Gaming Film

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Gaming Film
How Games Are Reshaping
Contemporary Cinema

Jasmina Kallay
© Jasmina Kallay 2013
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Contents

List of Figures vii

Introduction 1
1 Is This a Game or Is This Reality? 12
The gaming geek as hero 18
Gaming salvation 21
Games as virtual worlds 24
The final frontier 28
2 Narrative Architecture: Databases, Labyrinths
and Stories that Won’t End 32
The new cinematic categories 33
The world as the algorithm and the database 36
Database pioneers: Vertov and Greenaway 38
Database cinema: Timecode 40
The forking path: The multiverse narrative 44
The psychological puzzle film: The super-maze 47
Repeat and learn 55
Stories (and characters) that won’t end 61
3 New Spatial/Visual Configurations 66
Stylistic montage 68
Spatial montage 72
Eisenstein’s legacy 78
Global montage 82
4 Transmedia: The Film–Game Symbiosis 86
Everyone’s a filmmaker 87
This is not a game 88
Super-genre 92
5 Escapism versus Involvement 96
Cathartic flow 97
The ‘narratory principle’ of mimesis 99
Productive pathologies of the digital mind 101
The gaze/the glance/the glaze 106
The post-gendered cyborg 111
Conclusion 119

v
vi Contents

Notes 136

Bibliography 139

Filmography 149

TV-ography 152

Ludography 153

Machinima Reference 154

Index 155
List of Figures

I.1 Sucker Punch: Remediating computer games

(Snyder 2011) 8
1.1 eXistenZ: The bio-technological melding of man with
gamepod (Cronenberg 1999) 28
2.1 Inception: The dream labyrinth (Nolan 2010) 49
2.2 Memento: The body as the labyrinth (Nolan 2000) 53
3.1 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Stylistic montage
(Wright 2010) 71
3.2 Timecode: Which quadrant are you drawn to?
(Figgis 2000) 75
3.3 Crank (Neveldine and Taylor 2006) 84
4.1 Prometheus: The TED viral clip (Scott 2012) 92

vii
Introduction

Throughout history, stories have been told to describe and explain the
world around us. Discussing the rise of complex storytelling in contem-
porary cinema, Warren Buckland finds that ‘in today’s culture domi-
nated by new media, experiences are becoming increasingly ambiguous
and fragmented; correspondingly, the stories that attempt to represent
those experiences have become opaque and complex’ (2009: 1). With
the advent of interactivity, especially in relation to computer games,
digital culture is reshaping film at narrative, structural, visual and philo-
sophical levels. The aim of this book is to analyse contemporary cinema
through the prism of computer games (and, in turn, digital media),
which is still an under-explored subject matter. While Game Studies
and Digital Media Studies (and especially the early publications in these
disciplines) have frequently drawn from Film Studies in attempting to
establish the parameters of these relatively new academic fields and in
order to trace the various areas of influence, the ‘reverse’ study of these
points of intersection has not been undertaken. Yet now that both
gaming and digital media occupy such a cultural stronghold, it is not
merely timely but imperative to examine the impact of gaming – or of
the ludic – on cinema.
The main distinguishing factor between cinema and computer games
is interactivity: to put it plainly, films are watched while games are played.
But because interactivity can manifest in more subtle ways than simply
in a game’s ‘playability’, a brief definition of interactivity is required.
However, before clarifying the term ‘interactivity’, the conditions that
allow for interactivity to take place need to be introduced. Influential
digital theorist Lev Manovich identifies five properties of digital media
that enable interactivity: numerical representation; modularity; automation;
variability; transcoding (2001a: 27–48). Every and any new media object
1
2 Gaming Film

(which Manovich uses as a broad term that can apply to a digital text,
image, video, a website, and so on) is defined by all of the five properties.
The first property is instrumental in the conversion of old media
into becoming digitized. This numerical basis allows the object to be
programmed by way of algorithms, and it also means that a new media
object (NMO) can be broken into discrete units. These are modular,
meaning they can be manipulated, altered, added or deleted without
affecting the NMO as a whole. Automation simplifies the operation of
the NMO, so that a regular user does not need to have knowledge of the
programming code. Browsing a search engine (i.e. googling by way of
inputting a single search word) is one example of digital automation,
whereby the underlying programming ensures the search is completed
for us. Variability means that an NMO can and in many cases will
continue to change. A newspaper website, for instance, is modified con-
tinuously, through news updates and user comments. Or, websites like
Amazon will respond to our searches, and reconfigure their homepage
to cater to an individual user’s specific tastes. The properties listed so far
can also be read as a signifier of socio-economic changes at a larger scale:

[I]f the logic of old media corresponded to the logic of industrial mass
society, the logic of new media fits the logic of the postindustrial
society, which values individuality over conformity. (Manovich
2001a: 45)

This application of computer logic to a wider, cultural level neatly

encapsulates the last property, that of transcoding, or the reinterpret-
ing of what Manovich terms the cultural layer through the computer
layer (2001a: 46). The act of transcoding, therefore, surpasses the
purely technological processes and opens up a more philosophical
terrain.
Whereas there are no points of contention regarding these basic
properties of computer technology, which, combined, enable
interactivity to occur, what interactivity entails and how to define it
has prompted a multitude of theoretical responses, the most influential
of which will be outlined here. As a concept, interactivity is on the one
hand a tautology, according to Manovich, as it is a self-evident aspect
and ‘simply means stating the most basic fact about computers’ (2001a:
55). On the other hand, as Marie-Laure Ryan points out, interactivity
is not a ‘phenomenon made possible by computer technology’ (2001:
204), but is a characteristic that predates print and was extinguished,
to an extent, by the advent of print, when face-to-face storytelling
 Introduction 3

decreased. In fact, we can go back as far as antiquity in the quest for

the first interactive narratives. Janet Murray identifies the oral bards as
holding the mantle of the first interactive storytellers, narrating their
epics as a loose one-man version of the Choose Your Own Adventure
series of books. Depending on the audience type and response, the
bard might alter or rearrange certain parts of the story at various
branching points (i.e. more blood and gore and fighting passages for a
predominantly male audience, and a greater emphasis on romance for
a more female audience), or the changes could even come down to the
bard’s memory (memorisation of the lines would be based on rhythm,
alliteration or assonance rather than being narrative-based) (1997:
188–195). The point being, these oral tales were fluid and constantly
changing. Moving on to the print age, the notion of interactivity shifts
to a more metaphorical take. According to the reader-response school of
thought, any reading is in and of itself an interactive process. The reader
engages with the fictional world on the page and is an active co-creator
of that world in his/her imagination, meaning that the one same text
will be experienced differently by different readers. Zimmerman classi-
fies this as cognitive or interpretive interactivity, and explains it as being
a psychological and emotional kind of interactivity as opposed to,
say, the functional type of interactivity which relates to the physical
experience of the reading (i.e. the size of the book, the effect of the font,
the layout and chapter organisation, etc.) (2004: 158). Reverberations of
the reader-response theory can be found in Film Studies, although with
less of an impact than within Literary Studies where reader-response
criticism has now become reader-oriented criticism, and is a prolific
academic field, with new interpretive communities being researched,
such as the differences between genders, different sexual orientations
or political stances, etc. In cinema there is a widely held view that it ‘is
assumed that film viewers are passive and allow the cinematic experi-
ence to overwhelm their receptive faculties’ (Brown and Krzywinska
2009: 92–93). There are counter-arguments to this perceived passivity,
such as Bazin’s theory of deep focus, which argues a degree of agency
on the viewer’s behalf when presented with a scene shot in deep focus:
the viewer can choose which part of the frame to focus their attention
on, however, this technique in most cases still only creates an illusion
of engagement.
Rather than obfuscate the subject matter with figurative interpreta-
tions of what interactivity entails, I will be primarily referring to Janet
Murray’s definition of interactivity in the context of digital media.
For a work to be interactive, according to Murray, it needs to provide
4 Gaming Film

agency, be immersive and be transformational (1997: 97–182). Murray

makes an important distinction in what she understands to be agency
by emphasising that it is not just any action that leads to agency (i.e.
the clicking of the mouse or manipulation of the joystick) but rather
it is meaningful action which carries consequences at the narrative
level that leads to true agency. So, for instance, any interactive action
that would fall into the functional category, such as manipulating the
computer’s (or even TV’s) interface does not automatically constitute
meaningful interaction that will yield any narrative satisfaction.
Similarly to the way the reader-response theory treats interactivity,
immersion has also been used as a figurative descriptor for the state of
enjoyment of a novel or a film – indicating a deep engrossment that
involves a mental leap from the real world into the fictional. Yet immer-
sion in the context of digital interactivity is a state that is augmented by
additional perceptive and cognitive states. Pointing out the differences
between ludic and narrative immersion, Ryan finds that ‘(w)hereas
ludic immersion presupposes a physically active participant, narrative
immersion is an engagement of the imagination in the construction
and contemplation of a storyworld that relies on purely mental activity’
(2009a: 54). For example, we don’t metaphorically navigate a digital
space – playing a computer game means actual navigation through the
game’s interactive space, at least from the point of view of engaging
with the game space via computer operation. It is of note that it is for
their immersive qualities that computer games tend to be criticised;
the dominant view being that gamers cannot distinguish between
reality and the game world, which in turn poses a threat to society
should that gamer perform in real life the same violent actions they
freely engage in within the game. Murray divides the last of the three
aspects of interactivity – transformation – into three further categories:
taking on an avatar persona; personal transformation; variability. The
first transformative act is the assumption of another identity, such as
an avatar in a computer game or virtual world, but it can also refer to an
alias when chatting online. Personal transformation implies a distinct
change as a result of the interaction, and variability has already been
explained above, as ever changing content.
Computer games, in spite of their commercial dominance as
entertainment products, still suffer a great deal of prejudice, especially
when compared to other entertainment formats, such as film, and are
yet to be considered on a par, at least in cultural/artistic terms. Gaming
theorist Barry Atkins astutely points out that ‘(T)he “realistic” violence
of the opening Normandy landing sequence of the film Saving Private
 Introduction 5

Ryan (1998) was critically praised: the “realism” of first-person shooting

games is often subject to condemnation and potential censorship’ (2003:
22). So it would appear that violence is accepted at a comforting fic-
tional remove, or within a certain medium and genre, but not when it is
enacted through an avatar, in the medium of computer games. However,
it should not be so surprising to find such double standards when a new
medium is still in its infancy.
In the early 1600s, a Spanish gentleman going by the name of Don
Quixote of La Mancha, wearing an old suit of armour, takes off on his
skinny horse to fight imaginary enemies after reading too many chiv-
alric novels. But what does this famous literary hero have to do with
computer games and film? Janet Murray’s evocation of Cervantes’s Don
Quixote in Hamlet on the Holodeck (1997: 97) is a sage reminder that we
have not changed all that much in our fear and suspicion of anything
new. To recap the Spanish ur-geek’s story – here is a man who has gone
crazy from reading too many books, his brain so addled that he can no
longer tell fiction and reality apart. Murray situates this psychological
deviation within the times of the novel: the Gutenberg printing press
had not long been invented, and the printed word was the medium
about to change the world. Yet, faced with something new, that chal-
lenged the old world order, people’s first and natural reaction was a
mixture of fear, distrust and ignorance. After all, in the medieval com-
munal way of living it was not the norm to ensconce yourself on your
own, with just a book for company for hours on end, as the maligned
Don Quixote had. His madness was a parable – you, too, could go mad
if you read too much.
With the arrival of the computer, an even more insidious kind of
entry into different worlds than in Don Quixote’s day was introduced;
the potential fragmentation of selves in multiple different online guises
seems to be even more open to madness. Murray identifies the sensory
quality of the new media as posing the greatest threat to the naysayers,
with print now seen as unthreatening due to its non-sensory nature (the
tactile quality of turning pages doesn’t really count) (1997: 21). While it
could be argued that we are now well into the digital era, and the pro-
liferation of computers positions us beyond the equivalent of the
immediate aftermath of the Gutenberg press, distrust of the effects of
computers as well as computer games has persisted. If anything, it was
the ubiquity of the computer in our homes and everyday lives that
initially set off alarm bells. Our growing reliance on the Internet for
professional, social, sexual and/or entertainment needs suggests we are,
indeed, slowly retreating from the real into the virtual.
6 Gaming Film

Cinema has been at the forefront of representing this fear, with

films about the dangers of the virtual domain proliferating over the
past couple of decades. Yet this initial stance is ironic in light of film
now becoming almost entirely digital, which means that such negative
portrayals amount to self-abnegation. It is worth remembering,
though, that before the fear of the mind-blowing sensory overload
of the virtual domain appeared, the first fear to dominate cinematic
storylines was that of human redundancy in the industrial era. In
cinema and TV, sci-fi has always been the primary genre for exorcising
these mass anxieties, with the fear of the robot/machine spelling the
end of mankind and/or rendering man defunct in its efficiency being
at the fore. As early as Fritz Lang’s Industrial-age reflective Metropolis
(1927) we have the factory workers’ fear of being replaced by the
almighty machine. (The robot Maria, incidentally, epitomises not
only a fear of technology but also of women workers.) The theme
of man’s vulnerability vis-à-vis the powerful computer that can
perform all tasks better and faster is a familiar sci-fi narrative trope,
with Kubrick’s computer Hal in 2001: Space Odyssey (1968) reaching
Machiavellian heights of manipulation. What is of particular note in
this dramatisation of a dangerous homicidal computer is that at the
same time as vilifying it, there is a parallel need to anthropomorphise
the computer, to endow it with emotions, memories and fear: Hal
literally says ‘I’m afraid’ as well as ‘comforting’ himself with fond
memories of his ‘childhood’ (implanted into his initial start-up
program) as his demise nears. Even though perverse and infantile
in equal measure, this characterisation device indicates a need
to overcome the paralysing fear through sympathising with the
inanimate computer. This anthropomorphic impulse reaches its
nadir in what was also supposed to have been a Kubrick project,
the Spielberg-directed AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001). By choosing
a child as the robot and programming the boy with an ability to
love, or at least a semblance of being able to feel, the sentimental
portrayal represents a step closer to identifying with the robot as
opposed to fearing it. And with I, Robot (2004) we get Sonny, a robot
who, while appearing to be a murderer, ends up being a positive
force and embodying that oxymoron – a free-thinking robot (in the
steps of StarTrek’s Data), as well as no longer feared. In Chapter 1
I will explore the evolving attitudes towards computers and computer
games as evidenced in cinematic narratives; after a long-prevailing
negative perspective we are beginning to witness narrative choices
that suggest a less fearful approach. The significance of such shifts is
 Introduction 7

