The Cyberfilm: Hollywood and Computer Technology

Abstract

This article concerns the relation between technology’s use and its portrayal in cinema. Cinema serves not only as the paradigm for 20th century visual media like television, video games, and the Internet, but also proves to be an “absorbing” technology—quickly assimilating or adopting competing entertainment sources through innovations and integrations such as sound, color, and widescreen. Thus, any study examining cinematic invention may be instructive for other contemporary media. In general though, scholars have treated the history of Žlmic technology as a matter of simple chronology. Film history becomes the assigning of dates to technical introductions. While this historical approach establishes a teleology of technical invention and “progress,” it obscures alternative practices. In effect, such a historical approach assumes a homogenous usage of new media technologies. Instead, I want to suggest that for every technical innovation in cinema there exists another history; a history showing an alternative, even critical, usage of new technology. This history can be pinpointed in speciŽc Žlm texts, especially those texts caught in the increasingly short period after a technology’s initial introduction but prior to its standardization. Ultimately, this article serves as part of a larger project: to show that Hollywood follows a speciŽc, recurring pattern of technological integration and this pattern supports certain ideological positions. In this article, however, I want to examine a recent technological introduction: computers. Beginning in the early 1990s, Hollywood openly embraced the computer industry. Under the buzzword “convergence,” studios integrated computerbased special effects Žrms into their production hierarchy. Moreover, wanting to secure a comfortable position in future entertainment proŽt centers, studios “re-purposed” feature Žlm material by diversifying into multimedia CD-ROMS and Internet computer software ventures. Soon, Hollywood talent agents like Creative Artist Agency’s Robert Kavner specialized in the delicate art of brokering deals between nerdy Silicon Valley programmers and Hollywood studio sharks. By mid-decade, the mixture of Hollywood’s increasing computerization, the introduction of virtual reality entertainment, and the Internet explosion all combined with studio executives’ “lemming” mentality and eventually spilled