A theoretical overview on the expression of time in digital cinema

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to present and discuss different theoretical perspectives, such as Steven Shaviro’s post-cinematic and Steven Steward’s postfilmic, in a search to better understand the consequences of digital technology to film image and narratology. Its hypothesis is that contemporary fiction time might be a prolongation and an effect of the postmodern condition, unfolding in a sense of continuous presentness through the lack of actual movement and materiality of the digital form. More specifically, I combine what the contemporary theoretical debate has to offer on the issue of the index film, or its lack.