that they are reflective of deeper socio-cultural views and are there-
fore indicative of a society’s value system and how it is changing.
Moving away from how games are portrayed in cinematic stories,
Chapter 2 will examine how gaming has impacted film at a structural
level. The Aristotelian concept of drama, or rather the Aristotelian para-
digm of the three-act structure, has been the touchstone of Hollywood
screenwriting for decades, with Syd Field as the most prominent cham-
pion of the classical approach.1 Part of Field’s immense success is the
simplicity of his approach and the paring down of Aristotelian rules to
an easily grasped narrative formula. Within Act I there is the Inciting
Incident, occurring roughly within the first 15 pages, which kick-starts
the plot. Each act consists of key dramatic moments, or in Field’s parlance,
‘plot points’, which change the course of narrative direction and generate
further complications for the protagonist who is driven by a want and
a need (usually represented by two different things, generating further
conflict), and midway through Act III the climax occurs. Alongside Field,
Robert McKee’s Story and Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey (an
adaptation of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth as described in The Hero’s
Journey) dominate mainstream screenwriting practices, and are equally
rooted in a classical approach to narrative. What is interesting is that
within practical manuals on computer game design and interactive
storytelling one finds a surprisingly high number of references to the
three-act structure as providing the narrative basis for a wide range of
interactive narrative formats (Miller 2008; Sheldon 2004). There are, of
course, key differences in how the classical canon is appropriated. For
instance, in a computer game, the equivalent of the first act is often
reduced to the opening non-interactive cutscene containing the inciting
incident, which launches the action in the necessary direction. The second
act, which consists of the complication, is stretched and forms most of
the game’s narrative/gameplay body; and, instead of swiftly progressing
to resolution by the third act, the gamer will repeat several stages of the
second act until the end goal is reached, thus completely changing the
original temporal ratio of the acts. As for Vogler’s 12-step hero’s journey,
which also follows the same narrative rhythm of the three-act structure
(with the 12 steps easily conforming to Field’s paradigm), this model
is also a natural fit for games in terms of the action-adventure gaming
prerogatives of following a quest/goal/mission, during the course of
which the gamer meets with friends and foes and has to engage in fights
and work out smaller puzzles/tasks. But beyond these overarching dra-
matic structural points in common, computer games are also marked by
unique structural elements of their own, which film is gradually absorbing
8 Gaming Film

and exhibiting in reimagined ways, even if the gaming source is not being
acknowledged. Chapter 2 will seek to redress that omission.
If the structural impact of gaming remains on the subtle side, the
next point of intersecting between cinema and games is of a more
immediate and apparent nature. Chapter 3 looks at the aesthetic of
computer games and its influence on cinema. Many films nowadays
bear a striking resemblance to games: the slow-motion combat scenes
and side-on camera angles in The Matrix (1999); the first-person point of
view (POV) in Cloverfield (2008); Bruce Wayne’s speeding Lamborghini
in The Dark Knight (2008) mirroring the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) player’s
viewpoint; ditto with Crank (2006), which also mimics the GTA games;
Sucker Punch (2011) appears as a cross between American McGee’s Alice
(a twisted, Gothic interpretation of Alice in Wonderland) and Final Fantasy
(see Figure I.1.); the snow-bound compound infiltration sequence in
Inception (2010) is reminiscent of the Splinter Cell games as well as Metal
Gear Solid. There are many more examples, but in my view, these are just
superficial manifestations of similarity, and the more revealing visual
influence is taking place in the application of multiple screens and win-
dows, which are increasingly becoming a visual norm within cinema.
There is an argument that multiple screens are not necessarily a new
visual mode but a return (albeit, in a reimagined way) of a style that
‘did not disappear completely in the twentieth century, but rather,
like animation, came to be delegated to a minor form of Western
culture – comics’ (Manovich 2001a: 323). Or, as Bolter and Grusin
argue regarding new technology, it ‘define(s) itself in relation to earlier
technologies of representation’ (2000: 28), so it is about recognising
this perpetual ongoing dialogue. The lineage of the choice to present

Figure I.1 Sucker Punch: Remediating computer games

 Introduction 9

story as multiple narrative events contained within the one space can,
in effect, be traced beyond comics, going further back within Western
art history to Alberti’s 15th-century disquisition on pictorial perspective
Della Pittura. Alberti’s analysis of the space between the spectator and
the painting as well as the space within the painting produced what
is known as ‘Alberti’s window’. Alberti’s window refers to the painting
as the ‘window on to a world of representation’ (Bolter and Grusin
2000: 251), whereby the distance at which the spectator observes the
painting is clearly delineated. Following Alberti’s lessons in perspective,
art evolved in its representation of spatial perspectives. Manovich
reminds us that the Renaissance and Baroque painters frequently
painted narratively rich canvasses which contained several events,
characters and stories, yet were viewable with the one glance (2001a:
322). Breughel’s ‘Netherlandish Proverbs’ is one such example, with
over 140 proverbs narrativised within the painting. The Renaissance, in
turn, is noteworthy for its frescoes, whereby the cumulative effect of the
painted ‘panels’ formed an artistic, narrative sequence, in a manner not
all that dissimilar to the comic book pictorial organisation.
Cinema continued this quest for ever more immersive visual
experiences that transcended the singular screen/window. Mimicking
the 18th-century Panorama, which utilised the curved surface upon
which 360-degree images were depicted, Abel Gance presented segments
of Napoléon (1927) on three screens. Similar attempts at actively breaking
the confines of the ‘window’ also predate cinema: in the 15th cen-
tury the artist Mantegna painted a protruding foot ‘as if crossing from
one space to another and, elsewhere, in depicting a head and an elbow
protruding through a window as if bridging the physical and the virtual’
(Lister et al. 2009: 116–117). By employing this technique, the artist was
seeking ways of foreshortening the distance between the spectator and
the object of observation. An echo of this desire for the virtual to cross
over and manifest into the physical can be detected in works such as
Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), where the screen charac-
ter Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) steps out of the black-and-white film, over
the frame of the cinema screen, and into the cinema auditorium to
escape the stifling bounds of his celluloid existence with ardent film
fan and housewife Cecilia (Mia Farrow). Experimental films have also
used the split-screen technique, although frequently their efforts are
non-narrative, for example Warhol’s Chelsea Girls (1966) or Rybzcynski’s
New Book (1975). However, in order to identify widespread cinematic
trends, the aim is to focus on works that are accessible, widely viewed
and, if not wholly commercial, then at least at the commercial end
10 Gaming Film

of the arthouse scale. What this lineage of breaking the single frame
shows is not so much a direct line of influence taking place, but rather
a natural desire to break out of the confines of a single frame, with
digital technology finally giving free reign to such impulses; and so it
is the specifics of the computer and gaming screens rather than their
predecessors that will be explored in Chapter 3 in order to glean the
new stylistic and montage aspects appearing in cinema.
In Chapter 4 I will be looking at the way in which games and
films co-exist with each other. Theorists Bolter and Grusin go as far
as regarding computer games such as Myst, Doom and The Last Express
as remediating cinema, but this view is an over-simplification of
both categories. Adaptations have been proliferating at both ends.
Games are being turned into film, from Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) to
the more recent Wreck-It Ralph (2012) and vice versa, from The Godfather
series to the numerous Bond franchise games. And there is even a
game called The Movies, which allows gamers to become filmmakers!
However, by looking at the various adaptations, it struck me that the
limitations that each ‘conversion’ brought to light were reiterations of
concerns found in studies on adaptations in general, and therefore such
findings would be neither new nor revealing. Instead, I realised that the
more interesting area of study was the manner in which film and the
computer game could inhabit the same narrative world within transme-
dia, the multi-platform mode of gathering and distributing a multitude
of narrative content, both interactive and non-interactive. What makes
transmedia all the more ripe for research is that it allows for interactive
fan contributions, too, marking it as a key threshold in the manner in
which we consume cinematic and other entertainment.
Given all the levels at which the gaming influence is being exerted,
it therefore follows that the modes of viewership will be affected, too.
Reflecting on the social and ideological aspects of cinema, Elsaesser
sees in it a deeper function, that of ‘America’s mass media fulfilling
their historic role in adapting the working population to the social
technologies’ (2009: 33). The media’s ideological influence plays out
within the sphere of the viewer’s sense of self, or their identity, which
fuels one of the questions posed in Chapter 5; namely, whether our
identity, both personal and collective, is being changed by the ludic/
digital philosophy, and if it is, in what ways. In Life on the Screen (1996),
Sherry Turkle recognises the gap between the two terms ‘identity’ and
‘personality’ when applied to digital interactions. The ‘multiplicity,
heterogeneity, and fragmentation’ of the digital identity/ies is/are at
odds with ‘the Latin root of the word, idem, meaning “the same”’
 Introduction 11

(Turkle 1996: 185). It is personality, with its Latin root per sonae mean-
ing ‘that through which the sound comes’ (Turkle 1996: 182), that
proves a more apt term, as Turkle interprets this to mean the voice
that comes through the actor’s mask. Turkle goes on to conclude that
this ‘derivation implies that one is identified by means of a public face
distinct from some deeper essence or essences’ (1995: 182). It is from
this idea of distinctions between various personae used in both real and
virtual worlds that a psychology-led inquiry into digital identity will
begin, with particular emphasis on Lacanian thought.
The other questions in this chapter concern the modes of reception,
as well as a re-evaluation of the gendered gaze. The Freudian underpin-
ning of Mulvey’s seminal essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’
(1975) will serve as a launch pad for the probing of identification and
pleasure involved in the digital gaze, but it is through Donna Haraway’s
influential essay ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ (1985) that the ideas expounded
in Mulvey’s text will be reconsidered. Haraway’s essay sheds light on
new media identity from the perspective of the cyborgian melding of
human and machine, and in this context the blending of reality and
media will also be a point of discussion.
1
Is This a Game or Is This Reality?

The timing of John Badham’s 1983 film WarGames is significant – the

early 1980s marked the period when computers entered the home as
educational and entertainment fixtures. Up until then, the computer
was ensconced in the ‘safety’ of science labs, operated and programmed
by specialists, and cinematic examples of highly dangerous computers
only appeared within comfortingly removed contexts of spaceships
(i.e. Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey). However, with its entry into the
home, a new set of fears was ripe for tackling. In Badham’s movie, teen
protagonist David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) inadvertently sets off
a nuclear attack by logging onto what he thinks is just a simulation
computer game named ‘Global Thermonuclear War’. Except that the
computer he has hacked into in order to play the game is a military
missile-command supercomputer whose acronym WOPR stands for
War Operation Plan Response, and the game is not a game, but real.
In a sense, this is an inversion of the Don Quixote syndrome, in that
David doesn’t mistake his computer world as being real, but instead
thinks that what is real is a game, which, judging by the potential fatal
consequences in the storyline, is just as bad.
The military plot detail in the film, however, reveals another layer in
relation to computers. The opening shots of WarGames are of the US
military complex, where dozens of small and big computerised screens
are prominently in view, their controls directly hooked to the nuclear
missiles. In the 1980s the nuclear threat of the Cold War was still a wor-
rying reality, but more worrisome than the prospect of a nuclear attack
for the military is the reluctance of its various officers to react to the
command to launch the nuclear missiles. This prompts very early on in
the story a debate between the scientist McKittrick (Dabney Coleman)
and General Beringer (Barry Corbin) on the merit of taking humans out
12
 Is This a Game or Is This Reality? 13

of the command loop and letting the computer activate the missiles
instead. And even though the general has been shown the merits of
WOPR (pronounced ‘whopper’), which has apparently already ‘fought’
World War Three many times over as a simulation game, the military
commander does not trust the computer and does not want to entrust
it with such an important action.
While the distrust of replacing humans with computers repeats a
familiar trope, the fact that it is the army general who is sceptical is
paradoxical given the genesis of the computer as a primarily military
tool, with governmental purpose roots. From their very inception,
the computer and digital media in general have comprised the double
helix of the arts and sciences. More precisely, this pairing of the arts
and sciences can be traced back to the ‘iron triangle’ (also called the
‘military-industrial complex’ by Eisenhower), which was a think-tank,
funded in 1940 by F. D. Roosevelt to set up a collaborative research
network between the military, the scientists and academic researchers.
This was an unprecedented coming together of these three areas, and
although the move was war-motivated (to develop a new generation
of weaponry), this collaborative platform formed the springboard for
new media. It was while employed to serve the military that the first
computer programmers (i.e. Vannevar Bush1 and Doug Engelbart) began
to work on content that formed the basis for today’s PCs as well as the
World Wide Web. To make a crude leap, if it weren’t for the US govern-
ment’s fear of the ever lurking possible enemies, we might not have
Grand Theft Auto (1997) and the likes. The double paradox is that out
of the fear of one unknown entity (foreign enemy/nuclear bomb), the
cause of another, albeit lesser, fear was borne – that of the ‘mindless’
videogames.
Following the military complex set up in WarGames, we are intro-
duced to David playing an arcade game, which causes him to be late to
school, signalling his (skewed) priorities. The film’s opening, in terms
of the main characters and the age groups, is also indicative of a new
clash: the playful (or ludic) youth, computer savvy and not intimidated
by technology, versus the adults who equal the Establishment and find
computers disturbing. This reflects the growing disparity between the
youths’ dexterity with technology and the grown-ups’ clumsy, out-of-
step, removed relationship to that same technology. David’s disregard
for authority is further evidenced by his flippant reaction to getting
an ‘F’ in Biology. His friend Jennifer (Ally Sheedy) has also failed the
Biology paper, and David sees an opportunity to impress her: he takes
her back to his house, where he hacks into the school’s database and
14 Gaming Film

changes both their grades. Jennifer is at first appalled at such cheating,

although she later comes round to the idea. While this is preparing the
ground for David as the feckless teen who doesn’t take anything seri-
ously, there is also a likeable, playful spirit to his hacking. Furthermore,
the initial password that allows him access to the school database had
been left carelessly by the adults in the administration office, and the
word itself that serves as the password of the day – ‘pencil’ – is a tongue-
in-cheek poke at the adults’ antiquated points of reference.
The way the game is accessed is not straightforward. The first clue to
the game’s existence is a magazine ad that draws David’s attention. It
prompts him to try and hack into a computer that is close to the gaming
company, in the hope of accessing their games’ database for free. This
first level of hacking already demonstrates the kind of problem-solving
skills that gamers possess. Once he is in the database, he realises, based
on the military terms used in many of the games, that these are military
simulation games. His reaction (‘Oh my God’) indicates that he real-
ises the seriousness of hacking into such an official system, yet he still
wants in (probably more so than if it were just a commercial gaming
company) because it has now become an act of daring. Two of his geek
friends tell him to find a password – the so-called ‘back door’ which
programmers leave for themselves to retain access to whatever program
they have created after it passes into the customer’s hands. This triggers
another bout of puzzle-solving as David researches the computer scien-
tist behind the games – a Dr Falken – and tries to figure out which word
he would have picked as his password.
The password turns out to be ‘Joshua’, after Falken’s tragically
deceased young son, which accentuates the point that no matter how
computerised we get, the personal, human trace is still imprinted on
the computer code. When David accesses the computer, or Joshua as
he is called (anthropomorphising him in a similar fashion to HAL),
they interact as though the computer were a sentient being. Joshua
responds to all of David’s questions with a mix of intelligence and
cryptic humour, evoking ELIZA. Created by Joseph Weizenbaum in the
1960s, ELIZA was a computer program simulating a conversation with
supposed therapist ELIZA, a chatterbot (or chatbot) modelled on a
Rogerian psychotherapist. The ease with which people believed they
were conversing with a bona fide flesh-and-blood psychotherapist had
even shocked Weizenbaum, whose intention was to prove the very
opposite: the limitation of a computer compared to humans. It reveals
the essence behind AI-generated interactivity: the human interactor’s
conversing with the computer can never be ‘real’.2 It is simply a matter
 Is This a Game or Is This Reality? 15

