan empirical transgression record and of athe lively sea, phenomenon,as the ocean punishingone that may sea-borne support ‘globalization’.various characterizations Indeed, the and becoming-vertical narrative uses (cf. of Kelty the social & Landecker, world is key.2004 Whissel on life, writesanimation that: and film). Gilles Deleuze, in Cinema 1: The Movement Image (1986) and Cinema 2: The Time ImageAs an (1989), effects drawsemblem, on verticality Bergson, createsand, reading an interpretative films from framework the 20th for century, … rising complicates and falling thisbodies view, and arguing matter that, in these with films film, that movement goes well comesbeyond totheir be realityinscribed effect: within by mapping the still. complex In the mostlystruggles later for 20th-century power onto filmsthe laws I treat of physics, here, waves verticality are movement-imagescan make historical changeand time-images a matter of parinertia excellence or inevitability, for their (Whissel, pitched 2014: present 30). always points to their immediate past (their swelling arrival) and their immanent future (their just-about-to-breakness).2 More, the time‘Gravity’, they gathershe writes, up is not‘acts simply as a historicallinear, unfolding corrective’ time, (2014: nor only 32; theas itsubjective does in Titanicor inte-, riorwhen time the oforder a viewer, of things, but richalso at a thetime top, of poorfantasy, at the of bottom,the ‘unthought, become thesubject unsummonable, to the level- theling inexplicable, force of physics). the undecidable, If the world theof film incommensurable’ gives us narratives (Deleuze, that are 1989: ‘the recognition214; and also of Helmreich 15

Helmreich 15

Figure 10. Still from The Day After Tomorrow, 2004.

2214507Helmreich Figure 10. Still from The Day After Tomorrow, 2004. Social Science Information 00(0)57(3)57(3)15 of the medium. As film is challenged by television, filmmakers (in the 1960s, and more intensively in the 1970s) turn to large-scale special effects, epic stories for the screen, disaster movies. As film is challenged by digital technologies (games, the Internet), waves are again reinvented, now as virtual simulated objects capturing a slice of the digital, emblems of the sublime power of cinema as fantasy (to date, it does not seem as through 3D representations have significantly altered wave movement-images, though it seems that they should – maybe they will soon?). Nowadays, we may have entered a hyper- reflexive moment, when the artifactuality of waves on the screen has become a recursive resource for narrative, either animating an optimistic aesthetic of nature crafted in partnership with humanity (Moana) or underwriting an ironic sense of representation as inade- quate to the politics of nature, captive to human folly in ways that cannot pretend to attach to meaningful ecological action, and that may spell human doom. Figure 10. Still from The Day After Tomorrow, 2004. Companion Movie Montage For a montage of scenes from movies featuring massive movie waves — a montage that delivers an argument about common tropes and effects — see “Massive Movie Waves Mix,” by Jeremie Brugidou, available at http://vimeo.com/269392249

Acknowledgements I16 thank Jeremie Brugidou, Eugenie Brinkema, Eva Hayward, DavidSocial Jaclin, Science Caroline Information Jones, Clare00(0) Kim, Melody Jue, Heather Paxson, Dmitry Portnoy, Michael Rossi and Nicole Starosielski for close readings of iterations of this argument. Thanks also to Ayn Cavicchi and Latéfa Faiz for 16 Social Science Information 00(0) invaluableFigure 11.help Poster in the productionfor 2012 released of this piece.in 1989. Figure 11. Poster for 2012 released in 1989. Funding This effect has a descendant – a mutated, digital one – in the 1989 science fiction film ThisThe research AbyssThis . receivedeffectIn this has movie,no a descendantspecific extraterrestrial grant – a mutated,from any visitors digital funding oneto agency Earth– in the whoin 1989 the are sciencepublic, capable fictioncommercial, of film sculpting or not-for-profitThe Abyss sectors.. In this movie, extraterrestrial visitors to Earth who are capable of sculpting

Notes 1. As Jonathan Crary observes in Suspensions of Perception, Marey’s work enacted a ‘reciprocal operation of decomposition and reunification: his analysis of movement, within the frame of a single visual field, preserved a vector of spatial and temporal coherence, giving movement a new form of legibility and rationality’ (Crary, 2001:140). 2. Deleuze (1986) suggests that perception, affect and action write themselves into film through such techniques as the long shot (establishing scenes), the close up (registering emotion), and the medium shot (tracking action). All are present in wave films, as waves are things seen from far away, up close (often registered in the faces of those actors meant to be gaping at waves as they arrive), and all along their unfolding. Compare waves as movement- and time-images to fire. In the 1940s, director Sergei Eisenstein (1986) posited the flickering flame as an allegory for the captivating power of cinema (and compare Wollen (1984) on cinema as fire and photography as ice). Leslie (2017) has recently Figurewritten 11. of Posterclouds foras cinematic 2012 released motifs in and 1989. how these have been enlivened in both analog and digital film. 日本沈没 3. TheThis original effect Japanesehas a descendant version of – the a mutated,film was called digital Japan one –Sinks in the (1973) 1989 ( science fiction) by Shiro film Moritani. Retitling, reshuffling, revising, and redistributing the film as Tidal Wave (Meyer, The Abyss. In this movie, extraterrestrial visitors to Earth who are capable of sculpting 1975) makes it much more about the wave than about anything specific to Japan. A 2006

FigureFigure 12. DVD 12. DVD cover cover for forKiller Killer Wave Wave, 2007., 2007.

water (and whose spaceship lands and lurks underwater) create and manipulate large water (and whose spaceship lands and lurks underwater) create and manipulate large ocean waves in order to threaten humanity. The waves are creations of alien technology, oceanaimed waves at in punishing order to humanity threaten forhumanity. its inability The to waves live in arereason creations and peace. of alien As with technology, films aimedlike at punishingThe Day After humanity Tomorrow for, itswaves inability operate to as live moral in reasonmessengers, and peace.as tools As of withethical films like Thediscipline. Day After As it Tomorrowhappens, the, wavesaliens eventually operate as call moral the waves messengers, off, unrolling as tools them ofback ethical- discipline.wards As in spaceit happens, (which looksthe aliens like time), eventually like the callTempestaire the waves (see off,Figure unrolling 16, a still them of that back - wardsmoment in space in (which The Abyss looks when like the time), wave like stays the still Tempestaire, hovering above (see Figurea beach 16, of aconfused still of that momenttourists, in The who, Abyss as doubles when forthe thewave audience, stays still do not, hovering know whether above toa bebeach frightened of confused or tourists,amazed, who, whether as doubles to see forthe wave the audience, as an effect do of notthe real know or of whether the reel). to Like be their frightened wavy or ancestor in Marey’s 1891 La Vague, they run forwards and back because of the phenom- amazed, whether to see the wave as an effect of the real or of the reel). Like their wavy enotechnique of frame-by-frame film – even as the waves themselves are the result of ancestorcomputer in Marey’s animation, 1891 the La layering Vague, ofthey the run virtual forwards on the actual.and back The because waves therefore of the phenom also - enotechniquebecome avatars of frame-by-frame of digital filmmaking film –itself; even where as the Epstein’s waves mystical themselves waves are are theall aboutresult of computerthe play animation, of light and the celluloid, layering these of the digital virtual waves on are the about actual. the Therise ofwaves computer therefore graph- also becomeics, avatars coming ofto digitalsweep the filmmaking techniques itself;of older where cinema Epstein’s away, as wellmystical as, perhaps, waves the are figure all about the playof ‘theof light human’ and as celluloid, the organizing these author digital of film.waves In areThe aboutAbyss , thehumans rise ofare computer clearly imag graph- - ics, comingined by to the sweep aliens the as childrentechniques in want of older of instruction cinema away,– just as, as perhaps,well as, theperhaps, audiences the offigure of ‘thethe human’ film need as tothe be organizing shown how authorto see anew. of film. In The Abyss, humans are clearly imagined by the aliens as children in want of instruction – just as, perhaps, the audiences of the film need to be shown how to see anew. 10 Social Science Information 00(0)

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Figure 1. Sequence from Étienne Jules Marey, La Vague, 1891.

Muybridge in Palo Alto in the late 1870s, in which Muybridge famously generated a series of stills taken in quick succession to capture the movement of horses.1 It became imaginable to slice time up into framed visualizations and to then suture these together in space – parcelling them out along segmented linear spans of nitrate, celluloid, acetate Figureand other 3. Still film from stock. Meteor It , also1979. became possible to watch things over and over again, to slow, to pause, to reverse (see Gunning, 1989: 33 on early silent film as ‘a cinema of instants, rather than developing situations’, a condition that online formats such as GIFs may be reactivating, as I discuss below). As philosopher Henri Bergson – a colleague of Marey’s at the College de France in the early 20th-century – noted, in chronophotography, the time of experience, or what Bergson called ‘duration’ came newly to be captured and expressed as space: ‘The terms that designate time’, he wrote, ‘are borrowed from the language of space’ (Bergson, Figure 2. Poster for Tidal Wave, 1975 (US version of 日本沈没, from 1973). Figure1946: 13.4; as Poster in the for sequence Tidal Wave above, (해운대 which,), 2009. read left to right, means to mimic temporal succession). The result, for Bergson, was that, ‘instead of attaching ourselves to the inner a becomingtemporal-sequential of things, weor “horizontal”place ourselves connection outside them across in shots order or to scenes’recompose (Ivakhiv, their becom2013: - ingWhich artificially’ brings (Bergson, me to children’s 1911[1907]: films, 332). in which The wave,the potential taken as disastrousness a visible, surface of waves object, 89),can bethe stayed, verticality suspended, created evenby large tamed. waves Take signals Hayao a Miyazaki’sworld turned Ponyo sideways., the story of a fish is portioned into해운대 instants and reassembled in the space–time of the viewer, who comes to thatTidal becomes Wave a (human. )In from this film, South waves Korea, phase 2009, in wasand out publicized of being with living a posterwhale-and- (see Figuresee the 13) wave-movement-image emphasizing just this as verticality, at once an just empirical this threat record of andsidewaysness a lively phenomenon, (compare fish-likeone that thingsmay support and being various water characterizations – and so, as above, and narrative they are uses animate, (cf. Kelty even & Landecker,tranimate Figures(see Helmreich, 5, 9 and 11, 2017) which characters operate similarly). (see Figure The 17, film in bringswhich together this becomes reality, particularly fiction and a 2004moral on journey life, animation (this film and steps film). away a bit from perceptual realism, or at least toys with Figureexplicit;Gilles 4. theStill Deleuze, wave from hasDeep in eyes).Cinema Impact They, 1998.1: The are Movementtorrential forces Image of (1986) nature and that Cinema might nonetheless 2: The Time it.live At alongside one moment, humans, with ifpeople only humans running can from tune the back wave, into the oceanic film action nature stutters, in the wayslowing that downImage and (1989), speeding draws up). on In Bergson, this film and, (whose reading Korean films titlefrom is the the 20th name century, of the complicatesbeach the thethis fish-child-of-the-sea view, arguing that, with Ponyo film, does. movement Children, comes the lessonto be inscribed seems to within be, can the work still. Inwith the wavewaves hits), (and, the indeed, main character in Ponyo feels, only guilty children for not see having waves been as they able really to save are, a friend as animate from themostly 2004 latertsunami. 20th-century Back in South films IKorea, treat here, the wave waves that are hits movement-images Busan is a moral and test. time-images As Clare forcespar excellence of nature)., for their pitched present always points to their immediate past (their Kim (personal communication, 7 December 2017) suggests: swellingAnimation arrival) in an and older-fashioned their immanent sense future – as (their cartoons just-about-to-breakness). for children – is where2 More, this sort the of narrative thrives. Moana from 2016 is another example. In this movie, we can read timeThe they impending gather waveup is compelsnot simply individuals linear, unfolding and collectives time, like nor theonly local the fishermensubjective to or work inte - waves as the animate arms/faces of the ocean, as in one early scene during which a riortogether time forof asurvival. viewer, Whereas but also the a fishermentime of fantasy, rely on theirof the own ‘unthought, resources tothe protect unsummonable, each other, wavethethe inexplicable, wavehovers sweeps kindly awaythe over undecidable, the thegreedy protagonist, antagonists the incommensurable’ offering who earlier friendship threatened (Deleuze, and the fishermen’sperhaps 1989: 214;even livelihoods andshelter also with foreign-investment-backed development projects. The wave appears as a positive force that preserves and secures an imagined set of Korean traditional values.

