BY ALEX HO

In print | Published January 24, 2008 — Updated March 06, 2009 20:22

Mass media. As inclined towards the superficial as it may be, I still find it a fascinating organism, which, in catering to our most primal need for entertainment, acts like a chemical trace on what is on our collective mind, even as it actively shapes it.

With every new innovation in media technology, a boom of new concepts is generated and expands our vocabulary for human experience. And what greater upheaval of popular media has there been in recent times than the advent of digital video? Allowing the once divine visual medium of cinema to slowly dissipate into its less sanctified counterparts, television and then the computer, it has both culturally and financially threatened the authority of the movie theater. Today, people are more and more willing to sacrifice quality for convenience. The Internet is a powerful platform for this shift because it stands alongside TV and the movie theater as an entirely new setting for entertainment and, moreover, one that more sensibly combines all of our other avenues of media consumption — namely news, which itself is enduring a parallel struggle between the print and online (curse you, Daily Gazette and your squeaky clean layout).

With the growing dominance of digital media, the demise of the picture show seemed all but inevitable several years ago, and Hollywood readied itself for the battle with M. Night Shyamalan helming the ranks for the preservation of film tradition and George Lucas in the other corner, heralding the digital age for film. Although the DVD has overtaken and effectively killed the VHS, the anticipated collapse in theater sales never quite happened.

Why is this the case? Does the movie theater continue to be as coveted a venue for entertainment as it was before? An oft given reason is the ferocity with which the movie industry shoves blockbusters down its audience’s throats, advertising like there’s no tomorrow, so that every summer the umpteenth Spider-Man movie will yet again break box office records worldwide. This explanation, however, is probably more unkind to the film medium than it should be.

I won’t go as far as to follow traditionalists like Shyamalan in saying that film is undeniably a superior medium. The debate on whether digital video can trump film in quality remains unresolved. In terms of resolution, both have their drawbacks. Digital video is pixelated, while film has its grain, which some will tell you makes for a greater sense of realism or cinematic-ness. It ultimately boils down to which aesthetics are more acceptable. Film, with its century-long history, still has at least some leverage over digital video in terms of what is considered to be a more polished form of entertainment.

Instead, the relationship between film and digital video seems to be less of a battle than a coalescence of the two modes. Digital video is doing its darndest to emulate cinematic traditions (check out sleek big-budget productions like this past year’s “Zodiac” and “Superman Returns”) and film is also adopting techniques usually reserved for digital video. And with the rising prominence of personal videos (“home videos” sounds like such a dated term by now) particularly on YouTube, shaky, handheld, low-res videos have just about become the shorthand for documenting down and dirty real life, a tradition arguably first brought to mainstream consciousness in 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project,” whose ingenious marketing campaign was a predecessor to this month’s much-hyped “Cloverfield.”

In Hollywood, digital video only seems to thrive either when masked by a huge budget and state-of-the-art technology that makes it as “cinematic” as possible or as an elaborate gimmick that toys with a documentary aesthetic. But digital video is showing exciting signs of life and diversity in a market far removed from the mainstream — that of the foreign art film.

This past winter break afforded me the luxury of heading to New York’s Museum of Modern Art, where the Global Film Initiative screens films from several “countries with developing film communities” every year around this time.

Among them, “Kubrador” from the Philippines, follows three days in the life of Amy, a middle aged woman, observing her livelihood as a bet collector for an illegal lottery. The film is clearly shot on digital and tracks Amy through derelict alleyways of Manila in very long takes. The camera makes shaky, often stomach-turning movements. All of these qualities amount to the sense that you’re watching a documentary. But unlike “The Blair Witch Project” or “Cloverfield,” the fourth wall is never broken, giving “Kubrador” a much greater kinship with neorealist films.

In spite of the ugliness of its digital image, the camera still finds space to land on some beautiful compositions, like a shot of a slowly clearing sky after rain. “Kubrador” has its surreal elements too, as Amy’s dead son occasionally sneaks into frame, cueing the film’s only non-diegetic music. film’s joltingly violent, but joltingly open-ended close has little to do with the story that proceeded it but nonetheless has a heavy sense of pathos. The end is complemented by the image of an indistinct mass of people moving past Amy, their movements blurred in a way that only crappy digital cameras can seem to capture, and it hauntingly shatters the sense of real time that the film had been playing on all along.

Watching “Kubrador” reminded me of another country where film culture seems to be wholly embracing DV, mainland China. Because of its stunted movie history under Mao and the preponderance of piracy that makes theatergoing all but nonexistent, Chinese filmmakers seem to have far less loyalty to film. What’s been produced on DV in the past decade largely outside of the state system, Jia Zhangke’s films for instance, hint at the great potential DV has for other countries with emerging film cultures.

Alex is a sophomore. You can reach him at aho1@swarthmore.edu.

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