biographycinema

The cinema form in its historical evolution

A reality in the plural

Cinema must be thought of in the plural. It is in fact a collection of films, which form a patrimony of discourses in images and sounds; it is an industry that produces and circulates these films; it is an art form that interacts with other areas of expression; he is a medium who enters the panorama of mass media; it is a cultural object around which debates, studies, controversies are intertwined; it is even the shape that the world seems to assume when it becomes a show, as the current phrase "It seemed to be in the cinema ..." clearly explains. In parallel, the cinema has changed over the years, and has taken on ever new profiles and structures: it was a silent art, for some an evolution of the mime, and then became a talking art, sometimes too close to the theater; was a' occasion of popular entertainment, presented in temporary places, to then become a collective rite, to be celebrated in the great cathedrals of the cinema palaces; he was a dominant medium, almost the epitome of mass communication, to then become a niche, however always prestigious, of the wider audiovisual field; it was a place where rapid and heterogeneous shows were offered, which were the first films in one or two reels, to then become one of the typical places of twentieth-century narrativity, that is, an area in which the recounted story was able to experiment with new clothes and new solutions. Cinema must be thought of in the plural. Even when you only face a slice of such a complex and changing reality, as we will do in the next pages in which we will focus on the forms of representation that cinema has developed, in fact we always have to deal with something that tends to go beyond the pre-established boundaries, and irresistibly recalls other components. In particular, we will analyze the great 'forms of the gaze' that cinema has come to experience. These forms have weighed primarily on the type of language that films have gradually adopted, and more precisely they have determined what a film was to show, in what order and from what perspective it had to do it. However, they also weighed on the production processes, given that the work of 'making' a film has always taken into account the formal structures that it then had to adopt. They weighed on the type of experience experienced by the viewer, given that the ways in which reality is staged have largely determined the attitudes and positions that those who watch a film are adopting. They weighed on the expressive and communicative fields in which the cinema was inserted, given that they conditioned the system of loans, differentiations, casts etc., between the arts or between the media. Finally, they weighed on the very idea of ​​cinema, for example, on the social role that was attributed to it, given that the ways in which it came portraying the world were what the current opinions were most confronted with. the forms of representation of cinema and in particular its great 'forms of gaze' will be followed here by a now widely accepted periodization (Gaudreault, Gunning 1989). It leads to distinguish between original cinema (from 1895 to the years between the first and second decade of the twentieth century), classic cinema (from the second half of the 10s to the 1950s, with large internal articulations) and modern cinema (from the years Fifty onwards), to which can be added the cinema that defined itself at the turn of the two millennia, and which someone calls post-modern. We will define the great 'forms of gaze' of each period giving here and there some indication of the connections between these 'forms of gaze' and the other aspects of cinema. The cinema of the origins: showing and attracting. - Although recent studies (Dagrada 1995²) have highlighted the extreme richness and complexity of the linguistic solutions adopted, it is however possible to identify some recurring aspects. First of all, we have to deal with 'autarchic' shots: each shot ends in itself the presentation of an event or a situation, and, in parallel, each event or situation occupies one and only one shot. This is evident in the very first production: think of the Lumière or Edison films, made up of a single shot, corresponding to the length of a reel that can be loaded into the camera. But this also applies to the production that at the beginning of the century begins to offer films with multiple shots: if we consider a work such as Le voyage dans la Lune (1902; Il viaggio nella Luna) by Georges Méliès, we can see that the passing from one frame to another coincides with the end of a scene and the beginning of a new scene, not linked to the previous one (Gunning 1990). The consequence is that the shots add up to each other, rather than succeeding one another; there is an accumulation rather than a concatenation. Hence an evident effect on film temporality: the events represented seem to have a duration, but not an authentic development. Secondly, we are dealing with a substantially flat space, devoid of depth: or rather, with a less one-dimensional space of that offered, for example, by the shadow theater or the magic lantern, but also unable to reach that thickness and practicability that other spectacular devices such as the landscape and the diorama had begun to experiment and that the cinema will reach only later. The visual flatness of early cinema is linked to at least five factors (Burch 1991): a substantially vertical lighting, which uniformly illuminates the filmed field; the fixity of the camera, anchored to the tripod; its horizontal and frontal position with respect to what is represented; the frequent use of painted backdrops; and finally the placement of the actors, relatively far from the camera lens, turned to it in acting, and with rare movements towards the front or the background of the scene. Among other things, such a system entails the spectator the feeling of being 'external' to the picture of the action: in the face of the events depicted, but also distanced from them. On the other hand, the image on the screen does not seem to possess obvious strengths. It is mostly polycentric, that is, characterized by the simultaneous presence of several areas of attention; especially the overall plans appear swarming and confused, overcrowded with people and objects. Furthermore, this image is also basically centrifugal, in the sense that the reality often depicted overflows from the painting: the characters enter and leave the scene, the environments continue towards the off-screen, making it clear that there is more besides what it shows. In this respect, the framing of the origins of cinema (cf. Burch 1991) appears as a clipping in some way random compared to the space-time continuum: it does not clearly organize the appearances on the screen, nor does it motivate what it excludes, as a sort of mosaic crammed with figures, ready to leave many tiles, even important ones, outside their borders. With a representation that, precisely for this reason, it seems to capture reality in its randomness and immediacy: literally, 'live'. Fourth, the film is presented as a 'non-self-sufficient' text. The sense of what appears on the screen is not always evident; to make it clear, it takes someone in the commentary room to tell the story, a barker who together values ​​and explains what the film shows (Le bonimenteur de vues animées, 1996); or that the viewer can make use of his previous knowledge, as novels, pièces and themes are presented briefly, or for 'mother scenes', and not in their completeness or in their development (Staiger 1992). And the fact that those who follow the film must use information that this does not give them, contributes to making the viewer feel 'external' to what they see.

A. Gaudreault and T. Gunning define the overall profile that emerges from all these characteristics as a regime based on showing, that is, on the simple presentation of a situation, real or fictitious, with no intention of 'telling it'; and on the attraction, that is, on the will to do what appears on the screen, even if it were a simple live shot as in Lumier's 'views', a reason for surprise, a short but vivid show, a small shock to the eye of the viewer. Early cinema 'exhibits' reality, whether real or fake: it does not expose it according to the canons of a complete and self-sufficient story (interpretation contested by Staiger, 1992); he offers it simply to the eye, with a gesture which, however, is already very strong in itself. And the origins of cinema ' it attracts its viewer: it captures its attention for what it shows, whether it is a cross-section of realistic life, or a make-up aimed at leaving you banned, or a simple close-up that makes the face portrayed terrible and monstrous; and excites curiosity for his ability to reproduce and recreate the real. Show and attract; exhibit and provoke. Hence a show structure based on the exhibitionist confrontation: images destined to 'surprise' and 'hit' appear on the screen; in the hall, there is a spectator who never forgets to be in the cinema. A game of crossed challenges, which makes the game very dense. or a trick aimed at leaving you dumbfounded, or a simple close-up that makes the face portrayed terrible and monstrous; and excites curiosity for his ability to reproduce and recreate the real. Show and attract; exhibit and provoke. Hence a show structure based on the exhibitionist confrontation: images destined to 'surprise' and 'hit' appear on the screen; in the hall, there is a spectator who never forgets to be in the cinema. A game of crossed challenges, which makes the game very dense. or a trick aimed at leaving you dumbfounded, or a simple close-up that makes the face portrayed terrible and monstrous; and excites curiosity for his ability to reproduce and recreate the real. Show and attract; exhibit and provoke. Hence a show structure based on the exhibitionist confrontation: images destined to 'surprise' and 'hit' appear on the screen; in the hall, there is a spectator who never forgets to be in the cinema. A game of crossed challenges, which makes the game very dense. images appear destined to 'surprise' and 'hit' on the screen; in the hall, there is a spectator who never forgets to be in the cinema. A game of crossed challenges, which makes the game very dense. images appear destined to 'surprise' and 'hit' on the screen; in the hall, there is a spectator who never forgets to be in the cinema. A game of crossed challenges, which makes the game very dense.

