Is a film watched on a video screen still cinema? Have digital compositing, motion capture, and other advanced technologies remade or obliterated the craft? Rooted in their hypothesis of the "double birth of media," Andr Gaudreault and Philippe Marion take a positive look at cinema's ongoing digital revolution and reaffirm its central place in a rapidly expanding media landscape. The authors begin with an overview of the extreme positions held by opposing camps in the debate over cinema: the "digitalphobes" who lament the implosion of cinema and the "digitalphiles" who celebrate its new, vital incarnation. Throughout, they remind readers that cinema has never been a static medium but a series of processes and transformations powering a dynamic art. From their perspective, the digital revolution is the eighth major crisis in the history of motion pictures, with more disruptions to come. Brokering a peace among all sides, Gaudreault and Marion emphasize the cultural practice of cinema over rigid claims on its identity, moving toward a common conception of cinema to better understand where it is headed next.

Author Biography

Andr Gaudreault is a professor in the department of art history and cinema studies at the Universit de Montr al, where he is director of GRAFICS and director of the journal Cin mas. His books include From Plato to Lumi re: Narration and Monstration in Literature and Cinema; Film and Attraction: From Kinematography to Cinema; American Cinema, 1890-1909: Themes and Variations; and A Companion to Early Cinema. Philippe Marion is a professor at the Universit catholique de Louvain. His research focuses on the fields of media narratology and the comparative analysis of media and media discourses. His books include Traces en cases: travail graphique, figuration narrative et participation du lecteur; L'Ann e des m dias 1996, L'Ann e des m dias 1997 and L'Ann e des m dias 1998; and Schuiten filiation.