of how sophisticated the AI program is in simulation of a convincing

exchange (not just verbal). The genius behind ELIZA was that it could
pass for human/intelligent simply by repeating the person’s statement
back at them as a question, in the manner adopted by therapists; but
Joshua’s level of interaction supersedes ELIZA’s by demonstrating bona
fide responses to questions.
After a few rounds of playful exchanges with Joshua, David chooses
the game with the most bombastic title – Global Nucleothermal War –
and chooses to play on the Soviet side (there are only two options for
players: the US and the Soviet Union) before picking places he wants ‘to
nuke’. His gaming has an immediate effect – the military centre goes on
red alert, thinking it is under attack. David stops the session, but what
he doesn’t realise is that Joshua can’t be simply ‘switched off’. The com-
puter automatically calls David’s telephone link back, in order to com-
plete the game. And when the disturbance David has caused reaches the
news, and he sees it, he realises what is going on. When he goes back
to Joshua, in an effort to stop it from reaching its goal (to win), and
asks it whether this is real or a game, Joshua, with its signature humour,
answers by asking its own question: What is the difference?
While David’s question is one we encounter in almost every film
about gaming, problematizing the gamer’s ability (or lack thereof) to
tell the two apart, it is Joshua’s question that holds the key to one of
the biggest paradigm shifts of the digital age: the application of the
ludic spirit to everyday situations. It also points to the blurring of the
line between the virtual and the real as we conduct an ever increasing
number of ‘real’ tasks with the aid of the virtual, more of which will be
discussed later on.
In the last act of the film, as Joshua is set to launch missiles against
Soviet Russia, even Falken, its creator, cannot control the computer any-
more, bringing us back to the initial note of suspicion and fear sounded
by General Beringer – computers are not to be entrusted with such vital
actions. But unless someone can outsmart Joshua and stop the launch
of nuclear missiles, World War Three really will start. In a race against
time, David is allowed onto the computer controls. He realises that it’s
through gaming logic that he can access Joshua and put a stop to the
program. By getting it to play a different game, tic-tac-toe, he intends
for Joshua to ‘learn’ from the futility of that game (as in the inability to
win), which proves to be the right move. By realising it is pointless to
play the game, Joshua ends the Global Thermonuclear War simulation
with the stunned conclusion that ‘the only winning move is not to
play’. Joshua ends with a proposal to David: ‘How about a nice game of
16 Gaming Film

chess?’ The political message of these two comments cannot be denied:

the point of not playing is a direct and none-too-subtle criticism of
the nuclear threats made by both sides in the Cold War, and the chess
suggestion is an irreverent dig at the game of chess one-upmanship in
which the Americans and the Soviets are engaged. Therefore, these lines
cannot be interpreted as an anti-game stance per se.
While on the surface the pro-human side appears to win over in this
climactic ending, in that it is human intervention that saves the day
over an out-of-control computer, it is not quite as simplistic as that, for
the human who saved the day is the teen hacker David. It is David’s
love of computers and knowledge of them (as well as his knowledge of
game logic) that is actually the key to him being able to reign Joshua
in; so, in a way, the ending could be perceived as being ambiguous. The
initial message – If you play computer games you could cause another
Hiroshima (only it’s not going to be in Japan this time, but in your own
back yard) – is no longer in the foreground. On the one hand, the pre-
existing order has been maintained and the establishment is once again
in control, plus the computer has been vilified as not on a par with
humans. On the other hand, Joshua’s gaming skills are celebrated, too,
and by making him the agent of rescue his skills are valued, even if not
overtly, which makes the film far more subversive than it appears to be.
It is therefore little wonder then that WarGames is hailed among the
Silicon Valley computer whizzes of today as one of the inspirational
films of their childhoods/youth. In a Wired special article in honour
of the 25th anniversary of the film, its influence on the hacker com-
munity is emphasised. This was the beginning of hacker culture and
when the first hacker convention was convened in 1993, it took the
name ‘Defcon’, after the ‘defence condition’ term used in WarGames.
The Wired article points out, however, that this film should not be
considered as solely a celebration of the hacker as hero, since it also
‘introduced the world to the peril posed by hackers’ (2008).
Released a year before WarGames, Tron features a different type of
hacker, and a different side of the iron triangle behind computer devel-
opment: the industrial angle. Not only were personal computers clearly
going to be big business, but games for the PC were perceived as a signif-
icant business opportunity, too, as reflected in the opening act of Tron,
in which we find out that director Dillinger (David Warner) has ousted
maverick programmer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) from ENCOM, a soft-
ware company, and has furthermore taken ownership of a popular game
that Flynn had created. Flynn now owns a gaming arcade, his income
paradoxically derived from the end usage of the game rather than from
 Is This a Game or Is This Reality? 17

the top, creative end. However, he is intent on proving Dillinger’s theft

and he keeps hacking into ENCOM’s system in the hope of finding
the incriminating data. Although this classifies him as a hacker, he is
not really a hacker in the same category as David Lightman. Flynn is
first and foremost a computer programmer, so he is continuing to do
what he used to do for a living, only now he is forced to do it illegally
in order to right the injustice dealt to him by Dillinger. The generational
attitude to gaming, though, is apparent in the dialogue right from the
outset. Flynn’s two colleagues Alan (Bruce Boxleitner) and Lora (Cindy
Morgan), also programmers, are dismissive of Flynn’s gaming credits,
and poke fun at his latest profession as arcade owner, likening his
behaviour to the 14-year olds he hangs out with. And correspondingly,
Flynn’s body language is much more playful and youthful compared to
Alan’s and Lora’s, even though they are all three of the same age.
The big turning plot in the film is Flynn’s attempt to log into the
system at a computer station in ENCOM itself. As he logs in, the Master
Control Program (MCP) attacks him by laser, transporting him into
the computer mainframe where he finds himself arrested and kept
imprisoned alongside various other programs, called ‘conscripts’.3 This
aggressive transportation is a literal interpretation of being ‘sucked in’
by something, such as an addictive pastime, as gaming is frequently
branded, and gives a new meaning to immersive activity. Inside the
mainframe, Flynn is now known as Clu, and looks slightly different,
wearing a different outfit, in what is an uncannily prescient depiction
of a game avatar, when at the time of the film’s making, the games of
the era were in the league of Pong, with extremely simplistic graphics.
Flynn’s appearance is now similar to that of the other conscripts – he
wears a tight, body-fitting lycra all-in-one suit, but the interesting detail
is the gladiatorial type of headwear as well as the gladiatorial touches in
the design of the suits. The clothes signal what is to come – gladiatorial
style games between the programs, governed by the same ‘survival of the
fittest’ mantra. The games involve the throwing of a discus (with laser-
like properties), and the loser is deleted into oblivion. So from painting
games as a harmless if infantile pastime within the context of Flynn’s
arcade, we get a very dark vision of gaming as a live or die environment.
Just like with WarGames, this brings up a complex set of arguments. On
the one hand, there is a message that gaming is serious (as in business),
but on the other hand, the label ‘serious’ is simultaneously branded as
dangerous and life-threatening. So whereas in WarGames the gaming
spirit is almost responsible for a nuclear disaster, ending the planet, here
the ludic impulse is a threat to Flynn’s life. Although the film’s opening
18 Gaming Film

also intimates that the MCP (which has been anthropomorphised to

appear able to conduct conversations with Dillinger) plans to take over
the Pentagon and Kremlin, and rule the world, this aspect of the story
doesn’t get emphasised. The focus remains on Flynn and his survival.
Ultimately, though, Tron does not really problematize gaming,
whether in the Ancient Rome context or that of the computerized
variety, nor does it explore the notion of hacking. At the root of
the story lies the deeper fear of computer technology as represent-
ing the possible threat of replacing humans (as discussed in the
Introduction). The MCP’s speed of advancement is underlined at the
start, when the AI-powered computer explains to Dillinger that it will
keep on learning and very soon will outsmart the entire human race,
leaving it no other option but to take over the world. The human
reaction to such development is expressed by Dr Gibbs (Barnard
Hughes), who claims that no matter how hard Dillinger may try to
get rid of those who helped build the systems, their spirit will remain
there. And so the anthropomorphised programs/conscripts become a
physical manifestation of their creators’ spirits, especially apparent
in the case of Tron (Alan’s security program), who shows heroism and
can ‘think’ for himself. At an immediate level, this characterisation
choice reflects the need for comforting storylines in which unfeeling
automatons will not end up destroying humanity and taking over.
And yet, at a deeper level this blend of computer and human ele-
ments found in the these ‘pre-avatars’ points to the possibility of a
much more evolved relationship with technology, the seed of which
no doubt inspired the presence of ‘isomorphic algorithms’ (ISOs) in
Tron: Legacy, the film’s sequel, which will be elaborated upon at the
end of this chapter.

The gaming geek as hero

Apart from its gaming-centred storyline and its impact on future

generations of hackers and programmers, the impact WarGames had on
the figure of the protagonist is just as significant, marking a change that
has been slowly taking place ever since. For David Lightman is cinema’s
first gaming geek hero. The term geek itself has had an evolution of its
own, initially referring to a circus freak (who, according to some very
detail-specific dictionary entries, bit off chicken heads), then becoming
more generic, meaning a foolish, inept, clumsy person, and finally, indi-
cating someone who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or
technical pursuits but is socially and emotionally inept. It is this clever
 Is This a Game or Is This Reality? 19

and obsessive but socially awkward persona that has become the formu-
laic depiction of film and TV geeks, traditionally relegated to a smaller
part (i.e. the person who can solve a technology-related problem for the
hero) such as the hero’s sidekick. WarGames ushered in a new spot for
the overlooked and dismissed geek, and while it still chose the boyishly
charming Matthew Broderick for David (whereas the two geek friends
who help him out conform to the stereotype geek look), it signalled the
change to come.
Some 12 years after WarGames, Hackers (1995) picked up the mantle
of the hacker hero, with significant new developments. While David
Lightman was neither socially inept nor ostracised for his computer
knowledge, he would most certainly not have been considered hip,
whereas his sidekick and love interest Jennifer can best be described as
a nice, regular girl next door. In Hackers, the protagonist Dade (Johnny
Lee Miller) is also a high-school teenager who has just moved from
Seattle (homeplace of Lightman) to New York. He befriends a group
of fellow hackers and falls for Kate (Angelina Jolie), a hacker supreme,
which is a noteworthy improvement on the female character and love
interest. The hacker group may not be the most popular kids in school,
but the gear they wear and their devil-may-care attitudes firmly place
them as the cool gang. Their quest is to stop an evil computer genius
who is planning to unleash a virus called ‘Da Vinci’, and in their
attempt to expose the nefarious computer activity of a big corporation,
they also have to outwit the Secret Service.
The disaster that forms the central plot here has not been caused by
teenage curiosity, as is suggested in WarGames, where a significant por-
tion of the blame is placed on David early on in the film. Instead, the
film’s antagonist ‘The Plague’ (Fisher Stevens) is the unequivocal villain
of the piece, albeit he is forced to modify his plan of stealing money
through his computer hacking because of the teenagers’ involvement.
The Plague also happens to be a hacker, which provides a more balanced
portrayal – there are hackers who hack for personal gain, committing
crimes, and there are hackers who hack for fun, their hacking amount-
ing to little more than pranks. Dade used to belong to the former cat-
egory, as when he was 11 he caused mayhem when he hacked into the
financial systems of Wall Street, which resulted in a court ban on him
using any electronic devices until reaching the age of 18. The fact that
he had done this hacking when he was so young signals that, although
a criminal act, this hacking was most likely a prank gone wrong. This
view is confirmed by our introduction to Dade in the present day at
the start of the film. Bored with the regular TV schedule offering, Dade
20 Gaming Film

hacks into a TV network in order to play the program of his choosing,

and later on he hacks into the school’s water sprinkling system to get
his own back on Kate. Ultimately, though, the ‘good’ hackers are also
capable of stepping up to the mark and saving the day by outwitting
The Plague. What is especially interesting is that the way the teens man-
age to save the day is by getting hackers across the world to unite in
one act of simultaneous hacking, which is an early example of crowd-
sourcing, and a positive manner of harnessing the power of the online
presence.
Hackers were thus shown as the new rebels, the new outlaws, the
new anti-establishment anti-heroes, embodying all the qualities associ-
ated with that tag. However, the casting choices for Dade and Kate still
shied away from giving us fully believable geek characters – for Miller
and Jolie were first and foremost pin-ups rather than plausible geeks.
This ambivalence towards fully embracing the geek persona continued
for a while in film. For example, Kevin Smith’s work has consistently
championed the geek (e.g. Chasing Amy, 1997), although by casting
the likes of Ben Affleck still reflected the prevailing reluctance to cast
outside of the norm for lead actors and actresses. It is not until Judd
Apatow that we have bona fide geeks in appearance as well as behaviour
in the central role of a commercial movie, with The 40-Year-Old Virgin
(2005), Knocked Up (2007) and Superbad (2007). Nobody could ascribe
matinee star looks to Steve Carrell, Seth Rogen or Michael Cera. So
the gradual shift in aspirations and values that began in the early
1980s had come full circle. The obsessive and detailed nature of
collecting comic books or Star Wars figurines thus becomes a normal
and endearing behavioural trait; the encyclopaedic knowledge of both
computer games as well as astrophysics is something to aspire to rather
than look down upon; the sexual modesty is a refreshing change from
the usual alpha male bravado.
And while TV is not the prime focus of this book, it is worth noting
that this trend is equally mirrored in TV. Interestingly, Apatow got
his big break in the business with the short-lived but cult TV series
Freaks and Geeks (US 1999–2000). The Big Bang Theory, a long-standing
ratings success, celebrates the nerd’s obsessive traits while sympathising
with the gaucheness with the opposite sex. And in Heroes (2006–2010),
Hiro (Masi Oka) is a superhero with special powers whose geeky appear-
ance doesn’t morph into a caped macho version once the special power
kicks in, à la Clark Kent/Superman, where the fantasy alter ego compen-
sates for the unappealing traits of the real self. By veering away from the
comic book dualistic character ploy, the series is placing the emphasis
 Is This a Game or Is This Reality? 21

on Hiro’s inner values rather than exhibiting a shallow concern for his
physical appearance. This, finally, is a confirmation of the inner beauty
adage so favoured by Hollywood in lip service, but so hypocritically
denied in casting choices until now. So even though the geek hero still
has his own set of challenges to overcome, ultimately, the transforma-
tion at the end is not of the physical frog-prince variety.
Apart from reflecting the digital era in which computer skills are val-
ued over other competencies, this geek-as-protagonist shift is also argu-
ably motivated from an advertising point of view: geeks form a new and
attractive demographic to target as they are solvent (their technology-
related jobs being high-paid) and open to the media. The big software
giants’ young bosses are another prime example of the rise in power and
influence of the geek in the social arena from his proverbial hermit-like
existence. And lastly, the geeks are now joining the media industry in
decision-making positions, in writing and producing content, and in
this respect they can wield the most influence by projecting their view
of the world, with themselves at the centre as the protagonist.
So where does this place the hero of yesterday, the alpha male of the
classical teen narrative? Guardian journalist John Patterson charts the
decline of the jock from perennial teen hero to antagonist, citing John
Tucker Must Die (2006) as a clear indication of the U-turn in the social
valuing of brains over brawn (Guardian, Jan 2008). Macho is now short-
hand for villain. Patterson paints an appealing if tenuous wider politi-
cal context in the fall of the jock – if George W. Bush represented the
jock extraordinaire, the pin-up of jocks, then his cringeworthy pratfalls
more than anything rang the death knell of the jock as aspirational
and beloved figure in the collective consciousness. Of course, things are
rarely this black-and-white. The geek is not likely to fully replace the
action hero, a debate that is aired in Skyfall (2012) when the new Q (Ben
Whishaw) boasts to a sceptical Bond that he can do more damage from
his laptop, while in his bedroom and still in his pyjamas, than Bond
could ever do whilst ‘in action’. Bond responds that the geeks of this
world still need someone on the terrain to pull the trigger.

