Johannes Binotto Closed Circuits
ImmanenceasDisturbanceinHigh Definition Cinema
“everythingthat is switchable also becomes feasible” Friedrich Kittler (2010:226)
Near the end of his second cinema book, TheTime-Image from 1985, French phi- losopher Gilles Deleuze famouslymuses about the new electronic images, which will eventuallyreplaceanalogue, photomechanical film. He states:
The electronic image, that is, the tele- and video-image,the numerical image coming into being, either had to transform cinema or to replaceit, to mark its death. […]The new im- ages no longerhaveany outside (out-of-field), anymorethan they areinternalized in a whole; rather,they have aright side and areverse, reversible and non-superimposable, likeapowertoturn back on themselves. They arethe object of aperpetual reorganization, in which anew imagecan arise from anypoint whatever of the preceding image. […]And the screenitself, even if it keeps avertical position by convention, no longer seems to refer to the human posture, like awindow or apainting, but rather constitutes atable of infor- mation, an opaque surfaceonwhich areinscribed “data.” (1989:265)
1Outside as lack and the lack of the outside
In order to fullygrasp Deleuze’sclaim, one has to recapitulatewhat is meant by this “outside” of the cinematic image, of which the electronic imagesupposedly is devoid. In his earlier book, TheMovement-Image, Deleuze describes the out-of- field [hors-champ]ofthe cinematic imageasdesignating, on the one hand,what is simplyoutside the frame (the natural extensionofthe space onlypartiallyde- picted on screen), while, on the other hand,alsotestifying to a “disturbing pres- ence, one which cannot even be said to exist,but rather to ‘insist’ or ‘subsist,’ a more radical Elsewhere, outside homogenous space and time” (1997: 17). Lookingfor examples for this disturbing second aspect of the out-of-field as an ominous presencelurkingatthe borders of the image, one might think imme- diatelyofthosemysterious scenes in the modernist cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni. Time and again, characters in Antonioni’sfilms disappear completely, when they are steppingoutside the frame, like Anna in L’Avventura (1960), who gets lost on atinyisland, which in reality would be impossible to escape; or,like the two lovers in L’Eclisse (1962),who promised to meet at theirusual spot in the city,but never show up. In both cases, it seems like the characters gotswallowed https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110580082-010
Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05 172 Johannes Binotto by that “radical Elsewhereoutside homogenous space and time.” As Ihavear- gued in adifferent context,this movement into thatabsolute outside could be seen as an encounter with what Lacan calls “the real,” that frightening void, which resists both imagination and symbolization (Binotto 2009). The real, un- derstood as lack, makes itself felt as that invisibleoutside, situated beyond the border of the frame. The electronic images, however,asthey are, accordingtoDeleuze,devoid of anyout-of-field, are therefore – to borrowthe Lacanian phrase – lacking the lack itself. Whatisfelt here as adisruption, is no longer what is absent from the imageand can be felt as insistinginthe out-of-field. Rather,what is disruptive in and about the electronic image, is its suffocating plenitude. Instead of not enough,the electronic images seem to show far too much. While Antonioni’s films wereconcernedwith a melancholia for that which transcends the film image, the electronic images are governed by the no less disturbing maniacal paranoia of immanence. In contrast to its photochemical precursors,electronic images are no longer orientedtowards an outside, which they can never capture; rather,they are obsessed with their own plenitude and their internal, immanent “perpetual reorganization.” This, at least,isthe philosopher’sclaim.
2Transformation image
While Deleuze in his textsonfilm rarelydiscusses specific technicalaspects of filmmaking, his thoughts about digital imaging, as vagueand far-fetched they mayseem on first sight,are in fact very aptlydescribing the actual technological properties of these new images. In ascribing to the electronic images a “power to turn back on themselves,” he is quite accurate in delineating what reallytakes place in the cathode raytube (CRT), which first producedthese electronic im- ages. Indeed, CRTisbyits very technology bound to turn the images “back on themselves,” by constantlydestroyingand reconstructing them. In analogue film projection in cinema we wereshown every frame of the film strip as acom- plete picture, following one after another.The cathode raytube in aTV, however, never shows the pictures as awhole. Instead, it dissolvesthe imageinto lines, which the wandering dot of the cathoderay writesonto the TV screen’ssurface. While analogue film was projected imagebyimage, electronic video is written line by line.e It is onlydue to our inertvisual perception that we believewe
This can be made visible by filmingTVscreens with ultraslow motion. See for instancethe
Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05 Closed Circuits 173 see completeimages on TV,when in fact we have been shown nothing but frag- ments. This lack of detail is also the reason whyMarshall McLuhan would list television among those “cool media,” which ask for alarge amountofaudience participation:
The TV image is not astill shot.Itisnot photoinany sense, but aceaselesslyformingcon- tour of things limned by the scanning-finger.The resulting plastic contour appears by light through,not light on,and the image so formed has the quality of sculptureand icon, rather than of picture. (McLuhan 2001:341).
