The New York Review of Books

‘The premier literary-intellectual magazine in the English language.’

September 27th 2012

J. Hoberman, Trapped in the Total Cinema

Can we speak of a twenty-first-century cinema? Save for the introduction of synchronous sound, the motion picture apparatus remained markedly consistent for a hundred years. But The Matrix (1999) introduced a radical impurity by combining live action with frame-by-frame digital manipulation. Computer generated imagery has precluded the necessity of having the world, or even a really existing subject, before the camera—let alone the need for a camera.

Photo: The Matrix, 1999 (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Posted at 11:18am and tagged with: J. Hoberman, cinema, the matrix, the new york review of books, tron, your mind makes it real,.

J. Hoberman, Trapped in the Total Cinema

Can we speak of a twenty-first-century cinema? Save for the introduction of synchronous sound, the motion picture apparatus remained markedly consistent for a hundred years. But The Matrix (1999) introduced a radical impurity by combining live action with frame-by-frame digital manipulation. Computer generated imagery has precluded the necessity of having the world, or even a really existing subject, before the camera—let alone the need for a camera.

Photo: The Matrix, 1999 (Warner Bros. Pictures)

← Previous post

Next post →