Gaming salvation

While the entry of the PC into the home had initially sparked cinematic
storylines involving teens triggering consequences at a global level from
their home computer, once the presence of the computer within the
household became the norm, it was inevitable that the focus should
shift inward – as in what could the computer do at a personal, internal
22 Gaming Film

level? Nic Balthazar’s Ben X (2007) brings a very different slant on the
teen protagonist’s use of the computer and gaming to that of David
Lightman. The titular Ben (Greg Timmermans) is an autistic high-
school teen who has trouble socialising and expressing himself, only
able to feel at ease when interacting on the massive multiplayer online
role-playing game (MMORPG) he plays, called ArchLord (reminiscent of
World of Warcraft).
As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the game’s virtual universe
is Ben’s sanctuary and defence mechanism when bullies at school taunt
him; without recourse to this fantasy landscape, Ben might crumble or
self-harm. Even when Ben is away from the computer, he carries the
game world with him. For example, the mundane daily activities carry
a game-like quality for him: brushing teeth is accompanied by visuals
signalling health bar status and other add-ons that feature on a game
screen.4 What is interesting is that the character’s autism brings up an
additional dimension to the question of creating an avatar. Because Ben
is acutely aware of how different he is to others, getting his real self
ready for school is akin to the conscious creation of a game avatar (i.e.
he attempts a smile because he’s been told that’s normal, even though
it’s anything but normal to him). As he looks at himself in the mirror,
he tries out a few different expressions and looks, all while game-like
vital stats boxes/icons keep popping up, underlining the fact that the
avatar artifice is not confined to games only.
Similarly, when Ben goes to school, he perceives the scenes of
taunting through the prism of the game. Other schoolboys take on
the guise of trolls and monsters and Ben is no longer the hapless,
scared youth, but a powerful opponent. However, when the bullies
take their aggression a step too far, and publicly shame Ben by pulling
his pants down and filming the whole debacle on mobile phones,
it is technology that becomes the enemy’s consort, as via mobile
phone recordings and YouTube-type postings, Ben’s shame becomes
permanently etched, and globally broadcast. But rather than staying
on this note, which would have suggested a one-all in the ‘technology
is good’ vs ‘technology is bad’ stakes, the story takes another turn. By
staging/faking his suicide and self-broadcasting it, Ben manages to use
the same technological means as his bullies to avenge himself, and
so, ultimately, triumphs. The last scene is the one moment in which
the film backs away from the enthusiastic portrayal of virtual games
as positive forces in a teen’s developmental stage, as now that Ben has
ostensibly overcome his bullying problem, he is no longer indoors, at
his computer, but out in nature, learning to tame a horse (mimicking
 Is This a Game or Is This Reality? 23

the opening of the film, with Ben’s avatar riding a virtual horse). The
final message is thus mixed – while not vilified, games are certainly no
substitute for nature (or, reality). This last image of open green expanses
is further emphasised through the fact that the only vast, enticing,
mystical expanses we’ve witnessed up until that point in the film have
been the virtual forests and fields in ArchLord. Even so, the entry into
‘real’ nature does not take away from the healing power of games in this
story, and even though he is now outside of ArchLord, Ben is still seen
to be conversing with the girl who turns out to be an imaginary friend.
The timing of Ben X is of interest in that it was released roughly a year
after Rockstar’s controversial game Bully (2006), although it received
no such media attention as the game,5 even though in subject matter
it bore similarities to the computer game. This brings us to the double
standards still apparent in the tackling of violent subject matter in
cinema as opposed to in a computer game. The game’s main character
Jimmy (whom the gamer plays) fights his bullies with his fists rather
than relying on the inept adults who populate the game world. And
yet the game’s ultimate message isn’t pro-violence; the pranks are on a
Dennis the Menace level of schoolboy shenanigans, and the mood taps
into the misunderstood teen’s rejection of parents/adults as he starts to
learn to be self-reliant. Socialisation is encouraged within the game, as
is school attendance (reflected in the points accumulation system). The
computer game takes on the function of sublimating negative emotions
such as anger and frustration, which as a narrative device is the same
one that features in Ben X, as well as countless stories and fairy tales
that have allowed children and teenagers to process their growing pains
through a narrative alter-ego. The main difference in the case of Bully,
however, is the interactive aspect. Interactivity presupposes agency,
and with agency comes the issue of personal/moral responsibility (as in
what actions are taken and how they are justifiable) that is absent in the
perceived filmgoer’s passive stance. This is why taking part in a bullying
scenario as opposed to watching one unfold is deemed more problem-
atic and causes anxiety. This would explain the disparity between the
reaction to the game and the general reaction to the film Evil (2003),
which dealt with violent behaviour and extreme bullying in a private
boarding school where, similarly to Bully, adults do not provide any
positive roles and the hero must assimilate the aggressive traits of his
tormentors. The film was nominated for an Oscar in the foreign film
category, but apart from this fact, didn’t cause ripples.
The taboo placed upon computer games in terms of their impact on
teenagers, perceived by society as a vulnerable and easy target, is not
24 Gaming Film

necessarily new, though, and is most certainly not a new taboo. The
urge (whether by parents or educators and the Establishment) to protect
and guard against undesirable influences on teenagers has led to a series
of social taboos in relation to narrative and its influences. In response to
a censoring trend of fairy tales and comics that spread from the 1950s,
it was the psychologist Bruno Bettelheim who most ardently defended
violent and, to some, unpalatably gruesome storylines for their benefi-
cial quality in the development of a young mind:

[…] the prevalent parental belief is that a child must be diverted from
what troubles him most: his formless, nameless anxieties, and his
chaotic, angry, and even violent fantasies. Many parents believe that
only conscious reality or pleasant and wish-fulfilling images should
be presented to the child – that he should be exposed only to the
sunny side of things […]. The dominant culture wishes to pretend,
particularly where children are concerned, that the dark side of man
does not exist. (Bettelheim 1991: 7)

Bettelheim warns that it is precisely such sheltering from the darker

side that results in stunted development and unrealistic expectations
from life, as well as the promotion of an unhealthy self-doubt regarding
one’s ‘violent fantasies’. In this context, some of Bettelheim’s theories
have particular resonance in view of computer games and the heated
reactions they provoke, especially among worried parents. So, although
this book does not delve into the psychological benefits or drawbacks
of playing games, it is noteworthy that a cinematic narrative like Ben
X recognises the positive qualities of gaming in a story that tackles
bullying.

Games as virtual worlds

Moving away from teens as the primary gaming characters, Cronenberg’s

eXistenZ (1999) is refreshing in that it gives us adult gamer protagonists.
Of the films discussed in this chapter, eXistenZ is the most complex cin-
ematic dramatisation of the gaming world, with the fear of the blurring
between virtual, gaming worlds and reality replacing the fear of com-
puters per se as the dominant phobia. From perceiving the computer
as a physical and tangible object with programming that is contained
within the hard drive, there is now a leap to viewing the computer as
a link to the non-material cyberspace. If anything, the fear factor is on
the increase given the ‘uncontainability’ of virtual worlds.
 Is This a Game or Is This Reality? 25

Cronenberg’s inspiration for the plot of eXistenZ came via a circuitous

meeting/interview with Salman Rushdie, during which two unrelated
ideas merged for Cronenberg: the intrusion of Rushdie’s fictional world
into his real life with the fatwa following the controversial reception
of The Satanic Verses and Rushdie’s comments on videogames, dismissing
them as potential art. Cronenberg took the latter as a challenge, while
the former aspect provided the seed of the virtual/reality theme. One
might speculate that by transposing the virtual world of the computer
game into a film, Cronenberg was ‘elevating’ it to art form, while
the blurring of lines between fact and fiction that lies at the core of
eXistenZ is, at first glance, a recycling of the Platonic/Quixotic fear of
total immersion. A closer reading, though, suggests a more complex
philosophical stance on gaming, and the relationship between the
virtual and the real.
Before delving into a narrative analysis, a brief note is necessary to
situate the film within a larger body of films dealing with computer
games and virtual reality. Steve Keane identifies a trend whereby
‘science fiction films of the 1990s have tended to pass over videogames
in favour of the wider vicarious thrills afforded by imaginary versions
of virtual reality’ (2002: 146). Keane goes on to acknowledge that only
in the 1980s was there a more pronounced interest in such topics, with
Tron, WarGames and The Last Starfighter (1984) leading the front on
game-themed films. Keane explains this imbalance as being a result of
the focus shift in postmodern technologies ‘from forms of hardware
to modes of simulation’ (2002: 146), and within this change, virtual,
simulated realities have held greater appeal for cinematic narratives
than the exploration of, for example, gaming logistics. And while
the past decade has produced a number of films with game-inspired
narratives, such as the above-mentioned BenX or Gamer (2009), and
the sequel Tron: Legacy (2010), it is the Matrix trilogy (1999–2003)
and Avatar (2009) with their simulated worlds that have been the
commercial successes, thus proving Keane’s point.
Echoing William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer, with its hero Case
wiring his neurons to cyberspace (‘jacking in’), the plot of eXistenZ opens
with game designer Allegra (Jennifer Jason Leigh) test-running her latest
game, called eXistenZ, using a willing group of game-enthusiast guinea
pigs. During her act of ‘jacking in’ to her game she is attacked, which
seems to abort the testing. The would-be assassin is from the so-called
Realist Underground, whose mission is to destroy games. Allegra flees
with Ted (Jude Law), a gaming novice or ‘newbie’ (or gaming virgin as
he is also referred to, in one of the many instances of the sexualisation
26 Gaming Film

of gaming to be found in the film). Ted’s presence is a device that is

used to make the gaming conventions easily accessible to non-gamers,
as his ignorance requires Allegra to frequently explain to him the vari-
ous gaming-specific situations they are encountering. Keane calls Ted
a ‘translator’, the character who continually provides commentary on
the experiences of playing eXistenZ (2002: 152). This verbalising aspect
actually calls attention to the fact that the experience of the gaming
within the film is not as viscerally and physically conveyed, necessitat-
ing such expositional passages. Keane, of a similar view, states that the
viewer involvement in this film is ‘cerebral rather than kinaesthetic’
(2002: 155), pointing out one of the key differences between cinema
and games.
The two characters embark on what becomes a quest to protect
Allegra’s game/gaming pod from attacks as well as a fight for their lives,
while playing the game themselves. The involuntary behaviour that the
gaming personae elicit, whereby Ted is coerced into actions he doesn’t
feel comfortable about, is quite a negative take on the avatar experi-
ence, as is the paralysis state of the gamer while playing. These elements
notwithstanding, the film does attempt to show interactivity at work,
or rather it dramatises it. For instance, the main characters are given
meaningful agency within the world of eXistenZ, where their actions
have palpable repercussions. They assume avatar identities (although
these are only fractions apart from their real-life appearances, with the
odd clothing difference and hairstyle change), through which they can
demonstrate less inhibited behaviour (i.e. the make-out scene between
Allegra and Ted). The choices before them are many (providing them
with variability), and as in a game, they get thrust into colourful and
unexpected settings, as sequences mimic game levels (from a tawdry
basement setting to a fish factory and a Chinese eatery). For the charac-
ters, the gaming database offers up one of many paths, although for the
viewer there is just the one narrative path.
After a while, Ted’s attempt to return to reality proves confusing – he
is unable to tell the distinction between the two, and up until the very
last scene, when we’re supposedly back in the testing room from the
opening scene, this confusion is sealed by an added twist when Allegra
and Ted are unmasked as saboteurs, and unsure of whether they are
still within the game as they start shooting. The ending of eXistenZ is
more of a loop or a taunt for another round of gaming than a conclu-
sive destructive finale or a proclamation of the game designer’s death,
so the interpretation is ambiguous rather than outright incriminating.
Therefore, instead of the characters’ confusion as to whether or not
 Is This a Game or Is This Reality? 27

they’re still in the game being read as a damning aspect of gaming,

Cronenberg weaves in a more subtle balance. Lia M. Hotchkiss finds
that the very act of asking the question of whether one is in the game
or not ‘actually poses a firmer grasp of the nature of so-called reality,
namely, an awareness of its ability to be superseded, embedded, arbi-
trary, and, above all, determined by representation’ (2003: 28). This
idea is emphasised by offsetting such heightened awareness with the
Underground Realists’ inability to discern more than their immediate
reality. Placing the game and real life on equal footings within the film’s
diegesis does not, therefore, lambast gamers for being immersed to the
point of oblivion in the virtual world. Instead, it opens up the debate on
our digitally mediated lives – how our aliases and avatars all reconcile
with our real-life self.
In terms of Cronenberg’s oeuvre, eXistenZ can be viewed as a revisit-
ing of Videodrome (1983) on several levels. Both films are distinguished
by the fact that Cronenberg also penned the screenplays, and the
theme of ‘new flesh’, marked by technology invading the body, drives
both works (Videodrome’s VHS tapes and TV are now substituted by the
gaming pod). However, where the tone of Videodrome tends towards
the nihilistic, with a more ambiguous narrative, Hotchkiss finds that in
eXistenZ, Cronenberg ‘revises Videodrome’s dark vision, calling instead
for a cautiously optimistic sense of how technology and the body as
well as representation and reality are mutually implicated’ (2003: 27).
Hotchkiss goes on to argue that while eXistenZ does not suggest tran-
scendence (which is what the next level/game above eXistenZ is called)
through technology is possible (i.e. being thrust into the virtual world
does not open up an enlightened awareness; the same crude impulse
to kill and fight keeps on repeating), it ‘offers a more complex notion
of embodied subjectivity whose sense of self and connection to others
is productively mediated by technology’ (2003: 26). Philosophically
speaking, then, the film occupies the terrain of the cyborgian merging
of man and machine, which brings us to Donna Haraway’s theories on
the cyborg, namely the pleasures afforded by such human-machine
melding, where the blurring of boundaries is to be celebrated rather
than feared (as Ted does).
Haraway’s ground-breaking ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ (1985) deals with
the so-called post-human state, the central argument being the call
to take ‘pleasure in the confusion of boundaries’ (2003: 516) that
the cyborg presents,6 for only by assuming such an attitude can we
leave behind the constraining dualistic way of thinking which is reduc-
tive and not productive for our age. Cronenberg’s vision delivers a
28 Gaming Film

Figure 1.1 eXistenZ: The bio-technological melding of man with gamepod

tempered version of Haraway’s zeal for the possibilities this cyborgian

union promises, although the sexualised pleasure the characters (espe-
cially Allegra) experience when being ‘melded’ with the gamepod (see
Figure 1.1) suggests that this cyborgian reality is being embraced at least
at one level. The gaming bio-port which is inserted into the bottom
of the spine is both physically close to the main erogenous zones and,
by the act of insertion, mimics the sexual act (Borràs 2003). Of course,
the presence of simulated sexual experiences or simulated sensory
pleasure – which evokes Murray’s linking of the eroticising and the
demonising of computers in the dystopian POV (1997: 22) – offers up
a variation on the fear of being replaced by machines. In this case it
is sexual pleasure that is being provided by a non-human source, thus
rendering couplings obsolete.

