Overview

In the late 1960s, the cinema was pronounced dead. Television, like a Biblical Cain had slain his brother Abel, bewitching the mass audience and provoking an exodus - from the cinemas to the living room. Some 30 years later, a remarkable reversal: rarely has the cinema been more popular, as inner-city multiplexes record rising attendances. And yet, rarely has the cinema's future seemed more uncertain. 70-80 per cent of all films shown on commercial screens come from Hollywood, launched with publicity campaigns costing more than the total budget of most European films. Television, the independent cinema's chief financier for the past decades, cannot match these investments, not can it compete, even if it wanted to, with the barrage of special effects. The New Media, virtual images, the relentless digitization of reality, it is argued, are responsible for the global concentration of production, which in turn leads to the global uniformity of the products. Just as Cain and Abel are about to bury their differences, then along comes Cable to resolve them both into mere myriads of pixels. Beyond the hyperbole and the metaphors, ""Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable?"" presents an argument about predictions that tend to be made when new technologies appear. Television did not swallow radio, just as it did not replace the cinema. Yet each new technological medium has certainly changed the place of the others in society and affected their function. What do these precedents tell us about the future of the cinema in the digital age, or rather for the future of the ""experience cinema"", as it redefines itself in the home and in public? The authors of this book are realistic in their estimate of the future of cinema's distinctive identity, and optimistic that the different social needs audiences bring to the media will ensure their distinctiveness. The book also contains case studies, and should be useful to anyone interested in a better understanding of the changes facing the worlds of sound and vision.

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9789053563120

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Thomas Elsaesser (1943-2019) was Professor of Film and Television Studies in the Department of Art and Culture at the University of Amsterdam.

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