Digital Realism

In this chapter, I acknowledge that a study of the digital image would not be complete without a discussion of realism. The widespread concern about whether to trust digital images is tied up, for many art and media theorists, with particular accounts of realism (e.g., Rodowick 2007). The notion of realism is a complex one, and this chapter provides some important theoretical background on one central kind; namely, the kind had by traditional photographs. This prepares the way for a discussion of digital “photorealism” as it is derived from traditional “photographic realism.” Through an analysis of “live-action animated” films, I develop an account of photorealism and its effect on the viewer’s experience of the composite—i.e., part recorded, part computer-generated—shot.

Hearing the Shadows at the Chat Noir’s Pre-cinematic Theatre

In the methodological introduction to his book Silent Film Sound (2004), Rick Altman focused his attention on “the extremely diverse pre-cinema practices that served as early models for film sound.” The aim of this chapter is to closely examine one such practice: that of the Chat Noir’s Shadow Theatre between 1886 and 1897. The first part of the chapter analyzes the different kinds of music that were used to accompany the shadow plays at the Parisian cabaret. The latter part focuses on the reconfiguration of the shadow plays after the closure of the Chat Noir cabaret (1897), exploring how Maison Mazo transformed the Chat Noir’s “ombres artistiques” into a mediatized and industrial production, while also promoting their artistic character in opposition to cinema’s photographic realism.