It is due to this completelydifferent technology of electronic imagingthat theo- rists such as Yvonne Spielmann have raised the question of whether what we see on aCRT monitor can even be called an image:
The status of the imagechangesinvideo:itiselectronicallyrecorded, transferred to anoth- er device,and finallytransmitted to amonitor.Infact,itcan properlydescribedasimage onlyifwekeep in mind that the electronic imageisaconstantlyflow of signals.[…] So video is best understood as “transformation image,” that is, because of the line-signal proc- ess,video produces an image that is constantlyundergoingtransformation. (Spielmann 2006: 57–58).
Although thereare,ofcourse, crucial technological differences between the video images produced by CRT and thoseproduced by computers, and seen on liquid-crystal displays (LCD), Spielmann’sdefinition of the electronic image as transformation imageholds truefor both. Also in digital formats, the image is broken up into lines, this time into rows of pixels, playedback on an LCD screen line by line. The electronic images produced both by CRT as well as LCD are never static, even if (due to progressive scan,increased refresh rate of the screen and backlight strobing) they maylook more and more stable to us. Even if the screen shows us astill image, the computer is constantlyrewriting this sameimage, pixel by pixel onto its screen. Electronic images, therefore, are in aconstant process of taking and losing shape. The analogue logic of se- quencing completeimages one after another thus givesway to alogic of morph- ing,whereone images melts into the other.AsGarrett Stewart puts it: “In post- filmic cinema, no imageprecedes the one we see – or follows from its sequence. All is determined by internal flux [of the single frame]” (Stewart 2007:6). Paradoxicallyenough, it is preciselythis internal flux that ensures the imma- nence of the electronic image. Since the electronic imageisinaconstant process
video “TV screen refresh in Slow motion @10,000 FPS in UltraSlo”:
Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05 174 Johannes Binotto of change, it can become everything. Deleuze’sseemingly contradictory claim thereforealso means that the electronic images neither have an outside, nor can be internalized in awhole. Never complete, the electronic imageshows (po- tentially) everythingatonce. The outside is always alreadyincluded in the fluc- tuating inside of the image. While these internal fluctuations were strikingly (and oftenpainfully) visible in earlyTVand video experiments (Spielmann 2008:131–224), as for example in the art installations by NamJune Paik or the films by Steina and WoodyVasul- ka,b the advent of moredetailed digital film images, shot and viewed in highdef- inition,lets us forgetthe digital image’sfundamental instability.While video ex- periments,such as those mentioned above, highlighted the fractures and disruptions inherent to electronic imaging, the vast majority of contemporary commercial movies use highdefinition digital images, not to disrupt but to en- hance and stabilizecinema’sillusionism. However,Iwould arguethathighdefinition in fact intensifies the disruptive aspect of digital imaging,preciselybytrying to conceal it.There is an inherent paradoxtothe fact,thatfor rendering the digital imagemore detailed, one has to increase its pixel density.The extremelysharp images thus produced are in fact more pixelated, more fragmented and cut up than ever.Similarly, higher refresh rates of modern computer monitors,TVscreens, or digital projec- tors,which make the images appear sharper,are in fact interruptingthe flow of signals at an even higher rate: the faster youturn the imageonand off,the crisp- ier it looks. Be it pixel densityorrefresh rates, the price for the illusion of stabil- ity is an increase of fragmentation, and of transformation. Taking this into account,Iwant to show how recent commercial movies, such as those by Michael Mann or David Fincher,seem not so much interested in camouflagingthe instability of the digital film image, but rather are exposing it,bothonthe level of their narrative,aswell as in their aesthetics. These movies are, in my view,perhaps less obvious than the abovementioned prototypicalex- amplesofexperimental video, but certainlynolessradical in their deconstruc- tive exposing of the electronic image.