The possibilities of the gaze

On the level of the form of vision, these different traits of early cinema also refer to another, parallel, underlying characteristic: the exploration (more open than systematic) of the possibilities linked to the gaze. Possibility in a double sense: what is in fact brought into play is on the one hand the ability of the cinema to capture and re-propose reality; on the contrary, to analyze in depth the actual world and at the same time to propose fictitious universes; on the other hand is the breadth and diversity of aspects that can be filmed; that is, proposed again to the eye, but often also made to be discovered. Therefore the expression possibility of the gaze must be taken in both its active and passive meaning: it refers both to the attitude of the beholder (the 'penetration force' of the machine), as to the extreme variety of what is looked at (the 'availability' of the world). This means that the nucleus that emerges and imposes itself is that constituted by the binomial of seeing and power; a 'power' which in turn can be understood both in the Foucaultian sense of 'submission' (M. Foucault, Le mots et les choses, 1966), and in that of 'possibility' (Friedberg 1993). And the binomial seeing and power is connected precisely on one hand to the extraordinary richness of the real (true or fake) offered on the screen, on the other to the ability of the cinematographic device to satisfy the spectator's desire for new scopic experiences. origins from this perspective allows to clarify some essential points. First of all it helps to understand its function. During the nineteenth century, on the level of perception of the world, we had to deal with a somewhat curious phenomenon: the intensification of visual stimuli corresponded to the impression of no longer being able to grasp the surrounding reality. W. Schivelbusch illustrates this experience by talking about the first train journeys: the traveler was subjected to a bombardment of sensations and at the same time he could not distinguish with precision the landscape that ran under his nose (Geschichte der Eisenbahnreise, 1977; trad. It 1988, pp. 24-67). But similar situations were also found in urban areas: the light that penetrated inside iron and glass buildings such as the Crystal Palace revealed to visitors every secret of the environment and at the same time made them lose their sense of space and volumes (W. Schivelbusch, Lichtblicke. Zur Geschicthte der künstlichen Helligkeit im 19. Jahrundert, 1983). Even the experience of the crowd (experience that with the 19th century became daily) went in the same direction: the individual immersed in a multitude was excited by the number and variety of those who made it up and together he was unable to frame the faces in front of him, nor did he really get to know who was next to him (cf. G. Simmel, Über das Abenteuer, in Philosophische Kultur. Gesammelte Essais, 1911 and Die Grosstädte und das Geistleben, 1903, in Brücke und Tür. Essays des Philosophen zur Geschichte, Religion, Kunst und Gesellschaft, 1957). Compared to these phenomena, which characterize the era in which the cinema was born, the latter plays a precise role: on the one hand it further multiplies the visible glimpses, on the however, something else makes them fully graspable. It dazzles with its light, but brings reality into view; it gives new glimpses to every shot, but it also makes them perfectly decipherable; fills the screen with presences, but this does not mean that it is over who is in the room. In short, it enhances the richness of reality (in a few minutes, the whole world appears on the screen); and at the same time it re-establishes a domain (the viewer can make this world his own). In this sense, we can well speak of a game that includes both an intensification and a restitution: cinema feeds even more the cascade of visual shocks, but also remedies the sense of loss that they induce. Secondly, refer to the cinema of the origins as a field of possibilities related to the gaze also helps to understand its nature. The main way the Nineteenth century lived the growing presence of technologies was to see them as a means to regulate the forces of nature and, through them, to further take over the world. In addition, the nineteenth-century devices were also characterized by an extreme spectacle: just think of the steam locomotive, perhaps the most typical emblem of this universe of machines, and the admiration it aroused both for its performance and for its beauty . This means that these technologies had several features of cinema; and, reversibly, that the cinema of the origins well reflected the spirit of the technologies of the time. His work on reality, moreover, demonstrates this well: in any way you interpret it (capturing reality to bring it closer to us; but also capturing it to reveal its most secret movements; or to prolong the life of beings and things; or to build with it a world made of the same fabric of dreams ...), it presents itself in the guise of a work dedicated to the exploitation and appropriation of what the world can give; and a work that produces shows and that appears to be a show in itself. In this context, the choice to show and to attract appears to be very symptomatic again.Finally, thinking about the origins of cinema in terms of an exaltation of the possibilities of the gaze allows us to see also its tensions and ambiguities. Every resource and every achievement has a sunny and dark face. As in the case of the railway: a technological device that cancels distances and at the same time upsets the previous landscape with its tracks, viaducts and tunnels; which allows the intoxicated speed and at the same time exposes you to the risk of accidents. The train allows you to subdue space and time, and at the same time blows up its measurements. In the same way cinema summons the entire universe, real and imaginary, on the screen, but also reveals its less tolerable and usual aspects; fills the spectator's eyes, but also arouses terror or bewilderment. It is no coincidence that in the films of the early days the tricks were so frequent: used above all to overturn the laws of nature (a demolished wall returns whole; a diver rises from the water and lands on a trampoline), they present the world as uncontrollable and therefore as a potential threat. Nor is it a coincidence that in the early cinema the Granguignolesque or erotic dimensions were so popular (severed heads,

It should be added that the characteristics of the origins of cinema bring him closer to all those places and moments in which the view is simultaneously excited and nourished. A. Friedberg (1993) discusses at length two of these places or moments: the department stores with their display of goods; and trips organized in the first mass tourism. In them, cinema finds the ideal preparation for that mobile (that is, a continuous passage from one object to another) and virtual (that is, ready to capture images of things before even things in itself) that will constitute the trait of bottom. In them he finds a situation in which the possibilities of vision already have cause to be exalted; in which the eye comes to capture the world, and the world comes to reveal all its riches. If, on the other hand, the areas of communication and entertainment are more properly considered, the closest proximity is with those media and those arts that make performance and interpellation their strong point. Think of the magic lantern shows, but also the fair entertainments, the circus, the music hall and above all the vaudeville, that is, those places where the spectator is surprised with 'extraordinary' performances, provoked in his habits and called directly involved (Allen 1980; Leutrat 1985); it is here that the abundance of stimuli and at the same time the challenge to seize them reach their peak; it is here that the omnivorous desire for visual experiences finds its nourishment in a reality full of surprises. And therefore those intellectuals of the time who accused the cinema of being a slum phenomenon were right; more reason than their colleagues with a progressive spirit, who compared it to literature, theater, pantomine, and therefore enrolled it directly in the great aesthetic tradition to enhance the new art; they simply did not understand - neither one nor the other - that some of the crucial junctions of the time manifested themselves better in some approximate and generous number offered in the shacks than on many scenes, on many platforms or on many pages of heavy volumes. : narration and transparency. - As you know, the transition from original cinema to classic cinema is a fairly complex process: it roughly spans the years between 1907 and 1914, but with some advance and some delay; it follows the 'national routes' (Italy, France, England, Scandinavian countries) which are often partial and offset from each other; however, it finds its point of condensation in the United States, around two names such as Biograph and David W. Griffith, which best interpret their needs; and ends with the development of an industrial and linguistic system, identifiable in Hollywood cinema, which it would have held for more than forty years, despite some internal revolutions such as the introduction of sound (Bordwell, Staiger, Thompson 1985; Burch 1991 ). In terms of production processes, the most significant transition point is probably the one (around 1907) from the cameraman system to the director system, which marks the start of a progressive specialization of roles; or, in terms of products, that from a composite program to a program centered on a fictional feature film (around 1911); or, in terms of consumption, that from an 'occasional' offer as was that guaranteed by street vendors to a 'permanent' offer, linked to the birth of the first 'fixed sites' (the nickelodeons around 1905, and the' masonry theaters) ', e.g. in Italy around 1907). The horizon that is being set is what would have characterized cinema for a long time: an industry capable of churning out 'series prototypes' (each film is unique, and yet it resembles what has already been seen: hence the importance genres), based on a collective work well coordinated by the production company (the producer is the figure who guarantees the functioning of the machine), aimed at maximizing the consumption of its products (each film must have a universal appeal), and spread, starting from its elective center, Hollywood, all over the world (The American film industry, 1976). But the traits that mark cinema as an industry have a correspondence, and perhaps their very foundation, as well as in the typical processes of the whole cultural industry of the period, also in the traits that mark cinema as a language. And it is precisely on the passage from the primitive to the classic way of representation that it is important to linger.The first element to underline is the affirmation of a principle of linearity: the frames, instead of approaching each other, are arranged in a true and proper succession. The change is twofold. In terms of film syntax, we move from a regime of autarky to a system of biunivocal relationships: the shots no longer appear as autonomous segments, which exhaust in themselves the situation they have to show, but are connected to each other; each recalls the previous one and prepares the next, proposing itself as a continuation of the one and premise of the other (the canonical example is: 'armed man who advances - gun who shoots - opponent who falls'); or even each takes up the previous one and continues in the following, proposing itself as their complement and as their integration (the canonical example is: 'pursuers - pursued - pursuers'). This allows, among other things, to break the scene into several moments, and at the same time to keep them together: the découpage was born with the system of connections at the base of the analytical montage (saturation connections, as in the case of the assembly 'character who looks - object looked at'; connections of specification, as in the case of the assembly 'total - full figure - detail' etc. .). In terms of large display forms, instead, we move from a bipolar to a tripolar structure: instead of an initial situation and its eventual reversal, the film offers an opening, a development and a conclusion. This means that it can progress gradually through a dense network of passages; in short, it can relax and acquire a real development. The overall result is to give cinematographic temporality a new meaning: it no longer has to do with a simple duration, but with an authentic becoming. The time of the film, from a mere 'container' of events, becomes an 'arrow' that accompanies its progress; it becomes 'carrier' time, vector time (Burch 1991; Bellour 1980; Bordwell, Staiger, Thompson 1985). It can be added that filmic temporality in classical cinema actually takes two forms, most of the times combined: either we run towards a final goal, according to a teleological model; or, albeit more rarely, we aim at a point from which the story can start again, according to a cyclical model. Secondly, the need to better organize the portion of reality shown on the screen emerges: the picture no longer looks like a relatively chaotic cross-section, but it begins to structure itself both on the surface and in depth. The film image in fact acquires a sense of order: what the viewer's attention must focus on occupies the central part of the picture (centering techniques); and if the points of interest are more than one, they are connected to each other so as to be either symmetrical or parallel (right / left articulation, or top / bottom). At the same time, the film image also acquires a sense of depth: several centers of attention are located in the picture on several different levels; chiaroscuro lighting is used, with differentiated areas of light; indoor shots alternate with outdoor shots, which distance the closure of the visual horizon; above all, multiple points of view are adopted, not only from the front, but also 'internal' to the situation presented (think of the construction that best exemplifies this new way of shooting, and that will be imposed with relative rapidity: the field / counterfield, in which the camera alternately moves from a character to someone or something in front of him - his interlocutor, or his object of attention etc. - and in this way literally occupies the heart of the scene). The result is to build an 'all-round' space: no longer just contemplable, as is that of early cinema, but in some tangible and practicable way (see Burch 1991). Thirdly, it is no longer necessary to resort to knowledge previously owned or supplied on the edge of the film; the film itself suggests all the useful information to reconstruct and follow the story told. In short, the text reaches its self-sufficiency. Various elements play an essential role in this regard. Think, for example, of use of captions and then, with sound, to the frequent presence of an external narrative voice (voice over) and, more generally, to the dialogues between the characters: the insertion of the word in the body of the film allows to reinforce and make explicit the sense of what happens on the screen without needing any other help. But also think about how an ever closer correspondence is established between the characters' behaviors and their moods: this allows you to read something invisible through a set of visible gestures, and therefore to fully grasp what would otherwise be difficult interpretation. Above all, a systematic link is offered between the various data presented by the film: a seemingly random clue dissolves previously created doubts; two parallel events illuminate each other; an unexpected raises the expectation of how it will end; repeated behavior confirms the character of the character etc. The film creates a dense game of references that complement each other, and in this way locks in on itself. The result is the construction of a complex and coherent plot that self-justifies and feeds itself. Fourthly, those in the room are no longer 'facing' the film; on the contrary, it is 'sucked' into the diegetic world and somehow finds itself 'living' what is happening on the screen. First of all the conditions of use of a film change: we try to cancel the noise of the projector; the darkness in the room is accentuated; armchairs are used that allow you to isolate yourself from your neighbor etc. (Gomery 1992). This means that one no longer has the continuous perception of 'being in the cinema': the viewer can forget this situation. Then the type of image used changes: from shots that tend to 'displace' or 'distance' the viewer, we move on to shots that allow him to follow the events narrated from the best possible observation point (so much so that the point of view offered by the film looks like a real vantage point), and at the same time not to get lost despite the accentuated fragmentation of the plans. A sort of internal 'orientation system' is therefore created. Finally, the communication regime changes: instead of a continuous questioning of the viewer, called into question by what or by whom the film shows, an identification process is triggered (Morin 1956; Metz 1977); those who follow the film project themselves into the characters in action on the screen, share their adventures, often marry their gaze (the subjective), mentally take on the role. The overall result is that the viewer can immerse himself in the narrated world: he can enter into it without getting lost; it can occupy every point and participate in every moment; he can adhere to events by literally forgetting himself and his actual condition. Therefore a linear succession of shots, which allows an articulation of the scene and a development of the story, with the conquest of a vector time; an organization of the painting both on the surface and in depth, aimed at giving it order and thickness; a self-explanatory film, and that draws within itself its spectator. These traits bring back to two great basic characteristics of classical cinema: the fact of being a narrative cinema, and the fact of having a transparent filmic writing. That classical cinema is a narrative cinema does not simply mean that you tell stories; rather, it means that it is capable of integrating individual places and individual moments into a multiple but unitary, articulated but coherent universe: in an accomplished diegetic world (cf. Gaudreault, Gunning 1989; Chatman 1978; Bordwell 1985). The film can multiply the shots, and with them the spaces and times depicted; what matters is that all these spaces form an overall territory, in which there is contiguity between the different areas and the possibility of passing from one to the other; and in parallel that the whole of these times draws a wider arc, in which each moment collects the legacy of the previous one and weighs on the fate of the following. In short, if you think of Griffith's The birth of a nation (1915), it is essential that the Cameron house, the war front, Washington, fit into a single map (one could say: in geography of a nation); just as it is essential that in Intolerance (1916), also by Griffith, the last day of Babylon, Friday of the Passion, the night of the massacre of the Huguenots constitute the passages of a single story (even if it is the history of humanity ); it is only because there is an integrated space-time that narration can take hold. It should be added that narrative integration is strengthened by the privilege accorded to action: it is in fact the activity of the characters that act as the glue between the different places and the different times. As it should be added that the narrative integration is also reflected on the type of story told: a story that, whatever its setting, tends to compare two apparently incompatible positions and to find a mediation between them (think of the western , e.g., in Stagecoach, 1939, Red Shadows, with the clash between the apparently inflexible sheriff and the young man who seems to have taken the bad road, and the ability of each of them to 'adapt' to the other). narrative integration makes the film appear as an orderly and complete organism and the diegetic world as parallel to the real one, transparent writing leads to masking all the steps that allow to reach such a goal. In fact, classic cinema does not tolerate that the stage fiction is revealed and to do this it removes any reference to the processing that underlies the film (typical is the ban on the actor to 'look in the car'). Above all, classic cinema pursues a direct and effortless apprehension of what is narrated: procedures such as centering, the connection on movement and gaze, the prohibition of overriding the field, the rule of 30 ° etc., aim to make people perceive reality on the screen, however, without realizing that you are perceiving it. This choice corresponds to a more general orientation that seems to take hold in the first half of the twentieth century, and which leads to consider technical devices no longer as a 'show' in which the submission of the forces of nature and the conquest of the world are celebrated, but rather as 'prostheses' which seemingly naturally prolong the faculties of man. Not everyone adheres to such an orientation; just think of the artistic avant-garde, and their choice to make aesthetic work evident and problematic together with the means they use; but his statement is clear in the world of production and goods, in which the principles of ergonomics and the dream of robotics progressively make their way (as well as of course in the field of war, as suggested by P. Virilio, Guerre et cinéma. Logistique de la perception, 1984). The invisibility of the cinematographic machine goes in this direction.

La necessità dello sguardo

Fin qui, sia pure in una rapida sintesi, i grandi caratteri del cinema classico. Lo sguardo che emerge da una simile situazione non è più chiamato a magnificare delle possibilità, ma a stabilire una necessità; non è più volto a evocare un potere, ma ad affermare un dovere. L'idea che sembra sostenerlo è infatti riassumibile nello slogan 'Si deve vedere così perché così impongono sia le leggi della visione sia le leggi della natura'. Dunque si ha a che fare con un imperativo, e con un imperativo che investe tanto lo sguardo in sé quanto l'oggetto dello sguardo: appunto, si 'deve' vedere così, e questo sia perché 'così si vede', sia perché 'così è ciò che si vede'.

On the first side, classic cinema seems to justify its duty through a reference to the mechanisms of vision in general: a link is invoked between this and the cinematographic vision, and an obligation of one towards the other is established. In fact, the operation is complex, and is done through multiple moves. The first consists in trying to demonstrate that between the cinematographic device and the perceptive (but more widely, psychic) ​​device of the spectator there is a subtle equivalence. This idea, as well as being at the center of many theoretical interventions of the time (think among all of H. Münsterberg, The photoplay. A psychological study, 1916, but the idea of ​​a closeness between the two 'machines' punctuates the whole a theoretical line on cinema, that goes from Münsterberg to Morin and Baudry, but also to Bordwell), fully guides the practical experimentation that accompanies classical cinema: in fact, the search for the best way to film things obeys this principle; and it is in relation to it that one can understand the techniques that gradually come into use. Consider, for example, the way in which space is divided into different types of planes and the way in which these planes follow one another in a sequence (see Bordwell, Staiger, Thompson 1985). Generally it ranges from an overview of the environment in which the story takes place (establishing shot), to a series of narrower shots, which accompany the center of the action captured both in its essential moments, with medium fields, close-ups, details etc., both in the reactions it causes in bystanders (reaction shot); the action is followed in its unfolding, up to a final shot showing the environment possibly transformed by the events that took place (re-establishing shot). Well, both the way in which the planes are chosen, as well as the way in which the sequence is constructed, tend to simulate the perceptual experience of an observer present at the scene (Burch 1991). In particular, we try to re-propose its probable path on the place of events, from its appearance on the scene to its approach to the heart of the action, up to the final detachment; even more, we try to re-propose the way in which his attention is progressively displaced, from the overall look to the more targeted looks, up to the rapid control during closing; and somehow we also try to re-propose his desire to know, from the initial curiosity to making direct contact with events, up to the final saturation. Therefore, the gaze of cinema and the human gaze seem to coincide. In reality, the correspondence is imperfect: an actual observer would see in one way less well, in the other something more than the film shows to its viewer. Hence the second move, which overlaps the first one: if a complete equivalence cannot be established between the two looks, it can however be assumed that the cinematographic one works as the human one would work if the latter were to the best of its ability. This means that the cinematographic gaze can be chosen as the 'ideal form' of the natural gaze: it proposes its basic mechanisms, and in doing so it highlights the most appropriate ways of operating; it follows its paths, and in doing so highlights its canonical behaviors. In other words, the cinematographic gaze punctually applies that 'grammar of seeing' that each of us follows daily but in an approximate way; on the contrary, he applies it so well that he literally manages to embody it. Here is the point: since the idea of ​​equivalence does not hold, the idea of ​​canonicality or grammaticality takes its place; if the cinematographic gaze is only 'almost' like the human gaze, in exchange one can elect it as an 'example' of the other. The paradoxical effect is to create a 'truer than truth' look; and anyway to reiterate the fact that at the base of the game there is a need (' you have to see it this way because you see it this way, or rather because you have to see it like this'). The same dynamic is also found with regard to the second duty at the basis of classical cinema, that which affects the object of the gaze rather than the gaze itself ( you have to see it like this because that's what you see '). The game reproduces the previous scheme, as here too the first move is to establish an equivalence between the world depicted on the screen and the real world: an equivalence that is strengthened by the photographic basis of cinema, by the techniques of staging, by the choice of characters that recall human types etc. However, the world on the screen is 'almost' equal to the real one. As Jean-Luc Godard will say, in the cinema blood is only red: nobody really dies, and nobody dies as they really die. Hence the need for a second move, which accompanies and permeates the previous one: the world on the screen, if it is not a perfect duplicate of the world in which we live, is however an ideal representation of it, which gives us back its essential data; those whom we would not otherwise grasp in the chaos of existence. This means that the fictitious world stands as a canon of the real world: it expresses the typical trends, the intimate laws; makes explicit the underlying "grammar". The presence of a story is decisive in this process: narrating in fact means bringing out the plot of events beyond their apparent chaos. In any case, the result is that the universe on the screen can present itself as 'truer than truth' (what you see is a reality in its 'essence');

The mechanisms that have been briefly retraced explain the great strength of classic cinema. His images can be beautiful or ugly, rich or poor, but very rarely they are approximate: they tend to embody a cogent and at the same time optimal point of view, the one from which things must be seen so that they become immediately clear to their observer. In this respect there may be personal choices, but not random solutions; there is a convention at stake, but not the intervention of an arbitrariness. Even the characters and events narrated can be interesting or banal, vivid or flat, but they are never meaningless: they tend to translate real figures and situations in someone or something that could represent its key features, the substance behind appearances. Think about it, how Cary Grant's attitudes give shape to the idea of ​​ease, or how James Dean's face summarizes the idea of ​​youthful unease; but also to how the conflict between law and desire is reflected in the contrast, typical of melodrama, between family duties and extramarital temptation, or in the contrast, typical of the western, between the need for settle down and the appeal of adventure. What occupies the screen tends to function as a synthesis and emblem of what happens in life. typical of the western, between the need for settle down and the call of adventure. What occupies the screen tends to function as a synthesis and emblem of what happens in life. typical of the western, between the need for settle down and the call of adventure. What occupies the screen tends to function as a synthesis and emblem of what happens in life.

After all, all the great Hollywood genres present characters and narrative junctions that take up and exemplify real characters and situations. Think of the musical, in which the reversibility of show and life speaks of the need to reconcile being and appearing. Or the sophisticated comedy, in which the emergence of the whim (the unbridled Katharine Hepburn of Bringing up baby, 1938, Susanna, of Howard Hawks) speaks of the need to balance individual identity and social norm. Or the western, in which the solitude of the knight without spot and fear (Shane, 1953, The knight of the lonely valley, by George Stevens) speaks of the difficulty of maintaining a purity of behavior. Or to the gangster film, in which the fascination exercised by the gangster speaks of the pervasiveness of evil and its proximity to social success (for such genres see Altman 1987; Cavell 1981; Warshow 1962). These characters and situations, precisely because they recall recurring realities and summarize their basic data, are not mere stereotypes, but are proposed as authentic archetypes, that is, as representations in which each spectator can grasp the essential scheme, the structure profound, of what in his existence he happens to encounter in multiple forms and occurrences.

On the other hand, it is precisely this presence of archetypes that allows classic cinema to become a gigantic 'laboratory of the collective imagination': the largest of those ever activated. His stories offer ideas and figures that immediately enter the circle, nurture skills and memories, help understand individuals and facts, connect different experiences and cultures. In this way, a patrimony of symbols is composed which serve to decipher reality and together to talk about oneself and the world, to expand private lexicons and together to forge a common vocabulary, to face the contingent and together to grasp the essentials. In this sense it can also be said that classical cinema is the great place in which our era has elaborated the myths it needed; analogy between ancient and modern myths cf. McConnell 1979). analogy between ancient and modern myths cf. McConnell 1979).

At least two more notations are required. The first: if films offer myths, they must necessarily trigger rites. It is no coincidence then that the consumption of classic cinema presents itself as a strongly ritualized moment, in which individuals perform recurring gestures, and do it in unison, until they feel part (and together to feel part) of a community that goes beyond the audience in the hall. Hence the appearance of a third 'duty', which this time involves the fruition practices: 'you must see it this way because everyone sees it this way'; going to the cinema, and going in that way, is a sign of belonging and citizenship. After compliance with the laws of perception and compliance with the laws of nature, classical cinema boasts, and proposes, a

Second notation: the duty, the sense of necessity that govern the gaze originate in the ability to unify around ways that appear 'natural' (so you see, so is the world, so you do) individuals who otherwise would not have the same point of reference. The years in which classic cinema is affirmed are in fact marked by some extraordinary processes: drastic loss of identity and roots (the disappearance of cultures and homelands determined by the First World War), large phenomena of deterritorialization (mass emigration, accentuated urbanization), continuous threats of social fractures (the tensions connected to the Great crisis), and conversely frequent attempts to find a refoundation (in negative, the great totalitarianisms between the two wars), the the emergence of a global horizon (feeling like citizens of the world, which overlaps with feeling like members of a community), and the emergence of a culture, mass culture, which acts as a new unifying background. In this context, cinema plays its part in that it highlights what are, or is supposed to be, the 'grammars' of seeing, the real and the social respectively, and proposes them as canons to be conformed and recognized. What is therefore put into play is an explicit work of cultural and social integration: this cinema offers a look and visions on which it is legitimate, and indeed a duty, to converge. And it congregates the spectators in a large and unique audience, which shares the same perception and the same sense of things, or if you want the same imagination and the same myths. In parallel with other arts that had tried or seek to perform the same function (bourgeois literature and theater, academic and anti-academic painting up to the end of the nineteenth century, reportage photography, etc .; in short, the arts of transparent narration) In short, this cinema is proposed as a guide in an increasingly complex and difficult world. The profile of classical cinema so schematically traced finds in the years between 1915 and 1945 numerous and different interpretations. The work of 'canonization' of the gaze and the world is sometimes based on the exploitation of already consolidated mythical universes (think of a genre like the western or a director like John Ford); sometimes instead it faces less exploited landscapes and less definable behaviors (think of the film noir or the characters played by Humphrey Bogart); sometimes highlights the mediation of the show (think of the musical); sometimes instead, perhaps within the show, he accepts the irruption of current affairs (the number Remember my forgotten man, which painfully describes the consequences of the Depression, is hosted in a back-stage musical like Gold diggers of 1933, 1933 , The dance of lights, by Mervyn LeRoy); sometimes pursues everyday life and sometimes targets melodramatic lighting (Meet John Doe, 1941, John Doe Arrives - The Dominators of the Metropolis, by Frank Capra, and Casablanca, 1942, by Michael Curtiz); sometimes he chooses prose and sometimes tries poetry. It depends on the poetics of the directors, and even more from the production policies of the studios and the social and cultural contexts (including national contexts) in which films are born and circulate. Of course, not all cinema between 1915 and 1945 falls within the profile traced; there are experiences extraneous to its logic, from Soviet formalist cinema (see the voiceformalism ) to 'pure' French cinema, to the many film experiments of the historical avant-garde (see the avant-garde film voice). These experiences bring to light an entirely different idea of ​​cinema: a cinema still conceived as a space of attractions and as an attraction itself, and therefore under the banner of possibility rather than necessity (think in particular of the avant-garde; after all, the same classic cinema continues to work on attractions in parallel to the story, for example, in the slapstick comedy or in the musical or, albeit under track, also in other genres: Gunning 1990); or a cinema called to reproduce thought processes, and therefore to explicitly make themselves 'discourse' on things, rather than their 'reflection' (even if nature with its processes finds in this 'discourse' a profound response: think of the according to Ejzenštejn, and to the extraordinary reflection he offers us with Neravnodušnaja priroda, 1945-1949; trad. en. The not indifferent nature, 1981, 1992³). As there are variations of classic, there is also an anticlassic that spans the period in question. However, the fact remains that for over thirty years classic cinema, with its heart in Hollywood, is completely dominant, and that we must wait for the end of the Second World War to feel its first cracks.

Modern cinema: the truth of things and the procedures of the film

Exiting classic cinema is a long-lasting process, to which multiple factors contribute. Transformations take place in the social scenario: the Conflict, the Holocaust and the Bomb make it clear that the dream of a community without borders held together by the same visions and the same sensations is only an illusion. Transformations take place in the cinematographic machine: the film industry loses its compactness, both because production and operation are separated by virtue of an important antitrust ruling, and because a mode of production based on independent producers is emerging, which is not always compliant with policies of the studios, either because numerous national cinemas appear or reappear on the scene, capable of (or forced to) experiment with new avenues. Transformations take place in the composition of the public: the generalist and undifferentiated audience is joined by more defined and more targeted audiences, also ready for quality consumption. Above all, transformations in the media landscape weigh: television, which began to prevail between the 1940s and 1950s, absorbs functions and products that were previously typical of cinema.Designing the great features of modern cinema, with particular attention to linguistic aspects, is a complex undertaking as the points of reference are often contradictory and because the roads are still very diversified. You can try to draw an approximate map of the territory. The modern was born from two very distant experiences, and yet readable in parallel, namely neorealist cinema on the one hand (Roberto Rossellini), with his need to get out of the staging logic and find a closer relationship with reality, on the other the American 'flamboyant' cinema of the fifties (Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray etc.), with his need to exacerbate the conventions to explore their tightness and limits, possibilities and spare parts; it matures thanks to directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni or Ingmar Bergman, divided by the way they proceed, but united by the desire to fold the cinema into an expressive form; is affirmed with the Nouvelle vague (François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda etc.), but also with the 'new cinemas' of the Sixties (European, Latin American, Asian), each with its inspiring motifs and choices stylistic; consolidates with the authors of the seventies and eighties, engaged in the search for personal poetics (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Theo Anghelopulos, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Andrej Tarkovskij), but also in a review and an overturning of the surviving genres (Robert Altman); it includes experimenters who risk marginality (Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, Chantal Akerman), but also directors who want to talk with the great cinema (Bernardo Bertolucci, still Scorsese); finally it seems to find its celebration in the work of Wim Wenders, who makes the modern, consciously, a way. The painting is deliberately hyperschematic: the great inspiring masters such as Jean Renoir cannot be forgotten; nor keep silent about the role of Orson Welles, whose Citizen Kane (1941; Fourth power) represents in many ways the culmination of the classic and at the same time the opening point to the modern. The main features of this picture remain to be identified. First of all, there is an image no longer attentive only to the heart of the events represented, and ready to change its perspective when the situation evolves (think of how classic cinema chose the shot in function of the fact told and how it changed as the story progressed); on the contrary, there is an image that wants to be as available and receptive as possible, determined to open up to all aspects and moments of reality, and therefore characterized more by a widespread curiosity than by targeted attention. The refusal of any preventive or forced selection occurs, for example, in the frequent attempt to grasp the whole sphere or the whole arc of the action, either by associating the different participants in the story in the same shot, or by incorporating its different phases into a single shot. In the first case, the recovery and use of depth of field is essential, which allows you to keep an eye on a space in all its planes simultaneously; in the second, the use of the sequence-plan is decisive, that is, a shot long enough to exhaust a portion of the story told, and therefore able to give us back the whole development of an action, rather than its individual moments, or just a few of them. The depth of field and the sequence-plane (on which, as stylistic procedures of the modern, A. Bazin's analyzes remain fundamental) effectively constitute the usual procedures in modern cinema, both alone and in association. Their use leads to grasp the action not only in its completeness, but also close to the environment that hosts it; on the contrary, to drown the action in the environment, in order to strip one of its exceptional nature and to highlight its complexity in the other. In fact, if the action is depicted in all its moments and with all its participants, it loses its strength: it is diluted, dispersed (more: what emerges is also the existence of states of inaction; of moments empty, of passive characters). In return, the environment comes to the fore, that is, that portion of the world that welcomes an event, but also that precedes and goes beyond it; who sees him intervene, but who is not necessarily influenced by it. The result is that you no longer have to deal with 'highlights' on the screen that reproduce the essential phases of the event told, but with 'generic' or 'indistinct' portions of space and time, which also capture the less significant passages of an event, and even more that dissolve this event in the horizon that hosts it : areas and moments 'any', even if not less steep. At the same time, there is an image that tends to underline its image status: if on the one hand it expresses the effort to get as close as possible to reality, from the The other does not hide that it is a representation of it, and therefore to act as its reinterpretation rather than as its mirror. It follows that the film, the more it tries to be a faithful and passive witness to the facts, the more it must accept that it is also a linguistic object, or a complex of signs, and therefore, compared to those facts, an illustration and a filter. Hence the frequent use of filming that renews and disturbs the traditional ways of filming the world, underlining the temporary nature of the drawing and at the same time the intrinsic cinematographic nature of the operation. Think of the décadrages, that is to say the type of shots that privilege empty areas, objects placed far from the center of the painting, bodies hovering between the field and the off-field, and which in this way move and complicate the point of view on things, instead of choosing a flat and direct look at them: the result they bring is to make the work of cinema manifest and problematic (Bonitzer 1985). But here also a frequent work on genres, aimed at laying bare their basic rules and making them appear in all their evidence and artificiality: both to underline the constructive nature of the film and to try to revitalize its measures and functions. Think of the pastiche, the ironic cast, the use of the second degree (J.-L. Godard, from À bout de souffle, 1960, Until the last breath, up to Masculin féminin, 1966, The male and the female, he is the master): the result of this type of intervention is to highlight the architecture on which the images and sounds rest, and at the same time to test its possible stability.

What is the turn that the film takes, the fact remains that the viewer is no longer led, shot after shot, to reconstruct the diegetic world and to grasp its intrinsic values, but finds himself having to decide in first person where to pay attention, how to connect the different portions of space and time, what importance to give to what is being seen. Opposite it has portions of the world without clear lines of force and often has ambiguous representations regarding their status; its sensation, therefore, can only be that of disorientation. To which he can react either by merely taking note of what is shown to him (after all the world is like this: undecidable ...), or by venturing along entirely personal paths, to the point of building his own story, and to choose the references with which it feeds (after all the real lessons are like this: full of hidden meanings ...). These traits make clear how modern cinema is opposed to classic cinema in its two main axes. The anti-fiction dimension emerges in all its evidence. If the universe that faces the screen is indistinguishable and ciphered, it becomes difficult to highlight its plot; indeed, this plot perhaps does not exist at all and, if there is, it carefully hides among the folds of events; therefore the space for the story is very thin; it is probably a lost space. On the other hand, a sort of opacity of writing emerges. If the image shows its nature as a sign, it becomes inevitable to dwell on the reasons why these signs are produced and the ways in which they work.

