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Post Cinematic Affect
Post-Cinematic Affect is about what it feels like to live in the affluent West in the early 21st century. Specifically, it explores the structure of feeling that is emerging today in tandem with new digital technologies, together with economic globalization and the financialization of more and more human activities. The 20th century was the age of film and television; these dominant media shaped and reflected our cultural sensibilities. In the 21st century, new digital media help to shape and reflect new forms of sensibility. Movies (moving image and sound works) continue to be made, but they have adopted new formal strategies, they are viewed under massively changed conditions, and they address their spectators in different ways than was the case in the 20th century. The book traces these changes, focusing on four recent moving-image Nick Hooker's music video for Grace Jones' song Corporate Cannibal; Olivier Assayas' movie Boarding Gate, starring Asia Argento; Richard Kelly's movie Southland Tales, featuring Justin Timberlake, Dwayne Johnson, and other pop culture celebrities; and Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor's Gamer.
200 pages, Paperback
First published October 12, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 16, 2013
The theory part is a bit weak, but the analysis of the movies are top-notch!
January 18, 2018
In 2o12, before I really had any sense of myself as a leftist, I read Steven Shaviro's blogpost on GAMER and it totally altered my way of seeing. By using a film's formal qualities to illustrate the way the world works, Shaviro spoke to me in a language I'd never heard. I'd always been interested in the philosophical and ideological implications of movies, but never had I been so challenged to adjust my own understanding to an interpretation like this. It was the most absorbing dissection of the unlikeliest source material, I thought at the time. I'd seen GAMER, but there was no way I could pull everything out of it that Shaviro had. It was a bracing moment of encountering a known unknown, realizing all this knowledge was out there and I'd yet to discover it.
Since then I've read so much of Shaviro's work, explored so many of his favorite artworks, and spent so much time thinking over his conceptual apparatus that this book almost feels like an anti-climax. However, I only feel that way because I've caught up at last with the ideological grounding that makes Shaviro's readings possible in the first place. It's like finally coming full-circle, back to the source of all my intellectual wanderings of the past six years. And even now I can tell I'll be revisiting this book constantly throughout my life. What else is there to say? This book has seeped into my DNA, and I wouldn't be the same without it (despite only just now reading it). Can't think of a recommendation any higher than that.
Since then I've read so much of Shaviro's work, explored so many of his favorite artworks, and spent so much time thinking over his conceptual apparatus that this book almost feels like an anti-climax. However, I only feel that way because I've caught up at last with the ideological grounding that makes Shaviro's readings possible in the first place. It's like finally coming full-circle, back to the source of all my intellectual wanderings of the past six years. And even now I can tell I'll be revisiting this book constantly throughout my life. What else is there to say? This book has seeped into my DNA, and I wouldn't be the same without it (despite only just now reading it). Can't think of a recommendation any higher than that.
February 26, 2024
Introduction is definitely the weakest part—Shaviro is much better as an aesthetician. His media analysis is very strong and clearly articulates the structure of feeling in 21st century digital culture. Made me a bit self-conscious, even. As I kept thinking about how I was compelled to add works he cites to my GoodReads to-read list like I’m some kind of automaton.
July 2, 2016
Shaviro's account for post-cinematic affect is an appealing and, dare I say, affective one. While I was thoroughly engaged and, at many times thoroughly convinced, by Shaviro's argument there were some notable problems with the texts that he analyzed in addition to how he drew his conclusions that left me feeling a bit sour. The latter emotive is most notably felt when reading his account of Grace Jones' "Corporate Cannibal" video. From Shaviro's analysis of Jones' video it is clear that he his a fan of not only Jones but of the video itself, however, his adoration and praise of Jones is not enough to ignore the doggy analysis of race and the "posthuman Black subject" that he argues from his reading of the music video. Lacking citations from Black studies scholars, Shaviro's argument unfortunately plays into the dominant trend in critical studies and popular media that believes "certain" Black artists are able to "transcend" their race and move beyond their body, and by extension no longer need critical race analysis because they are beyond skin. I have several issues with this line of thinking. One, I see it as primarily serving a white audience who are not only unfamilar with Black studies but have no desire in engaging with the ways in which Black scholars and artists have renegoiated our relationship to the flesh that begins to rethink what scholar and poet Fred Moten notes as how Blackness is a history of objects speaking back. Moten's statement here refers to the fact Slavery, where Black bodies where dehumanized and made into objects. Thus contemporary Black artists relationship with the body, may at times, speak to that relationship and history of being treated as "thing/object." If an artist plays with the corporeality of their body in a way that disavows their embodiment it is not an effort to blur the distinction of Blackness to make it more accessible to white purveyors but rather could suggest playing with a different history/relationship to Blackness all together. The problem with Shaviro's argument here is that is leaves that complex relationship and history out to favor an argument that might make Jones' body more digestible to white readers. Moreover, the specious belief that Black artists need to "transcend" their race is reductive, tired, and lazy. It is an argument that is used to grant access to Black bodies' history and culture to non-Black individuals that would otherwise feel left out from their art practices and narratives. While I do not believe that this was Shaviro's intention, his argument certainly left room for this impact to be felt.
