7.1 the Post-Cinematic in PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2
7.1 The Post-Cinematic in PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 BY THERESE GRISHAM, JULIA LEYDA, NICHOLAS ROMBES, AND STEVEN SHAVIRO Therese Grisham: I want to start at the most theoretical level, to find out where you position your thought with regard to the two films we are discussing, Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007) and Paranormal Activity 2 (Tod Williams, 2010). It would be helpful if you gave a brief definition of the “post-cinematic,” or an equivalent term you work with, and include some introductory remarks about these movies as post-cinematic. Nick Rombes: Great to be here, and thanks for this opening question, Therese. My thinking about post-cinema has certainly been influenced by Steven’s writing, especially in his Film- Philosophy essay, “Post-Cinematic Affect: On Grace Jones, Boarding Gate, and Southland Tales” and his book, Post-Cinematic Affect. Particularly right-on, I think, is Steven’s phrase about how the expressive nature of post-cinematic media gives rise to “a kind of ambient, free-floating sensibility that permeates our society today” (Post-Cinematic 2). My own still- in-progress mapping of post-cinema would begin with this phenomenon: the totalitarian immersion of our everyday lives in the slipstream of the digital, cinematic imaginary, as captured so well in the Paranormal films which, at their most fundamental level, tackle the question of how to navigate the private spaces of this new media landscape. I’d turn here to a concept used by some psychiatrists—limbic resonance—to describe how human beings seemingly “tune into” each other via neural attunement and mirror neurons.
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