Cinema as Database: An Art Form Between Old and New
In attempting to forge a definition of new media, it is tempting to simply draw it in opposition to old media. Old media is analog, while new media is digital; old media remains the same no matter the viewer, while new media is interactive; and so on and so forth. However, the line between the two forms may be less clear than such easy dichotomies suggest. By examining the difference between the narrative form and the database form, Lev Manovich’s essay “Database as a Symbolic Form” leaves open the possibility of continuities or overlaps between old media and new media; though he does note that old media tends towards the narrative while new media tends towards the database, he also notes exceptions. In fact, he dedicates the final subsection of the essay to an extended analysis of “database cinema,” focusing specifically on Dziga Vertov and Peter Greenaway. Further, he notes that cinema, though typically considered within the category of old media, actually “exists right in the intersection between database and narrative.” If cinema does indeed hold this special position between old and new forms of storytelling, it is worth noting examples of films that illuminate its unique liminality.
The most immediately relevant case study in database cinema is the director’s cut. There are many reasons why a director might want to recut their film; the most common narrative involves the renegade filmmaker whose artistic vision was compromised by uncaring studio phonies, although many director’s cuts are actually commissioned by studios as a marketing ploy to get audiences to purchase films that they may have already seen in theaters. Perhaps the earliest director’s cut was Charlie Chaplin’s 1942 re-edit of his 1925 silent feature The Gold Rush, but the practice really took off as a trend after the home video boom in the ’80s. One of the more famous examples of a film that was radically changed following its initial theatrical run, Blade Runneractually exists in three versions: the original, The Director’s Cut, and The Final Cut (the last of which is, confusingly, director Ridley Scott’s actual preferred version). Among the more significant changes made to the film included the removal of the original’s voiceover narration, as well as the studio-enforced happy ending. These alterations, materially applied to the filmic object, make explicit the implicit database-like nature of the editing process; as Manovich asserts, editing involves working from a database of existing footage, and the final product, though it takes the form of a set-in-stone narrative, is just one of many that might have been created from said database. Almost inevitably, though, the proliferation of versions does not lead to a desire from audiences to explore the various options presented to them, as one might do while searching through a database. Rather, most only want to find out what the “right” version is; a cursory Google search of “Blade Runner different cuts” links to five different articles discussing which cut to watch. In that sense, though the director’s cut theoretically encourages a more progressive view of the art form as a bridge between new and old media, methods of consuming it remain tied to the ways of the old.
Though perhaps less explicit in its illustration of cinema as database, the recent Netflix release The Other Side of the Wind also provides a fascinating case study for some of the concepts Manovich introduces in his essay. One of the central ways in which Manovich differentiates the database from the narrative is through the concepts of the syntagm and the paradigm. In semiotics, the syntagm refers to a specific ordering of signs, while the paradigm refers to the set of possible signs from which each individual sign is chosen. Manovich posits that in traditional narrative works, the syntagm is explicit, while the paradigm is implicit; in other words, there is a set order in which shots and scenes are placed, but the viewer can intuit ways in which those elements might have been changed or rearranged. New media, then, flips that dynamic, so that the paradigm, the set of choices from which a story can be constructed, is forefronted. The Other Side of the Wind similarly forefronts the paradigm, though knowledge of the film’s unusual production is essential to that understanding. Shot in the mid-70s, the film was still in the process of being completed when its director, Orson Welles, died in 1985. Nearly 30 years later, a group of producers purchased the rights and brought in a number of editors and consultants to finish the film based on extensive notes left by Welles; however, Welles was a notoriously capricious artist, so there is no knowing what changes he would have made to his plan had he actually been involved in the entire editing process. Thus, while the final film is credited to Welles, and all the footage was shot by Welles, the majority of the scene-to-scene construction is not his doing. In other words, it is a work based off a Wellesian paradigm, even though the man himself had almost nothing to do with its syntagm (you can read more about the unique story behind The Other Side of the Wind here). Here, the new media potential of what is otherwise a traditional feature film, with only one version available for public consumption, is expressed through the question of authorship.
A more recent example of re-editing also suggests the possible futures of cinema as database. Terrence Malick has been no stranger to the director’s cut; when boutique DVD label The Criterion Collection released his film The New World, three different versions were included, per Malick’s instructions. When Criterion approached him about releasing The Tree of Life, though, he had an even more ambitious idea: every time the DVD was played, a different version of the film would be generated at random. That plan was eventually abandoned, likely because the technology required to achieve it simply does not exist. Instead, an extended cut was created from previously unused footage, including one entire reel’s worth of material, and they essentially created an entirely new film, if still made up of the same basic elements (a family in 1950s Texas, a stern father, an idealized mother, etc). In opposition to most director’s cuts, the goal here was not to rectify some perceived imperfection in the originally released work, or to undo the studio’s interference with the artist’s vision; Malick remains happy with the theatrical version released in 2011. However, he also felt a desire to explore what else could have been fashioned from the footage he shot, and saw an opportunity to do so. Perhaps more directors will follow his lead and explore the possibilities of building their films like databases, with multiple versions existing simply for the pleasure of those who are interested.