But these traits also show that at the basis of modern cinema there are very different thrusts between them (De Vincenti 1993). On the one hand there is the desire to get to the truth of things: to grasp them in their singularity and concreteness, to restore their density and indeterminacy, to recover all their subtle dynamics. What matters is that cinema knows how to capture and return reality. On the other side there is the desire to lay bare the procedures that allow you to portray the world on the screen: therefore to make a cinema that first of all reflects on itself, showing its nature as a 'last' on the real , highlight the logic behind it. What matters is that the film confesses and explains the processes and mechanisms on which its work of representation is based. In this sense it can well be said that in modern cinema there exists a perfect coexistence of realism and formalism; attention to things and attention to representation each require their own space. It should not be surprising then that in this cinema sometimes conflicting stylistic choices meet: the abolition of the staging, in the name of a 'direct grip' on the world, but also the exaltation of the staging, in the name of idea that every representation is born from a 'work' on reality; an acting that aims at naturalism, to the point of choosing actors taken from everyday life, but also an acting that touches virtuosity, to the point of presenting itself as a 'quote' of gestures and postures already implemented;

And the game of polarities could continue. In any case, we are far from the equilibrium and functionality of classic cinema, with its ability to keep the gaze, world and representation together; here the three terms seem to disassociate from each other, and push each in its own direction. Above all, we are far from the sense of duty that permeated that cinema; the horizon that emerges is quite another.

Awareness of the gaze

In fact, if we focus on the forms of vision, we can well say that modern cinema liquidates classical cinema in its basic trait: rather than a connection between seeing and duty, what is imposed is the link between seeing and knowing. The idea that emerges is precisely that which cinema presupposes and at the same time brings into play some form of knowledge: a knowledge that does not necessarily coincide with an explanation or a rationalization of the phenomena investigated, but that tends rather to become aware of both reality, both of the ways in which cinema catches it and fixes it on the screen; a knowledge that has something together of sensitivity, apperception and self-awareness. In this new horizon, the constraints of necessity (precisely, 'having to see') seem to melt, replaced by a different type of virtue (precisely, 'knowing how to see'); and the landscape takes on new and more marked profiles. It must be reiterated above all that the knowledge of the modern has undoubtedly multiple faces. On the one hand, it presents itself as an effort to understand the real: and therefore the essential is to make contact with reality; on the contrary, having always been on his side with discretion and availability; only if you have understood it deeply can you film it, and film it to reproduce it on the screen (or, if you pass from the filmmaker to the viewer, to retrace it on the screen, and retrace it to grasp its meaning). On the other hand, on the other hand, this knowledge presents itself as a reflection on the work of the film: if it is true that cinema is above all a device thanks to which it is possible to construct a discourse on things, giving the the illusion of their immediate presence on the screen, all that remains is to explore this device, to expose its operating modes, to bring its effects to the surface, to revisit its previous results. So the essential is to have a full knowledge of the cinematographic machine, to avoid that the film becomes simply the place of an illusion (or, always passing from the filmmaker to the viewer, to avoid that the film becomes a trap in which to be prisoners).

In short, there is a 'knowing how to live' (or, for those who follow the film, a 'knowing how to relive') as opposed to a 'knowing how to show' (and for the viewer a 'knowing how to observe'); a maieutic commitment (to let things unfold their meaning) as opposed to a systematic self-reference (to make explicit what is being done step by step); an idea of ​​cinema as a very sensitive antenna directed towards the world as opposed to an idea of ​​cinema as a linguistic exercise that reflects itself; some might even say, Rossellini opposed to Godard. The dividing line between the two fronts is at least apparently clear. And yet the knowledge that permeates the modern, although it is evident in differentiated forms, also unifies the territory. Both because it gives it a common basis. Both because it allows for circularity. It is useful to go deeper into this passage. Going back over the two fronts, we are now in front of a praise of the experience (the essential is to make contact directly with things, before talking about them, and therefore to make signs intervene), now to a praise of language (the main thing is to master the universe of signs, before saying something, and therefore to confront the world). During the twentieth century, these two options sometimes led to extreme positions, that is, on the one hand, to immerse oneself in the existing without ever being able to represent it, on the other, to talk to each other that postpones the moment of reference to reality indefinitely . However, even more often during the twentieth century the experience and language have shown themselves as two closely related measures. In fact, the premise of the other was seen in each. Even more, in each one we saw the emergence of the other, hidden among its folds. Hence a frequent overlapping of measures: well exemplified by those authors who combine passion for reality and passion for texts; or who open themselves programmatically to the surrounding universe and equally programmatically practice linguistic experimentation (consider in this regard the notion of modern text advanced by R. Barthes in De l'œuvre au texte, in "Revue d'esthétique", 1971, 3; trad. It. In The buzz of the language, 1988, pp. 57-64). Hence, above all, that completely typical ability of the modern work of presenting itself as a cross-section of the world in which fragments of reality and fragments of discourse coexist, and at the same time as a self-regulated text whose operation contributes as much peculiar aesthetic choices as a reference to the laws of nature (the double reference to the laws of aesthetics and the laws of nature appear in many of the 'manifestos' of the twentieth century). In other words: hence the vocation of the modern work to propose itself as a portrait and as a self-portrait. posters of the twentieth century). In other words: hence the vocation of the modern work to propose itself as a portrait and as a self-portrait. posters of the twentieth century). In other words: hence the vocation of the modern work to propose itself as a portrait and as a self-portrait.