See for example the Nam June Paik films under
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3Nothingbut cover
In contrasttomost of his contemporary filmmakers,which in post-production give an analogue look to their digitallyshot movies, Michael Mann has, since his earlyexperimentwith digital filmmaking in the short-livedTVseries Robbery Homicide Division (2002–2003), and the movie Collateral (2004), opted for an aesthetics that aggressively exposes its digital nature. Mann thus fits perfectly Simon Rothöhler’sclaim that “HD is most interesting and advanced, bothaes- thetically, as well as areflection of our hyper-mediated times, when the digital imageisset in striking contrasttoany traditionalsystem of ‘cinematic quality’” (Rothöhler 2013:26–27). Michael Mann’sunderrated magnus opum MiamiVice (2006), despised both by critics and audience for its un-filmic digital look, has probablygone the far- thest in terms of investigating the disruptive aspect of highdefinition. The film’s jarring visual appearance is ultimatelymatched by its storyline. Like the digital images, which consist in acontinuous transformation of data,sotoo are the movie’sprotagonists, the two undercover police detectivesSonnyCrockett and Riccardo Tubbs, constantlyonthe move. It is not just that they are always driving around in fast cars, speed boats, and privatejets, but their personalities also seem completelyunanchored, always adaptingtothe different situations they find themselvesin. Even when they are not passingthemselvesoff as drugtraf- fickers or pimps, but revert to their supposedlytrueidentityofvice cops,they are nothing but simulations. The tragic ironyofthese undercover agents is thus that underneath their cover there is nothing at all. Or as Riccardo Tubbs phrases it: “There is undercover and then there is ‘Which wayisup?’” By playing their roles as well as they can, they have lost themselveswithin the make-believe. The “internal flux” of the digital image, which Garrett Stewart talks about, also defines the characters and their ever-shifting identities. ForCrockett and Tubbs there is no kernelofidentity, hidden behind their masquerade. Like the images, the characters have no “outside.” What yousee, is what youget.But what youget is never awhole, and rather onlyasimulation. As LevManovichs has pointed out,indigital cinema:
the very distinctionbetween creation and modification, so clear in film-based media (shootingversus darkroomprocessesinphotography, production versus post-production in cinema) no longer applies […], sinceeach image, regardless of its origin, goes through anumber of programs before makingittothe final film. (Manovich2002: 302)
So too, the characters,asseen in MiamiVice,presented in adigital format,be- come indistinguishable from these avatars,which werecompletelydesigned on a
Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05 176 Johannes Binotto computer.And in fact,they are. Simplybythe capturingand storingoftheir imagedigitally, the characters have become victims of what Fredrick Kittler high- lighted as the fundamental process of the computer per se: “the successful re- duction of all dimensions to zero” (Kittler 2010:227). In MiamiVice this process of reduction is mirrored in the wayMann films his characters,just as French film theorist Jean-BaptisteThoret described with such precision:
The use of HD allows Mann to forge adense image, often opaque and viscous,which deep- ens the backgrounds and engulfs the foregrounds.Thus,the characters gain in definition what they lose in contour,and thus in identity – visually, they free themselveswith diffi- culty from the background and seem ceaselesslythreatened with dissolution. (Thoret 2007)
IvoRitzer has similarlyargued succinctlythat: “The ecstatic-exhibitionist fixa- tion on surface phenomena in Miami Vice mirrors the loss of identity.Mann shows how individualityisliterallyreducedtopixel values.” (Ritzer 2011: 64–65). By thus rejecting the traditional filmic look, Mann’s Miami Vice disclo- ses its true nature, in that of both its characters and of its ownmediality.Whatis experiencedbythe viewer as irritation of his or her viewing habits is away to lay open what is actuallygoing own, narratively as well as technologically.
4Ghost Image Machine
One scene of MiamiVice mayserveasaparticularlyrevealingexample for this self-reflexivity of the film’svisual and narrational argument: Crockett and Tubbs, disguised as traffickers,are smugglingadrugload from Columbia into the Unit- ed States,using small A-500 airplanes. The gorgeous shots of this flight sequence obviouslyserveasashowpiece for the stunning, crisp look of HD.Atthe same time, however,itisthis very richness in detail and almostpainful sharpness that make these shots look like they werenot actuallycaptured in nature, but created on acomputer (fig.1bottom). This unclear statusofwhat we are seeing,anac- tual plane or just adigital simulation, is also aconcern on the level of the story: in order to enter the States without being picked up by the radar,Crockett and Tubbs have to flytheir jetinclose proximitytoanother,officiallyregistered air- plane,sothat the radar of air control would onlypick up the signal of this sec- ond plane.However,for ashortmoment,the officer on duty sees two signals on his radar monitor (see Fig. 1top), but when he alerts his chief, the second signal has disappeared. It must have been “aghost,” the chief tells the radar officer,not knowing how apt this characterization is: indeed, the two protagonists in their
Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05 Closed Circuits 177 jet are nothing but ghosts, digital signals without substance,just ablip on the radar monitor.
Fig. 1: Miami Vice
It is significant to note that the apparatusweare shown in this scene, the radar monitor,isinfact one of the earliest devices to implement the cathode raytube, and which, in fact,tothis daystill usesthis sametechnology.Follow- ing McLuhan’sfamousrule, stated alreadyinthe first few pages of Understand- ing Media,that “the ‘content’ of anymedium is always another medium” (McLu- han 2001:8), the film includes as acontent the older electronic medium of radar, in order to explain the newer electronic medium of HD.Thus, in this sequence, the film reflects upon its own technological condition: in analogytothe dubious signals on the air control’sCRT-monitors,whereone can never be sure if they indicate an actual object,orjust electrical noise(i.e., ghosts), the HD images of Mann’sfilm are likewiseexposed as being just electronic data, fragmented and corruptible. The crucial distinction between simulationand representation,
Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05 178 Johannes Binotto between signal and noise, collapses. The film’sHDimages of the plane in the sky and its counter-shot,the CRT radar monitor in front of the air control officer,mir- ror and comment on each other. They form aclosed-circuitand thus, aself-ref- erential mise-en-abyme (see Fig. 1). This closed-circuitry of electronic images, which ultimatelyrefer to no exter- nal reality (no outside) but onlytotheirown technological condition, is the key to the film’sclaustrophobic narrative:everyone and everythingisconstantly changing, but nothing is getting anywhere. The electronic signal, captured in closed-circuits, onlymoves in loops. So too, every gesture, every event,every character in this film, seems from the beginning like arepetition. Whatweget are copies of copies,without original. It is fitting,though, that the film starts in medias res and ends without anybig revelation. Things justcontinue, the flow of signals goes on, in circles, leading nowhere. The pixels remain the same, and just getre-switched over and over and over,with no final result. Deleuze’sclaim, that electronic images no longer have anyoutside, haunts the story,which does not develop, but runs in circles.
5Lost island of the real
AccordingtoGarrett Stewart,there remains anostalgia for that which lies out- side this vicious circle: “In the ageofdigital generation rather than the chemical registration of images, there is, […]agrowingnostalgia for the real itself” (Stew- art 1999:238). As Iwould argue, this real that one has nostalgia for in the digital ageisalsothe Lacanian real, that radical beyond, which in Antonioni’sfilms could still be felt insisting in the outside of the frame. Another scene in Miami Vice maybesymptomatic for this longingfor the outside: in the midst of abrief- ing,SonnyCrockett looks outside the window and glances at the horizon.As Jean-BaptisteThoret pointsout:
It’samoment of existential solitude characteristic of Mann’scinema (silenceonthe sound- track, gaze lost on the horizon) that alreadyindicates the desire of the character to extricate himself from the flux, to reinvent lost time. Sonnyisthe desireofanelsewhere, the perpet- ual will to disconnect from the world, mentallyaswell as physically, as the escapade at Havana testifies.[…]Sonnyembodies in his turn the Mannian imaginary of amental and geographical extension, of autopic elsewherethat the film will never realize but whose simulacrum it will fabricate(Havana). (Thoret 2007)
The “utopic elsewhere” (the out-of-field in Deleuze) evaporatesbyvisiting it.In Antonioni’s L’Avventura,Anna disappeared from the island into thatrealm of the real, and was never found again. In MiamiVice, however,weare driving with