In later chapters Shaviro makes interesting choices for the cinematic films that make up the argument for a post-cinematic affect. I had a hard time connecting to his selection of films which are, Southland Tales, Boarding Gate, and Gamer. For the most part Shaviro was able to convince me that these films (all of which he notes are polarizing and at times are boring and "bad") are able to produce affective responses through formal digital techniques but at the same time I can't help but think that these films were chosen because they provoke negative responses within the reader (and viewers). I applaud the decision to present "bad" (not bad as in bad-good but bad as in boring-bad, in my opinion, which is what I think of Southland Tales, although I admit I may need to watch the film again) films as case studies with an awareness that your reader may disagree but I just can't help but think that some of these arguments would have flowed better if Shaviro did not spend so much time trying to reason with his reader over the selection of films (which is clear that he anticipated some resistance). Overall, Post-Cinematic Affect is a concise book that offers clarity to the digital techniques used today that make contemporary cinematic viewing practices different today than how they were in the past.
In later chapters Shaviro makes interesting choices for the cinematic films that make up the argument for a post-cinematic affect. I had a hard time connecting to his selection of films which are, Southland Tales, Boarding Gate, and Gamer. For the most part Shaviro was able to convince me that these films (all of which he notes are polarizing and at times are boring and "bad") are able to produce affective responses through formal digital techniques but at the same time I can't help but think that these films were chosen because they provoke negative responses within the reader (and viewers). I applaud the decision to present "bad" (not bad as in bad-good but bad as in boring-bad, in my opinion, which is what I think of Southland Tales, although I admit I may need to watch the film again) films as case studies with an awareness that your reader may disagree but I just can't help but think that some of these arguments would have flowed better if Shaviro did not spend so much time trying to reason with his reader over the selection of films (which is clear that he anticipated some resistance). Overall, Post-Cinematic Affect is a concise book that offers clarity to the digital techniques used today that make contemporary cinematic viewing practices different today than how they were in the past.
March 15, 2019
Loved this at first. Not really a spoiler but the book analyzes Grace Jones’s video/song Corporate Cannibal, Olivier Assayas’s film Boarding Gate, Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, and…. Gamer. Felt that the examination of Grace Jones’ career was particularly well thought out and interesting in the context of a post-cinematic mediascape, especially through the video as described (and I watched it on youtube) which takes Jones’ post-gender personae and modulates & distorts it to menacing effect throughout the song.
I don’t disagree with Shaviro in terms that the 20th Century – which to me the process of film was the dominating artform/type of expression. It combined the mechanisms of photography (capturing images in chemical reactions), the narratives of literature (movies and television shows tell stories), the process of drama (actors interpreting a script), and the emotional impact and use of music – all steered by a director then through an editing process that creates a new meaning from the sources – the film. This process then birthed television, and while television threatened to eclipse film throughout the 20th century, I would argue that by the end of the 1990s, television was still the little brother to film.
With the integration of computers into the process of film at the end of the 20th century (in editing, cameras, etc), this opens up new avenues of narrative structure and expression, modes that now bring on the post-cinematic era, which posits a new framework of expression, one that encapsulates cinema, art/artists, games (video, role-playing, even board games), and the internet. The works that Shaviro selects seem to operate within this new framework, even if the new framework has not completely come to dominate culture the same way as cinema did in the 20th century…. Yet.