These dynamics are also present in modern cinema. More than extreme choices, which are not lacking (the clearest examples are found in experimental cinema, especially in the structural cinema of the US underground), there is in fact a frequent circularity between the two poles. References to experience that end in a celebration of language (think, within Neorealism, of Giuseppe De Santis). Attempts at new paths in terms of language justified by the desire to better represent the experience (8 1/2, 1963, by Federico Fellini). Metalinguistic irony combined with the search for an absolute psychological truth (Jean-Pierre Léaud as opposed to Marlon Brando in Last tango in Paris, 1972, by B. Bertolucci). Reinterpretation of genres to eliminate their filtering power (Mc Cabe and Mrs. Miller, 1971, I compari, by R. Altman). Self-confession that ends in the apology of cinema (La nuit américaine, 1973, Effect night, by F. Truffaut). And so on. As a seal of this circularity, Rossellini and Godard must be remembered: after all, it is no coincidence that one after Rome, the open city (1945) shoots a metalinguistic film such as The Killing Machine (1952), and that the other before Pravda (1969) shoot a film that challenges documentary ways like Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle (1966; Two or three things I know about her) .In this sense, the awareness that underlies both 'knowing how to live' and 'knowing how to show' works as a discriminating factor but also as a unifying trait. In fact, it now feeds a realistic cinema, now a metalinguistic cinema. Nonetheless, it allows us to grasp the same basic need behind the various choices: this requirement consists in making the gaze an opportunity of knowledge, even if not necessarily determined, rational.It should be added that this tension towards awareness makes the film no longer an instrument pedagogical and directive, as it was for the classic, but a place of criticism. Criticism of traditional images and sounds, in the name of more valuable images and sounds; to the usual forms of gaze, in the name of a more acute gaze; to the existing, in the name of the possible. Just as this tension towards awareness pushes the directors to make research and the different options that appear to them a question, even if not above all, of morality: that is to say to propose an ethics of aesthetics, according to the beautiful definition of Miccichè (1972, p. 18). The cinema of late modernity: beyond the photographic image, beyond the collective consumption. - The eighties, and then with more decision the nineties of the 20th century, see a further change of scenery. The cinema doubled the first century of life and found itself engaged in some radical changes. In particular, it faces two challenges that invest its basic characteristics, those that seem to mark its deepest nature: respectively its nature of 'animated photography' and its nature of 'spectacle for collective enjoyment'. On the one hand, in fact, new ways of producing film images are developed, without going through the photographic device. This is the case for all special effects based on the potential of electronics. The dinosaurs of Jurassic Park (1993) by Steven Spielberg, unlike King Kong (1933) by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, are born from a pure mathematical algori-tmo: they materialize on the screen without having ever had a actual existence, not even that of a puppet. With this they make the cinema make a real leap (moreover already announced by other films, albeit in a less exemplary way, and destined to become even more evident when it comes to the use of virtual actors): that is, they offer it the opportunity to give up to objects, landscapes, bodies; in short, they lead him to free himself from reality. Now it is clear that the cinematographic images thus obtained (but, by resonance, the others, which in the meantime continue to be used) do not have those traits of credibility, evidence, meaning, who had traditional cinematic images. What they retain is only the similarity with reality (a similarity that can also reach virtuosity); instead, they lose, irremediably, the direct existential link with the real, no longer called to determine with its concrete presence what appears on the screen. On the other hand, new ways of consuming the film are determined, without going through the room. Cinema faces a different and more articulated social life: in videotapes or videodiscs and digital media; on the home TV, offered freely (as a means of acquiring audiences to be sold in turn for advertising), or through a subscription, or pay-per-view, or VOD (Video On Demand); broadcast over the air, via cable or via satellite; on the computer screen, thanks to the CD-ROM or via the Internet. It is evident that an audiovisual product so used does not trigger the psychological or social dynamics, nor does it work on the imagination or critical awareness of a society, nor does it provoke adhesion and comparison, like the films used in traditional forms. It is a more direct and at the same time more flexible consumer product. It is hardly worth mentioning that these two radical changes coincide with the emergence, in the background, of a new media landscape: a landscape that is born from the confluence of the universe of the show and universe of communication promoted by information technology (New communication technologies, 1993); and a landscape marked by at least three major structural features. First, the presence of production conglomerates that deal not only with cinema, but also of entertainment, information, telecommunications etc. Secondly, the offer not of single products or services, but of composite 'packages'. It is no coincidence that the rooms now tend to also have a bookstore or a restaurant, and even more that they are increasingly allocated within large shopping centers, alongside dozens of other establishments where both tangible goods are sold, both intangible assets (Friedberg 1993). Thirdly, easy accessibility to the products and services of this sector: they are in some way perpetually available, thanks to the enormous transport potential of the distribution network, which is increasingly made up of cables that connect a very large number of points and on which digital signals travel. This means that the acquisition of a product and service is determined by the needs of the user (or at least it appears: in reality the bottlenecks are still numerous): the latter can build his menu 'freely'; and if he is a cinephile, he can compose his vision program by drawing them from archives that function as an ideal film library. So we have come to compose a media landscape marked by globalization, availability, compatibility, multimedia and interactivity. It is clear that cinema in this context loses its specificity and autonomy and becomes part of a larger territory (see Cinema: second century, third millennium. First report, 1998). Its location is often on the edge of the system. An example are all those productions that outside the mainstream pursue characteristics such as expressive and authorial ability, or aesthetic research and innovation; typical values ​​of a previous season, but which now seem out of the way with respect to the new market of images and sounds. This does not mean that these productions do not offer very significant works: on the contrary, they offer extraordinary films but in some way 'niche'. In fact, it is perhaps in this area that some of the recent masterpieces of cinema are found. After all, it is typical: aesthetic enjoyment often requires 'out of date' works to achieve it. However, many times the position of the cinema is central to the new picture. Think of those cases in which the film acts as a towing product, and is proposed as the pivot of a overall operation (it serves precisely to put on the market at the same time a disc, a book, a video game, a fashion line etc .: with consequences both economically and symbolically); or think of those cases in which the film mobilizes the advanced technologies on which the system is based, and takes on the role of a real laboratory for the new forms of social imagination (the reference is naturally to the cinema of special effects, not only ' toy ', but also a new way of conceiving the world); or think of those cases in which the film acts as a trigger or terminal for new forms of visual experience (e.g., when it consolidates the use of new points of view, such as extreme subjective or large totals, first experienced on television , especially in sports broadcasts, and then destined to switch to video games; or when it creates forms of fruition that somehow anticipate and prepare for virtual reality, as in the Parisian Géode, a completely enveloping room). Moreover, the characters of the films that best interpret the season that could be called of late modernity (or even of postmodernity, if the latter term was not a little worn by now: see Canova 2000), these are precisely: great technological investment, ample use value and strong connections with the system. Which corresponds, on the level of language, the search for maximum spectacle (the example is S. Spielberg, opera omnia); the repeatability of the formula, both through sequels or prequels, and through real and proper clones, perhaps in parodic form (Rocky, Rambo, Star Trek, but also the couple Independence day and Mars attacks!); and the use of procedures derived from other areas of expression or from other media, and often taken without any mediation (SuperMario Bros, Jumanji etc.). George Lucas' Star Wars (1977; Star Wars) by George Lucas is somehow the initiator and the emblem of this cinema (it is clear, not the only one produced this season, but certainly the one that best represents its spirit). And nevertheless, even when it assumes a prominent position, even when it places itself at the center of the system, it is still a part of the overall territory: a part that must be aware of the whole: the tautological gaze. - On the level of the ways of vision, the formula that marks the cinema of late modernity or postmodernity is 'what is seen is what is there'. L' filmic image seems to affirm the pure and simple presence of something on the screen: the 'being there' of a 'figure to be seen', nothing more; as in a tautology. However, this requires some clarifications. First of all, this 'being there' has no ontological pretension or consistency: it does not refer in any way to the existence of any reality, but only to perceptible presences on the screen; it is not an imprint of the world, a trace of an object or a body; it is, if you will, pure signifier. In parallel, it does not imply any subjectivity, that is, it does not manifest the presence of an author committed to expressing himself; if anything, it is only a component of a design (most of the time an economic-industrial project) to which it corresponds with perfect functionality. Therefore no postponement; no want to say. This explains well why the images of late modern cinema often appear 'indifferent': they can arouse amazement and admiration, but they do not discriminate between truth and falsehood, or between meaning and senselessness, nor are they distinguished from each other on the basis of these parameters. Even if, on the other hand, this cinema reserves images which, precisely because they seem to rediscover the taste of a strong reference to reality, even that of the set, take on an unprecedented impact. Think, for example, of the last sequence of Schindler's list (1993; Schindler's list - Schindler's list) of Spielberg, with the Holocaust survivors who take the actors who played the part by the hand, and you comparisons with the rest of the film, and indeed with the rest of Spielberg's cinema, which is instead the maximum example of 'indifference'. But think also of Abel Ferrara, who with Snake eyes (1993; Occhi di serpente) or The funeral (1996; Fratelli) fights the 'indifference' of images through a sort of cruelty theater, in which the actors are brought to an extreme condition, moreover made explicit by the story told. And think above all of David Cronenberg, who in particular with Crash (1996) makes 'indifference', both of images and of life and sexes, a kind of tragic obsession. So, after the cancellation of the need that distinguished the classic, the end of the awareness that marked the modern also emerges, in which the challenge to reality and language played an essential role. In its place, a gaze that merely aligns the images on the screen, to verify its presence, to optimize its effects. A gaze without adjectives: a tautological gaze. Secondly, this 'being' of 'something to see' leads to building a world that is somewhat paradoxical. Not so much because it is a universe that no longer has a necessary connection with the actual one. How much because it is a world that seems to have lost its traditional parameters. On the screen, in fact, a reality is often drawn without measure, too big or too small, or if you want to be caught from too far or too close (think of the frequent use of 'excessive' shots: extreme detail and total chock). An uneven reality, which brings together objects and individuals that are different from each other and often incompatible (think of the extraordinary heterogeneity of the universe of Blade runner, 1982, by Ridley Scott). A reality without a center and without direction (think of the worlds that literally are not together, such as those frequently described by Brian De Palma, a director who deeply explores the sense of dispersion). A reality without origin or without originality (think of the practice of remake and quotation: déja vu is not only accepted, but also becomes a strength). A reality without conclusion and without closure (think of the series: as Spielberg explained, there are no stories, but only episodes) .Finally, this 'being' of 'something to see' allows you to load the different types of different values cinema consumption. The 'zero degree' gaze that the viewer makes right from the film can in fact 'reshape' depending on the different situations of use (which involve differently the degree of awareness of the spectator, if passionate, cinephile, film student, etc.) These are the three main aspects that the 'being there' of 'something to see' brings into play game: an indifferent gaze, which gives body to a paradoxical world, and which takes on different values ​​depending on the context of use of the film. The idea of ​​a vision that defines itself, or that begins and ends on itself (as we have said: a tautological gaze) gives reason for all three of these traits. However the cinema of late modernity, both for its characters and for the picture in which it operates, does not limit itself to giving a particular twist to its gaze: it also leads it to confront its borders, pushes it beyond its borders.

