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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Gertrud Koch, Volker Pantenburg, Simon Rothöhler (eds.), Screen Dynamics. Mapping the Borders of Cinema, Österreichisches Filmmusem/Synema Publikationen, Vienna 2012, pp. 184
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Reviews / Comptes rendus
2013-03-01
2021-09-06
2013-03-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Mariagrazia Fanchi
2013/03/01
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano
2036-461X
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en
Gertrud Koch, Volker Pantenburg, Simon Rothöhler (eds.), Screen Dynamics. Mapping the Borders of Cinema, Österreichisches Filmmusem/Synema Publikationen, Vienna 2012, pp. 184
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this way that we enter the field of “Cinephilos-      and indeed, it is not by chance that both Ce-
ophy” and we meet Stanley Cavell, who had a           risuelo and Casetti refer to Gilles Deleuze (to
broader and fundamental role in regaining the         whom Cerisuelo devotes the section “Deleuze
transcendentalist heritage, and who largely (al-      et la comédie: petite forme et grande santé”)
though not exclusively) based his interpretation      and, of course, Stanley Cavell.
of films on transcendentalist philosophy.                Cavell’s “philosophical criticism” remains
   Stanley Cavell (especially for his well-known      the focus of Cerisuelo’s research, perhaps one
book about the “comedy of remarriage,” Pur-           of the best examples of “cinephilosophy” and,
suits of Happiness, 1981) and poetics (for its        I would add, a “forerunner” of the “expanded
traditional attention to the issue of genre) also     poetics.” As Cerisuelo writes (pp. 196-197),
meet each other in what Cerisuelo defines as          “plutôt que de considérer la philosophie comme
the “seconde comédie américaine,” which has           une activité qui consisterait dans la ‘création’
Preston Sturges as its leading figure and which       de concepts et dont le cinéma montrerait en
particularly interests the author due to its “post-   quelque façon le théâtre des opérations, Cavell
classical” features.                                  semble procéder à rebours en préférant un geste
   As a matter of fact, Stanley Cavell can be re-     plus rigoureux qui aboutit à un gain en terme
garded as the true core of the book – the center      de liberté. Assez proche en cela de la critique,
(the two sections “La philosophie et le cinéma-       Cavell organise une interprétation centrifuge
tographe” and “Stanley Cavell, un philosophe          qui part du film, toujours minutieusement ré-
au cinéma”) of the central part (“Cinephiloso-        sumé, et propose une ‘lecture,’ certes autonome
phie”). It is in this part that we clearly under-     du film en question mais rejoignant inévitable-
stand that the relationships between cinema and       ment des questions qui le dépassent et aussi [...]
philosophy do not consist of a process by which       que le cinéma contribue à régler (ultime tour
cinema would illustrate or provide examples           d’écrou wittgensteinien).”
of philosophical concepts – this is actually the         In this perspective both cinema and poetics,
worst way to conceive these relationships.            besides being (although on different levels)
   In opposition to this perspective, Cerisuelo’s     “arts of relations,” are definitely aimed at be-
proposal is in tune with Francesco Casetti’s idea     coming (p. 197) “un laboratoire inappréciable
(The Eye of the Century, 2008) of considering         pour l’étude de notre relation au monde.”
cinema as a form of thought and a place where                                            [Valentina Re,
philosophical investigation can be developed;                         Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia]



Gertrud Koch, Volker Pantenburg,                 in previous years with the arrival of the digital
Simon Rothöhler (eds.),                          age. The launch of the iPad marks a decisive
Screen Dynamics.                                 step in the delocalisation of audio visual con-
Mapping the Borders of Cinema,                   tents and the relocation of the viewing experi-
Österreichisches Filmmusem/Synema                ences, especially in terms of cinema.
Publikationen, Vienna 2012, pp. 184                Screen Dynamics collects together essays
                                                 from a conference called “Cinema without
  In the history of viewing technologies 2010 Walls,” held towards the beginning of 2010.
was an important year, if not a turning point a It is a valuable document on the way film and
confirmation of a series of processes that began media studies approach the issue of cinema’s

164
future and the forms that it assumes in the digi-        The second aspect that emerges from Screen
tal environment. The text includes a plurality of     Dynamics is the naturalization of the change.
perspectives that, on the one hand, demonstrate       The digital age has not distorted cinema’s iden-
the vivacity of the debate (and therefore also the    tity; rather it has rendered the plurality (or better
urgency of finding a solution to the issue of cin-    still the mobility) of its forms patent and irrefut-
ema and the digitalisation process) and, on the       able. The experimentation and contamination
other, they provide a chance for a meta-disci-        with art (Volker Pantenburg), the phenomena
plinary reflection on the reorganisation process      of metalepsis (Thomas Morsh) and the interac-
of film studies.                                      tion (Victor Burgin), are all aspects that could
  The text provides as an important opportunity       already be found in cinema; they have merely
to reorganise and revive the debate. Reading the      been intensified in the digital environment. Ex-
essays collected in Screen Dynamics, we can           panded cinema represents a stage of cinema’s
identify three aspects that outline a new possi-      evolutionary process and the changing forms
ble architecture of film and media studies.           that it presents itself in are the epiphenomenon
  The first aspect deals directly with the research   of the mobile nature of the medium. Similarly
policies. In particular the essays by Gertrud         to theories on spectatorship – Patenburg recalls
Koch and Vinzenz Hediger examine a change             – the comparison with the empirics and the ac-
in film studies and a progressive shifting of the     knowledgement of the complexity and variabil-
reflection on cinema from ‘what it is’ (revealed      ity of historical data allow us to grasp, in the
as aporetic well before the start of the digital-     exuberance of cinema’s current forms, the full
isation process) to ‘where it is’ – and, according    expression of its nature and, I would add, proof
to Koch, also ‘when’ and ‘how’ cinema is. Es-         of its versatility and capacity to communicate
pecially the issue of place and space becomes         with the present.
crucial: film studies are called upon to account         A final aspect emerges from the essays col-
for the plurality of cinema locations (intended       lected in Screen Dynamics, which we can
as places where cinema is experienced, as well        sum up as cinema’s resilience, in other words
as places of production – the impulse originat-       its capacity to maintain its distinctive traits.
ing in postcolonial studies), but also, and more      The theme of resilience emerges in different
radically, to account for the configuration that      contexts in relation to different aspects. Tom
the cinema experience space assumes and of            Gunning, for example, examines the issue of
the network of relations that come into being         cinema’s indexicality (with its speculative criti-
between film, spectator, platform and the social      cality), highlighting the capacity of digital tech-
and cultural environment. In this sense the re-       nologies of strengthening the ‘impression of
formulation of the question at the heart of film      reality’, confirming a ‘classic’ aspect of the me-
studies assumes a strategic importance: it im-        dium. Or, in terms of the way cinema is viewed,
parts an inductive progression to the reflection,     the phenomena of new cinephiles, however re-
breaking the impasse of the speculative and           newed and often different from the past, reveal
ontological approaches, and encourages an un-         continuity between a contemporary cinematic
derstanding (and therefore appreciation) of the       experience and its previous forms (Jonathan
multiple situations and contexts that cinema is       Rosenbaum). Or Miriam Hansen’s proposal
relocating in and reinventing itself, demonstrat-     of leaving the task of rethinking cinema to the
ing the persistent (social, cultural and aesthetic)   new generations and avoiding the pessimistic
prominence of the cinematic experience.               visions of the effects of digitalisation, implies


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the idea of a persistence of the cinematic expe-    Film studies are perhaps in not such a healthy
rience as something that lies deep in the culture   state, often stuck on rear guard positions and
and collective memory (not least, as Raymond        with a categorial and speculative apparatus
Bellour’s essay reveals, as nostalgia), which is    that finds it difficult to account for any chang-
merely waiting to be acknowledged.                  es. Screen dynamics seems to me like an ex-
   The essays collected in Screen dynamics,         cellent survival manual: may those who read
for their diversity in approach and perspec-        it, apply it.
tive, share the conviction that cinema is any-                                   [Mariagrazia Fanchi,
thing but dead, but rather livelier than ever.          Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano]




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