Belton, John. “Digital Cinema: A False Revolution.” October. 100, Obsolescence (2002): 98-114.

[footnote n 1]: “Total cinema” is a term that describes a cinema capable of creating “a total and complete representation of reality.” André Bazin, What is Cinema?, vol. 1, trans. Hugh Gray (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 17, 20. 98

The digital revolution is more clearly being driven by home theater and home entertainment software and hardware technologies, and by corporate interests in marketing, than it is by any desire—as in the past—to revolutionize the theatrical moviegoing experience. In short, the digital revolution is part of a new corporate synergy within Hollywood, driven by the lucrative home entertainment market. 100

To be fair, digital cinema has not necessarily become the sole property of Lucas, James Cameron, and big-budget, commercial Hollywood. It has spawned a countercinema of sorts. The relative cheapness of the technology has brought new opportunities for making independent films to a variety of filmmakers. Timecode (2000), which cost only $4 million, not only takes advantage of digital video to present events in a continuous way that outdoes Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) by a factor of three, but it foregrounds the new technology in its script. The character played by Kyle McLaughlin introduces his client, a filmmaker named Ana, in apocalyptic terms: “Armed with nothing more than a digital camera and an incredible vision . . . Ana is prepared to drag us kicking and screaming into the new millennium.” His remarks are suitably punctuated by one of the film’s several earthquakes. 106

In short, digital cinema is revolutionary technological innovation for filmmakers like Lucas and for the interests of corporate synergy that currently drive Hollywood. As we shall see, it is also a potential boon—in the form of cost saving—for film distributors. But it is not yet clear that it can do anything for motion picture audiences aside from eliminating jitter, weave, dirt, and scratches from the / projected image. Even if we concede that these improvements result in better projection, they are not significant enough for them to be declared “revolutionary” in terms of the audience’s experiences of motion pictures. 108

The compelling reasons for digital cinema lie in the financial benefits it can provide to motion picture distributors and in the creative flexibility it can offer to a handful of very important Hollywood filmmakers like Lucas, Cameron, and others. 110

One obvious problem with digital cinema is that it has no novelty value, at least not for film audiences. This being the case, what will drive its future development? 114