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SonnyCrocket to that promisingisland of Havana, onlytofind out that it is a simulacrum as well. There maybethat “micromoment […]ofadifferent tempo- rality” (Lie 2012: 240 –244), which SulgiLie discusses in regardtothatmoment in the Havana sequence,when the film imagefreezes for amoment.But,Iwould argue, even this micromoment of bliss turns out to be adeception. In digital cin- ema, even freeze frames do not reallystand still, but continue to be computed, continuously. Thelack of the real, be it as out-of-field or temporalinterruption, is lacking.The digital HD imageknows neither pause, nor escape. In this case, it is also striking how the film ends: in the final shot of Miami Vice,wesee detective SonnyCrockett walking towards the hospital, in which one of his partners is recovering from ashoot-out.Wesee Sonnyenter the building, and, the moment he disappears, the film cuts to black.The end. Sonnyisnot moving outside the frame, not walking into some mysterious out-of-field, but is goingright into the imageinfront of us. He remains in there – reverted back into that flow of convertible data, which knows no outside but onlyits own perpetual reorganization. It is this that we experience as disturbing in MiamiVice,and probablyindigital cinema per se: not the experience of a lack, but the sense of the digital image’sinescapable immanence.Wedonot getout,weget in. Picking up on LudwigJägers definition of media disruption, “as that mo- ment in the course of acommunication which causes amedium to lose its (op- erational) transparencyand to be perceivedinits materiality” (Jäger 2012: 30), I would arguethat the HD cinema of Michael Mann is justsuch particularcase, one in which disruption is perceivednot so much as amoment in which the me- dium’soperationaltransparency is interrupted, but one whereitistotalized. Or to put in other words: what we experience as so disturbing about the constantly reorganized images in Miami Vice is preciselythe impossibilitytobring this proc- ess of perpetual reorganization to ahalt.Iteration becomes irritation.
6Second order observations
Such aclaustrophobia of immanence also haunts the digital images in the more recent films by David Fincher.Inhis film TheGirlwith the Dragon Tattoo (2011), the journalist Mikael Blomkvistinvestigates the assumedmurder of Harriet Vang- er,who disappeared forty years ago. In one scene of the film, Blomkvist sits in front of his laptop, staring at photos that show Harriet for the lasttime before her disappearance. The moment is marked as afundamental breakthrough in Blomqvist’sinvestigation, since, by looking closelyatthe photographs of Har- riet’sface, he detects anxiety,implying thatshe must have been confronted
Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05 180 Johannes Binotto with an imminent threat at thatmoment the pictures were taken. Although only forty seconds in length, Fincher is here quite obviouslyquoting the famous, over ten minutes-longsequence from Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966), in which the photographer Thomas, by investigating the snapshots,taken of acou- ple in apark, believes to have stumbled upon acrime scene (seeFig.2). Once aware of this intertextual reference, one might also note that the pictures Blomkvistislooking at were, according to the narrative,taken in 1966,that very sameyear in which Blow-Up hit the cinemas.
Fig. 2: Blow-Up
Apart from the striking differenceinlength between the two scenes,their dif- ferent media setting is significant,for obvious reasons:while Antonioni’sprotag- onist discloses the secrets of his photos by pinning them on the wall of his stu- dio, and putting them into ameaningful order,Fincher’sMikael Blomkvistscans the analogue photographs,and views them as adigital slideshow, which runs in loops on his computer.Both protagonists, by arrangingpictures into sequences and putting them into asyntactical relation to one another,are in fact making movies. Antonioni’sThomas, however,ismakingananalogue film, in which the images are clearlyseparatedfrom one another,like the individual frames on the filmstrip. In Fincher,onthe other hand,the film made out of the set of photographs is adigital one, wherethe distinction between the individual shots is blurred, and in which one imageismorphed into the next.Indeed, the slideshow on Blomkvist’scomputer,with its morphing effects, illustrates per- fectlyDeleuze’sclaim about the electronic imageasone “in which anew image can arise from anypoint whatever of the preceding image” (Deleuze 1989:265). Both scenes end with the same gesture: the characters,struck by what they have just discovered by viewing theirimages, turn away,and look over their should- ers, as if in search of that lastpiece of the puzzle.This turning away and looking over the shoulder in Antonioni addresses the off-screen-space. The gaze of the photographer is directed towards that mysteriousout-of-field, with which Anto- nioni’sfilms are so concerned(see Fig. 2right). In the digital counter-example of
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Fincher’sfilm, however,there is no such outside. What Blomkvistsees over his shoulder,and which the film immediatelyputs into view in form of along-shot, thereby showingthe completescenery,isnothing but the cabin Blomkvistcur- rentlysits in (see Fig. 3right). However,the film set of the cabin, as Fincher re- vealedininterviews, wasall fabricated digitally. The room, Blomkvistsits in, is nothing but acomputer simulation. Blomkvist’sgesture of turning away from the computer screen is thus re- vealedtobeall the more futile. The digital images he looks at are not just restrict- ed to the LCD-monitor of his laptop, but in fact surround him. Thepictures on Blomkvist’slaptop, crudelypixelatedasthey were, revealedtheir digital nature immediately(see Fig. 3, left). The CGI-fabricated set around him, rendered in highdefinition,may not so easilybeexposed as asimulation. Nonetheless, the two views are ultimatelyare the same, different onlyinregardtotheir pixel density.And when Blomkvistturns around, it is in fact the digital image that “turns back on itself” (Deleuze 1989:265).