Waves in disaster films are thus stern teachers (and this is true in a genre of movie I have not really treated here, the surf movie (see Engle, 2015), or the surf action movie.15). Large waves hold moral lessons for those people unprepared to face the consequences of their lack of foresight, their indecision, or their thoughtlessness about the cumulative Helmreich 11

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HelmreichFigure 3. Still from Meteor, 1979. 13

2216509Helmreich 18 SocialSocial Science Information Information 00(0) 00(0)57(3)57(3)11 of the medium. As film is challenged by television, filmmakers (in the 1960s, and more intensively in the 1970s) turn to large-scale special effects, epic stories for the screen, disaster movies. As film is challenged by digital technologies (games, the Internet), waves are again reinvented, now as virtual simulated objects capturing a slice of the digital, emblems of the sublime power of cinema as fantasy (to date, it does not seem as through 3D representations have significantly altered wave movement-images, though it seems that they should – maybe they will soon?). Nowadays, we may have entered a hyper- reflexive moment, when the artifactuality of waves on the screen has become a recursive resource for narrative, either animating an optimistic aesthetic of nature crafted in partnership with humanity (Moana) or underwriting an ironic sense of representation as inade- quateFigure to the 6. politicsStill from of San nature, Andreas. captive to human folly in ways that cannot pretend to attach to meaningful ecological action, and that may spell human doom. 14Figure 3.4. Still from MeteorDeep Impact, 1979., 1998. Social Science Information 00(0) Companion Movie Montage Forwave a montage hits), ofthe scenes main fromcharacter movies feels featuring guilty massive for not moviehaving waves been — able a montage to save thata friend delivers from an theargument 2004 tsunami.about common Back intropes South and Korea, effects the — wavesee “Massive that hits Movie Busan Waves is a moral Mix,” test. by Jeremie As Clare Brugidou,Kim (personal available communication, at http://vimeo.com/269392249 7 December 2017) suggests:

AcknowledgementsThe impending wave compels individuals and collectives like the local fishermen to work I thanktogether Jeremie for Brugidou, survival. EugenieWhereas Brinkema, the fishermen Eva relyHayward, on their David own Jaclin,resources Caroline to protect Jones, each Clare other, Kim, theMelody wave Jue, sweeps Heather away Paxson,the greedy Dmitry antagonists Portnoy, who Michael earlier threatened Rossi and the Nicole fishermen’s Starosielski livelihoods for close withreadings foreign-investment-backed of iterations of this argument. development Thanks projects. also to TheAyn wave Cavicchi appears and asLatéfa a positive Faiz forforce invaluableFigurethat preserves 14.helpFigure Posterin 14.the and Poster productionfor secures The for Last The an of LastWaveimagined this Wave piece., 1977., 1977. set of Korean traditional values. Figure 7. Still from Hereafter, 2010. Waves in disaster films are thus stern teachers (and this is true in a genre of movie I Funding(Figure (Figure18). Waves 18). Waves in Moana in Moana defy defy gravity gravity and and suspendsuspend their their own own crashing. crashing. The wonThe- won- have notder really of the treated child protagonist, here, the surf and ofmovie we viewers, (see Engle, places 2015),the wave or outside the surf time, action history. movie.16 15). Figureder of the5. Stillchild from protagonist, Interstellar, and2014. of we viewers, places the wave outside time, history.16 ThisLarge research wavesIf the received wavehold ofmoral no The specific Daylessons After grant for Tomorrow from those any people is fundinga punishing unprepared agency anthropoceanic in to the face public, the wave, consequencescommercial, Moana’s or of not-for-profitIf the wave sectors. of The Day After Tomorrow is a punishing anthropoceanic wave, Moana’s their lackwave of isforesight, the promise their of tuningindecision, back into or thetheir sea, thoughtlessness a kinder, more harmonious about the anthro cumulative- consequenceswave ispocean, the promise of anthropomorphized. their ofday-to-day tuning back habits. into It theis a sea,fast violencea kinder, reprimand more harmonious of the structures anthro- Figure 4. AdrienneStill from LafranceDeep Impact (2017), 1998. reports that: Notesofpocean, slow violence anthropomorphized. (Nixon, 2013). Adrienne Lafrance (2017) reports that: 1. AsSuch Jonathan moralDisney’s Crary messaging effects observes specialists from in Suspensions waves and animators has of precedents. Perception were constantly, Marey’sTake navigating The work Last the enacted tensionWave a, between‘reciprocala 1977 film bywave operation Peter hits), Weir,wanting ofthe decomposition main about the water character a to white look and andfeels reunification: lawyer act guiltylike actual contracted for hiswater not analysis –having but to to defend ofbe been movement,magical able four at the to Aboriginalwithin same save time. thea friend ‘Thatframe men from of in AustraliantheaDisney’s 2004single tsunami. visual wascourt effects a bigfield, (note challenge’,Back specialists preserved how in South Westthe and a moviesaid. vector Korea, animators ‘They posterof thewouldspatial werewave – animate seeand constantly that Figuretemporal the hits ocean 14 Busan navigating coherence,as – almost like is a Killera moral sock thegiving tensionpuppet,Wave test. movement andAs visually between Clare wanting wethe would water take to thatlook and and fill actit full like of bubbles actual andwater liquid – butor we’d to be do magicala simulation at theover same it and maketime. ‘That quotesKima new (personal Hokusai’s form of communication,legibility Great Wave.and rationality’ On 7 December this (Crary,Hokusai 2017)2001:140). image suggests: and its use in symbolisms of dis- 2. Deleuzewas a big (1986)it fullchallenge’, of suggestswater to West make that said. itperception, look ‘They more watery’. would affect andanimate action the write ocean themselves as almost into a sock film puppet, through and aster, rushing historical transformation, and more, see Guth, 2015). As the lawyer is suchweThe would techniques impending take that as wave the and long compelsfill itshot full (establishing individualsof bubbles and andscenes), liquid collectives the or we’dclose like do up a the(registering simulation local fishermen overemotion), it and to and make work drawn intoThink the of world Moana of’s wavehis clients, alongside he Kellyis haunted Slater’s by Surf visions Ranch of,in Lemoore,and perhaps California, even sees, theittogether full medium of waterfor shot survival. to (tracking make Whereas it look action). morethe fishermenAll watery’. are present rely on in theirwave own films, resources as waves to protectare things each seen other, opaquelywhere, (it might as of 2017,be a artificialvisitation waves from are the being Dreamtime), generated in aan tremendous inland pool so wave that surfers coming to fromthe wave farcan away, surfsweeps a up‘perfect’ away close the wave(often greedy each registered antagonists time (Minsberg, in the who faces 2017);earlier of thesethreatenedthose are actors tamed the meant fishermen’swaves to that be speakgaping livelihoods at wipewaves out as Australia. they arrive), The and wave all along symbolizes their unfolding. the power of nature to destroy human enter- FigureThinkwith of 8.foreign-investment-backed MoanaStill from’s Thewave Impossible alongside, development2012. Kelly Slater’s projects. Surf The Ranch wave appearsin Lemoore, as a positive California, force prise,where,Comparethat but preservesas alsoof waves 2017, the and as crashing movement- artificialsecures andisaster waves imaginedand time-images areof colonial setbeing of Korean togenerated firedispossession. Intraditional the in 1940s, an values.andinland director the pool return Sergei so toEisensteinthat the surfers colo - nialcan(1986) powersurf aposited ‘perfect’of the the repressed. flickeringwave each The flame time wave as (Minsberg, an in allegory this film 2017); for is the far thesecaptivating less literallyare tamed power represented waves of cinema that than (andspeak in thecompare Wavesother films inWollen disaster I have(1984) films treated on cinemaare here. thus as Takingsternfire and teachers aphotography page (andfrom thisas Deleuze’s ice). is trueLeslie inCinema (2017) a genre has2: of Therecently movie Time I Figure 9. English language poster for The Wave (Bølgen), 2015. Imagehavewritten not (1989), reallyof clouds which treated as cinematic discusses here, the motifs imagessurf movieand that how (see are these madeEngle, have to 2015), been reflect enlivened or on the time surf in itself bothaction analog– imagesmovie. and15 of). memories,Largedigital waves film. dreams, hold moral fantasies lessons – we for canthose understand people unprepared the wave to of face The the Last consequences Wave, which of 3. The original Japanese version of the film was called Japan Sinks (1973) (日本沈没) by Shiro nevertheir lackarrives, of foresight, but is only their hinted indecision, at by foreshadowings or their thoughtlessness on cave paintings, about the in thecumulative agitated stateMoritani. of the Retitling,white lawyer, reshuffling, as a meditation revising, and on redistributingtime, and the the time film of as colonial Tidal Wave and (Meyer,postcolo - 1975) makes it much more about the wave than about anything specific to Japan. A 2006 nial history, which is never really post.

The suspended, backwards, repeating wave and the reflexive cinematic fantastic Cinematic play with the mechanics of time has motivated reflexive, fantastical, and ironic representations of waves. The Ur-text here is perhaps Jean Epstein’s 1947 film, Le Tempestaire. In this short drama, a folkloric figure – a tempestaire or storm-tamer – is able to control a storm that is arriving in a coastal village in Brittany. We see this old man cradling a crystal ball that holds an image of a bay tossed by waves (Figure 15, top). He blows at/into the ball, and the film cuts to a scene of waves slowing and, eventually, reversing (Figure 15, bottom) (see Keller and Paul, 2012). The old man is, of course, cinema itself – viewing from far, from up close, speeding up, slowing down, reversing. 14 Social Science Information 00(0)

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HelmreichHelmreich 51019173

Figure 10. Still from The Day After Tomorrow, 2004.

Figure 1. Sequence from Étienne Jules Marey, La Vague, 1891.

Muybridge in Palo Alto in the late 1870s, in which Muybridge famously generated a series of stills taken in quick succession to capture the movement of horses.1 It became imaginable to slice time up into framed visualizations and to then suture these together in space – parcelling them out along segmented linear spans of nitrate, celluloid, acetate and other film stock. It also became possible to watch things over and over again, to slow, to pause, to reverse (see Gunning, 1989: 33 on early silent film as ‘a cinema of instants, rather than developing situations’, a condition that online formats such as GIFs Figure 9. English language poster for The Wave (Bølgen), 2015. may be reactivating, as I discuss below). As philosopher Henri Bergson – a colleague of Marey’s at the College de France in neverthe early arrives, 20th-century but is only – hinted noted, at in by chronophotography, foreshadowings on thecave time paintings, of experience in the agitated, or what stateBergson of the called white ‘duration’ lawyer, as came a meditation newly to on be time, captured and theand time expressed of colonial as space: and ‘Thepostcolo terms- nialFigurethat history, designate 15. Stillswhich time’,from is neverLe he Tempestaire wrote,really post. ‘are, 1947. borrowed from the language of space’ (Bergson, 1946: 4; as in the sequence above, which, read left to right, means to mimic temporal Thetosuccession). a fantasy suspended, of The controlling result, backwards, for the Bergson, sea. Like was repeating Moana that, ‘instead, it may wave ofbe attaching read and as fullthe ourselves of childlike to the opti inner- reflexivemism,becoming but may of cinematic things, also be we read place fantastic as ourselvesan attempt outside to escape them the in all-too-human order to recompose damage their that becom now - saturatesing artificially’ the ocean (Bergson, and its 1911[1907]: waves (or to 332). prepare The wave,future takengenerations as a visible, to live surface with risingobject, Cinematicseas?).is portioned play into with instants the mechanicsand reassembled of time in thehas space–time motivated ofreflexive, the viewer, fantastical, who comes and to ironicseeAnd the representations so,wave-movement-image waves suspended, of waves. backwards, asThe at Ur-textonce an repeating, here empirical is perhaps and record subject Jean and Epstein’sa to lively human phenomenon, 1947 sculpting film, Lemightone Tempestaire that be maysymbols support. In ofthis a various kindshort of drama, characterizations media-made a folkloric escapism. andfigure narrative Consider– a tempestaire uses in (cf. this Kelty orlight storm-tamer &the Landecker, genre of– isthe2004 able cinemagraph onto controllife, animation .a Instorm the andthat2010s, film).is arriving cinematographer in a coastal Armand village Dijcksin Brittany. joined We photographer see this old manRay Gillescradling Collins Deleuze, ina crystal creating in Cinemaball objects that 1: holds knownThe Movementan asimage ‘cinemagraphs’, ofImage a bay (1986) tossed photographs and by Cinemawaves animated(Figure 2: The Time 15, by top).tightlyImage He looped (1989),blows at/intonon-resolving draws theon Bergson,ball, motion and theand, (see film reading Burgess, cuts filmsto a 2017scene from andof the waves Armand20th century,slowing Dijcks’ complicatesand, website eventually,(http://armanddijcks.com/cinemagraphs-waves);this view, reversing arguing (Figure that, with 15, film,bottom) movement (see Keller comes seeand to also Paul,be inscribed Figure 2012). 19).withinThe oldWave the man still. cinema is, In ofthe- Figure 11. Poster for 2012 released in 1989. course,graphsmostly offercinema later images 20th-century itself of – waves viewing films rising, Ifrom treat cresting, here,far, from waves and up breaking are close, movement-images speedingthat look likeup, slowingandstills time-images that, down, upon reversing.closerpar excellence inspection,, forreveal their something pitched presentof the moving always image, points as to though their immediate a wave is pastlocked (their in swelling arrival) and their immanent future (their just-about-to-breakness).2 More, the a kindThis of effect eternal has becoming, a descendant what – a Dijcks mutated, calls digital an ‘infinite one – in now’. the 1989 science fiction film time they gather up is not simply linear, unfolding time, nor only the subjective or inte- TheSuch Abyss cinemagraphs. In this movie, in someextraterrestrial ways return visitors the viewer to Earth to the who early are dayscapable of silent of sculpting film, to rior time of a viewer, but also a time of fantasy, of the ‘unthought, the unsummonable, what Gunning (1989) called ‘a cinema of instants, rather than developing situations’. the inexplicable, the undecidable, the incommensurable’ (Deleuze, 1989: 214; and also The effect of Dijcks and Collins’s cinemagraphs is an arrested sublime. 16 Social Science Information 00(0)