The final frontier

Haraway’s call to abandon the Cartesian dualistic way of thinking

through cyborg imagery is the key to theoretically progressing forward,
for any resistance and insistence on the dualistic worldview, ironically,
results in ‘looped’ argumentation, as the complexities of digital media
cannot be contained within the pre-digital Manichean paradigm.
Several of the films discussed thus far demonstrate at the very least an
awareness of the imminence of such a cyborgian reality, from Tron’s
 Is This a Game or Is This Reality? 29

protagonist’s transformation into a digital code, while maintaining his

mind/feelings, to the characters’ physical/mental entry into the virtual
world of the game in eXistenZ. These examples still maintain a very
clear threshold line, so that Flynn only gets lasered into the mainframe
when he is seated within the lab and is in front of the computer. In
Cronenberg’s film, the characters cannot enter the gameworld unless
they connect to the gamepod, constituting a voluntary act (providing,
of course, it is not forced upon them). It is when this threshold is
removed that the fear of the cyborgian entity becomes more palpable.
The Matrix (1999) follows protagonist Neo (Keanu Reeves), a
programmer/hacker who discovers the shocking revelation that the
world/life he’s lived has all been fake: a simulation. Intelligent machines
have taken over human bodies, using their bioelectricity as fuel, while
maintaining the simulation called the Matrix to keep the humans
oblivious of the truth, and believing themselves to be in the world as
it was in 1999. Here the fear portrayed is dual – fear of the cyborgian
melding and fear of being lost in a simulation, unable to realise that it
is not real. The franchise that made up the entire Matrix experience will
be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4, in the context of transmedia,
but for the purposes of the argument it is sufficient to note that in The
Matrix Revolutions (2003), the last in the film trilogy, the ending suggests
that the humans have been freed of their enslavement as sources of
bioelectricity for the machines.
It is James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) that makes a significant step
forward in the treatment of the cyborgian meshing. Although the film
is not about gaming or even a virtual environment, the treatment of the
titular avatar certainly belongs to the cyborgian myth. Biotechnology
proves the key element in the ‘machine’ component of the cyborg
blend, in that the protagonist Jake (Sam Worthington) inhabits a
biologically compatible avatar body moulded as a member of the Na’vi
tribe, natives of the Pandora moon, which is essentially the Garden of
Eden. The technology allows for Jake’s consciousness to be transferred
into the avatar body while Jake’s physically impaired body lies in a
dormant state. The switch works both ways, so that when Jake ‘returns’
to his body, it is his avatar who is asleep. The initial reason for Jake’s
inhabiting of his avatar is a commercial-scientific one: the team led
by Dr Grace (Sigourney Weaver) wishes to research the Na’vi people,
while the company paying for the science team is only interested in
exploiting the planet’s rich resource – the mineral ‘unobtainium’. This
sets up a fairly black-and-white plot with the evil colonisers pitted on
the one side and the outnumbered and vulnerable Na’vi people on
30 Gaming Film

the other side, which could be interpreted as a take on any colonising

section of history but for one detail – the cyborgian transformation that
the science-team characters undergo.
Once Jake starts to spend time among the Na’vi, he feels the bliss
that Haraway speaks of – he feels complete. And while there is also
an argument for the story reiterating themes of exploitative coloni-
sation and the longing to return to the Garden of Eden, once again,
it is the manner in which this ‘return’ has been effected – through
technology and through the inhabiting of another, avatar body – that
makes Cameron’s story so interesting: the cyborgian version of the self.
Jake is neither afraid of his avatar’s superior physical powers nor does
he feel that the avatars threaten humanity, and towards the end of the
film, being as his avatar becomes the only tenable option, which also
signals a narrative breakthrough of which Haraway would undoubtedly
approve. Considering there are two more sequels in the making, it is
of course impossible to make a final judgement as to how the avatar/
cyborgian question will get resolved by the end of the trilogy. However,
Avatar is not the only film exhibiting such pro-cyborgian tendencies.
Another step in the same direction can be seen in the sequel Tron:
Legacy (2010). The story opens on a fairly negative note in terms of
the capacity of computers/avatars to usurp humans: Flynn’s avatar Clu
has turned against him, and has taken over the Grid, trapping Flynn
within the computer system for many years. Flynn’s son Sam (Garett
Hedlund) is lasered into the Grid, and seeks his father not realising
he has fallen into Klu’s trap, and is almost killed in a similar gaming
competition to the one his father had been forced to take part in when
first lasered into the computer system in Tron. Thus far, the plot echoes
a Frankensteinian fear of man’s creative powers – an avatar as intelligent
as Clu can only lead to disaster. However, just when it seems this sequel
is merely revisiting old narrative and psychological ground, the notion
of ‘isomorphic algorithms’, or ISOs for short, is aired. Flynn, upon
sending his protégée Quorra (Olivia Wilde) to rescue his son from Clu,
reveals to Sam the significance of his work during his years of absence.
He had been trying to create a perfect computer system, but in the
process discovered the ISOs who manifested as a naturally occurring
species. Flynn calls these ISOs a veritable ‘miracle’, for he did not
create them; he merely provided the environment in which they could
manifest. The ISOs are remarkable for their power to self-heal, as well as
for being capable of resolving the mysteries of science and religion that
have baffled mankind for so long. In other words, the ISOs are described
as being the answer to the meaning of life. Clu destroys all but one of
 Is This a Game or Is This Reality? 31

them (Quorra happens to be the sole survivor of this pogrom), as they

were not planned and therefore can only be considered an aberration.
Regardless of such moves, the new, cyborgian era is upon us, proven by
the fact that in the end it is Sam and Quorra who survive in the final
showdown between Flynn and Clu. Quorra, a human-like algorithm,
more perfect than any human being, as well as superior to any of the
Grid’s avatars, not only survives but is presented as Sam’s mate in the
closing shot, meaning that if they have children, they will be cyborgs
with the boundaries between man and machine no longer possible to
trace or discern, leaving, finally, no other option but to revel in the
confusion of boundaries.
2
Narrative Architecture:
Databases, Labyrinths
and Stories that Won’t End

We have yet to witness the full impact of gaming on cinema, especially

as future developments in film are expected to lie within the sphere of
interactivity, the interactive film being a form that is still very much at
an experimental level and lacks a viable commercial or distributional
model. But before interactive cinema becomes the norm (if, indeed, that
proves to be the direction of development), there are several categories
of film within which the influence of gaming is evident, even if the
subject matter has no explicit links to games, and perhaps these will
prove to be the transitional films that will usher in a new cinematic era.
It would certainly be misguided to think that with the advent of interac-
tivity enabled by digital technology, completely new forms will replace
old forms. It is more often the case that new cultural forms rearrange
existing elements, as Fredric Jameson holds, so that for example, what
was subordinate becomes dominant and vice versa (Manovich 2001a:
131, 229). In the process of this so-called rearranging, in McLuhan’s
view there is a transitional step before the new form emerges, and that
is the ‘hybrid of the meeting of two media’ (1994: 55) which heralds the
essence of the new form to come. It is this hybrid spot that the films
discussed in this book occupy.
This chapter looks at the structural devices imported from gaming
and how they transform the cinematic narrative – from the database
and algorithm principles to puzzle solving, and from branching, level-
hopping and repeating gameplay to never-ending gameplay. First, how-
ever, a review of the existing film theory covering films that depart from
the norm in their absorption of some digital media aspect (whether in
form, structure, or narrative) is necessary in order to clear some of the
confusion that the plethora of newly introduced categorisations has
brought about. It is my stance that by refining the perspective to a
32
 Narrative Architecture 33

ludic one a lot of the conflicting theorising becomes resolved, and by

referring to the organisational principle of gaming, these works can be
analysed in a simpler and more straightforward manner.

The new cinematic categories

What is interesting when observing the various neologisms coined in

order to better define these ‘hybrid’ films is that in many of the cases
the theorists use the same cinematic examples to back their particular
term (i.e. Run Lola Run crops up in several of these instances). In fact,
what these writings have in common is twofold: a desire to introduce
a new name for a new category of film; and the pool of films under
examination is more or less the same. Even though I am not wholly
subscribing to any of these categories, it is worth noting them briefly,
both in term and in scope, especially as some of the terms will provide
useful springboards for a deeper exploration of the underlying ludic
structuring in the films discussed in this chapter.
In the essay ‘Film Futures’, David Bordwell names films with plot
points that branch in time in response to the ‘What if?’ narrative
question as forking-path narratives (2002). Using Run Lola Run (among
other films) as an example, he insists on interpreting these films as
still operating within classical narrative rules, as well as prevaricating
on his chosen term by the end of the essay, when he suggests multiple
draft narrative. In a direct response to Bordwell’s essay, Edward Branigan
takes up the two terms for further analysis, concluding that both have
merit but on their own terms, meaning that they determine different
narratives (2002). According to Branigan, the forking path ‘marks a more
conservative, generic form of narrative’ (2002: 108) as part of the more
encompassing multiple draft narrative, which can ‘cover a more general
phenomenon’ (2002: 108). Branigan’s main argument is that the
forking-path narrative, in Bordwell’s vision, ordains the last version of
events with the greatest significance, thus minimising the possibility
of genuinely coexisting possibilities. Not only does this final version
overwrite the preceding ones, but Branigan also criticises the focus
on time, whereby the branching point in the forking path does not
allow for the parallel unfolding of alternate universes. Rectifying these
limitations, in Branigan’s view, is the multiple draft narrative, which
can subsume both the forking-path narrative and the other variations
in temporal and spatial narrative experimentation.
Where Bordwell’s exploration is prompted by the folkloric ‘What if?’
quandary, Wendy Everett takes a science-based approach to the ‘What
34 Gaming Film

if?’ scenario and puts forward a case for the fractal film, in ‘Fractal
Films and the Architecture of Complexity’ (2005). The mathematical
definition of fractal is a geometric pattern that is repeated at every scale,
which sets up a highly specific pattern – and a near-impossible one – for
a cinematic narrative to wholly conform to. Everett draws inspiration
from chaos theory, the butterfly effect and the network, and, like
Bordwell, uses Run Lola Run as one of her main examples. Everett also
tentatively proposes the network narrative as a category within fractal
films, and this grouping proves semantically less contentious as the
term fractal risks inviting too literal a reading.
Janet Staiger introduces the somewhat vague complex narrative category
(2006), however given the context – a special edition of the Film Criticism
journal dedicated to a host of different types of complex narratives –
the across-the-board nature of her phrasing is understandable. Within
this special issue, Charles Ramirez Berg suggests alternative plots (2006)
as a new category within complex narratives. He goes on to refine this
broad term by presenting a taxonomy of 12 types of alternative plots,
starting with the polyphonic (or ensemble) plot and ending with the
metanarrative plot. Some of the types do not convince as stand-alone
categories (such as the repeated event plot), but there are certain groups
that bear on interactive narrative (especially in gaming), such as the
hub and the spoke plot.
In the same issue of Film Criticism, Elliot Panek identifies the
psychological puzzle film (2006) as a growing trend. At some points this
parallels Thomas Elsaesser’s later essay on the mind-game film (2009),
as both foreground the increased prevalence of tricksy, psychologically
complex and teasing narratives, in which the viewer has to decode the
film’s puzzle. Both Panek and Elsaesser allude to gaming as a prime
influence in the making of these films. In terms of the parameters
defining the psychological puzzle film, Panek casts his net wide. The
main point in common in this grouping is that the films depart in some
way from the classical Hollywood canon, whether at the causal level or
in diegetic consistency. The adjectives that feature most prominently
in Panek’s description of this category are ‘ambiguous’ and ‘deceptive’,
the films’ aim being to disorient the viewer. Elsaesser is more precise in
establishing the main aspects of the mind-game film, proposing that this
category elicits a cult following, with the mind games either occurring
within the film’s diegesis (meaning one character is playing games with
another character) or aimed at the audience (the viewer is to decipher
the puzzle). Whereas Panek remains mainly rooted in a comparative
looking back by analysing the psychological puzzle film in relation to
 Narrative Architecture 35

classical Hollywood narrative, Elsaesser’s approach takes the opposite

route – he positions the mind-game film vis-à-vis developments in new
media, observing that the latest narrative developments in cinema are
a direct response to the occurrences in digital technology, almost as a
way of keeping up with the database (as well as other digital structures).
The database also features in Manovich’s database cinema as the
descriptor for films adhering to a database logic, although Manovich’s
ideas on what constitutes such a film are quite removed from the
general gist of this particular grouping of categories. Manovich
mainly refers to experimental and documentary works with little or
no narrative structure as epitomising database cinema, and does not
take into consideration any of the cinematic examples upon which
the theorists above focus. However, as a category, database cinema will
prove useful (see below), albeit the meaning will be closer to Marsha
Kinder’s database narrative than Manovich’s definition. Kinder views
database narratives as those ‘whose structure exposes or thematises
the dual processes of selection and combination’ (2002: 6), and
groups European art films – i.e. Last Year at Marienbad (1961), The Falls
(1980) – together with the more recent spate of American films such as
Pulp Fiction (1994), Timecode (1999) and Run Lola Run (1998). For Kinder
‘[S]uch narratives reveal the arbitrariness of the particular choices made,
and the possibility of making other combinations which would create
alternative stories’ (2002: 6). Kinder’s acknowledgment of narrative
as a still discernible element in the database narrative construction
provides a more apt reading of the database in relation to cinema than
Manovich’s more rigid, narrative-refuting view.
Lastly (although this is by no means an exhaustive list), there is Allan
Cameron’s category of modular narratives (2006), which represent a
variation on Kinder’s database narratives. Cameron acknowledges the
tangential points between his and Kinder’s category, stating that both
groups ‘foreground the relationship between the temporality of the
story and the order of its telling’ (2006: 1). Cameron distinguishes his
approach by focusing on the modularization of time, stating that with
‘the digital era comes a new set of possibilities and anxieties regarding
temporal representation’ (2006: 19). He goes on to break down modular
narratives into sub-groupings, some of which are reiterations of other
theorists’ classifications: anachronic narratives, forking-path narratives,
episodic narratives, anthology. The modular aspect, though, is an
insightful additional refinement to the database narrative, especially as
modularity is one of the core properties of digital technology, and as
such is also at the root of gaming structures.
36 Gaming Film

The world as the algorithm and the database

In his influential The Language of New Media, Manovich not only insists
on digitally related words as forming the basis for the terminology of
digital media, but goes a step further in his quest to describe the still
burgeoning academic field with technologically sourced terms – he
attempts to explain society and the world at a metaphysical level using
such terminology. According to Manovich, the algorithm and the data-
base are the two halves of the ontology of the world, or ‘the projection
of the ontology of a computer onto culture itself’ (2001a: 223). By this,
Manovich means that they have become the foundation of every facet
of life in the digital age, from information access, communication to
entertainment.

