Cinema is undoubtedly one of the most significant cultural forms of our age. The first moving pictures were revolutionary when they were first broadcast to the world and the cinematic medium continues to develop in all sorts of radical and interesting ways. Television soon came to rival cinema in social and cultural import and film studios needed to find new technologies to pull in the crowds. 3-D films began to appear in the 1950s and have retained their popularity since, from their use in amusement park rides to the latest blockbuster 3D re-release. Yet their apparent novelty status belies the hidden history of 3D filmmaking; it could even be said that the history of cinema is arguably the history of 3D cinema.
This week on The Provocateur I’m joined by Nick Jones, lecturer in film, television & digital culture at the University of York, to discuss the aesthetics of 3D cinema. We talk about the history of 3D cinema before we jump into the theoretical and technical complexities of the 3D format. Along the way, we discuss films such as Dial M for Murder, Avatar, Jurassic Park (in its 3D re-release) and even the Resident Evil franchise.
You can listen to the podcast here:
Further Reading:
Crary, J. Techniques of the Observer (Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press, 1990)
Elsaesser, T. “The ‘Return’ of 3-D: On Some of the Logics and Genealogies of the Image in the Twenty-First Century,” Critical Inquiry 39, no. 2 (2013): 217–246
Jones, N. “Variation within Stability: Digital 3D and Film Style,” Cinema Journal 55, no. 1 (2015): 52–73
Jones, N. “‘There never really is a stereoscopic image’: a closer look at 3-D media,” New Review of Film and Television Studies 13, no. 2 (2015): 170-188
Ross, M. 3D Cinema: Optical Illusions and Tactile Experiences (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)
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