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Helmreichof the medium. As film is challenged by television, filmmakers (in the 1960s, and more17 intensively in the 1970s) turn to large-scale special effects, epic stories for the screen, disaster movies. As film is challenged by digital technologies (games, the Internet), waves are again reinvented, now as virtual simulated objects capturing a slice of the digital, emblems of the sublime power of cinema as fantasy (to date, it does not seem as through 3D representations have significantly altered wave movement-images, though it seems that they should – maybe they will soon?). Nowadays, we may have entered a hyper- reflexive moment, when the artifactuality of waves on the screen has become a recursive resource for narrative, either animating an optimistic aesthetic of nature crafted in partnership with humanity (Moana) or underwriting an ironic sense of representation as inade- quate to the politics of nature, captive to human folly in ways that cannot pretend to attach to meaningful ecological action, and that may spell human doom. Figure 16.12. StillDVD from cover The for Abyss Killer, 1989. Wave, 2007. Companion Movie Montage waterFor a montage (and whose of scenes spaceship from movies lands featuring and lurks massive underwater) movie waves create — anda montage manipulate that delivers large oceanan argument waves about in order common to threaten tropes andhumanity. effects —The see waves “Massive are creationsMovie Waves of alien Mix,” technology, by Jeremie aimedBrugidou, at punishingavailable at humanity http://vimeo.com/269392249 for its inability to live in reason and peace. As with films like The Day After Tomorrow, waves operate as moral messengers, as tools of ethical discipline.Acknowledgements As it happens, the aliens eventually call the waves off, unrolling them back- wardsI thank inJeremie space Brugidou, (which looks Eugenie like Brinkema, time), like Eva the Hayward, Tempestaire David (see Jaclin, Figure Caroline 16, a Jones,still of Clare that momentKim, Melody in The Jue, Abyss Heather when Paxson, the Dmitrywave stays Portnoy, still Michael, hovering Rossi above and Nicolea beach Starosielski of confused for tourists,close readings who, of as iterations doubles of for this the argument. audience, Thanks do not also know to Ayn whether Cavicchi to and be Latéfa frightened Faiz for or amazed,invaluable whether help in the to productionsee the wave of this as piece.an effect of the real or of the reel). Like their wavy ancestor in Marey’s 1891 La Vague, they run forwards and back because of the phenom- enotechniqueFunding of frame-by-frame film – even as the waves themselves are the result of computerThis research animation, received nothe specific layering grant of thefrom virtual any funding on the agency actual. in The the wavespublic, thereforecommercial, also or becomenot-for-profit avatars sectors. of digital filmmaking itself; where Epstein’s mystical waves are all about the play of light and celluloid, these digital waves are about the rise of computer graphics,Notes coming to sweep the techniques of older cinema away, as well as, perhaps, the figure ofFigure ‘the human’17. Still asfrom the Ponyo organizing, 2008. author of film. In The Abyss, humans are clearly imag- Figure 1. As 13.Jonathan Poster Crary for Tidalobserves Wave in (Suspensions해운대), 2009. of Perception, Marey’s work enacted a ‘reciprocal ined operationby the aliens of decomposition as children andin want reunification: of instruction his analysis – just of as, movement, perhaps, within the audiences the frame of the film need to be shown how to see anew. Importantly,a single visual we field, depart preserved the movie a vector theatre of spatial here and – as temporal the most coherence, interesting giving filmic movement treat- Whicha new formbrings of melegibility to children’s and rationality’ films, (Crary,in which 2001:140). the potential disastrousness of waves ments of waves now move to personal computer screens rather than unfolding in houses can 2. beDeleuze stayed, (1986) suspended, suggests even that perception,tamed. Take affect Hayao and actionMiyazaki’s write themselves Ponyo, the into story film of through a fish of public cinematic spectacle. Think of cinemagraphs as high-culture GIFs, those loop- that becomessuch techniques a human. as the In long this shot film, (establishing waves phase scenes), in and the closeout of up being (registering living emotion), whale-and- and ing images made using the Graphics Interchange Format that appear all over the Internet fish-likethe medium things shotand (trackingbeing water action). – and All so,are aspresent above, in wavethey films,are animate, as waves even are thingstranimate seen as icons of ironic or knowing commentary. In ‘The Digital Gesture’, Hampus Hagman (see fromHelmreich, far away, 2017) up close characters (often registered (see Figure in the 17, faces in ofwhich those thisactors becomes meant to particularlybe gaping at (2012) argues that GIF loops of either iconic or minor moments in movies (think of loops explicit;waves the as wave they arrive), has eyes). and allThey along are their torrential unfolding. forces of nature that might nonetheless fromCompare scenes in waves Star as Wars, movement- Lord ofand the time-images Rings) may to fire re-enact. In the ‘early1940s, directorcinema, Sergei or even Eisenstein proto- live alongside humans, if only humans can tune back into oceanic nature in the way that cinema:(1986) they posited are silent, the flickering they are flame viewed as an in allegory private for… theand captivating they run onpower a loop’. of cinema He adds, (and the fish-child-of-the-sea Ponyo does. Children, the lesson seems to be, can work with though,compare that, Wollenbecause (1984) they onare cinema sharable, as fire they and have photography come to as be ice). an onlineLeslie (2017) gestural has vocabu recently- waves (and, indeed, in Ponyo, only children see waves as they really are, as animate lary, writtenrepurposed of clouds and as even cinematic subverted motifs acrossand how contexts these have (see been also enlivened Viral Art, in both 2016). analog Most and forces of nature). gesturaldigital GIFs film. feature people or animated animals in looped activity and invite readings Animation in an older-fashioned sense – as cartoons for children – is where this sort of 3. suchThe activity,original Japanese variously, version as absurdly of the film staged was called or full Japan of hiddenSinks (1973) and hilarious(日本沈没 meaning.) by Shiro of narrativeMoritani. thrives. Retitling, Moana reshuffling, from revising,2016 is anotherand redistributing example. the In filmthis asmovie, Tidal Wavewe can (Meyer, read They are elaborated emoticons. GIFs of massive waves from movies provide a different waves1975) as themakes animate it much arms/faces more about of the the wave ocean, than asabout in oneanything early specific scene duringto Japan. which A 2006 a wave hovers kindly over the protagonist, offering friendship and perhaps even shelter 20 Social Science Information 00(0)

Figure 16. Still from The Abyss, 1989. Helmreich 512193

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Figure 1. Sequence from Étienne Jules Marey, La Vague, 1891.

FigureHelmreich 17. Still from Ponyo, 2008. 21 Muybridge in Palo Alto in the late 1870s, in which Muybridge famously generated a series of stills taken in quick succession to capture the movement of horses.1 It became imaginableImportantly, to slicewe depart time up the into movie framed theatre visualizations here – as andthe mostto then interesting suture these filmic together treat -in mentsspace of – wavesparcelling now themmove outto personal along segmented computer linearscreens spans rather of than nitrate, unfolding celluloid, in houses acetate ofand public other cinematic film stock. spectacle. It also Thinkbecame of possiblecinemagraphs to watch as high-culture things over GIFs,and over those again, loop -to ingslow, images to pause, made tousing reverse the Graphics (see Gunning, Interchange 1989: Format33 on earlythat appear silent allfilm over as ‘athe cinema Internet of asinstants, icons of rather ironic than or knowingdeveloping commentary. situations’, In a condition‘The Digital that Gesture’, online formats Hampus such Hagman as GIFs (2012)may be argues reactivating, that GIF as loops I discuss of either below). iconic or minor moments in movies (think of loops fromAs scenes philosopher in Star Wars,Henri LordBergson of the – aRings colleague) may re-enactof Marey’s ‘early at the cinema, College or evende France proto- in cinema:the early they 20th-century are silent, they– noted, are viewed in chronophotography, in private … and the they time run of on experience a loop’. He, or adds, what though,Bergson that, called because ‘duration’ they are came sharable, newly tothey be havecaptured come and to beexpressed an online as gesturalspace: ‘The vocabu terms- lary,that repurposed designate time’,and even he wrote,subverted ‘are across borrowed contexts from (see the languagealso Viral of Art, space’ 2016). (Bergson, Most gestural1946: 4;GIFs as in feature the sequence people or above, animated which, animals read leftin looped to right, activity means and to invitemimic readings temporal of such activity, variously, as absurdly staged or full of hidden and hilarious meaning. Figuresuccession). 14.18. PosterStill The from forresult, Moana The forLast, 2016. Bergson, Wave, 1977. was that, ‘instead of attaching ourselves to the inner Theybecoming are elaborated of things, emoticons. we place ourselves GIFs of massive outside themwaves in from order movies to recompose provide their a different becom - ing artificially’ (Bergson, 1911[1907]: 332). The wave, taken as a visible, surface object, (Figureis portioned 18). Waves into instants in Moana and reassembleddefy gravity inand the suspend space–time their of own the viewer,crashing. who The comes won -to dersee of the the wave-movement-image child protagonist, and ofas weat once viewers, an empirical places the record wave and outside a lively time, phenomenon, history.16 Ifone the thatwave may of supportThe Day various After Tomorrowcharacterizations is a punishing and narrative anthropoceanic uses (cf. Kelty wave, & Landecker, Moana’s wave2004 is on the life, promise animation of tuningand film). back into the sea, a kinder, more harmonious anthropocean,Gilles anthropomorphized. Deleuze, in Cinema 1: The Movement Image (1986) and Cinema 2: The Time ImageAdrienne (1989), Lafrance draws (2017)on Bergson, reports and, that: reading films from the 20th century, complicates this view, arguing that, with film, movement comes to be inscribed within the still. In the mostlyDisney’s later effects 20th-century specialists films and I animatorstreat here, were waves constantly are movement-images navigating the tensionand time-images between parwanting excellence the water, for to theirlook and pitched act like present actual water always – but points to be tomagical their at immediate the same time. past ‘That (their was a big challenge’, West said. ‘They would animate the ocean as almost a sock puppet, and swelling arrival) and their immanent future (their just-about-to-breakness).2 More, the we would take that and fill it full of bubbles and liquid or we’d do a simulation over it and make timeit full they of watergather to upmake is notit look simply more linear,watery’. unfolding time, nor only the subjective or inte- rior time of a viewer, but also a time of fantasy, of the ‘unthought, the unsummonable, Thinkthe inexplicable, of Moana’s thewave undecidable, alongside theKelly incommensurable’ Slater’s Surf Ranch (Deleuze, in Lemoore, 1989: 214; California, and also where, as of 2017, artificial waves are being generated in an inland pool so that surfers canFigure surf 19. a ‘perfect’ Still from wave Infinite each Now time, 2017, (Minsberg, with play icon 2017); visible. these From are http://armanddijcks.com/ tamed waves that speak cinemagraphs-waves. effect (e.g., The Day After Tomorrow: https://giphy.com/gifs/tsunami-TmAKxgSx- f4Ahy). The impression is satiric, making fun of the excess of disaster movies by reduc- ing them to flip-book triviality, a triviality underscored by the tiny screens on which GIFs are often enjoyed (how such effects might carry over to GIFs of real tsunamis – such as the 2011 Tōhoku event in Japan – is not immediately clear). These are waves domesti- cated – signs either of a desired taming of the sea or of denial about the magnitude of the changes that may be upon the coasts of the world. Caroline Jones (personal communication, 15 May 2018) calls these ‘Anthropocene GIFs’, and suggests that they ‘perform the wobbling border between horror and comedy’. Cinema waves have long been presented with a certain knowing reflexivity about the fact that they are animated by the filmic or digital medium that presents them. They might even be understood as representing the power and limits of cinema as such. Waves are present at the origins of cinema and seem to change form at crisis moments in the history Helmreich 21

Helmreich 19

22Figure20513 18. Still from Moana, 2016. Social Science Information 00(0)57(3)57(3) of20 the medium. As film is challenged by television, filmmakersSocial (inScience the 1960s,Information and more00(0) intensively in the 1970s) turn to large-scale special effects, epic stories for the screen, disaster movies. As film is challenged by digital technologies (games, the Internet), waves are again reinvented, now as virtual simulated objects capturing a slice of the digital, emblems of the sublime power of cinema as fantasy (to date, it does not seem as through 3D representations have significantly altered wave movement-images, though it seems that they should – maybe they will soon?). Nowadays, we may have entered a hyper- reflexive moment, when the artifactuality of waves on the screen has become a recursive resource for narrative, either animating an optimistic aesthetic of nature crafted in partnership with humanity (Moana) or underwriting an ironic sense of representation as inade- quate to the politics of nature, captive to human folly in ways that cannot pretend to attach to meaningful ecological action, and that may spell human doom.

Companion Movie Montage ForFigure a montage 16. Still of scenesfrom The from Abyss movies, 1989. featuring massive movie waves — a montage that delivers anFigure argument 19. aboutStill from common Infinite tropes Now, and2017, effects with —play see icon “Massive visible. FromMovie http://armanddijcks.com/ Waves Mix,” by Jeremie Figure 15. Stills from Le Tempestaire, 1947. Brugidou,cinemagraphs-waves. available at http://vimeo.com/269392249

Acknowledgementseffectto a fantasy (e.g., ofThe controlling Day After the sea. Tomorrow Like Moana: https://giphy.com/gifs/tsunami-TmAKxgSx, it may be read as full of childlike opti- I f4Ahy).mism,thank Jeremie but The may impression Brugidou, also be readEugenie is satiric, as anBrinkema, makingattempt Eva funto escape Hayward,of the theexcess David all-too-human of Jaclin, disaster Caroline moviesdamage Jones, by that reduc Clare now - Kim,ingsaturates them Melody tothe flip-bookJue, ocean Heather and triviality, Paxson,its waves a Dmitrytriviality (or to Portnoy, underscoredprepare Michael future by Rossi generationsthe tiny and screens Nicole to live Starosielskion whichwith rising GIFs for closeareseas?). often readings enjoyed of iterations (how such of this effects argument. might Thanks carry overalso toto AynGIFs Cavicchi of real tsunamisand Latéfa – Faiz such for as invaluabletheAnd 2011 so, helpTō hoku waves in the event production suspended, in Japan of backwards,this – is piece. not immediately repeating, clear). and subject These toare human waves sculptingdomesti- catedmight – be signs symbols either of of a a kind desired of media-made taming of the escapism. sea or of Considerdenial about in this the lightmagnitude the genre of the of Fundingchangesthe cinemagraph that may. beIn upon the 2010s, the coasts cinematographer of the world. CarolineArmand JonesDijcks (personal joined photographer communica- Thistion,Ray research 15 Collins May received 2018) in creating calls no specific these objects ‘Anthropocenegrant known from asany ‘cinemagraphs’, fundingGIFs’, andagency suggests in photographs the thatpublic, they commercial, animated‘perform theor by not-for-profitwobblingtightly looped border sectors. non-resolving between horror motion and comedy’.(see Burgess, 2017 and Armand Dijcks’ website (http://armanddijcks.com/cinemagraphs-waves);Cinema waves have long been presented with a see certain also knowing Figure reflexivity 19). Wave about cinema the- Notesfactgraphs that offer they images are animated of waves by therising, filmic cresting, or digital and medium breaking that that presents look like them. stills They that, might upon closer inspection, reveal something of the moving image, as though a wave is locked in even1. As be Jonathan understood Crary asobserves representing in Suspensions the power of Perception and limits, Marey’s of cinema work enactedas such. a ‘reciprocalWaves are a kind of eternal becoming, what Dijcks calls an ‘infinite now’. presentoperation at the of origins decomposition of cinema and and reunification: seem to change his analysis form ofat movement,crisis moments within in the the frame history of Such cinemagraphs in some ways return the viewer to the early days of silent film, to Figurea single 17. visualStill from field, Ponyo preserved, 2008. a vector of spatial and temporal coherence, giving movement whata newGunning form of (1989) legibility called and rationality’‘a cinema (Crary, of instants, 2001:140). rather than developing situations’. The2. Deleuze effect of (1986) Dijcks suggests and Collins’s that perception, cinemagraphs affect and is action an arrested write themselves sublime. into film through Importantly,such techniques we as depart the long the shot movie (establishing theatre scenes),here – asthe the close most up (registering interesting emotion), filmic treat and - mentsthe ofmedium waves shot now (tracking move to action). personal All computerare present screens in wave rather films, than as waves unfolding are things in houses seen of publicfrom far cinematic away, up spectacle.close (often Think registered of cinemagraphs in the faces of as those high-culture actors meant GIFs, to be those gaping loop at - ing wavesimages as made they arrive), using theand Graphicsall along their Interchange unfolding. Format that appear all over the Internet as iconsCompare of ironic waves asor movement-knowing commentary. and time-images In to ‘The fire. InDigital the 1940s, Gesture’, director Hampus Sergei Eisenstein Hagman (2012)(1986) argues posited that the GIF flickering loops of flame either as iconic an allegory or minor for the moments captivating in movies power of(think cinema of loops(and compare Wollen (1984) on cinema as fire and photography as ice). Leslie (2017) has recently from scenes in Star Wars, Lord of the Rings) may re-enact ‘early cinema, or even proto- written of clouds as cinematic motifs and how these have been enlivened in both analog and cinema:digital they film. are silent, they are viewed in private … and they run on a loop’. He adds, though,3. The originalthat, because Japanese they version are sharable, of the film they was havecalled come Japan to Sinks be an(1973) online (日本沈没 gestural) byvocabu Shiro - lary,Moritani. repurposed Retitling, and evenreshuffling, subverted revising, across and contextsredistributing (see the also film Viral as Tidal Art, Wave 2016). (Meyer, Most gestural1975) GIFs makes feature it much people more orabout animated the wave animals than about in looped anything activity specific and to inviteJapan. readings A 2006 of such activity, variously, as absurdly staged or full of hidden and hilarious meaning. They are elaborated emoticons. GIFs of massive waves from movies provide a different Helmreich 21

Figure 18. Still from Moana, 2016.

Figure 19. Still from Infinite Now, 2017, with play icon visible. From http://armanddijcks.com/ Helmreichcinemagraphs-waves. 514213 effect (e.g., The Day After Tomorrow: https://giphy.com/gifs/tsunami-TmAKxgSx- f4Ahy). The impression is satiric, making fun of the excess of disaster movies by reduc- ing them to flip-book triviality, a triviality underscored by the tiny screens on which GIFs are often enjoyed (how such effects might carry over to GIFs of real tsunamis – such as the 2011 Tōhoku event in Japan – is not immediately clear). These are waves domesti- cated – signs either of a desired taming of the sea or of denial about the magnitude of the changes that may be upon the coasts of the world. Caroline Jones (personal communication, 15 May 2018) calls these ‘Anthropocene GIFs’, and suggests that they ‘perform the wobbling border between horror and comedy’. Cinema waves have long been presented with a certain knowing reflexivity about the fact that they are animated by the filmic or digital medium that presents them. They might even22 be understood as representing the power and limits Socialof cinema Science as Informationsuch. Waves 00(0) are present at the origins of cinema and seem to change form at crisis moments in the history Figureof the medium. 1. Sequence As filmfrom isÉtienne challenged Jules Marey, by television, La Vague, filmmakers1891. (in the 1960s, and more intensively in the 1970s) turn to large-scale special effects, epic stories for the screen, disaster movies. As film is challenged by digital technologies (games, the Internet), waves Muybridgeare again reinvented, in Palo Alto now in asthe virtual late 1870s, simulated in which objects Muybridge capturing famouslya slice of generated the digital, a 1 seriesemblems of stillsof the taken sublime in quick power succession of cinema to as capture fantasy the(to movementdate, it does of not horses. seem asIt becamethrough imaginable3D representations to slice timehave up significantly into framed altered visualizations wave movement-images, and to then suture thesethough together it seems in spacethat they – parcelling should – themmaybe out they along will segmented soon?). Nowadays, linear spans we ofmay nitrate, have celluloid,entered a acetatehyper- andreflexive other moment, film stock. when It alsothe artifactuality became possible of waves to watch on the things screen over has becomeand over a recursiveagain, to slow,resource to pause,for narrative, to reverse either (see animating Gunning, an optimistic1989: 33 onaesthetic early silentof nature film crafted as ‘a cinemain partner of- instants,ship with rather humanity than (developingMoana) or situations’,underwriting a conditionan ironic sensethat online of representation formats such as as inade GIFs- mayquate be to reactivating, the politics of as nature, I discuss captive below). to human folly in ways that cannot pretend to attach to meaningfulAs philosopher ecological Henri action,Bergson and – athat colleague may spell of humanMarey’s doom. at the College de France in the early 20th-century – noted, in chronophotography, the time of experience, or what Bergson called ‘duration’ came newly to be captured and expressed as space: ‘The terms Companion Movie Montage that designate time’, he wrote, ‘are borrowed from the language of space’ (Bergson, 1946:For a montage 4; as in of the scenes sequence from movies above, featuring which, massiveread left movie to right, waves means — a montageto mimic that temporal delivers succession).an argument about The result, common for tropes Bergson, and effectswas that, — ‘insteadsee “Massive of attaching Movie Waves ourselves Mix,” to by the Jeremie inner Brugidou, available at http://vimeo.com/269392249 becoming of things, we place ourselves outside them in order to recompose their becoming artificially’ (Bergson, 1911[1907]: 332). The wave, taken as a visible, surface object, Acknowledgements is portioned into instants and reassembled in the space–time of the viewer, who comes to seeI thank the Jeremiewave-movement-image Brugidou, Eugenie as Brinkema, at once anEva empirical Hayward, record David andJaclin, a livelyCaroline phenomenon, Jones, Clare oneKim, that Melody may supportJue, Heather various Paxson, characterizations Dmitry Portnoy, and Michael narrative Rossi uses and (cf. Nicole Kelty Starosielski& Landecker, for 2004close readingson life, animationof iterations and of film).this argument. Thanks also to Ayn Cavicchi and Latéfa Faiz for invaluable help in the production of this piece. Gilles Deleuze, in Cinema 1: The Movement Image (1986) and Cinema 2: The Time Image (1989), draws on Bergson, and, reading films from the 20th century, complicates Funding this view, arguing that, with film, movement comes to be inscribed within the still. In the mostlyThis research later 20th-century received no specific films I granttreat here,from anywaves funding are movement-images agency in the public, and commercial, time-images or parnot-for-profit excellence sectors., for their pitched present always points to their immediate past (their swelling arrival) and their immanent future (their just-about-to-breakness).2 More, the timeNotes they gather up is not simply linear, unfolding time, nor only the subjective or inte- rior 1. timeAs Jonathan of a viewer, Crary observesbut also in a Suspensionstime of fantasy, of Perception of the ,‘unthought, Marey’s work the enacted unsummonable, a ‘reciprocal the inexplicable,operation of decomposition the undecidable, and reunification: the incommensurable’ his analysis (Deleuze,of movement, 1989: within 214; the and frame also of a single visual field, preserved a vector of spatial and temporal coherence, giving movement a new form of legibility and rationality’ (Crary, 2001:140). 2. Deleuze (1986) suggests that perception, affect and action write themselves into film through such techniques as the long shot (establishing scenes), the close up (registering emotion), and the medium shot (tracking action). All are present in wave films, as waves are things seen from far away, up close (often registered in the faces of those actors meant to be gaping at waves as they arrive), and all along their unfolding. Compare waves as movement- and time-images to fire. In the 1940s, director Sergei Eisenstein (1986) posited the flickering flame as an allegory for the captivating power of cinema (and compare Wollen (1984) on cinema as fire and photography as ice). Leslie (2017) has recently written of clouds as cinematic motifs and how these have been enlivened in both analog and digital film. 3. The original Japanese version of the film was called Japan Sinks (1973) (日本沈没) by Shiro Moritani. Retitling, reshuffling, revising, and redistributing the film as Tidal Wave (Meyer, 1975) makes it much more about the wave than about anything specific to Japan. A 2006 22 Social Science Information 00(0)

of the medium. As film is challenged by television, filmmakers (in the 1960s, and more intensively in the 1970s) turn to large-scale special effects, epic stories for the screen, disaster movies. As film is challenged by digital technologies (games, the Internet), waves are again reinvented, now as virtual simulated objects capturing a slice of the digital, emblems of the sublime power of cinema as fantasy (to date, it does not seem as through 3D representations have significantly altered wave movement-images, though it seems that they should – maybe they will soon?). Nowadays, we may have entered a hyper- reflexive moment, when the artifactuality of waves on the screen has become a recursive resource for narrative, either animating an optimistic aesthetic of nature crafted in partnership with humanity (Moana) or underwriting an ironic sense of representation as inade- quate to the politics of nature, captive to human folly in ways that cannot pretend to attach to meaningful ecological action, and that may spell human doom.

Companion Movie Montage For a montage of scenes from movies featuring massive movie waves — a montage that delivers an argument about common tropes and effects — see “Massive Movie Waves Mix,” by Jeremie Brugidou, available at http://vimeo.com/269392249

Acknowledgements I thank Jeremie Brugidou, Eugenie Brinkema, Eva Hayward, David Jaclin, Caroline Jones, Clare Kim, Melody Jue, Heather Paxson, Dmitry Portnoy, Michael Rossi and Nicole Starosielski for close readings of iterations of this argument. Thanks also to Ayn Cavicchi and Latéfa Faiz for invaluable help in the production of this piece.

Funding This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or 22not-for-profit515 sectors. Social Science Information 00(0)57(3) ofNotes the medium. As film is challenged by television, filmmakers (in the 1960s, and more intensively 1. As Jonathan in the Crary 1970s) observes turn into Suspensionslarge-scale ofspecial Perception effects,, Marey’s epic workstories enacted for the a ‘reciprocal screen, disasteroperation movies. of As decomposition film is challenged and reunification: by digital technologieshis analysis of (games,movement, the within Internet), the frame waves of are againa single reinvented, visual field, now preserved as virtual a vector simulated of spatial objects and temporal capturing coherence, a slice giving of the movement digital, emblemsa new of form the sublimeof legibility power and rationality’of cinema (Crary,as fantasy 2001:140). (to date, it does not seem as through 3D 2. representationsDeleuze (1986) havesuggests significantly that perception, altered affect wave and actionmovement-images, write themselves though into film it throughseems that theysuch shouldtechniques – maybe as the long they shot will (establishing soon?). Nowadays, scenes), the we close may up (registeringhave entered emotion), a hyper- and the medium shot (tracking action). All are present in wave films, as waves are things seen reflexive moment, when the artifactuality of waves on the screen has become a recursive from far away, up close (often registered in the faces of those actors meant to be gaping at resourcewaves for as narrative, they arrive), either and animating all along their an optimistic unfolding. aesthetic of nature crafted in partnership withCompare humanity waves (asMoana movement-) or underwriting and time-images an toironic fire. In sense the 1940s, of representation director Sergei as Eisenstein inade- quate (1986)to the politicsposited theof nature,flickering captive flame to as human an allegory folly for in waysthe captivating that cannot power pretend of cinema to attach (and to meaningfulcompare Wollen ecological (1984) action, on cinema and thatas fire may and spell photography human doom.as ice). Leslie (2017) has recently written of clouds as cinematic motifs and how these have been enlivened in both analog and Companiondigital film. Movie Montage 3. The original Japanese version of the film was called Japan Sinks (1973) (日本沈没) by Shiro ForHelmreich a montage of scenes from movies featuring massive movie waves — a montage that delivers23 Moritani. Retitling, reshuffling, revising, and redistributing the film as Tidal Wave (Meyer, an argument about common tropes and effects — see “Massive Movie Waves Mix,” by Jeremie 1975) makes it much more about the wave than about anything specific to Japan. A 2006 Brugidou, available at http://vimeo.com/269392249 Japanese remake of Japan Sinks by Shinji Higuchi was followed by a parody version, also from 2006, called Everything Other than Japan Sinks (日本以外全部沈没), directed by AcknowledgementsMinoru Kawasaki. Thanks to Clare Kim for the leads. I thank4. Tidal Jeremie Wave: Brugidou, No Escape Eugenie, a TV Brinkema, movie from Eva 1997, Hayward, made David well afterJaclin, the Caroline moment Jones, when Clare com - Kim, Melodyputer graphics Jue, Heather were available, Paxson, Dmitrylooks particularly Portnoy, Michael off. The Rossi film cutsand betweenNicole Starosielski actors and filmfor close readingsof an onrushing of iterations wave of (filmed this argument. on what Thanks looks like also a to different Ayn Cavicchi day, with and different Latéfa Faiz weather) for invaluablethat ishelp clearly in the a productionnormally sized of this beach piece. wave massively slowed down. To make matters more comical, the wave is forever on the verge of crashing, arriving, like the person that is end- Fundinglessly running toward the camera in Monty Python’s Holy Grail (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=fFufoOgCMW8). This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or 5. ‘As Vivian Sobchack has argued, the digital morph exploits the computer-generated image’s not-for-profit sectors. relative liberation from some of the laws of physics to which the photographic film image is subject in order to transcend the fixed categories and oppositions that define our experience Notesof the world, such as animate and inanimate, alive and dead, male and female, human and 1. Asmachine’ Jonathan (Whissel, Crary observes 2014: 132; in Suspensions and see Sobchack, of Perception 2000)., Marey’s work enacted a ‘reciprocal 6. operationStephen Rustof decomposition (2013) notes andthat reunification: the storm in Thehis analysisDay After of Tomorrowmovement, has within its ownthe frametwo-note of amusical single visual leitmotif. field, For preserved a key data a vector point offor spatial calibrating and temporal movie, music coherence, and waves, giving see movement Hoffman aand new Vorkapich’s form of legibility 1941 Moods and rationality’ of the Sea (Crary,, set to 2001:140).Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture. 2. DeleuzeIf disaster (1986) movies suggests are not that only perception, dark wish-fulfillment affect and action entertainments, write themselves but intoalso film foreshadow through - suching dreadtechniques stories as ofthe the long (im)possible, shot (establishing the fact scenes), that the the Twin close Towers up (registering come down emotion), with Deep and theImpact medium’s wave shot offers (tracking an eerie action). premonition All are presentof their ineventual wave films,collapse. as waves are things seen 7. fromIn Interstellar far away, upthere close is another (often registeredwrinkle, which in the is faces that, ofin thosethe story, actors on meantthe ocean to be wave gaping planet, at wavestime passes as they by arrive), at a different and all ratealong than their on unfolding. far away Earth, with each hour equal to seven Earth Compareyears (and waves see Stern,as movement- 2014). and time-images to fire. In the 1940s, director Sergei Eisenstein 8. (1986)Nicole posited Starosielski the flickering (2013) has flame suggested as an allegorythat underwater for the captivatingfilms in the power1950s ofportray cinema the (and deep compareas a monstrous Wollen (1984)realm andon cinema then in as the fire 1960s and photographymove to narratives as ice). aboutLeslie the(2017) sea hasas a recently place to writtencolonize of orclouds inhabit. as cinematic Waves here motifs operate and ashow surfaces these haveseparating been enlivenedworlds; with in both disaster analog movies, and digitalwaves film. churn and confuse the realms of above and below. 3.9. TheThis original claim mayJapanese require version fine-tuning. of the filmCompare was called Hereafter Japan and Sinks The (1973) Impossible (日本沈没 to Indian) by disaster Shiro Moritani.films that Retitling, treat the tsunami reshuffling, or other revising, wave-led and floods. redistributing Prabhu Solomon’s the film as (2014) Tidal KayalWave is(Meyer, a Tamil 1975)romantic makes comedy it much that morefeatures about the tsunamithe wave as thana backdrop. about anythingLike Hereafter specific and to The Japan. Impossible A 2006, it also centers on individuals separated and then miraculously reunited (though it was critiqued in The Times of India for treating the magnitude of the tragedy too lightly, risking being ‘exploita- tive [,] as the tragedy that followed hardly registers on screen’ (Suganth, 2016)). Tum Mile is a 2009 Hindi romance directed by Kunal Deshmukh that takes place among the 2005 Mumbai floods, which operate actually and allegorically as a turbulent trial for a star-crossed couple. Kathantara (2007) is an Oriya film about the aftermath of the 1999 Odisha cyclone. The events around the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami in Japan have only started entering into fiction film (documentaries are already many), and most (see Sion Sono’s 2012 Land of Hope (希望の国)) focus on Fukushima and its aftermath rather than the wave that initiated the catastrophe (see Schilling, 2015). There have been a number of literary responses to the event, many resonating with longer traditions in Japanese public culture that grapple with natural and nuclear catastrophe on the island (e.g. Luke and Karashima, 2012; Ozeki, 2013; and see Starrs, 2014). Future filmic representations of the Tōhoku wave will bear watching. 10. The Life of Pi is noted for its ocean effects. In a significant sequence, the main character, Pi, is at sea in a boat tossed by waves (Aquatic Development Group, n.d.). The waves were created in a ‘250-foot-long, 100-foot-wide and 9-foot-deep tank … able to hold up to 1.7 million gallons of water’. Director Ang Lee thought of the water this way: ‘water had to become a character itself … I wanted something that could create an elongated wave, and show one side Helmreich 23