Any process or task is reduced to an algorithm, a final sequence of

simple operations which a computer can execute to accomplish a
given task. And any object in the world – be it the population of a
city, or the weather over the course of a century, a chair, or a human
brain – is modeled as a data structure, i.e. data organized in a par-
ticular way for efficient search and retrieval. (Manovich 2001a: 223)

This pronouncement conveniently obfuscates certain points, by mixing

metaphorical interpretations of a database (i.e. the modelling of the
chair) and by focusing on the developed Western society (where com-
puter technology is widely accessible). However, ignoring these short-
comings, this binary outlook, in its simplicity, provides an interesting
research route for examining the new cinematic narratives within the
dualism of the algorithm and the database. Considering the computer
game is predicated on these two foundations (a game is a database of
possible actions/visuals, whereas the gameplay a gamer performs is an
algorithm at work), this approach provides a solid basis upon which to
structurally link film and games at a broader level before refining the
structural points in common.
However, the one drawback in this research direction is Manovich’s
claim that the database is antithetical to narrative, suggesting that the
computer has dethroned narrative from the pedestal that the novel
and cinema had placed and kept it upon, introducing in its stead the
database. Moreover, Manovich believes that in the computer age nar-
rative will no longer be the dominant mode of expressing ourselves
and explaining the world. Though his definition of the database as a
complex compendium of data, which can be organised according to
 Narrative Architecture 37

a variety of models (i.e. object-oriented, network or hierarchical) does

not at first glance appear to be a feasible narrative-generating model,
I would argue that the database can provide a useful analytical tool in
the context of the structurally innovative films explored in this chapter.
While Manovich claims that the database and narrative ‘are natural
enemies’ (2001a: 225), given the database’s orderless organisation of
data versus narrative’s binding cause and effect pattern, he does accept
that the algorithm is closer to narrative. He views the algorithm as the
underlying logic of a narrative, and especially of a computer game; it is
the reader/gamer’s goal to uncover or decipher this underlying logic, or
algorithm, through reading/playing.1 Eventually, while expanding on
the initial argument, Manovich accepts that a database may indeed con-
tain a narrative (and even a linear one at that) as one of its multiple tra-
jectories, but that doesn’t mean it generates narrative. Where Manovich
sees tangential points with the database is in non-narrative cinema and
he terms this as ‘database cinema’ (2001a: 237), which opens up the
question of the nature of the relationship between narrative and data-
base. Before answering this question, though, it is worth taking into
consideration the idea held by Kinder and echoed by Simons that any
act of writing exposes the mechanics of a database and is made up of:

[…] the dual processes of selection and combination that lie at the
heart of all stories and that are crucial to language: the selection of
particular data (characters, images, sounds, events) from a series of
databases or paradigms, which are then combined to generate spe-
cific tales. (Kinder 2002: 6)

This act of writing can be expanded to the act of film making. Following
this logic, every step of the film-making process also becomes a perusal
of a database, from the scriptwriter’s selection of their final draft out
of the multiple drafts they have written to the editor’s (or director’s)
selection of the final cut out of all the variations that are potentiated by
the reams of shot film (or digital data). Manovich, too, acknowledges
this theory, agreeing that books and films are constructed by using this
method of selection. Like Metz, he also refers to de Saussure’s model
of the syntagm/paradigm, using it to illustrate the point by calling the
database of these many versions of a book or film implicit, whereas
the finished product is explicit (2001a: 231). Manovich goes on to
state that the syntagm (explicit)–paradigm (implicit) relationship is no
longer a tenable theory when applied to digital media, but instead of
a new syntagmatic version emerging, as Metz speculated (1992: 174),
38 Gaming Film

the relationship between the two has completely reversed, with the
database or the paradigm taking on the tangible, visible form that the
narrative or the syntagm used to hold, and now no longer does, having
become the ‘dematerialised’ category in the relationship (Manovich
2001a: 231).
This theory is certainly borne out by any interactive digital narrative
format: it is not a metaphorical database behind which lies a trail of
possible scenarios that could have been; it is an actual database. If
anything, it is the narratives that become more hypothetical or, rather,
hidden – in a computer game, the paths not taken can only be speculated
upon (unless they are taken in replays). The key difference is that we
are aware of these multiple versions and variations existing, and it is
up to us to unlock them, whereas in the metaphorical interpretation of
the database, the scriptwriter’s multiple drafts that preexisted the final
draft might not be available to the viewer/reader. Rather than simply
stating that these paradigmatic alternate possibilities are never seen, the
choice of the conditional ‘might not be’ is intentionally used in relation
to the visibility of the selection process involved in the creation of a
cinematic narrative. In an echo of the database/algorithm ontology of
the world, if it is the case that in the digital era we are growingly
accustomed to the database as an ubiquitous model in our daily lives,
then this might be the reason for the by now expected DVD extras
that often not only include the director’s cut, but also the director’s
commentary in voice-over explaining the reasons for choosing certain
scenes. Completing this database are the deleted scenes, which show
the several possible versions of the film that could have been made. It is
quite remarkable that the general viewership is now accustomed to being
shown this paradigmatic array from which the syntagmic (the film as
shown in the cinemas) emerged, without the enjoyment of the original
film being tarnished. In effect, the algorithm of the film-making process
is laid bare, exposed and demystified for the viewer. This is an act which
Rombes, in Cinema in the Digital Age, repeatedly warns is making film
theory and even cultural theory redundant, by making the simple act of
viewing a ‘“scholarly” experience’, as ‘we can’t help but deconstruct it
(a film) in the very act of interacting with it via the interfaces of home,
personal or mobile viewing’ (2009: 124, 131).

Database pioneers: Vertov and Greenaway

To return to Manovich’s question of narrative coexisting with the

database, it is interesting that he identifies film as existing ‘at the
 Narrative Architecture 39

intersection between database and narrative’ (2001a: 237). In a way,

this view can be seen as a 30-odd-year update on McLuhan’s pro-
nouncement in the seminal Understanding Media that film represents the
transition from linear, sequential connections to more creative configu-
rations. However, to reiterate the point about the hybrid transitional
cultural form, I would postulate that it is the ludic film that occupies
this intermediary position between database and narrative, for to group
all of cinema in this intersection is not grounded in any clear logic.
Among Manovich’s prime examples that support his argument are
Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera (1929) and Peter Greenaway’s
work, notably The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982), yet neither film can
be classified within a cinematic mainstream that his initial argument
alludes to. Although these two works are not part of the main case stud-
ies of gaming cinema, it is worth taking a brief look at them in order to
deepen the understanding of what Manovich labels as database cinema.
Several of Peter Greenaway’s works are cited in The Language of New
Media, however it is The Draughtsman’s Contract that is labelled as a
database film. The film, set on a large English country estate in the 17th
century, is a murder mystery in only the loosest of senses, as the central
murder of the pater familias is never solved, although it can be guessed.
The film insinuates narrative cohesion through the device of number-
ing2 the 12 drawings of the titular draughtsman, and these numbers
are intentionally intended to mislead the viewer into thinking this
numerical organisation reflects a carefully constructed plot – the logic of
the numbers suggests a narrative logic will be revealed. Yet Greenaway
purposely thwarts the expectations he sets up, and what is revealed by
the end of the film is a database-like collection of scenes that seem to
have been connected in the random fashion of a database, with little
narrative cumulative meaning. However, Manovich avoids discussing
Greenaway’s original cut, in which there was less narrative ambiguity,
so whether the film was cut by nearly half of its original length to fit
into a more commercially appealing format, or whether Greenaway
consciously wanted to remove some of the plot’s answers to mystify
the audience, is a moot point. However, this background information
significantly casts Manovich’s point about it being a ‘minimal narrative
[wrapped] around a database’ (2001a: 238) in a different light.
Vertov’s film uses the database idea as its structural building block
(there is a film within the film) as well as its subject problematic – com-
piling images of daily life in Soviet Russian urban spaces, from the start
of the working day to its finish. There is also a great range of cinematic
techniques imaginatively deployed, which can be seen as a database
40 Gaming Film

type of collection. The film, though, is far from being as interactive

and dynamic as Manovich claims (2001a: 239–243). Manovich seems
intent on forcing Vertov’s film to fit his argument of film as being the
natural mid-point between narrative and database, and while the data-
base aspects are convincing, the narrative claim becomes contrived.
Manovich wants us to accept the ‘catalog of discoveries’ (2001a: 243) of
the revolutionary filming techniques as an actual narrative, and here he
comes full circle, contradicting his earlier tenet of the naturally inimical
relationship of the database and narrative – for how can a catalogue-like
list of cinematic techniques and a catalogue documenting a working
day in Soviet Russia constitute a story? After all, Vertov had himself
expressed distaste for the contrivances of crafting a fictional story and
preferred to document reality (Roberts 2000: 51).
A truer manifestation of the dynamic, interactive database can be
seen in Perry Bard’s award-winning web reimagining of Vertov’s work,
eponymously entitled, with the additional tag ‘The Global Remake’.3
On the work’s website, Bard presents Vertov’s film as broken down
into scenes, and she invites users the world over to film, in these
discrete4 units, the same scenes, but in their own imagining (i.e. in
their own surroundings, of their own time). Once uploaded, Bard runs
these amateur offerings alongside the original, which together form a
veritable database of a typical day in the life of no longer just Soviet
Russia but of the globe (i.e. the undressing scene takes us into several
different interiors, from a shack in an arid Mexican-looking landscape
to a smart urban apartment). In addition to the different, discrete units
forming the database of shots and scenes, the database concept is
upheld by the interface of the work, which, as a website, automatically
conforms to a database. The selection process will lead the site visitor to
either viewing that day’s version of the ‘remake’ alongside the original,
or to watching individual scenes, or to perusing the contributors’
profiles, and so on. Although the above-mentioned examples do not
constitute ludic cinema, they illustrate the difficulty of applying the
database concept to a film that can still retain a narrative coherence,
which informs the reading of Mike Figgis’s Timecode.

Database cinema: Timecode

‘My film has the necessity – the urge – to go beyond the paradigm of
collage. Montage has created a fake reality. Technology has arrived.
Digital video has arrived and is demanding new expressions, new
sensations. (Ana Pauls, Timecode)
 Narrative Architecture 41

Timecode is a solipsistic work of cinema, in both the narrative world it

depicts (the world of film making) and as a self-conscious formal exer-
cise (which even gets paid ironic lip service towards the end through the
filmmaker character’s pitch, quoted above). In this respect it confirms
Rombes’s assertion that ‘stories about the telling of stories have become
a dominant narrative mode of our time’ (2009: 18); a point Rombes
expands to include the mechanics of storytelling becoming a more
visible part of the narrative, citing The Blair Witch Project (1999) as an
example and referring to Memento (2000), Being John Malkovich (1999)
and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) as stories about tell-
ing stories. And while Manovich has written on the subject of Figgis’s
film, discussing its aesthetic as adhering to video surveillance strategies
(2001b: 14), what is interesting is that he doesn’t attempt to interpret it
as a database, and yet in so many ways, that is exactly what Timecode is.
The storyline of Timecode is split into four interlinked narrative
strands taking place in real time. There is a striking echo here of
D-Dag,5 which was filmed at nearly the same time – leading up to the
start of the millennium – with four interlinked narratives, filmed in
real time, and assembled together into a four-quadrant screen. Alex
(Stellan Skarsgård), a film producer, is the lynchpin of all four storylines,
in which we follow his psychotherapy-seeking wife and her dissatisfaction
with their marriage, his mistress actress who is being unfaithful to her
lesbian lover, and, last, Alex’s production company’s staff deliberating
on a project.
This multiple narrative strand is not the innovative aspect of the
screenplay/film; multiple narratives as an alternative to classical story-
telling have a well-established tradition (i.e. Linda Aronson’s tandem
and sequential narratives or Neil Young’s urban intersections subgenre),
and if anything Timecode fits into a growing trend of the past decade
or so for multiple narratives which reflect the networked world. Works
such as Short Cuts (1993), Magnolia (1999), Crash (2004), Babel (2006),
etc. appear to be reflecting the increased complexity of connectivity
between people with the advent of the ultimate network, the Internet.
Once again this can be seen as affirmation of Manovich’s view that the
dominant and ubiquitous technological structures and operations will
inevitably influence and shape social structures, which will, in turn,
feed into our conception of the world and the stories we tell about it.
In fact, this is where the clearest relationship between the database
and narrative can be found: if the database (as well as the network)
shapes the social order, then the stories we will be telling to describe
the world around us will reflect these structures at the narrative level.
42 Gaming Film

Wendy Everett posits a similar case in her discussion on fractal films (as
well as network films) and their existence within a networked world.
Addressing a range of film examples, from Run Lola Run to Short Cuts
and Magnolia, Everett finds that the:

[…] concept of network has fundamental repercussions for the films’

narrative structure: echoing the random growth of the network,
there is little or no linear development, and stories and events
instead form complex web-like structures. The patterns underlying
the apparent chaos are only gradually and partially recognized by the
spectator, who must thus play an active role in the construction of
meanings. […] It is through their creation of multiple and equivalent
possibilities that such narratives suggest links with cyberspace
hypertext: in both, the spectator must navigate a path through an
infinite pattern of potentialities. (Everett 2005: 167)

If we look at the four films cited as examples of networked

interconnectivity, there are some differences in how that connectivity
is portrayed. Crash and Babel veer towards the negative view of such
interconnectedness, with the ensemble casts of both films set upon a
destructive chain of events that leads to injustice, humiliation, violence,
hate and death, with race and racial prejudices a key theme in both
works. Magnolia and Short Cuts are marked with a more ambivalent
stance towards the serendipity of the random criss-crossing of the
many characters’ paths. Ultimately, though, the point is not how the
networked community is regarded (whether with fear, curiosity or
optimism); the point is that it is presented as a reality. Whether we like
it or not, we are all part of the ever proliferating networked connections.
Timecode’s ‘networked’ reach is not as wide as that of the four
mentioned films (with which it has other points in common, such as
the LA setting with Crash and Short Cuts and the earthquake motif with
the latter); however, it can be regarded as an example of database cinema
at the formal rather than narrative level. The four narrative strands can
be seen as linear trajectories contained within the database that is the
film (or the non-linear configuration of McLuhan’s imagining), but
then on top of these four trajectories, there are also the endless routes
of perusal that take place with each viewing. No matter which route
is selected, the narrative is always strongly apparent: the characters’
motivations are clear at all times, and a cause-and-effect chain of
events ensures there is no confusion at the narrative level (of the kind
that The Draughtsman’s Contract purposely cultivated). In this sense
 Narrative Architecture 43

the adage of the database being unaffected whether data/information

is added, modified or deleted holds true for the narrative experience:
even if we miss certain scenes from certain quadrants, and even if we
change the order in which we follow the quadrants, the story will not
be affected and we will still be able to glean its essence. Similarly to the
non-hierarchy of the database, the four storylines are not organised in
a hierarchical order; no one strand takes precedence over the others (i.e.
the moments of high action are not concentrated within a select one of
the four strands but are equally distributed among all four).
Where Timecode appears to be of greatest importance as the harbinger
of the exciting possibilities of digital cinema is in its use of spatial
montage, which will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 3. What
truly distinguishes Figgis’s film is the way in which the multiple
storylines are presented concurrently, with the screen, split into four
quadrants, allowing us access to all four storylines at all times. This
use of multiple windows ushers in what Manovich believes to be ‘the
next generation of cinema – broadband cinema, or macrocinema’
(2001a: 324). As a term, macrocinema automatically invites the
term microcinema in reference to the individual components of the
macrocinema screen. So, as a tandem to the macrocinema notion,
we have the emergence of the ‘micronarrative’ in digital narratives.
Within gaming, Henry Jenkins sees micronarratives as playing a
far more important role in the narrative progression and user/gamer
enjoyment than the overarching narrative (2004: 125). Just as game
levels are micronarratives, each individual quadrant of Timecode
can be perceived as a micronarrative (or an individual trajectory
within the database), which together with the others forms the
macronarrative. The micronarrative therefore represents the syntagm,
whereas the macronarrative represents the paradigm. This could mean
that the totality of a macrocinema work in the future may never even be
viewed by an individual, but would merely serve to offer up a sufficient
number of tantalising options, as a singular micronarrative might be
considered too meagre without the promise of alternate options.6
Having shown that the database-like approach, with a multiple
window strategy, is tenable in a cinematic narrative context, it would
be interesting to see whether the four quadrants/storylines could
be expanded into more micronarratives. In analysing the various
alternative plot structures, Berg remarks that none of the parallel plot
examples he studies goes beyond offering four stories, and it is only the
polyphonic plot, with its unity of location, that can sustain narrative
multiples (2006: 14). Timecode, which in many respects is a polyphonic/
44 Gaming Film

ensemble plot (and is marked by a unity of location), actually takes

to its very extreme the unity of location by the shared macronarra-
tive location. This distinction places the film within the parallel plot
bracket, too, so it is not surprising that Figgis did not attempt to split
the screen into more frames in his first attempt at spatial montage.

