The wondrous variety of technological apparatus from the birth of cinema itself has always presented an opportunity to share stories, occasions and events with others. However, films for a long time were very much like the precious memories stored in the brains of humans; they possessed a physical form that was subject to damage and destruction.
Photographs were once like this too; after taking the picture, the hardcopy print is remarkable in the sense that it captures a single moment that has been frozen and caught as an image but, they were not preserved as these too could fade, tear and be lost forever. Today, this problem of impermanence is much less of an issue. Thanks to continuous improvements in technology, films as well as many other forms of data can be digitalised. Once it finds its way onto the internet, is saved in a storage system such as the Cloud or is even sent as an email attachment, it can be incredibly hard and even next to impossible to delete a specific piece of data from existence. In a digital form, to an extent, it retains its quality and is definitely free from ageing and natural exposure present in the physical world. Due to this, regardless of what a film is made for or about, it can function as an archive or perhaps an inorganic memory for a mass audience. Alexander Sokurov in his 2002 historical drama film, Russian Ark provides people of the present and also of the future to come with the opportunity to see first-hand what occurred in 300 year old history of Russia's Winter Palace. Remarkably, this experience occurs all in under two hours! Matt Reaves in his 2008 American found footage monster horror film, Cloverfield emphasises the importance of film technology and its great power to capture essential moments in history, even when used unprofessionally on an amateur level.
Films can capture events from the world 'accurately' but are always to an extent shaped by the personal bias and taste of the filmmaker. According to Rosenstone, the history film and the historical film are completely separate genres. The history film is a "dramatic motion picture that focuses on verifiable people, events and movements set in the past" while the historical film "can refer to any important film that has been made in the past." He uses an interesting example of the Orwell's Citizen Kane which can easily fit into both categories as it is historically significant and it represents a person who was the Rupert Murdoch of their time (Rosenstone,R. (2015)). Russian Arc does this too as the man dressed in black who we follow through the palace is representative of The Marquis de Custine, a French aristocrat and writer who had written a travel book recording his feelings and opinions as he experienced being in Russia. He regarded them as a half-European an uncivilised country with many reasons to be shamed and scorned by the rest of the world. Kennan in his writing about the Custine and his book highlighted that many influential European's saw Custine's visit as an opportunity to gain insight into Russia's affairs however he noted that "they must have been frightened by the results of their efforts; for the picture came out in colours obviously more lucid and dangerous than anything they had intended."(Kennan, G. (1971)) This film does not however completely focus on Custine's attitude and views as while watching the film, we are also provided with the voice of a Russian man who is implied to be a ghost. We do not see him but, his differing knowledge and cultural context allows him to question, debate and discuss what we see on screen with the Custine. If we were only to see the palace with the man in black's commentary, our understanding and appreciation for each scene space would be dramatically different. Perhaps the Russian man is the voice of Alexander Sokurov himself as he reflects on his own country's history and the negative attitudes of visiting foreigners.
So how exactly does this production function as a crystallised memory is it of the past of the present in which it was made? While Russian Arc appears to capture a 300 year old history in less than one hour, it is a representation containing materials and visuals based on the director's preferences, opinions and ideas of what were the most important, iconic, interesting or just aesthetically pleasing segments of the period. The fact that it does not literally provide a portal for the viewers to see the true moments as they occurred in history is essential to note when categorically assessing it as a historical source. However, though it does not provide primary information, it is an excellent secondary source and in many ways a true memory. While it is tainted with practices of selection and emphasis, it is still very significant as a text which contributes to understanding the period as it provides a fresh perspective that can not only be read but dramatised on location. This gives the viewing experience an intimate and almost tour group feeling. Even though it does not 'remember' the entire 300 year history of the palace, the film itself as a personal reflection of the past and the world it creates will be remembered and preserved for audiences to access for the coming in many years to come.
