La galassia Lumière: Sette parole chiave per il cinema che viene

Film and Culture Series

by Francesco Casetti

È vero che il cinema sta morendo sotto l’assalto dei nuovi media? È vero che i nuovi modi di produzione e consumo lo cambiano così radicalmente da trasformarlo in un’altra cosa? Questo libro sostiene che nell’epoca della convergenza, in cui tutti i media tendono a trasformarsi e a confondersi, il cinema non solo sopravvive, ma anzi rifiorisce. Lo incontriamo nelle sale, ma anche nelle nostre case, nelle gallerie e nei musei, sui mezzi di trasporto o nelle sale d’aspetto, sui nostri dispositivi portatili, e in rete.
Sette parole chiave aiutano a cogliere il modo in cui il cinema si apre a nuovi orizzonti, e insieme mantiene la sua identità, e anzi spesso ritrova le sue radici. Il cinema non muore: forse comincia a vivere adesso.

Genres: Film

442 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 24, 2015

Reviews

[J Earl]

This extremely passionate defense of the value and continued life of cinema makes for a very thought-provoking read. Some explanations beg for a slower more careful rereading, and you are rewarded with some enlightening ideas for doing so. Perhaps the biggest shift a student of film has to make to appreciate this work is presented early in the book, namely that Casetti is coming from a experiential perspective in his approaches and his definitions. This is not to ignore other aspects but rather to incorporate the those other aspects (such as technology) into a new working understanding of cinema that keeps it alive at the same time that it transforms both itself and its history.

This is definitely a work that will reward multiple readings and is rich in references to stimulate further reading and thought.

Reviewed from an ARC made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Holly Willis]

Francesco Casetti explores the state of contemporary cinema and its divergent new formations by using seven key words – relocation, relics/icons, assemblage, expansion, hypertopia, display, and performance – and shows how cinema is in the process of forming new relationships with spectators as it is activated in new spaces, as it encounters the art world, and as we gain a new sense of touch and tactility with images. Casetti offers an exuberant account, and invites us to understand cinema’s relocations, expansions, and reinventions as both a gesture toward the future while retaining an affectionate proximity to its vibrant past.

[Lucia Caporalini]

Interesting book about how cinema evolved and tried to stay alive among new devices.

[Steen Ledet]

Good, measured analysis of the institution of cinema, rather than how individual movies work today.

[Michael Drew]

The Lumière Galaxy offers a thoughtful reconsideration of what cinema means in an increasingly dispersed media environment.
Francesco Casetti moves beyond the traditional cinema apparatus to examine relocation, assemblage, expansion, display, and performance.
His framework accounts for films experienced in theaters, on personal devices, in galleries, museums, and other unexpected spaces.
Rather than treating digital transformation as the disappearance of cinema, Casetti asks how cinema persists by changing its forms and contexts.
The result is an engaging contribution to film theory, media studies, spectatorship, and post cinema debates.

[Noah Lederman Greis]

Read for a cinema studies course. Really good and surprisingly straightforward discussion of how digital media has changed the conditions for film. It’s already little dated here and there but only in minor ways.

[Mariano Mesti]

Casetti analizza con grande lungimiranza e lucidità la strada intrapresa dal cinema nell'era digitale. Ideale per chi vuole comprendere le trasformazioni del medium in questi ultimi decenni.