Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Special Effects and the Techno-Romantic Paradigm
- 1 Imagining Technological Art: Early German Film Theory
- 2 Modern Magicians: Guido Seeber and Eugen Schüfftan
- 3 The Uncanny Mirror: Der Student von Prag (1913)
- 4 Visualizing the Occult: Nosferatu (1922)
- 5 The Technological Sublime: Metropolis (1927)
- 6 “German Technique” and Hollywood
- Conclusion: Techno-Romantic Cinema from the Silent to the Digital Era
- Bibliography
- Index
Conclusion: Techno-Romantic Cinema from the Silent to the Digital Era
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Special Effects and the Techno-Romantic Paradigm
- 1 Imagining Technological Art: Early German Film Theory
- 2 Modern Magicians: Guido Seeber and Eugen Schüfftan
- 3 The Uncanny Mirror: Der Student von Prag (1913)
- 4 Visualizing the Occult: Nosferatu (1922)
- 5 The Technological Sublime: Metropolis (1927)
- 6 “German Technique” and Hollywood
- Conclusion: Techno-Romantic Cinema from the Silent to the Digital Era
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Techno-romantic thought, which construes machine technology as a means to reach beyond material reality, is still with us today. It is reflected in the vogue of speculative fiction in contemporary moving image media, which has been made possible by radical advances in digital visual effects. Computer-generated imagery has brought into reach the fully malleable photograph, a dream that epitomizes a major triumph of the human mind over outside reality and thus an essentially techno-romantic fantasy. The same ambition already animated German silent filmmakers, who saw special effects as a way to shape mechanically produced images. Their use of trick technology for conveying thoughts and emotions gives rise to a new research area: special/visual effects as artistic tools.
Keywords: CGI, digital cinema, visual effects, expressive special effects
Techno-romantic thought has been with us for at least two hundred fifty years. Every wave of technological innovation during the industrial, technological, and most recently the digital revolution has engendered new iterations of the same paradoxical response: Technological progress calls forth hubristic fantasies of unlimited, quasi-magical powers, while also triggering deep-seated anxieties about subjugation, dehumanization, and annihilation. This tension manifests, for instance, in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), where the eponymous hero's command of fantastical technology allows him to overcome death and assume the godlike status of a “modern Prometheus.” At the same time, he renders his creature a victim to cruel oppression and thus turns it into a lethal danger. Techno-romantic perspectives help articulate and mitigate fears about modernity. Rendering it possible to savour the fascinating aspects of technology while grappling with its threats, techno-romantic thought is neither inherently technophile nor technophobic, but can be found in the context of technological utopias like Ian M. Banks's The Culture series (1987-2012) as well as dystopias like the Wachowskis’ The Matrix franchise (1999-).
The techno-romantic paradigm construes modern technology as a force that can reach beyond the limits of physical reality. This, on the one hand, magnifies technology's powers and thus its perils, but also envisions it as a means to safeguard the human soul against modern reification. Associated with emotional, imaginary, or spiritual qualities, technology then corroborates the primacy of human consciousness and facilitates retreats to an immaterial realm. As Mark Coeckelbergh has suggested, “As children of twentieth-century romantic counterculture, we seamlessly fuse technology and romanticism.
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- Information
- Special Effects and German Silent FilmTechno-Romantic Cinema, pp. 273 - 278Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2021