Fig. 3: Dragon Tattoo
The situation is strikingly similar to the one discussed abovefrom Miami Vice. In thatscene, showing the radar monitor becomes arecursive procedure, through which the film can bring into view its own electronic images. According- ly,the computer monitor in TheGirlwith the Dragon Tattoo points towardsthe film’sown digital simulations. Radar and laptop allow for what in system theory would be called a “second order observation”:bywatchingthe characters look- ing at electronic images and misinterpreting them, we getasense for our own (mis )cognition of the two film’sdigital imagery.Toquote Elena Esposito: “Every observer cannot see his own blindness, but he can see the blindness of others, and he is thus observing aphenomenon, that alsoconcerns himself. Thanks to second order observation, he can see his ownblindness, and he can see, up to apoint,that he does not see.” (Esposito 2005:296).
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7Gone?
This self-reflexive closed-circuit between film technology and film narrative is brought to afurther extreme in Fincher’snext film Gone Girl (2014). Also shot digitally, the film tells the story of Nick Dunne, who becomes the primary suspect in the sudden disappearance of his wife,Amy.Asthe story unravels, we begin to realize thateverything we thought to be true is an illusion. The supposedly happy marriageofNick and Amyisafraud, and so, as we ultimatelyfind out, is the alleged kidnapping of Amy. Thefilm’sstory is amirage, and so tooare the digital images with which it is told.Atthe end of the film, the couple is shown as being guests in aTVshow,talking about how they werereunited. It is supposed to be an imageofhappiness and maritalbliss, but we as an audi- ence know that it is all afacade. Interestingly enough, however,the wayNick Dunne talks about his relationship with his wife in front of the TV cameras is sur- prisingly honest: “We communicate, we are honest with each other,weare part- ners in crime.” Onlythe couple and we, the audience,get the double-entendre: indeed, these two people are partners in crime, and indeedthey are honest with each other,each of them being aware of their mutual hatred. It is of course cru- cial to note that this charade is taking place on television, the first medium to processelectronic images on alarge scale. Thescene is edited such that Fincher switches between shotstaken within the TV studio and shots taken from the TV screen, in some of which we even see the logoofthe talk show in the lower right corner (see Fig. 4).
Fig. 4: Gone Girl
Again, as in the examples discussed above, the film usesthis insertionofa different kind of digital imagery into its own digital images as form of arecursive
Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05 Closed Circuits 183 re-entry,through which the film’sown digital condition can be thematized. The two formats, TV imagevs. HD film image, differ onlygradually, both following the same digital logic. It is thus alsofitting that with some of the shotsweare unsure if they show adirect recording,orthe recordingofthe TV screen. In the digital format the recording and the recording of arecordingbecome indis- tinguishable. What holds true for the relationship between Nick and Amy, also applies for the film’sform: there are onlycopies,onlyelectronic simulations, onlyfacades, but nothing behind them. The final imageofFincher’sfilm shows us AmyDunne, looking up and star- ing directlyinto the camera. We remember thatitisthe same shot with which the movie started. However,ifwelook at the first and the last imageofGone Girl side by side, we will notice asubtle differencebetween the two. The last imageisnot just the mere repetition of the first,but its subtle revision (see Fig. 5).