The forking path: The multiverse narrative

Staying with the theme of parallelism, I will now turn to parallel universe
(or multiverse) narratives, or, as Bordwell prefers to call them, forking-path
plots, which from a database point of view offer up multiple parallel
trajectories, with the database multitude explicitly present. The forking
path is an essential structural component of gaming: in many games,
at the very start, gamers are presented with a choice, which is in effect
a branching point. This sends the gamer down one of a number of pos-
sible paths, until they reach another branching point, and so on. On
replaying the game, a gamer may purposely choose a different path in
order to experience the many possible routes through the game, and
while the number of options at each forking point is not as varied as
the act of choosing may suggest (it would be far too costly for game
developers to provide genuine branching points at each of these game
level intersections, as the number of ultimate possible paths would grow
exponentially, requiring an unmanageable array of alternate game-
plays), the main point is that computer games in their very essence
contain this parallelism, the multiple universes accessed at branching/
forking points.
The multiverse narrative urtext is Jorge Luis Borges’s The Garden of
Forking Paths (1941), a story that reads as though inspired by quantum
physics, yet a more unexpected sequence of influencing took place.
It was not until 1953 (a whole 12 years after Borges wrote the story) that
Hugh Everett III came up with the ‘many-worlds’ interpretation that
would lead to the Copenhagen interpretation (supporting this theory).
The many-worlds interpretation is recognised as one of the multiverse
hypotheses, and within quantum physics the many-worlds theory ‘has
gained ascendancy lately, as what was mere theory is now demon-
strable’ (Rombes 2009: 114). When Hugh Everett’s dissertation was
published in 1973, a passage from Borges’s story was quoted suggesting
(although not explicitly) that Everett may have drawn inspiration from
the Argentinean author (O’Dwyer 2003: 24), thus demonstrating yet
another example of the fusing of science and arts that dominates the
history and development of digital media.
 Narrative Architecture 45

What is of note is that Borges’s story describes an interactive mode

of reading as well as a multiverse in which any number of variants is
possible. The search for the elusive book by the ancient monk Ts’ui Pên
as well as the labyrinth he was creating reveals the two to be the one
and the same – the novel is the labyrinth, and contains innumerable
bifurcation points and multiple universes in which each and every pos-
sibility/choice/reality manifests itself. In effect, this is the hypertext7
novel before the term or even the computer had been invented. Later,
Cortázar would create the literal labyrinthine novel with his Hopscotch
(1963), and in 1987 Stuart Moulthrop, the hypertext theorist and writer,
devised the hypertext version of Borges’s influential work.
What presents a particularly challenging prospect when devising
multiple universe plots is the moral ambiguity they open up. This, in
turn, leads to significantly lowered stakes, which can be a death blow to
drama – to return to The Garden of Forking Paths, why care if one of the
characters in the story murders another (Yu Tsun kills Stephen Albert)
when in another parallel universe they become the best of friends?
When nothing is at stake, isn’t the likely viewer response apathy and
indifference?
Examining a range of films spanning a wide generic gamut, but each
featuring a parallel universe structure, from Sliding Doors (1998) and
Smoking/No Smoking (1993) to Run Lola Run, Wendy Everett finds that
‘because of the multiple “realities” implied by their parallel or intersect-
ing stories, the films offer neither stasis nor closure, but merely ongoing
change and process’ (2005: 163). So even though the premise of each
film starts with the intriguing question ‘What if?’, Everett finds that
there can be no definitive answer that would allow closure (2005: 163).
Everett is essentially making a point for a more cerebral engagement
with the films in question, with the open-endedness and complex struc-
ture challenging the viewer into contemplation of a complex universe,
governed by chaos theory, and influenced by such scientific concepts
as the butterfly effect. However, Everett does not go into sufficient
detail when breaking down each individual film’s structure and narra-
tive and fails to observe the classical screenwriting techniques in place
that render the complexity far more palatable, which also allows for
sufficient drama to be generated irrespective of the overall theoretical
possibility of mutually annulling versions of events.
It is Bordwell who presents the more conservative basis of these, at
first glance, progressive narrative structures. By focusing on four differ-
ent filmic examples (Sliding Doors, Run Lola Run, Blind Chance (1981),
Too Many Ways (1997)), he finds commonalities shared by all which he
46 Gaming Film

then uses as generalised points that typify forking-path plots. Bordwell

echoes Everett’s ‘What if?’ guiding principle; however, his approach is
from a very different angle. His ‘What if?’ is not that of scientific but
of folktale provenance, as he explains: ‘narratives are built upon not
philosophy or physics but folk psychology, the ordinary processes we
use to make sense of the world’ (Bordwell 2002: 173). So instead of
the question ‘What if?’ opening up a plethora of complex, unresolved
possibilities, these films, according to Bordwell, provide a relatively
uncomplicated answer, because that is more in keeping with the human
psyche. When contemplating the future, we are unlikely to imagine
widely divergent possible outcomes. Rather, we will tend to imagine
only marginally different consequences, with much of our world
remaining unchanged.
The seven main tenets of forking-path plots, according to Bordwell
(2002: 174–183) are:

t
Forking paths are linear

t
The fork is signposted
t
Forking paths intersect sooner or later
t
Forking-path tales are unified by traditional cohesion devices
t
Forking paths will often run parallel
t
All paths are not equal; the last one taken, or completed, presupposes
the others.

While Bordwell writes specifically in the context of film, and his inter-
est is not in gaming, if we compare these parameters with computer
game narratives, there are several points in common. A gamer will very
quickly come across a branching point within a game, and the differ-
ent routes that may be taken will usually come together at some point,
even though for the gamer this will be less transparent than for the film
viewer. Only on subsequent different replays will the gamer become
aware of the conjoining points. The avatar and the NPCs (non-playing
characters) will be the same or mostly the same depending on which
route the gamer selects, although the reason for this is different to that
in Bordwell’s argument. Bordwell bases his theory on a folk psychology
approach, whereby a person is unable to fathom a parallel universe
vastly different from the one they inhabit, so that one’s perceived par-
allel existence emerges with only small tweaks to the present one. In
a game, however, the reasons are of a more practical nature: it would
be far too expensive to build an engine with several vastly different
narrative-gameplay paths. And to an extent, the last gameplay can also
 Narrative Architecture 47

be seen as representing the definitive ending in a game; it annuls all the

previous aborted and failed attempts at finishing the game. Linearity is
the main diverging point, though, because while there are games that
are linear, meaning the gamer cannot go back and forth in time or back
and forth in levels to explore, and is only allowed a forward-in-time
progression, there are equally non-linear games (allowing for various
combinations of perusing the game-world, from hub-and-spoke struc-
tures to sandbox games).
The first and last trait of the forking-path plot is especially important
to note. What Bordwell means by stating that forking paths are linear
is that they do not continually fork out – the narrative restricts itself to
a very limited number of forking points, usually only one, at the start.
Once that clearly signposted forking point has happened, the remainder
of the storyline unfolds in linear fashion (with cases of parallel linear
storylines). And the fact that the last version of the parallel universes
takes precedence over the others is a case of adhering to the classical
narrative dictum of providing closure. So the complexity and open-
endedness that Everett proclaims is only superficial; a deeper analysis
reveals that conformity and conventions are upheld. And lastly, the
use of cohesion devices renders these worlds much more simplistic
than the concept would initially suggest: in each version the worlds
in the films quoted do not differ much from each other, so that more
or less the same spaces and characters populate the different versions.
As Bordwell explains, ‘recurring characters and background conditions
render widely divergent futures more cognitively coherent’ (2002: 178).
In addition, the protagonist remains the same, which means viewer
engagement is much stronger than if the viewer were expected to adapt
to wildly differing variables in each iteration of the plot.

The psychological puzzle film: The super-maze

Kurosawa’s Rashomon is among the most frequently cited and best

known examples of early non-linear cinematic storytelling, however,
it did not set a trend, and subsequent non-linear works remained
consigned to art-house film making rather than permeating the main-
stream. All of this changed dramatically with the emergence of Pulp
Fiction (1994), when a new generation of films, tapping into the main-
stream, began to manifest. The number of different neologisms put
forth by various film writers and theorists to describe this new wave
has already been touched upon above, but now I want to return to the
theories expressed by Elsaesser and Panek, as they are the only ones of
48 Gaming Film

their peers to argue that this trend of moving away from linear patterns
of reception and thinking is reflective of changes such as web surfing
and computer game playing.
The references to computer games in these writings are but fleeting
and far from being in-depth; which is not to say they are without
merit, only that they simplify some of the tangential points and ignore
some of the more interesting intersections that can be found between
the cinematic examples cited and computer games. Panek’s argument
of more complex cinematic plots resulting from game interactions
is a case in point, as it suggests that gaming’s complex narratives are
setting new story-telling expectations, yet games still suffer from very
rudimentary plots and cannot be compared to cinema in terms of
narrative sophistication. This does not mean that a line of causality
does not exist between games and complex filmic plots, though. What
Panek probably meant was that due to gamers’ habituation to being
presented with challenging puzzles, they are a more receptive audience
for a cinematic correlative, meaning that figuring out a film’s tricksy
storyline can be akin to solving a game. This more mentally engaging
type of viewing is also facilitated by the paradigm shift in viewing
practices, with DVD and online viewing allowing for multiple viewings.
Charles Ramirez Berg, who proposes his own coinage alternative plots
(2006), notes this change, addressing how ‘for nearly a century now, the
poetics of film narration was based on the need to be completely leg-
ible to one-time viewers’ (2006: 56), but with new technology and more
complex narratives (in Berg’s view heralded by Pulp Fiction), the ‘legibil-
ity’ factor is no longer significant. Similarly, games are mostly played
many times, especially until the gamer achieves mastery, so in terms of
their reception, this departure from single viewing in cinema aligns film
viewers closer to gamers (more on repetition as a structuring device below).
Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010) is an especially interesting exam-
ple of the psychological puzzle game, with a clear intersecting point
with gaming in its structure as well as in various visual details. The
running theme in this film, which is about dream thieves who access
people’s dreams in order to commit commercial espionage, is that of
labyrinths/mazes, which are also to be found as key structural models
in computer games. The team of dream thieves, led by Dom Cobb
(Leonardo di Caprio), access the person’s dreamworld by being sedated.
However, to ensure they are all ‘jacking’ into the right dream, they are
all connected, via a drip, to a central suitcase, evoking the physical
gamepod spinal port in eXistenZ. And like in eXistenZ, the characters
frequently ‘lose’ themselves within the dream, no longer able to tell the
 Narrative Architecture 49

difference between the dream and reality. To ensure they retain their
grasp on which dimension they are in, each carries a so-called totem,
which is a small and distinctive object that has different physical prop-
erties in the dream as opposed to in reality. The three totems that are
shown to us each represent a game: a spinning top, a chess piece, and
a dice. In addition to the totem, the dream invaders also rely on a trig-
ger device to help them recognise the moment they need to exit the
different levels at the same time, which is called a ‘kick’. The ‘kick’ is
aural – Edith Piaf’s song ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’ – and is, in fact, a more
sophisticated form of Ariadne’s thread, allowing the labyrinth user to
find their way back should they get lost. This mechanism is also found
in gaming, where it is called ‘breadcrumbing’. The elaborate organising
of the kick within each dream/level also helps orientate the viewer.
The dream architect in Inception is called Ariadne (Ellen Page), after
King Minos’ daughter who helped Theseus in the Ancient Greek legend
of the Minotaur and the labyrinth. Her task in Inception is to create
labyrinths/mazes within the dream world (see Figure 2.1) so as to trick
the dreamer and allow the dream thieves access to the person’s subcon-
scious. Whereas it is easy to present a labyrinthine puzzle in a game, it
is not as straightforward to portray such a construct in a film, and so
Nolan builds the labyrinth puzzle for the viewer in the shape of the dif-
ferent dream levels, which echo gaming levels with their abrupt change
in scenery and timeframe (just as eXistenZ presented such abrupt cuts).
By keeping track of the dream within the dream within the dream
(there are three levels of dreaming in the story), the viewer is thus con-
structing their own, multi-levelled labyrinth. But does such a thing even
exist – a multi-levelled labyrinth?

Figure 2.1 Inception: The dream labyrinth

50 Gaming Film

Two assumptions regarding the labyrinth in fiction, which has been

touched upon in the above section on Borges,8 have been espoused
by literary theorists without critical evaluation: the assumption that
the labyrinthine narrative merely implies a text in which the reader
can metaphorically get lost in; and the assumption that a labyrinthine
structure implies non-linearity. In Cybertext, Espen Aarseth delves
into the historical shifts in meaning attached to the labyrinth to
explain present-day misconceptions meaning that it is not a cerebral
contemplation of the labyrinth, but a spatial navigation performed by
the gamer. Without this distinction, there is danger of misinterpreting
interactive texts in the context of the labyrinth.
Aarseth explains the existing confusion as stemming from a change
during the Renaissance in how the term was understood.9 Until then, the
meaning of labyrinth inherited from Classical Antiquity (or, as Aarseth
specifies, from Virgil’s time) had referred to two types of labyrinthine
structures: the unicursal (one single path with one end-point) and the
multicursal (several forking paths) (1997: 5–6). Aarseth explains that
this was in no way confusing, as the two conceptions of the labyrinth
jointly epitomised order and chaos, and put together evoked a powerful
metaphor for the duality of the universe. This interpretation also
fits one etymological theory according to which the word labyrinth
is derived from the Lydian labrys, meaning double-edged axe. Even
though the double-edged axe was apparently a royal symbol, the
duality aspect cannot be accidental. It was only in the Renaissance
that the term was reduced to meaning just the multicursal, and with
this linguistic reductivism, a philosophical viewpoint was lost in the
process, too, which Aarseth calls an ‘ideological transformation’ (1997: 7).
He attempts to reinstate the older, dual, coexisting meaning of the laby-
rinth as vital and pertinent to the understanding of cybertexts, where
the complex notion of the labyrinth is far more apt than the simplistic
multicursal one.
However, further complicating the matter is the maze. In his
discussion of the labyrinth, Aarseth uses the word ‘maze’ in the context
of the labyrinth, not differentiating the maze from the labyrinth, and
yet elsewhere these two terms are seen as denoting different constructs,
so adding to the confusion surrounding the terminology. For instance,
Umberto Eco, whose labyrinth disquisition is referred to by Aarseth
(1997: 8), identifies three labyrinth types: the linear labyrinth, the maze
and the net (1984: 81), with the maze denoting the multicursal.10 If we
regard the labyrinth as unicursal and the maze as multicursal, then this
brings up another differentiating point in terms of the perusal of the
 Narrative Architecture 51