Japanese remake of Japan Sinks by Shinji Higuchi was followed by a parody version, also from 2006, called Everything Other than Japan Sinks (日本以外全部沈没), directed by Minoru Kawasaki. Thanks to Clare Kim for the leads. 4. Tidal Wave: No Escape, a TV movie from 1997, made well after the moment when computer graphics were available, looks particularly off. The film cuts between actors and film of an onrushing wave (filmed on what looks like a different day, with different weather) that is clearly a normally sized beach wave massively slowed down. To make matters more comical, the wave is forever on the verge of crashing, arriving, like the person that is end- lessly running toward the camera in Monty Python’s Holy Grail (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=fFufoOgCMW8). 5. ‘As Vivian Sobchack has argued, the digital morph exploits the computer-generated image’s relative liberation from some of the laws of physics to which the photographic film image is subject in order to transcend the fixed categories and oppositions that define our experience of the world, such as animate and inanimate, alive and dead, male and female, human and machine’ (Whissel, 2014: 132; and see Sobchack, 2000). 6. Stephen Rust (2013) notes that the storm in The Day After Tomorrow has its own two-note musical leitmotif. For a key data point for calibrating movie, music and waves, see Hoffman and Vorkapich’s 1941 Moods of the Sea, set to Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture. If disaster movies are not only dark wish-fulfillment entertainments, but also foreshadow- ing dread stories of the (im)possible, the fact that the Twin Towers come down with Deep Impact’s wave offers an eerie premonition of their eventual collapse. 7. In Interstellar there is another wrinkle, which is that, in the story, on the ocean wave planet, time passes by at a different rate than on far away Earth, with each hour equal to seven Earth years (and see Stern, 2014). 8. Nicole Starosielski (2013) has suggested that underwater films in the 1950s portray the deep as a monstrous realm and then in the 1960s move to narratives about the sea as a place to Helmreichcolonize or inhabit. Waves here operate as surfaces separating worlds; with disaster movies,516233 waves churn and confuse the realms of above and below. 9. This claim may require fine-tuning. Compare Hereafter and The Impossible to Indian disaster films that treat the tsunami or other wave-led floods. Prabhu Solomon’s (2014) Kayal is a Tamil romantic comedy that features the tsunami as a backdrop. Like Hereafter and The Impossible, it also centers on individuals separated and then miraculously reunited (though it was critiqued in The Times of India for treating the magnitude of the tragedy too lightly, risking being ‘exploita- tive [,] as the tragedy that followed hardly registers on screen’ (Suganth, 2016)). Tum Mile is a 2009 Hindi romance directed by Kunal Deshmukh that takes place among the 2005 Mumbai floods, which operate actually and allegorically as a turbulent trial for a star-crossed couple. Kathantara (2007) is an Oriya film about the aftermath of the 1999 Odisha cyclone. The events around the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami in Japan have only started entering into fiction film (documentaries are already many), and most (see Sion Sono’s 2012 Land of Hope (希望の国)) focus on Fukushima and its aftermath rather than the wave that initiated the catastrophe (see Schilling, 2015). There have been a number of literary responses to the event, many resonating with longer traditions in Japanese public culture that grapple with natural and nuclear catastrophe on the island (e.g. Luke and Karashima, 2012; Ozeki, 2013; and see Figure 1. Sequence from Étienne Jules Marey, La Vague, 1891. Starrs, 2014). Future filmic representations of the Tōhoku wave will bear watching. 10. The Life of Pi is noted for its ocean effects. In a significant sequence, the main character, Pi, Muybridgeis at sea inin aPalo boat Alto tossed in by the waves late (Aquatic1870s, inDevelopment which Muybridge Group, n.d.). famously The waves generated were cre a- ated in a ‘250-foot-long, 100-foot-wide and 9-foot-deep tank … able to hold up to1 1.7 million 24series of stills taken in quick succession to capture the movementSocial Science of horses. Information It became 00(0) imaginablegallons toof slicewater’. time Director up into Ang framed Lee thought visualizations of the water and thisto then way: suture ‘water these had totogether become in a character itself … I wanted something that could create an elongated wave, and show one side space – parcelling them out along segmented linear spans of nitrate, celluloid, acetate of it and having it dissolve from the other, so I could at least control the shape, size, pattern and other film stock. It also became possible to watch things over and over again, to and rhythm’ (Murphy, 2013). slow,Mention to pause, of Theto reverse Perfect (seeStorm Gunning, (2000) seems 1989: necessary 33 on early here. silentIn this film movie, as ‘aa fishing cinema boat of instants,confronts rather a largethan wavedeveloping that eventually situations’, upends a condition it (see Morgan, that online2018). formats such as GIFs 11.may Comparebe reactivating, Dam 999 as, a I UAE–Indiandiscuss below). co-production directed by Sohan Roy in 2011 about the Asbursting philosopher of an outdated Henri Bergsondam, a film – aimplicitly colleague meant of Marey’s to call attention at the Collegeto state responsibilities de France in the earlyto maintain 20th-century dams. – noted, in chronophotography, the time of experience, or what 12.Bergson Waves called might ‘duration’ have something came newlyin common to be with captured the outrageously and expressed large as crowds space: that ‘The appear terms in that many designate fantasy time’, films these he wrote, days, from ‘are Lord borrowed of the Rings from to the Star language Wars. Such of films space’ ‘use (Bergson, the digital 1946:multitude 4; as in to the spatialize sequence time above, and to which,emblematize read lefttheir to protagonists’ right, means relationships to mimic totemporal sudden, succession).often apocalyptic The result, historical for Bergson, change’ was(Whissel, that, ‘instead2014: 60). of attaching ourselves to the inner 13.becoming The Day of Afterthings, Tomorrow we place, Keane ourselves argues, outside ‘works them in simultaneously in order to recompose reflecting and their distancing becom- itself from the events and psychological after-effects of 9/11’. Reflecting because the disaster ing artificially’ (Bergson, 1911[1907]: 332). The wave, taken as a visible, surface object, hits New York. Distancing because the director studiously avoids staging collapsing buildings is portionedin ways thatinto would instants evoke and the reassembled Twin Towers in and the alsospace–time because Newof the York, viewer, ultimately, who comes survives to see the– and wave-movement-image the cause of the disaster as comes at once not an from empirical the legible record zone and of thea lively political, phenomenon, but from a one that‘nature’ may whose support political various economic characterizations transformation and assigns narrative blame uses to a(cf. ‘way Kelty of life’, & Landecker, rather than 2004to on evil life, persons. animation and film). 14. GillesThe infrastructural Deleuze, in Cinemanegligence 1: permittingThe Movement the storm Image surges (1986) and floodingand Cinema of New 2: OrleansThe Time in Imagethe (1989), wake of draws Hurricane on Bergson, Katrina in and, 2005 reading has been films primarily from thetreated 20th in century, documentary complicates – think this view,of Spike arguing Lee’s Whenthat, with the Levees film, movementBroke, though comes Beasts to ofbe the inscribed Southern within Wild, thea 2012 still. magical In the mostlyrealist later story 20th-century about a flood films in aI treatLouisiana here, bayou waves town, are movement-images is clearly inspired by and the time-images event, even par as excellence its mythical, for cast their risks pitched depoliticizing present the always structures points that leave to their some immediate people and past not others (their swellingvulnerable arrival) to stormand theirsurge. immanent But look to future Cauleen (their Smith’s just-about-to-breakness). Afrofuturist science fiction2 More, film, Thethe Fullness of Time (2008), for a science fiction story that maps the strange and alienated experi- time they gather up is not simply linear, unfolding time, nor only the subjective or inte- ence of a Hurricane Katrina survivor as she walks the damaged city. 15.rior timeIn Point of Breaka viewer, (1991), but for also example, a time a of crime fantasy, thriller of in the which ‘unthought, a team of thesurfers unsummonable, moonlights as the inexplicable,a gang of bank the robbers, undecidable, a climactic the scene incommensurable’ involves one of the (Deleuze, robbers, facing1989: prison,214; and released also by his captor to surf one final wave, a wave that the policeman knows will kill him. As screenwriter Dmitry Portnoy (personal communication, 12 September 2017) observes, ‘the breaking point is a nexus of transgressions: robbing banks, an FBI agent getting too close to the criminal he is investigating, the sublimated gay romance’. The crashing wave resolves all of these. 16. In Surf’s Up, a cartoon about surfing penguins, animators hoped to render waves in the film using the tools of computer simulation, but, finding such virtual waves not packing enough emotion, worried that these wouldn’t look ‘real’. Eventually, the animators pro- duced a virtual wave ‘puppet’, so that waves could be, as they put it, ‘characters’. In the movie, they go from being frightening adversaries to being partners in surfing (go ‘with the wave’).

of it and having it dissolve from the other, so I could at least control the shape, size, pattern and rhythm’ (Murphy, 2013). Mention of The Perfect Storm (2000) seems necessary here. In this movie, a fishing boat confronts a large wave that eventually upends it (see Morgan, 2018). 11. Compare Dam 999, a UAE–Indian co-production directed by Sohan Roy in 2011 about the bursting of an outdated dam, a film implicitly meant to call attention to state responsibilities to maintain dams. 12. Waves might have something in common with the outrageously large crowds that appear in many fantasy films these days, from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars. Such films ‘use the digital multitude to spatialize time and to emblematize their protagonists’ relationships to sudden, often apocalyptic historical change’ (Whissel, 2014: 60). 13. The Day After Tomorrow, Keane argues, ‘works in simultaneously reflecting and distancing itself from the events and psychological after-effects of 9/11’. Reflecting because the disaster hits New York. Distancing because the director studiously avoids staging collapsing buildings in ways that would evoke the Twin Towers and also because New York, ultimately, survives – and the cause of the disaster comes not from the legible zone of the political, but from a ‘nature’ whose political economic transformation assigns blame to a ‘way of life’, rather than to evil persons. 14. The infrastructural negligence permitting the storm surges and flooding of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 has been primarily treated in documentary – think of Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke, though Beasts of the Southern Wild, a 2012 magical realist story about a flood in a Louisiana bayou town, is clearly inspired by the event, even as its mythical cast risks depoliticizing the structures that leave some people and not others vulnerable to storm surge. But look to Cauleen Smith’s Afrofuturist science fiction film, The 2224517 Fullness of Time (2008), for a science fiction story that mapsSocial the strange Science and Information alienated experi 00(0)57(3)- ence of a Hurricane Katrina survivor as she walks the damaged city. of15. the In medium.Point Break As (1991), film is for challenged example, aby crime television, thriller infilmmakers which a team (in of the surfers 1960s, moonlights and more as intensivelya gang ofin bank the 1970s)robbers, turna climactic to large-scale scene involves special one effects, of the robbers, epic stories facing for prison, the releasedscreen, disasterby hismovies. captor As to film surf is one challenged final wave, by adigital wave technologies that the policeman (games, knows the Internet), will kill him. waves As are againscreenwriter reinvented, Dmitry now Portnoy as virtual (personal simulated communication, objects 12capturing September a slice 2017) of observes, the digital, ‘the emblemsbreaking of the point sublime is a nexus power of transgressions: of cinema as fantasyrobbing banks,(to date, an itFBI does agent not getting seem astoo through close to the criminal he is investigating, the sublimated gay romance’. The crashing wave resolves all 3D representations have significantly altered wave movement-images, though it seems of these. that16. theyIn Surf’s should Up , –a maybecartoon theyabout will surfing soon?). penguins, Nowadays, animators we hopedmay have to render entered waves a hyper- in the reflexivefilm usingmoment, the toolswhen of the computer artifactuality simulation, of waves but, onfinding the screen such virtual has become waves nota recursive packing resourceenough for emotion,narrative, worried either animating that these anwouldn’t optimistic look aesthetic ‘real’. Eventually, of nature craftedthe animators in partner pro-- ship ducedwith humanity a virtual wave (Moana ‘puppet’,) or underwriting so that waves an could ironic be, sense as they of putrepresentation it, ‘characters’. as inade In the- quatemovie, to the theypolitics go fromof nature, being captive frightening to human adversaries folly in to ways being that partners cannot in pretendsurfing (goto attach ‘with to meaningfulthe wave’). ecological action, and that may spell human doom.

CompanionReferences Movie Montage ForAquatic a montage Development of scenes Group from (n.d.)movies Wave featuring generation massive technology movie waves used —in Lifea montage of Pi. Availablethat delivers at: an argumenthttps://www.aquaticgroup.com/our-work/life-of-pi/ about common tropes and effects — see “Massive (accessed Movie 14 May Waves 2018). Mix,” by Jeremie Brugidou,Bergson H available (1911[1907]) at http://vimeo.com/269392249 Creative Evolution, trans. Arthur Mitchell. New York: Henry Holt and Company. AcknowledgementsBergson H (1946) The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Mabelle L. Andison. New York: Philosophical Library. IBrinkema thank Jeremie E (2014) Brugidou, The Forms Eugenie of the Brinkema, Affects. Durham, Eva Hayward, NC: Duke David University Jaclin, Caroline Press. Jones, Clare Kim, Melody Jue, Heather Paxson, Dmitry Portnoy, Michael Rossi and Nicole Starosielski for close readings of iterations of this argument. Thanks also to Ayn Cavicchi and Latéfa Faiz for invaluable help in the production of this piece.