Beyond seeing

As already pointed out, late modern cinema loses that link with reality that seemed essential for producing filmic images. The latter no longer necessarily arise from a reality placed in front of the camera. In many cases they acquire verisimilitude, but they lose their cast, imprint: they increase their value as icons at the expense of their status as indices. This applies above all to images created through electronic procedures; but it inevitably affects the entire body of the films. One of the effects is that cinema in some way changes its position: it is no longer comparable to the arts or the indexical media, primarily to photography; instead he approaches the media and the iconic arts, such as painting, illustration etc. More precisely, it enters the area of ​​simulation practices, alongside video games, role-playing games or virtual reality. Moreover, it is precisely in this way that it can continue to maintain faith in the function that has always distinguished it, that of celebrating the closeness and availability of things, the grasping and retraceability of the world. At the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st he does it precisely by simulating the real: in the impossibility of linking the world thanks to an existential bond, he limits himself to imitating it, but with such perfection that the reality on the screen can be superimposed on the actual one. that of celebrating the closeness and availability of things, the graspability and retraceability of the world. At the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st he does it precisely by simulating the real: in the impossibility of linking the world thanks to an existential bond, he limits himself to imitating it, but with such perfection that the reality on the screen can be superimposed on the actual one. that of celebrating the closeness and availability of things, the graspability and retraceability of the world. At the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st he does it precisely by simulating the real: in the impossibility of linking the world thanks to an existential bond, he limits himself to imitating it, but with such perfection that the reality on the screen can be superimposed on the actual one.

This fact profoundly changes the balance on which the gaze of the cinema rested. First of all, seeing redesigns its relationship with imagination. In fact, the loss of indexicality lays bare a fact that cinema has always been aware of, but which it often tends to keep in the background: the fundamentally illusory nature of the presence of reality on the screen. The film can well celebrate the proximity and availability of things: but what it shows us is not where it appears; if there has been, it is now elsewhere (Melchiorre 1972). In this sense, seeing in the cinema has always meant filling an absence, filling a hole; in short, dealing with a small hallucination (Baudry 1978), which leads perception to weave precisely imagination. L' photographic-based image tried to regulate this problem by boasting its own nature as a 'world footprint'; an imprint that directly preserved the memory of the objects and bodies that had left it, and therefore allowed to evoke them exactly as if they continued to be there. To the actual absence of things that image responded with a call so strong as to make them present. Late modern cinema, with its icon images, overturns the mechanism. Since there is no longer an existential link at stake with the world, but only the attempt to resemble it as much as possible, the absence of things appears completely clear and at the same time not at all dramatic. This means that you no longer have to forcefully evoke what is not actually there; Rather, you are required to recognize what appears on the screen; and to recognize it in the two senses of the term, that is to identify it and accept it. Here is the point: we move from evocation to recognition; seeing always mixes with imagining, but this component of imagination changes sign. It mixes with seeing without fear and without restraint; in harmony with the different way of making the world next, or rather, of building the proximity of the world. Secondly, almost as a form of compensation, seeing shifts even more towards feeling. In fact, late modern films tend to mobilize the whole range of perceptions: they involve the whole body, so to speak, and not just the eye. This is due to the extreme wealth of stimuli they can give: they offer perfect images, of great detail, in a pressing way, projected on large screens and accompanied by enveloping music. After all, this is their field of action: as copies and no longer tracks, they must reproduce the pulse of the world, not evoke it. Except that in reproducing it they lead him to excitement. The result is that watching a movie means immersing yourself in a sort of total experience. In which often we are no longer guided by the need to reconstruct what appears on the screen, but rather by the pleasure of abandoning ourselves to the rhythms of the film, its suggestions, the overabundance of sounds etc. This intensification of the cinematographic experience involves another change: assisting to a film means less and less to see a film in a suitable environment, and more and more to enter an environment that the film creates, precisely for its sensory richness. This is, moreover, in harmony with one of the most evident trends in the media field: from the media that 'adapt' to one's own environment of use (for example, the TV), we move on to those that themselves constitute an environment in which to insert oneself ( eg the Internet, with its creating a simulated conversation situation which the user accesses). Finally the new status of film images forces seeing to reconsider its relationship with reading and listening. The word, written or pronounced, and even more the voice, occupy a territory traditionally opposite to that of the image; they represent the domain of writing and orality as opposed to the domain of visuality. However, the fall of indexicality in cinema changes the terms of the comparison: if only because it allows or forces other signs, other media, to make an impression or a cast of reality. Among these media, the voice seems to perform this function very well. In fact, it is the voice that is better able to recall the presence of a momentarily absent body or seems to really return all its characters. Think technically of the great care for the sound systems of the room, as if the image needs to be listened to before being seen. Or think, with a touch of emotion, of the voice of J.-L. Godard who comments on his latest works, as if only it can explain the author's presence. Or think, as an extreme example, of the voices that fill the monochrome screen of Derek Jarman's Blue (1993), the only possible testimonies of the truth of a life. but also the word. Including the one written, also capable of making a trace of being there or of having been something more than the image can now do. Seventy years after the top intellectuals announced triumphantly that 'the time of' image has come ', to sanction the passage from the old testament of written and oral culture to the new testament of visual culture, cinema must confront itself, and in a new way, with a frontier that perhaps it had forgotten. This is probably the last challenge that an optical device faces; the extreme edge towards which seeing must go. See letters to hear a voice. See with the ear relying on listening. See the buzz of reality. See with your eyes closed. also capable of making a trace of being there or of having been there of something more than the image can now do. Seventy years after the top intellectuals announced triumphantly that 'the time of the image has come' To sanction the passage from the old testament of written and oral culture to the new testament of visual culture, cinema must confront itself, and in a new way, with a frontier that it had perhaps forgotten. This is probably the last challenge that an optical device faces; the extreme edge towards which seeing must go. See letters to hear a voice. See with the ear relying on listening. See the buzz of reality. See with your eyes closed. also capable of making a trace of being there or of having been something more than the image can now do. Seventy years after the top intellectuals announced triumphantly that 'the time of the image has come' To sanction the passage from the old testament of written and oral culture to the new testament of visual culture, cinema must confront itself, and in a new way, with a frontier that it had perhaps forgotten. This is probably the last challenge that an optical device faces; the extreme edge towards which seeing must go. See letters to hear a voice. See with the ear relying on listening. See the buzz of reality. See with your eyes closed. there has been something more than the image can now do. Seventy years after the top intellectuals announced triumphantly that 'the time of the image has come', to mark the passage from the old testament of written and oral culture to the new testament of visual culture, cinema must confront itself, and in a new way, with a frontier that perhaps it had forgotten. This is probably the last challenge that an optical device faces; the extreme edge towards which seeing must go. See letters to hear a voice. See with the ear relying on listening. See the buzz of reality. See with your eyes closed. there has been something more than the image can now do. Seventy years after the top intellectuals announced triumphantly that 'the time of the image has come', to mark the passage from the old testament of written and oral culture to the new testament of visual culture, cinema must confront itself, and in a new way, with a frontier that perhaps it had forgotten. This is probably the last challenge that an optical device faces; the extreme edge towards which seeing must go. See letters to hear a voice. See with the ear relying on listening. See the buzz of reality. See with your eyes closed. the time of the image has come ', to sanction the passage from the old testament of written and oral culture to the new testament of visual culture, cinema must confront itself, and in a new way, with a frontier that it had perhaps forgotten. This is probably the last challenge that an optical device faces; the extreme edge towards which seeing must go. See letters to hear a voice. See with the ear relying on listening. See the buzz of reality. See with your eyes closed. the time of the image has come ', to sanction the passage from the old testament of written and oral culture to the new testament of visual culture, cinema must confront itself, and in a new way, with a frontier that it had perhaps forgotten. This is probably the last challenge that an optical device faces; the extreme edge towards which seeing must go. See letters to hear a voice. See with the ear relying on listening. See the buzz of reality. See with your eyes closed. last challenge that an optical device faces; the extreme edge towards which seeing must go. See letters to hear a voice. See with the ear relying on listening. See the buzz of reality. See with your eyes closed. last challenge that an optical device faces; the extreme edge towards which seeing must go. See letters to hear a voice. See with the ear relying on listening. See the buzz of reality. See with your eyes closed.BIBLIOGRAPHY

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