Fig. 5: Gone Girl
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The first and final shots are justtwo states within this “perpetual reorgani- zation,” which, accordingtoDeleuze, is so particularfor the electronic transfor- mationimage. The film has literallycome full circle.Itisasifittook the whole movie in order to let the electronic image “turn back on itself.” Openingand end- ing thus could be regarded as asimile of the unstable electronic imageassuch. The twoshots of AmyDunne are nothing but one digital image, with arefresh rate of two hours, twenty-three minutes and forty-four seconds. What Fincher’sfilm expands over its whole length, and thus makes tangible, happens on contemporary HD screens up to 240 times per second, depending on the screens refresh rate. Afilm like Gone Girl onlybringstothe surface what is happeningonthe surface of electronic screens all the time:nonstop mutation, disfiguration in milliseconds,highspeed simulation. Furthermore,what we ulti- matelyfind out about the femaleprotagonist AmyDunne mayalso serveasa paradoxical motto for the disturbing immanence of high definition:
She was never reallyhere. She was never reallygone.
WorksCited
Binotto, Johannes (2009) “Hors-champ.Vom psychoanalytischen Feld am Rand des Film,” RISS. Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse 72/73, 77–96. Deleuze, Gilles (1989) Cinema 2. The Time-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson, Robert Galeta (Minneapolis: University of MinnesotaPress). Deleuze, Gilles (1997) Cinema 1. The Movement-Image,trans. Hugh Tomlinson, Barbara Habberjam (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Esposito, Elena(2005) “Die Beobachtung der Kybernetik. Über Heinz vonFoerster, Observing Systems,” in Schlüsselwerkeder Systemtheorie,ed. Dirk Baecker (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fürSozialwissenschaften), 291–302. Jäger,Ludwig(2012) “Bezugnahmepraktiken. Skizze zuroperativen Logik der Mediensemantik,” in Medienbewegungen. Praktikender Bezugnahme,ed. LudwigJäger, Gisela Fehrmann and MeikeAdam (München: Wilhelm Fink), 13–42. Kittler,Friedrich (2010) Optical Media. Berlin Lectures1999, trans. AnthonyEnns (Cambridge: Polity Press). Lie, Sulgi (2012) Die Außenseite des Films. Zurpolitischen Filmästhetik (Zürich; Berlin: Diaphanes). Manovich, Lev (2002) The Language of New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press). McLuhan, Marshall (2001) Understanding Media. The Extensions of Man (London, New York: Rutledge). Ritzer, Ivo (2011) “Kino-Auge/Video-Bilder. ZurÄsthetik vonHigh Definition bei Michael Mann,” Navigationen. Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften 11.1, 53–70. Rothöhler,Simon (2013) High Definition. Digitale Filmästhetik (Berlin: August Verlag).
Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05 Closed Circuits 185
Spielmann, Yvonne (2006) “Video: From Technology to Medium,” Art Journal 65.3, 55–70. Spielmann, Yvonne (2008) Video.The Reflexive Medium (Cambridge: MIT Press 2008). Stewart, Garrett (1999) Between Film and Screen. Modernism’sPhoto Synthesis (Chicago: UniversityofChicago Press1999). Stewart, Garrett (2007) Framed Time. Towards aPostfilmic Cinema (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress). Thoret, Jean-Baptiste “Gravity of the Flux: Michael Mann’sMiami Vice,” Senses of Cinema 42 (February2007),
Films
Blow Up (GB 1966) Dir.MichelangeloAntonioni. Gone Girl (USA2014) Dir.David Fincher. Miami Vice (USA, 2006) Dir.Michael Mann. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (USA2011) Dir.David Fincher.
TableofFigures
Fig. 1: Miami Vice (USA, 2006, DVDUniversalPictures, Dir.Michael Mann). Fig. 2: Blow Up (USA, 2004, DVDWarner,Dir.MichelangeloAntonioni). Fig. 3: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (USA, 2011, DVDSony Pictures Home Entertainment, Dir.David Fincher). Fig. 4: Gone Girl (USA, 2014, DVD20th Century FoxHome Entertainment, Dir.David Fincher). Fig. 5: Gone Girl (USA, 2014, DVD20th Century FoxHome Entertainment, Dir.David Fincher).
Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05