Checking in with J. Hoberman (and 21st century cinema) at the School of Visual Arts

     As last night's temperature dropped from cold to worse, I attended a lecture given by J. Hoberman at the School of Visual Arts (SVA Theatre) sponsored by the MFA Art Criticism and Writing program. Hoberman has been a film critic I've looked up to for a number of years now (both he and the late Andrew Sarris were raised in Queens), and I've tried to attend as many of his speaking events as possible. A Village Voice mainstay for thirty-five years, in-person Hoberman is modest, kind, and interested in hearing the thoughts of other impassioned cinephiles. Now writing for a plethora of outlets like The Nation, The Guardian, The New York Times, Tablet, and Artforum (as well as maintaining a Blouin ArtInfo blog), Hoberman's work is as diverse and expansive as ever before. 

     I've had friends who've had Hoberman, also an academic, as a professor at New York University, and raved about his classes. Thus, when I heard about this upcoming lecture, I knew I had to attend. Titled "Rounding the Digital Turn: CGI, Cyborg Cinema, and the New Realness," Hoberman's talk coincided with this past September's release of his new book, "Film After Film: Or, What Became of 21st Century Cinema?"

     "The death of cinema is a commonplace notion these days," Hoberman started, "but it is not my notion." And soon after: "it is abundantly clear that something has changed. What is that?" Using André Bazin's heavily invested beliefs in cinema's essence and its indexical relation to the real, Hoberman introduced a clip from Richard Linklater's early 2000s film, Waking Life (the scene describing the idea of "the holy moment"). Categorizing Waking Life as a kind of cyborg cinema, offering an alternate form of indexicality, Hoberman listed other potential cyborgian flicks – Tron, Jurassic Park, Star Wars Episode I, Andy Serkis in The Hobbit, and Marion Coitllard in Rust and Bone. Strangely enough, as humans interact with digital creatures, CGI also allows for the resurrection of dead film stars, i.e. Fred Astaire's Superbowl XXXI commercial.

     Hoberman next introduced a clip from a film released the same year as Waking Life, Mamoru Oshii's Avalon. "A form of photographic fusion," Avalon, according to Hoberman, gets at a certain aspect of videogames that is both appealing and very troubling. Taking a brief aside to bring up James Cameron's 2009  mega hit Avatar and its viewers infatuation with the non-existing planet of Pandora and its consistently stationary hero ("what is Avatar if not a model for a video game?"), Hoberman made this great point: "cinema speaks through its creators the same way language speaks through poets."

     Moving on to Lars von Trier – describing the Dogme 95 movement as sit-docs, that is situational documentaries – Hoberman noted that "the loss of indexicality has created a compensatory realness," before presenting the final scene and closing credits from Dogville. Describing the end credits as a nasty prank ("but who could possibly laugh at these indexical images of distress?"), Hoberman was clearly in favor of von Trier's bold choice, forcing the viewers to look directly at the people presented in the photographs.  Considerably less enthused, Hoberman found Brian De Palma's end credit sequence featuring redacted war photographs in Redacted to be something Dogville was not, that is, sentimental.

A more optimistic movie to add to the canon, Hoberman next introduced a clip from Pixar's Wall-E, a "post photographic" work taking place in a world echoing familiar urban destruction whether it be World War II Germany or, more recently, the site of Ground Zero. Coincidentally enough, Hoberman had originally wanted the cover of "Film After Film" to feature Wall-E standing at Ground Zero, but he knew that Disney's cutthroat, image-conscious lawyers would never allow it. Pixar's choice to use footage from "Hello Dolly" provided Wall-E with something in the film that is intrinsically real. Hoberman later mentioned that he is not a fan of Pixar films in 3D however, since the films come with an added depth as is.

Highly informative and interactive (Hoberman answered questions afterwards for all wishing to ask), the evening served as a nice jumping off point for the critic's new book. Is a sequel in the works? During the Q&A portion, Hoberman made an observation that provoked, claiming that Peter Jackson may see himself in competition with James Cameron. Is the 48 frames-per-second projection technology the future of film experience or is it just a sign of confident filmmaker oneupsmanship? The New Real may forever be in question.