I have not seen Olivier Assayas’s Boarding Gate, though I am very familiar with Demonlover – a previous Assayas film that Shaviro includes with his section on Boarding Gate, as the films are interrelated in many ways and tell stories wherein the human narrative (a person or people facing either internal or external obstacles/conflicts and either triumphing or failing in their attempts to conquer the obstacles/conflicts) is almost secondary to a non-human narrative – one which chronicles the process of systems by which our characters are controlled. In Demonlover, these are game-creating corporations and the espionage surrounding the release of a new pornographic game. The characters are the expression of the marketing research and speculation of income, and their travails come as a result of their roles as forces for these non-human elements.
Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales is an EXTREMELY strange, complicated, and ambitious film – one which was doomed to fail in its goals. It bombed at the box office, and Kelly – seen as one of the new millennium’s brightest talents with his fantastic Donnie Darko – made one other feature (the disappointing but still interesting Twilight Zone throwback The Box) before pretty much disappearing from the film world entirely. IT’s almost as if Kelly and his career were at the mercy of the same forces that dictate Assayas’s characers in Boarding Gate and Demonlover! Southland Tales is a hard film to love – drastic tonal shifts, a somewhat low budget (considering) aesthetic reminiscent of 80s sci-fi films (Night of the Comet, Trancers, etc.), a long running time, and a central narrative thrust that slowly reveals itself over the course of its length. With shortened attention spans, the effort was doomed to fail. I agree with Shaviro’s feelings that what Kelly was attempting though with Southland Tales was nothing less than a new vision of science fiction cinema, with roots in comics, new wave sci fi novels (Philip K. Dick looms large, as does Norman Spinrad, JG Ballard, cyberpunk), and a meta approach to casting wherein actors bring the associations of their outside careers to the film – many former Saturday Night Live actors are cast members, alongside pop stars, television stars, and former athletes. (I felt that an ideal version of the movie starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jenna Jameson ca. 2003!)
Where Shaviro lost me was his examination of Gamer. Yes, I get it, the cinema of Michael Bay, Tony Scott, and Neveldine/Taylor (especially Crank & Crank 2) is a fascinating step in the evolution of cinema. One might say it is a step towards migraines, but with children today increasingly operating on the spectrum of autism, Gamer again posits the new – a narrative completely built out of other films’ carcasses, characters that are nothing more than archetypal avatars (and controlled by their game-playing masters) – so while theoretically Gamer is a ripe fruit of interpretation, the attention given to its methods grated quickly. It’s a crappy movie. I would have much more enjoyed a similar exploration of Tony Scott’s Domino or even Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain or one of his Transformers movies. Gamer is just crappy, though that might be part of the point here.
I don’t disagree with Shaviro in terms that the 20th Century – which to me the process of film was the dominating artform/type of expression. It combined the mechanisms of photography (capturing images in chemical reactions), the narratives of literature (movies and television shows tell stories), the process of drama (actors interpreting a script), and the emotional impact and use of music – all steered by a director then through an editing process that creates a new meaning from the sources – the film. This process then birthed television, and while television threatened to eclipse film throughout the 20th century, I would argue that by the end of the 1990s, television was still the little brother to film.
With the integration of computers into the process of film at the end of the 20th century (in editing, cameras, etc), this opens up new avenues of narrative structure and expression, modes that now bring on the post-cinematic era, which posits a new framework of expression, one that encapsulates cinema, art/artists, games (video, role-playing, even board games), and the internet. The works that Shaviro selects seem to operate within this new framework, even if the new framework has not completely come to dominate culture the same way as cinema did in the 20th century…. Yet.
I have not seen Olivier Assayas’s Boarding Gate, though I am very familiar with Demonlover – a previous Assayas film that Shaviro includes with his section on Boarding Gate, as the films are interrelated in many ways and tell stories wherein the human narrative (a person or people facing either internal or external obstacles/conflicts and either triumphing or failing in their attempts to conquer the obstacles/conflicts) is almost secondary to a non-human narrative – one which chronicles the process of systems by which our characters are controlled. In Demonlover, these are game-creating corporations and the espionage surrounding the release of a new pornographic game. The characters are the expression of the marketing research and speculation of income, and their travails come as a result of their roles as forces for these non-human elements.
Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales is an EXTREMELY strange, complicated, and ambitious film – one which was doomed to fail in its goals. It bombed at the box office, and Kelly – seen as one of the new millennium’s brightest talents with his fantastic Donnie Darko – made one other feature (the disappointing but still interesting Twilight Zone throwback The Box) before pretty much disappearing from the film world entirely. IT’s almost as if Kelly and his career were at the mercy of the same forces that dictate Assayas’s characers in Boarding Gate and Demonlover! Southland Tales is a hard film to love – drastic tonal shifts, a somewhat low budget (considering) aesthetic reminiscent of 80s sci-fi films (Night of the Comet, Trancers, etc.), a long running time, and a central narrative thrust that slowly reveals itself over the course of its length. With shortened attention spans, the effort was doomed to fail. I agree with Shaviro’s feelings that what Kelly was attempting though with Southland Tales was nothing less than a new vision of science fiction cinema, with roots in comics, new wave sci fi novels (Philip K. Dick looms large, as does Norman Spinrad, JG Ballard, cyberpunk), and a meta approach to casting wherein actors bring the associations of their outside careers to the film – many former Saturday Night Live actors are cast members, alongside pop stars, television stars, and former athletes. (I felt that an ideal version of the movie starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jenna Jameson ca. 2003!)
Where Shaviro lost me was his examination of Gamer. Yes, I get it, the cinema of Michael Bay, Tony Scott, and Neveldine/Taylor (especially Crank & Crank 2) is a fascinating step in the evolution of cinema. One might say it is a step towards migraines, but with children today increasingly operating on the spectrum of autism, Gamer again posits the new – a narrative completely built out of other films’ carcasses, characters that are nothing more than archetypal avatars (and controlled by their game-playing masters) – so while theoretically Gamer is a ripe fruit of interpretation, the attention given to its methods grated quickly. It’s a crappy movie. I would have much more enjoyed a similar exploration of Tony Scott’s Domino or even Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain or one of his Transformers movies. Gamer is just crappy, though that might be part of the point here.
July 16, 2019
Great analysis of the accelerationist aesthetic and capital flow through (almost) marginalised media pieces. Though I'm expecting to read more exploration and in-depth analysis on the affect theory and critique to Hardt and Negri affective labour, Shaviro delivers an interesting take on seeing these four post-cinematic "diagrams" from different perspective. Also, it is always fascinating to read cultural theorist that acknowledge the aesthetic aspect of accelerationism and how it relates to our social realism.
June 4, 2023
Read this book for the "Digital Cinema and Video Making" course in my Master's degree program. This one was not easy to read, but not super hard either. The analysis of different movies were top-notch. I learned a lot of interesting things from many fascinating perspectives and angles regarding the post-cinematic effect as modern cinema adapts to the technologically-driven neoliberal and informative capitalist society.
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April 20, 2019I appreciate Shaviro for so many things. Namely, one of the only film theorists who write as if they actually like the films they analyze. Clarity arises from candor. Southland Tales is one of the greatest movies I've ever seen.
March 14, 2019
four fascinating essays about digital culture and modern cinema. deleuze, bergson, zizek, et all make an appearance. shaviro writes beautifully
November 11, 2022
Shaviro is the king of using 12,000 years of human history to tell you why Michael Jackson is cool to watch when he dances or why Southland Tales is confusing. And you gotta love it
January 24, 2024
The book frequently wanders, providing interesting insight into the media productions during their analysis, but fails to make the relevant connections between these tangents and the subject matter of the book. Less than a quarter of the book actively addresses the topics put forth in the introduction, creating a lot of intelligent (and very good) rambling on the part of the author.
The review of each media production was interesting and thought provoking, but there isn't much in common between the projects. Many times these projects were used as a means to express the author's views on neoliberal capitalism instead of showing how neoliberal capitalism affects the ways we view and perceive the films.
Good ramblings, but fails to address the proposed intentions of the book set forth in the introduction. Individually the reviews are worth a read, but not collectively.
The review of each media production was interesting and thought provoking, but there isn't much in common between the projects. Many times these projects were used as a means to express the author's views on neoliberal capitalism instead of showing how neoliberal capitalism affects the ways we view and perceive the films.
Good ramblings, but fails to address the proposed intentions of the book set forth in the introduction. Individually the reviews are worth a read, but not collectively.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews