TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE (SILVER) SCREEN: FILM AFTER NEW MEDIA By MARGIT GRIEB A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2003 Copyright 2003 by Margit Grieb For Don ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my dissertation committee chair, Prof. Nora M. Alter, for providing me with many invaluable years of mentoring and diligent assistance and guidance in every stage of this dissertation. It was her remarkable scholarly expertise that guided my first steps into academic research and her encouragement and knowledge that helped me continue with my studies. I also thank the other members of my committee, Prof. Keith Bullivant, Prof. Franz Futterknecht, and Prof. Gregory Ulmer, for their valuable comments and suggestions. A special note of thanks goes to Prof. Ulmer for sharing with me his creative and insightful perspective on issues concerning new media. I am also grateful to the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies for providing me with many years of financial and intellectual support. I owe special gratitude to the members of the departmental office staff, Sophia Kurzweg and Annemarie Sykes, who have contributed in many ways to making my life as a graduate student more bearable. Many thanks go also to my friends Yves Clemmen and Will Lehman for patiently listening to my ideas and providing constructive criticism. Most of all, I am grateful to Don Wilder, without whom I never may have developed the interest in technology which served as the foundation for this project. Most importantly, his patience, encouragement, and unwavering support have been a constant source of energy and inspiration for me over the years. I also thank Arielle for being my friend and making me smile when I most needed it. Final thanks go to Louis, iv Oso, Kodi, and Charlie, whose companionship kept me focused on what is important in life. v TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................1 Definitions ....................................................................................................................1 Outline ..........................................................................................................................6 Focus.............................................................................................................................7 2 NEW MEDIA IN THEORY AND PRACTICE.........................................................13 The Experiment of Epic Theater.................................................................................13 The Epic Theater Stage .......................................................................................17 The Lehrstück and Schaustück Meet Technology...............................................20 Building on Brecht......................................................................................................23 Interaction, Participation, and Vergnügen...........................................................23 Hypermediation ...................................................................................................34 Brechtian Theory and Recent Developments in the Public Sphere.....................47 Conclusion: Brecht after Brecht—Continuations and Transgressions .......................51 3 VIDEO AND FILM....................................................................................................56 The Emergence and Development of Video as an Artistic Medium..........................56 Video and Television...........................................................................................56 HDTV..................................................................................................................66 Wim Wenders: Rebel without a Clear Cause? ...........................................................69 The Superiority of the Filmic Image over Other Recordings..............................72 Wenders as Digital Guru .....................................................................................79 Until the End of the World or How to Split HD from TV...................................81 Video Recording as an Act of Violence: Wenders on Surveillance....................90 Video, TV, the Artist/Author and the Auteur: Film as Craft/Handwerk.............98 Conclusion: Technology and the Difficulty of Representing History/Memory .......109 Abandoning German-ness .................................................................................109 Recording the Past and Future on Video and Film............................................112 4 COMPUTER GAMES AND FILM .........................................................................119 vi The Influence of Digital Technology on Cinema .....................................................119 Run Lara Run............................................................................................................123 Style Eclipses Content: Reinventing Popular Appeal .......................................123 Films and Games: A Winning Combination? ...................................................129 Conquering Space through Speed .....................................................................132 The Quest for Narrative.....................................................................................141 Superweib or Superwoman?..............................................................................145 Conclusion: Popular Cinema and Reflections on Originality...................................151 5 STORAGE AND DISTRIBUTION THROUGH NEW MEDIA ............................154 Film Storage and Distribution: From the Early Years to the Internet ......................154 Films on CD-ROM: Valie Export’s Medial Anagrams............................................160 Syntagma and its Function in Bilder der Berührungen.....................................161 Intersections of Feminism and Technology ......................................................166 Interactivity........................................................................................................173 The Interface as Mise-en-Abyme ......................................................................175 Limits and Control.............................................................................................180 The Next Generation of Film Storage: The DVD-Video .........................................183 Laserdisc Makes Way for DVD-Video .............................................................183 Making Films Special: DVD Packaging and Marketing...................................187 Setting the Mood: The DVD-Video Interface...................................................197 Conclusion: What are Film and Cinema? Towards an Expanded Definition...........201 LIST OF REFERENCES.................................................................................................205 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...........................................................................................208 vii Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE (SILVER) SCREEN: FILM AFTER NEW MEDIA By Margit Grieb May 2003 Chair: Nora M. Alter Major Department: Germanic and Slavic Studies Transformations of the (Silver) Screen: Film After New Media focuses on German cinema and new media productions. Within each of the chapters I examine emerging technologies such as video, digital video, HDTV, videogames, and new technologies of distribution and storage, e.g., Internet, satellite-streaming, CD-ROM, and DVD-Video, and explore their impact on films and filmmakers, including Wim Wenders, Tim Tykwer, and Valie Export. Using Bertolt Brecht’s theories of implementing new media technologies (i.e., film and radio) in his epic theater as a point of departure, I look at how the aesthetic representation of emerging media, embedded within the “older” representational system of film, is employed to enhance and expand the latter’s capabilities for artistic expression. One of the questions I attempt to answer is: How can Brecht’s epic practice be adapted successfully to the study and employment of new media in art? I also address the relationship between gender and technology, in particular with media that traditionally have been codified as male. I am particularly interested in how artists re-invent and re-define the form and content of the conventional medium of film viii and its institutional apparatus, the cinema, through the use of a technical innovation. My arguments throughout the dissertation engage with the work of film, media, culture, and feminist critics of the 20th century, including, among others, Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Jay David Bolter, Bertolt Brecht, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Valie Export, Richard Grusin, Donna Haraway, Katherine Hayles, Friedrich Kittler, Peter Lunenfeld, Roswitha Mueller, Marita Sturken, Sherry Turkle, Gregory Ulmer, and Wim Wenders. ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION [T]here seems to be a good deal of confusion as to what is new and what is old,