Funding This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes 1. As Jonathan Crary observes in Suspensions of Perception, Marey’s work enacted a ‘reciprocal operation of decomposition and reunification: his analysis of movement, within the frame of a single visual field, preserved a vector of spatial and temporal coherence, giving movement a new form of legibility and rationality’ (Crary, 2001:140). 2. Deleuze (1986) suggests that perception, affect and action write themselves into film through such techniques as the long shot (establishing scenes), the close up (registering emotion), and the medium shot (tracking action). All are present in wave films, as waves are things seen from far away, up close (often registered in the faces of those actors meant to be gaping at waves as they arrive), and all along their unfolding. Compare waves as movement- and time-images to fire. In the 1940s, director Sergei Eisenstein (1986) posited the flickering flame as an allegory for the captivating power of cinema (and compare Wollen (1984) on cinema as fire and photography as ice). Leslie (2017) has recently written of clouds as cinematic motifs and how these have been enlivened in both analog and digital film. 3. The original Japanese version of the film was called Japan Sinks (1973) (日本沈没) by Shiro Moritani. Retitling, reshuffling, revising, and redistributing the film as Tidal Wave (Meyer, 1975) makes it much more about the wave than about anything specific to Japan. A 2006 24 Social Science Information 00(0)

of it and having it dissolve from the other, so I could at least control the shape, size, pattern and rhythm’ (Murphy, 2013). Mention of The Perfect Storm (2000) seems necessary here. In this movie, a fishing boat confronts a large wave that eventually upends it (see Morgan, 2018). 11. Compare Dam 999, a UAE–Indian co-production directed by Sohan Roy in 2011 about the bursting of an outdated dam, a film implicitly meant to call attention to state responsibilities to maintain dams. 12. Waves might have something in common with the outrageously large crowds that appear in many fantasy films these days, from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars. Such films ‘use the digital multitude to spatialize time and to emblematize their protagonists’ relationships to sudden, often apocalyptic historical change’ (Whissel, 2014: 60). 13. The Day After Tomorrow, Keane argues, ‘works in simultaneously reflecting and distancing itself from the events and psychological after-effects of 9/11’. Reflecting because the disaster hits New York. Distancing because the director studiously avoids staging collapsing buildings in ways that would evoke the Twin Towers and also because New York, ultimately, survives – and the cause of the disaster comes not from the legible zone of the political, but from a ‘nature’ whose political economic transformation assigns blame to a ‘way of life’, rather than to evil persons. 14. The infrastructural negligence permitting the storm surges and flooding of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 has been primarily treated in documentary – think of Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke, though Beasts of the Southern Wild, a 2012 magical realist story about a flood in a Louisiana bayou town, is clearly inspired by the event, even as its mythical cast risks depoliticizing the structures that leave some people and not others vulnerable to storm surge. But look to Cauleen Smith’s Afrofuturist science fiction film, The Fullness of Time (2008), for a science fiction story that maps the strange and alienated experience of a Hurricane Katrina survivor as she walks the damaged city. 15. In Point Break (1991), for example, a crime thriller in which a team of surfers moonlights as a gang of bank robbers, a climactic scene involves one of the robbers, facing prison, released by his captor to surf one final wave, a wave that the policeman knows will kill him. As screenwriter Dmitry Portnoy (personal communication, 12 September 2017) observes, ‘the breaking point is a nexus of transgressions: robbing banks, an FBI agent getting too close to the criminal he is investigating, the sublimated gay romance’. The crashing wave resolves all of these. 16. In Surf’s Up, a cartoon about surfing penguins, animators hoped to render waves in the film using the tools of computer simulation, but, finding such virtual waves not packing enough emotion, worried that these wouldn’t look ‘real’. Eventually, the animators pro- duced a virtual wave ‘puppet’, so that waves could be, as they put it, ‘characters’. In the movie, they go from being frightening adversaries to being partners in surfing (go ‘with Helmreichthe wave’). 518253

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It also MN: became University possible of Minnesota to watch Press. things over and over again, to Deleuzeslow, to Gpause, (1989) to Cinemareverse 2:(see The Gunning, Time Image 1989:, trans. 33 on Hugh early Tomlinson silent film and as Robert‘a cinema Galeta. of instants,Minneapolis, rather than MN: developing University ofsituations’, Minnesota aPress. condition that online formats such as GIFs Eisensteinmay be reactivating, S (1986) Eisenstein as I discuss on Disney below)., trans. Alan Y. Upchurch. Calcutta: Seagull Books. Elliott RN (1980[1938]) The Wave Principle. Republished in Prechter RR (ed.) R.N. Elliott’s As philosopher Henri Bergson – a colleague of Marey’s at the College de France in Masterworks. Gainsville, FA: New Classics Library. Englethe early J (2015) 20th-century Surfing in the– noted, Movies: in Achronophotography, Critical History. 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A (2013) As An film ecophilosophy is challenged of by the television, moving image: filmmakers Cinema (in as the anthrobiogeomorphic 1960s, and more intensivelymachine. in In: the Rust 1970s) S, Monani turn to S, large-scaleCubitt S (eds) special Ecocinema effects, Theory epic and stories Practice for .the New screen, York: disasterRoutledge, movies. 87–105. As film is challenged by digital technologies (games, the Internet), waves areJones again M (2007) reinvented, Vanishing now point: as virtual Spatial simulated composition objects and thecapturing virtual camera.a slice Animationof the digital, 2(3): emblems225–243. of the sublime power of cinema as fantasy (to date, it does not seem as through 26Jue M (2014) Proteus and the digital: Scalar transformations ofSocial seawater’s Science materiality Information in 00(0)ocean 3D representations have significantly altered wave movement-images, though it seems animations. Animation 9(2): 245-260. thatKaye they D (2017) should The – 1970s:maybe Decadethey will of thesoon?). disaster Nowadays, movie. SYFY we mayWire ,have 26 April. entered Available a hyper- at: reflexivehttp://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-1970s-decade-of-the-disaster-movie moment, when the artifactuality of waves on the screen has become (accessed a recursive 14 May resource2018). for narrative, either animating an optimistic aesthetic of nature crafted in partner- shipKeane with S humanity (2006) Disaster (Moana Movies:) or underwriting The Cinema an ironic of Catastrophe sense of representation (2nd edition). as London: inade- quateWallflower. to the politics of nature, captive to human folly in ways that cannot pretend to attach toKeller meaningful S, Paul ecological JN (2012) action,Jean Epstein: and that Critical may spell Essays human and doom. New Translations. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. CompanionKelty C, Landecker Movie H (2004) Montage A theory of animation: Cells, L-systems, and film. Grey Room 17: 30–63. For a montage of scenes from movies featuring massive movie waves — a montage that delivers Lafrance A (2017) The algorithms behind Moana’s gorgeously animated ocean. The Atlantic, 31 an argument about common tropes and effects — see “Massive Movie Waves Mix,” by Jeremie May. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/the-algorithms- Brugidou, available at http://vimeo.com/269392249 behind-moanas-gorgeously-animated-pacific-ocean/528645/ (accessed 14 May 2018). Leslie E (2017) Cloud animation. Animation 12(3): 230–243. AcknowledgementsLuke E, Karashima D (eds) (2012) March Was Made of Yarn: Reflections on the Japanese I thankEarthquake, Jeremie Brugidou, Tsunami, Eugenie and Nuclear Brinkema, Meltdown Eva. Hayward,New York: David Vintage. Jaclin, Caroline Jones, Clare Kim,Mangolte Melody B (2003) Jue, HeatherAfterwards: Paxson, A matter Dmitry of time.Portnoy, Analog Michael versus Rossi digital, and the Nicole perennial Starosielski question for of closeshifting readings technology of iterations and of its this implications argument. for Thanks an experimental also to Ayn filmmaker’s Cavicchi and odyssey. Latéfa In:Faiz Allen for invaluableR, Turvey help inM the(eds) production Camera ofobscura this piece. camera lucida: Essays in honor of Annette Michelson. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. FundingMinsberg T (2017) On a California ranch, perfect conditions for pro surfing. New York Times, 20 September. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/sports/world-surf-league- This kelly-slater-test.html?_r=0research received no specific (accessed grant from 14 May any 2018).funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profitMorgan D (2018) sectors. Oscar FX: Creating the ‘Perfect Storm’. ABC News. Available at: http://abc- news.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=103570&page=1 (accessed 14 May 2018). NotesMurphy S (2013) How ‘Life of Pi’ became a visual masterpiece. Mashable, 12 March. Available 1. Asat: Jonathan http://mashable.com/2013/03/12/life-of-pi-technology/#H8i5SQbqYZqd Crary observes in Suspensions of Perception, Marey’s work enacted (accessed a ‘reciprocal 14 operationMay 2018). of decomposition and reunification: his analysis of movement, within the frame of Newmana single JN (1977)visual field,Marine preserved Hydrodynamics a vector . ofCambridge, spatial and MA: temporal MIT Press.coherence, giving movement Nixona newR (2013) form ofSlow legibility Violence and and rationality’ the Environmentalism (Crary, 2001:140). of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard 2. DeleuzeUniversity (1986) Press. suggests that perception, affect and action write themselves into film through Oceansuch Innovations techniques (2015) as the Want long waves?shot (establishing Only question scenes), is where, the close when up & (registering what size would emotion), you likeand the mediumwaves … shot Available (tracking at: action).http://www.oceaninnovations.com/products_special-effects.html All are present in wave films, as waves are things seen from(accessed far away, 12 June up 2018).close (often registered in the faces of those actors meant to be gaping at Ozekiwaves R (2013) as they A Tale arrive), for theand Time all along Being: their A Novelunfolding.. New York: Penguin Books. PiersonCompare R (2015) waves Whole-screen as movement- metamorphosis and time-images and to the fire imagined. In the 1940s, camera director (notes Sergei on perspectival Eisenstein (1986)movement posited in animation). the flickering Animation flame as 10(1): an allegory 6–21. for the captivating power of cinema (and Pirie compareD (1996) Wollen Wave theory.(1984) onSight cinema & Sound as fire 6(9): and 26–27. photography as ice). Leslie (2017) has recently Princewritten S (1996) of clouds True as lies: cinematic perceptual motifs realism, and how digital these images, have been and enlivened film theory. in bothFilm analog Quarterly and digital49(3):27–37. film. Rust3. TheS (2013) original Hollywood Japanese andversion climate of the change. film was In: called Rust JapanS, Monani Sinks S, (1973) Cubitt (日本沈没 S (eds) Ecocinema) by Shiro Moritani.Theory and Retitling, Practice reshuffling,. New York: revising, Routledge, and 191–211. redistributing the film as Tidal Wave (Meyer, Schilling1975) M makes (2015) itIn much the cinematic more about wake the of thewave Fukushima than about nuclear anything disaster. specific Japan to Times Japan., 4 A March. 2006 Available at: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2015/03/04/films/cinematic-wake-fukushima-nuclear-disaster/ (accessed 14 May 2018). Sobchack V (2000) Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick Change. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Starosielski N (2013) Beyond fluidity: A cultural history of cinema under water. In: Rust S, Monani S, Cubitt S (eds) Ecocinema theory and practice. New York: Routledge, 149–168. 26 Social Science Information 00(0)