Now, when it comes to what is better, does the human eye or the camera lens triumph? In both films Russian Arc and Cloverfield, the audience watches and experiences it seemingly as an unbroken and uninterrupted long take without any cuts. Rombes discusses the human experience of the long take as not physically possible because of our natural need to blink our eyes. Even if there are no cuts in the film, blinking acts as an edit or a cut and every time we do, we miss a number of frames. He concludes that "There is no long take for the viewer, only fragments of a long take interrupted by the act of blinking, just as sleeping interrupts or pauses our conscious absorption and processing of real-time reality". Thus, just as humans cannot watch and experience a moment as a constant stream like a camera can, we also cannot even watch a long take truly as a long take (Rombes, N. (2009)). In Cloverfield, the use of the ever watching camera completely differs from the unobserved, inconspicuous and almost levitating appearance of lens in Russian Arc. Instead, it looks completely unprofessional, spontaneous and rough as it uses a "found footage" camera style. Instead of attempting to become the surrogate eyes for the audience by removing all traces of the technological apparatus, this camera technique makes the apparatus, equipment and the fact it is being filmed very apparent in order to create a sense of realism. Sometimes realism becomes hyper real and in turn, obviously a creation when it is filmed utilising the latest special effects and camera techniques. A film with a similar narrative to Cloverfield that is shot in this way was War of the Worlds (2005), starring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. While it was indeed immersive and emotionally gripping, it lost any chance of being perceived as 'real' due to its style alone. The fact that Cloverfield looks like anyone could have shot it and that it uses very familiar and easily accessible equipment that has probably been used by many of the audience members themselves. This close proximity to the apparatus that was used forges a connection to the narrative itself and increases the film’s chance to induce fear as it seems very 'close to home.'
While the narrative focuses on a terrifying and extraordinary monster disaster, it also expresses the value of all technological apparatus that has filming abilities. The film starts by showing a fragment of a video recording of Rob and Beth when they were a couple. In the later party scene, Rob asks the camera man Hud, if he had replaced the tape before filming because there was a tape inside that he made and wanted. When Hud doesn’t know, he dismisses it as unimportant but it clearly was when we find out he and Beth are separated but both retain feelings for one another. While nothing extraordinary happens, the casual and natural nature of the scene makes it a special memory of their loving relationship. Even after breaking up, having and preserving it as a film in a way kept it alive. When the catastrophe becomes apparent and the Hud continues to film what is happening, Rob asks him if he was still filming and he responds by saying “people are going to want to know how it all went down.” When Rob tells him he could just tell people Hud insists that that would not “work” and that what was happening needed to be seen by others. Regardless of whether he had any camera experience, by filming what was going on, he was able to record and preserve those moments for people of the future to watch. Due to the extraordinary nature of the circumstances, it needs to be seen not only to be believed but also to be remembered. Even when the group is attacked directly, such as in the train tunnel scene, Hus continues to hold up the camera and does his best to show as much as he can. He definitely cannot see everything, the monster is not fully shown until the very end but this is ultimately very good as it is more realistic. According to Pomerance, “Occasional jiggling of the camera can also aid in suggesting a situation which is so overwhelming as to disengage the cameraman from secure footing, a “real world”, not fiction…” (Murray, P. (2013)) In this sense the unstable shooting looks as if it has been caused by the catastrophic circumstances that surround the person filming.
The importance of the camera itself is clearly emphasised in the end of the film after the cameraman has died. Rob and Beth are hiding from the beast and alone with the video camera. Without much thought, they film themselves stating their names, a summary of what was happening and their current thoughts and feelings. Beth, who is in a strong state of terror, tells Rob that she doesn't know what to say. Robs tells her to just tell it “who you are”. Here, they use the camera not just a documenting device but to leave part of themselves behind for someone else to find. When they drop the camera when the creature comes, it still continues to film what happens for the next few moments. This may signify that cameras will always be watching even without a human attendee and possibly that the technology that watches people will outlive them and continue to keep valuable data that can eventually be viewed by others. At the beginning of the film, it is indicated that this tape goes to the government and becomes important evidence of this unique tragedy. What began as a home film became a work of international importance. In this sense, just like how citizen journalism footage taken in the middle of riots or wars can become very important primary sources, as can anything that is filmed.
In conclusion, Alexander Sokurov's Russian Arc and Matt Reaves' Cloverfield both effectively exemplify how the technological apparatus in the film industry has the ability to function as an inorganic memory. It can aid memory collection and, thanks to the growing digitalisation of data, can preserve it for years and millions of audience members to come. Due to the unblinking eye of the camera, cinematic apparatus surpasses the ability of the human eye. It has the power to capture and represent the unexplainable, the impossible and the incommunicable when using spoken or written words or writing. They say a picture is worth a thousand words; one second in a film contains at least twenty image frames.
References
Pomerance, Murray, The Eyes Have It: Cinema and the Reality Effect, Iii-Vii. Rutgers University Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy!.library,usyd.edu.au/stablej.cttt5hhx0n
Nicolas Rombes, “The Ideology of the Long Take”, in Cinema in the Digital Age (London: Wallflower Press, 2009), 148-153
George F. Kennan, The Marquis De Custine and His Russia in 1839 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971)
Robert A. Rosenstone, “Reflections on What the Filmmaker Historian Does (to History)”, in Film, History and Memory, ed. Fearghal McGarry et al. (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 183-197
Rastegar, Kamran, Surviving Images: Cinema, War, and Cultural Memory in the Middle East (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015)
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