Kaye D (2017) The 1970s: Decade of the disaster movie. SYFY Wire, 26 April. Available at: http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-1970s-decade-of-the-disaster-movie (accessed 14 May 2018). Keane S (2006) Disaster Movies: The Cinema of Catastrophe (2nd edition). London: Wallflower. Keller S, Paul JN (2012) Jean Epstein: Critical Essays and New Translations. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Kelty C, Landecker H (2004) A theory of animation: Cells, L-systems, and film. Grey Room 17: 30–63. Lafrance A (2017) The algorithms behind Moana’s gorgeously animated ocean. The Atlantic, 31 May. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/the-algorithms- behind-moanas-gorgeously-animated-pacific-ocean/528645/ (accessed 14 May 2018). Leslie E (2017) Cloud animation. Animation 12(3): 230–243. Luke E, Karashima D (eds) (2012) March Was Made of Yarn: Reflections on the Japanese Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Meltdown. New York: Vintage. Mangolte B (2003) Afterwards: A matter of time. Analog versus digital, the perennial question of shifting technology and its implications for an experimental filmmaker’s odyssey. In: Allen R, Turvey M (eds) Camera obscura camera lucida: Essays in honor of Annette Michelson. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Minsberg T (2017) On a California ranch, perfect conditions for pro surfing. New York Times, 20 September. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/sports/world-surf-league- kelly-slater-test.html?_r=0 (accessed 14 May 2018). Morgan D (2018) Oscar FX: Creating the ‘Perfect Storm’. ABC News. Available at: http://abc- news.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=103570&page=1 (accessed 14 May 2018). Murphy S (2013) How ‘Life of Pi’ became a visual masterpiece. Mashable, 12 March. Available at: http://mashable.com/2013/03/12/life-of-pi-technology/#H8i5SQbqYZqd (accessed 14 May 2018). Newman JN (1977) Marine Hydrodynamics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Nixon R (2013) Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ocean Innovations (2015) Want waves? Only question is where, when & what size would you like the waves … Available at: http://www.oceaninnovations.com/products_special-effects.html (accessed 12 June 2018). Ozeki R (2013) A Tale for the Time Being: A Novel. New York: Penguin Books. Pierson R (2015) Whole-screen metamorphosis and the imagined camera (notes on perspectival movement in animation). Animation 10(1): 6–21. Pirie D (1996) Wave theory. Sight & Sound 6(9): 26–27. Prince S (1996) True lies: perceptual realism, digital images, and film theory. Film Quarterly 49(3):27–37. RustHelmreich S (2013) Hollywood and climate change. In: Rust S, Monani S, Cubitt S (eds) Ecocinema520273 Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge, 191–211. Schilling M (2015) In the cinematic wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Japan Times, 4 March. Available at: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2015/03/04/films/cinematic-wake-fukushima-nuclear-disaster/ (accessed 14 May 2018). Sobchack V (2000) Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick Change. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. HelmreichStarosielski N (2013) Beyond fluidity: A cultural history of cinema under water. In: Rust 27 S, Monani S, Cubitt S (eds) Ecocinema theory and practice. New York: Routledge, 149–168. Starrs R (2014) When the Tsunami Came to Shore: Culture and Disaster in Japan. Leiden, Boston: Global Oriental. Stern M (2014) Neil deGrasse Tyson breaks down ‘Interstellar’: Black holes, time dilations, and massive waves. Daily Beast. Available at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/11/ neil-degrasse-tyson-breaks-down-interstellar-black-holes-time-dilations-and-massive-waves (accessed 14 May 2018). Suganth M (2016) Kayal movie review. Times of India, 16 May, https://timesofindia.indiatimes. com/entertainment/tamil/movie-reviews/kayal/movie-review/45642701.cms (accessed 15 FigureMay 1. 2018). Sequence from Étienne Jules Marey, La Vague, 1891. Viral Art (2016) Viral art: The new imaginaries of GIF culture. Available at: http://viralart.wixsite. Muybridgecom/gifconference2016 in Palo Alto in (accessed the late 14 1870s, May 2018). in which Muybridge famously generated a Vossseries D of (2013) stills Deleuze’s taken in thirdquick synthesis succession of time. to capture Deleuze theStudies movement 7(2):194–216. of horses.1 It became Whisselimaginable K (2014) to slice Spectacular time up into Digital framed Effects: visualizations CGI and Contemporary and to then suture Cinema these. Durham, together NC: in Duke University Press. space – parcelling them out along segmented linear spans of nitrate, celluloid, acetate Wollen P (1984) Fire and ice. Photographies 4: 118–20. and other film stock. It also became possible to watch things over and over again, to slow, to pause, to reverse (see Gunning, 1989: 33 on early silent film as ‘a cinema of Filmography instants, rather than developing situations’, a condition that online formats such as GIFs Bayonamay be JA reactivating, (2012) The Impossibleas I discuss. Warner below). Bros Pictures/Summit Entertainment. BigelowAs philosopher K (1991) Point Henri Break Bergson. 20th Century – a colleague Fox. of Marey’s at the College de France in Brannon A, Chris B (2007) Surf’s Up. Columbia Pictures. the early 20th-century – noted, in chronophotography, the time of experience, or what Cameron J (1989) The Abyss. 20th Century Fox. ClementsBergson R,called John ‘duration’ M (2016) Moanacame newly. Walt Disneyto be captured Motion Pictures. and expressed as space: ‘The terms Deshmukhthat designate K (2009) time’, Tum he Mile wrote,. Sony ‘are Music/Vishesh borrowed Films. from the language of space’ (Bergson, Devlin1946: D4; (2017)as in theGeostorm sequence. Warner above, Bros which, Pictures. read left to right, means to mimic temporal Dijckssuccession). A (2017) The The result, Infinite for NowBergson,. Available was that, at: http://armanddijcks.com/blog//the-infinite-now ‘instead of attaching ourselves to the inner becoming(accessed of things,12 June we 2018). place ourselves outside them in order to recompose their becom- Eastwooding artificially’ C (2010) (Bergson, Hereafter 1911[1907]:. Warner Bros 332). Pictures. The wave, taken as a visible, surface object, Emmerichis portioned R (2004) into instants The Day and After reassembled Tomorrow. in20th the Century space–time Fox. of the viewer, who comes to Emmerichsee the wave-movement-image R (2009) 2012. Columbia as Pictures. at once an empirical record and a lively phenomenon, Everhartone that Nmay (2008) support 2012: various Doomsday characterizations. Faith Films. and narrative uses (cf. Kelty & Landecker, Epstein2004 on J (1947)life, animation Le Tempestaire and film).. France Illustration. Higuchi S (2006) 日本沈没 [Japan Sinks]. Toho. Gilles Deleuze, in Cinema 1: The Movement Image (1986) and Cinema 2: The Time Hoffman J, Slavko V (1941) Moods of the Sea. Independent Film. Je-kyoonImage (1989), Y (2009) draws 해운대 on Bergson,[Tidal Wave]. and, CJ reading Entertainment. films from the 20th century, complicates Kawasakithis view, M arguing (2006) that,日本以外全部沈没 with film, movement [Everything comes Other to bethan inscribed Japan Sinks]. within Kadokawa the still. Herald In the mostlyPictures. later 20th-century films I treat here, waves are movement-images and time-images Khatuapar excellence H (2007), Kathantara for their pitched. Kadambinee present Media always Pvt Ltd points to their immediate past (their Lederswelling M (1998) arrival) Deep and Impact their. Paramountimmanent Pictures/DreamWorksfuture (their just-about-to-breakness). SKG. 2 More, the Leetime A they (2012) gather The Lifeup isof notPi. 20thsimply Century linear, Fox. unfolding time, nor only the subjective or inte- Leerior Stime (2006) of Whena viewer, the Levees but also Broke: a time A Requiem of fantasy, in Four of theActs ‘unthought,. 40 Acres and the a Mule unsummonable, Filmworks. Mareythe inexplicable, EJ (1891) La the Vague undecidable,. Primo-Film. the incommensurable’ (Deleuze, 1989: 214; and also McDonald B (2007) Killer Wave. Muse Entertainment Enterprises. Meyer A (1975) Tidal Wave. New World Pictures. Miller G (1997) Tidal Wave: No Escape. Hallmark Entertainment/JAWO Productions/RHI Entertainment. Miyazake H (2008) Ponyo. Toho. Moritani S (1973) 日本沈没. Toho-Eizo. Neame R (1979) Meteor. American International Pictures. Helmreich 27

Starrs R (2014) When the Tsunami Came to Shore: Culture and Disaster in Japan. Leiden, Boston: Global Oriental. Stern M (2014) Neil deGrasse Tyson breaks down ‘Interstellar’: Black holes, time dilations, and massive waves. Daily Beast. Available at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/11/ neil-degrasse-tyson-breaks-down-interstellar-black-holes-time-dilations-and-massive-waves (accessed 14 May 2018). Suganth M (2016) Kayal movie review. Times of India, 16 May, https://timesofindia.indiatimes. com/entertainment/tamil/movie-reviews/kayal/movie-review/45642701.cms (accessed 15 May 2018). Viral Art (2016) Viral art: The new imaginaries of GIF culture. Available at: http://viralart.wixsite. com/gifconference2016 (accessed 14 May 2018). Voss D (2013) Deleuze’s third synthesis of time. Deleuze Studies 7(2):194–216. Whissel K (2014) Spectacular Digital Effects: CGI and Contemporary Cinema. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 22Wollen28521 P (1984) Fire and ice. Photographies 4: 118–20. Social Science Information 00(0)57(3) ofFilmography the medium. As film is challenged by television, filmmakers (in the 1960s, and more intensivelyBayona JA (2012) in the The 1970s) Impossible turn .to Warner large-scale Bros Pictures/Summit special effects, Entertainment. epic stories for the screen, disasterBigelow movies.K (1991) As Point film Break is challenged. 20th Century by digital Fox. technologies (games, the Internet), waves areBrannon again A, reinvented, Chris B (2007) now Surf’s as virtual Up. Columbia simulated Pictures. objects capturing a slice of the digital, emblemsCameron J of (1989) the sublime The Abyss power. 20th ofCentury cinema Fox. as fantasy (to date, it does not seem as through Clements R, John M (2016) Moana. Walt Disney Motion Pictures. 3D representations have significantly altered wave movement-images, though it seems Deshmukh K (2009) Tum Mile. Sony Music/Vishesh Films. thatDevlin they D (2017)should Geostorm – maybe. Warner they will Bros soon?). Pictures. Nowadays, we may have entered a hyper- reflexiveDijcks A (2017)moment, The when Infinite the Now artifactuality. Available ofat: waves http://armanddijcks.com/blog//the-infinite-now on the screen has become a recursive resource(accessed for narrative, 12 June 2018). either animating an optimistic aesthetic of nature crafted in partner- shipEastwood with Chumanity (2010) Hereafter (Moana. )Warner or underwriting Bros Pictures. an ironic sense of representation as inade- quateEmmerich to the R politics(2004) The of nature,Day After captive Tomorrow to human. 20th follyCentury in waysFox. that cannot pretend to attach toEmmerich meaningful R (2009) ecological 2012. Columbia action, and Pictures. that may spell human doom. Everhart N (2008) 2012: Doomsday. Faith Films. CompanionEpstein J (1947) Movie Le Tempestaire Montage. France Illustration. Higuchi S (2006) 日本沈没 [Japan Sinks]. Toho. ForHoffman a montage J, Slavko of scenes V (1941) from Moods movies of featuringthe Sea. Independentmassive movie Film. waves — a montage that delivers anJe-kyoon argument Y (2009) about 해운대common [Tidal tropes Wave]. and effects CJ Entertainment. — see “Massive Movie Waves Mix,” by Jeremie Brugidou,Kawasaki Mavailable (2006) at日本以外全部沈没 http://vimeo.com/269392249 [Everything Other than Japan Sinks]. Kadokawa Herald Pictures. AcknowledgementsKhatua H (2007) Kathantara. Kadambinee Media Pvt Ltd ILeder thank M Jeremie (1998) Brugidou,Deep Impact Eugenie. Paramount Brinkema, Pictures/DreamWorks Eva Hayward, David SKG. Jaclin, Caroline Jones, Clare Kim,Lee A Melody (2012) TheJue, Life Heather of Pi .Paxson, 20th Century Dmitry Fox. Portnoy, Michael Rossi and Nicole Starosielski for closeLee S readings(2006) When of iterations the Levees of Broke:this argument. A Requiem Thanks in Four also Acts to .Ayn 40 Acres Cavicchi and aand Mule Latéfa Filmworks. Faiz for invaluableMarey EJ (1891) help in La the Vague production. Primo-Film. of this piece. McDonald B (2007) Killer Wave. Muse Entertainment Enterprises. FundingMeyer A (1975) Tidal Wave. New World Pictures. Miller G (1997) Tidal Wave: No Escape. Hallmark Entertainment/JAWO Productions/RHI This Entertainment.research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profitMiyazake H (2008) sectors. Ponyo. Toho. Moritani28 S (1973) 日本沈没. Toho-Eizo. Social Science Information 00(0) NotesNeame R (1979) Meteor. American International Pictures. Nolan1. As C Jonathan (2014) Interstellar Crary observes. Paramount in Suspensions Pictures/Warner of Perception Bros, Pictures.Marey’s work enacted a ‘reciprocal Petersonoperation W (2000) of decomposition The Perfect Storm and reunification:. Warner Bros. his analysis of movement, within the frame of Peytona single B (2015) visual San field, Andreas preserved. Warner a vector Bros. of spatial and temporal coherence, giving movement Roy Sa new(2011) form Dam of legibility999. BizTV and Network. rationality’ (Crary, 2001:140). Solomon2. Deleuze P (2014) (1986) Kayal suggests. Escape that Artistsperception, Motion affect Pictures. and action write themselves into film through Sonosuch S (2012) techniques Kibô no as Kunithe long [Land shot of (establishing Hope]. Third scenes), Window the Films. close up (registering emotion), and Smiththe C medium(2008) The shot Fullness (tracking of Timeaction).. Creative All are Time. present in wave films, as waves are things seen Uthaugfrom R (2015)far away, Bølgen up close [The (often Wave]. registered Nordisk inFilm the Distribution. faces of those actors meant to be gaping at Weirwaves P (1977) as theyThe Lastarrive), Wave and. Worldall along Northal. their unfolding. ZeitlinCompare B (2012) waves Beasts as movement-of the Southern and time-imagesWild. Fox Searchlight to fire. In the Pictures. 1940s, director Sergei Eisenstein (1986) posited the flickering flame as an allegory for the captivating power of cinema (and Authorcompare biography Wollen (1984) on cinema as fire and photography as ice). Leslie (2017) has recently Stefanwritten Helmreich of clouds is Professoras cinematic of motifs Anthropology and how atthese MIT. have He been is theenlivened author in of both Alien analog Ocean: and Anthropologicaldigital film. Voyages in Microbial Seas (University of California Press, 2009) and, most recently,3. The original of Sounding Japanese the version Limits of the Life: film Essays was called in the Japan Anthropology Sinks (1973) of Biology(日本沈没 and) by Beyond Shiro (PrincetonMoritani. University Retitling, Press, reshuffling, 2016). His revising, essays haveand redistributingappeared in Critical the film Inquiry, as Tidal Representations, Wave (Meyer, American1975) Anthropologist makes it much, and more The about Wire the. wave than about anything specific to Japan. A 2006