two: the design of the first structure prompts a more meditative mood,
as there are no physical, location-based puzzles to work out along the
way from A to B. The delay in getting from one point to another can
also be seen as a metaphorical expansion of time, within which the
walker is not required to think about where they are walking or how
they will reach their destination – all they have to do is follow the path.
The maze, though, is a far more mentally stimulating process, and as
such, the opposite of the contemplative labyrinth.
One way of heeding Aarseth’s call is to ‘reinstate’ the duality of the
labyrinth through the example of computer games: in a game contain-
ing many paths (multicursal), the gamer’s trajectory through the game
(unicursal traversal) does not mark the game as having just that one
path, yet the virtue of many paths being open to the gamer equally does
not mean the gamer might take more than just the one route. However,
there is another dimension to the labyrinth that computer games have
expanded – that of the dynamic labyrinth/maze. In the essay ‘Labyrinth
and Maze: Video Game Navigation Challenges’, Clara Fernandez-Vara
focuses on the way labyrinth/maze spaces are represented in games,
taking up Eco’s classification. Fernandez-Vara begins by claiming that
‘instead of just recreating physical spaces, some games represent impos-
sible spaces that until recently were only conceivable in literature’
(2007: 74). By ‘impossible spaces’ Fernandez-Vara is referring to the
dynamic properties with which a computer can endow the labyrinth,
increasing the level and nature of obstacles and delays, making them
much more challenging than real-life, physical labyrinths and mazes.
This makes the labyrinth environment ‘unstable and ever-changing’,
as well as affording ‘new spatial configurations’ as the game progresses
(2007: 76).
Fernandez-Vara analyses the game Silent Hill 2, which is noteworthy
for the fact that the gamer’s progress map is gradually revealed to
be misleading, and is in fact a false maze masking the real maze.
Discussing such tricksy tactics in game spaces, Peter Berger identifies as
a ‘recent trend in interactive fiction design […] the ascendancy of the
“anti-maze”’ (2008: 53), whereby the gaming space suggests ‘a maze, but
which is not solvable through brute-force search: it requires the player
to solve a puzzle to escape’ (ibid.). It is true that the dynamic aspect of
the computer has been demonstrated to transform the physical qualities
of the maze/labyrinth into a far more complex structure, but perhaps to
call it an anti-maze is to misunderstand the essence of such a structure.
For example, the false representation of the gamer’s positioning in Silent
Hill 2 is not antithetical to the maze, as it serves to disorient the gamer,
52 Gaming Film

which is at the heart of the maze’s raison d’être. Therefore, the function
of such a dynamic maze remains the same – to impede and delay the
gamer’s progress, and it is only the means by which this is accomplished
that has changed. Instead of being the opposite of a physical maze, the
dynamic maze becomes a much more endowed entity – a super-maze.
What Ariadne creates in Inception in the various levels of the dream
world is exactly this: a super-maze, which owes its origins to the
dynamic properties of the computer, or more specifically, to computer
games. The main difference is that the mind becomes the computer
throwing up unexpected obstacles (so-called projections of the subcon-
scious, manifesting in an array of foes and landscape shifts), so that
irrespective of the virtual architectural maze Ariadne has designed, this
space is in a continuous state of flux. And just like Berger’s assessment
of the gaming maze space, it is not sufficient for the film’s characters
to negotiate their way within this dynamic maze; there is an additional
puzzle/quest to be resolved. The maze is therefore a structure that tricks
both the protagonists and the antagonists as they move through it, and
is not itself the end point.
The labyrinth in Inception is thus represented as structuring the overall
narrative, as well as shaping the internal design of the dream levels. And
although all of the labyrinthine journeying within the story is internal,
given that it’s taking place within the mental dreamscape, there is a
distinction between the labyrinth that is created for the group’s profes-
sional purposes, and the personal one constructed by Cobb, as a means
of keeping the memories of his deceased wife Mal (Marion Cotillard)
alive. Nolan’s penchant for the dualistic labyrinth is also apparent in
a much earlier work, Memento (2000), where the amnesiac protagonist
Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) is trying to hunt down his wife’s killer,
which is an elaborately constructed maze of his own creation set up in
order to block out the truth – that he killed his wife. And so Leonard’s
mental projection creates a physical quest (searching and collecting
evidence, and noting things on pieces of paper as well as the body) in
order to disguise the real answer, for which a perusal of the mental maze
is necessary.
Memento brings us back to Silent Hill 2, which bears an uncannily
similar plot to the film, although given the close release dates (the game
was released a year after the film) this is not a case of direct influencing
(given the lengthy development/production timeline for both projects).
The first Silent Hill game also happens to be structured as a maze; how-
ever, the layering of the labyrinthine model is not as complex as in
Silent Hill 2, which is why it is the latter that is discussed here. It should
 Narrative Architecture 53

also be noted that Silent Hill 2 is not a sequel in the manner in which
cinematic sequels are created – while the genre, the setting and the
journey/search structure are the same, the two games feature different
characters and a different central relationship. The game follows James
Sunderland to Silent Hill, a place he is drawn to visit at the behest of a
letter from Mary, his deceased wife. Like Leonard, James cannot remem-
ber much (a frequent trope in gaming), which places both characters
on an equal standing with the viewer/gamer; the discovery of each clue
happens at the same time for both the character and the viewer/gamer.
The game’s use of a map, a feature that many games provide, proves
misleading, which is one of the game’s early signs that the maze is not
a straightforward one. And just as James writes the contents of every
document he comes across, Leonard notes down all the clues he finds
on his own body (see Figure 2.2), which are a map-in-progress of sorts
but turn out to be just as misleading and unreliable as evidence. In fact,
Leonard’s body thus becomes a labyrinth of sorts.
The layering of what is and what isn’t true in Silent Hill 2 continues
to the very end of the game. The fact that the narrative starts to move
away from James’s/gamer’s external, physical navigation to the internal,
psychological terrain demonstrates the complexity of the application of
the labyrinth idea in this game. Once James is confronted (in a man-
ner reminiscent of Memento) by the fact that he killed his own wife,
the labyrinthine journey is brought to a joint physical/psychological
endpoint in James himself. The secondary reveal for the gamer is that
they have identified with a killer. Following on from this revelation,
there are several different endings (six in total), with varying nihilistic
degrees. While even the multicursal maze will eventually lead the gamer

Figure 2.2 Memento: The body as the labyrinth

54 Gaming Film

to the goal/end, here the end is revealed as far more ambiguous than is
the norm in games, and as such, Fernandez-Vara sees it as epitomising
the net, or the rhizome: ‘for the first time, a computer game has made
possible a rhizomatic openness that can instigate an infinite process’
(2007: 83). The emphasis on instigating an infinite process may be
somewhat exaggerated in the context of Silent Hill 2, as the ambiguity
afforded by the various endings is not as rich in infinite possibilities
as Fernandez-Vara suggests. However, the structural and narrative
ambition displayed in this game brings up the death-defying and
‘ending-less’ quality of game narratives.
Inception ends on an ambiguous note, suggesting that Cobb is stuck
in the so-called limbo of dreamland, and has not finally reemerged
into reality as he thinks. Memento ends not in the ‘ending-less’ way of
games which offer alternative endings, but by showing us the events
that immediately preceded the film’s opening scenes. It thus presents
us with a loop which, of course, is also an ‘ending-less’ device. In the
context of discussing the mind-game film, Elsaesser finds that:

[…] the most intriguing and innovative feature is […] the play
on non-linear sequence or inverted causality, on chance and
contingency, on synchronicity and simultaneity, and their effects
on characters, agency, and human relations: we are in worlds that
often look just like ours, but where multiple time-lines coexist,
where the narrative engenders its own loops or Möbius strips,
where there may well be a beginning, middle and an end, but they
certainly are not presented in that order, and thus the spectator’s
own meaning-making activity involves constant retroactive revision,
new reality-checks, displacements, and reorganization not only of
temporal sequence, but of mental space, and the presumption of a
possible switch in cause and effect. (Elsaesser 2009: 21)

The loop in particular presents an interesting notion. Manovich even

asks whether the loop can ‘be a new narrative form appropriate for
the computer age?’ (2001a: 317). Arguing that the loop is yet another
instance of a media technique that became marginalized after its brief
heyday (given that Edison’s Kinetoscope operated on the basis of loops),
yet is now being reinstated and based on the premise that computer
code, at its simplest, is effectively a loop, Manovich argues that the
loop emerges as a natural narrative engine (2001a: 314–321). However,
while the loop may be ‘an indicator for the way information is stored,
reproduced and recirculated’ (Rombes 2009: 2), the significant role it
 Narrative Architecture 55

holds as an organising principle of digital technology does not auto-

matically grant it narrative powers in the way these can be discerned in
the algorithm or database. The loop is also the theme of Suzuki’s Ringu
trilogy (and its metaphoric use of the media virus spreading is a notion
very close to Jenkins’s transmedia theory), so it can also be regarded at a
wider cultural level in terms of user activity and fan production looping
into the original source work. In Ted Friedmann’s words, what marks
interaction and what renders it ‘powerfully absorbing’ is precisely the
looped exchange, or ‘the way computers can transform the exchange
between reader and text into a feedback loop’ (cited in Lister et al.
2009: 306). However, it is my argument that in the context of narrative
structuring the loop can be regarded as a subcategory of the labyrinth,
given that the labyrinth contains loops. Therefore, it is the loop as part
of a mazelike puzzle that is of significance, rather than the loop as the
closed-circuit of digital technology.

Repeat and learn

While psychological puzzle films such as Inception and Memento may

require repeat viewings for the puzzle to be worked out by the viewer,
there is also a different kind of repetition within the narrative structure
of film that has come to the fore, which points to a distinctly new –
ludic – direction in cinematic narrative logic.
In Groundhog Day, the sarcastic, self-serving weather reporter Phil
(Bill Murray) is stuck in the titular Groundhog Day, destined to repeat
the same day over and over until he has learnt some important lessons
about his behaviour and his lacking attitude towards others. Only once
his personal transformation is complete is Phil allowed to move on with
his life. Proof that Ramis’s film represented a new kind of structure can
be found in Philip Parker’s The Art and Science of Screenwriting (1999).
While attempting to situate the film within his four main structural
categories (linear, episodic, associative and circular), Parker opts for
a caveat, describing it as a ‘one-off circular movie’. Yet linguistically,
circularity suggests a return to the starting point, whereas the irony
of Phil’s predicament is that he can only reach resolution once he
stops returning to the same starting point of 6am on Groundhog Day.
Maureen Thomas suggests a new category of repeat structure (2003),
linking Ramis’s work to the repetitive nature of games, and predict-
ing that this structural type will become the norm. Berg later refines
this term to repeated action plot within his alternative plot classifica-
tion. Using Groundhog Day and Run Lola Run as examples, Berg claims
56 Gaming Film

that ‘“(W)e’re going to keep doing this until we get it right” might
be these films’ collective subtitle’ (2006: 26). This mission statement
could well be substituted for that of gamers: the process of repeating
the gameplay continues until the gamer/avatar gets it right, overcomes
all obstacles and achieves their goal. In addition, it has to be noted
that achieving the goal and finishing the game is not the only aim in
gameplay; gamers will often spend time exploring the gameworld, and
experimenting with their avatar’s behaviour/actions, anticipating the
reactions, and testing the game rules. In Groundhog Day, Phil’s initial
reaction – disbelief, shock and then freaking out – may not be linked
to gaming conventions, but as the plot advances and Phil realises the
situation he is in, he tries to break the ‘spell’ in many creative ways until
these prove fruitless, after which he indulges in some ‘exploring’ of this
repeat world, enjoying the advantages of it, until finally he returns to
the main mission, so to speak (even though this manifests as Phil no
longer trying, but going with the flow).
Janet Murray remarks that Groundhog Day is ‘as much like a videogame
as a linear film can be’ (1997: 36), based on its simulation structure, which
is a remark that is interesting for its emphasis on ‘linear film’ as being an
antithetical category to the computer game, thus insinuating that interac-
tive narratives are in essence non-linear, which is not accurate, given that
there are many games whose gameplay is ordained by linear progression
through levels. In order to demystify this notion regarding linearity, a
better example to analyse is Tykwer’s art-house success Run Lola Run,
released five years after Ramis’s film. Made up of three segments (and thus
retaining a semblance of the 3-act structure), the film follows Lola (Franka
Potente) in her quest to get her hands on DM 100,000 in order to save
her boyfriend Manni’s life. Each part plays out as a self-contained story,
and yet there is a connecting thread in that Lola seems to ‘learn’ from
each story run in order to finally succeed in her goal. In this respect the
structure mirrors that of a game, with one major difference from Ramis’s
work. Whereas Groundhog Day’s Phil’s repetition was built around over-
coming an internal problem (Phil’s personality), Lola’s problem is external
in nature, which brings it much closer to gaming narrative terrain, which
rarely ventures into psychologically probing material.
Much has been written about Run Lola Run as a game-inspired work
of cinema (Bizzocchi 2005; Everett 2005; Grieb 2002; Kosta 2004;
Rombes 2009). Setting the tone from the outset, Tykwer’s film starts
with Germany’s football coach Sepp Herberger’s quote: ‘The ball is
round, the game lasts 90 minutes. Everything else is theory’. The foot-
ball reference, just like a casino-based scene at a later point in the film,
 Narrative Architecture 57

may not be within a computer gaming context, but the ludic theme is
unquestionable, and it manifests itself on several different levels.11 While a
lot of the writing on the game-like aspects of the film proves insightful, it
is in the structural analyses that omissions and misreadings occur, preclud-
ing, as a result, full identification of the ludic component in Tykwer’s film.
David Bordwell names Run Lola Run among his forking-path narratives,
with the first distinct fork in time occurring at the end of Act 1 when
Lola dies. This scene of the heroine’s abrupt demise (she is shot in the
chest by a police officer) is followed by an intimate scene between Lola
and Manni, discussing their love, which ends with Lola proclaiming
‘stop’, after which the action rewinds to the start, or rather resets, as in
a game. The slate is wiped clean, yet it is not a matter of Lola starting
from scratch; she is starting forearmed and forewarned now, just like a
gamer attempting to replay the game after one unsuccessful attempt.
In this respect, the forking point is revealed to be a fallacy: there is no
forking in time in order to access a parallel timeframe, just a restarting.
A forking suggests a splintering of one universe into two parallel
universes, in which case the Lola of Act 2 would not be aware of the
Lola from the Act 1, just as the two Helens in Sliding Doors are oblivious
to each other. This turning point does not correspond to the branching
point of a game, either, because Lola has no choices: she dies, therefore
she has to go back and try again.
Yet there is an occurrence of forking in time in the film, just not in
the main plot: in her reruns, Lola’s interactions with random passers-by
are portrayed using a montage of snapshots showing how their lives
are affected by this small and seemingly insignificant run-in. For
instance, the way Lola bumps into the woman pushing the stroller
forks off into different directions, spiralling into far more dramatic
endpoints than the inciting incident of bumping into Lola would
have suggested. But not only are these scenes narrative digressions,
they are also a smokescreen. Tykwer’s choice to show the fate of these
characters through photographic stills is interpreted by Wendy Everett
as ‘an ironic reference to Barthes’ photograph as frozen moment of time
and space; as proof of past existence’ (2005: 166). By inserting these
‘might have happened in a parallel universe’ moments in the medium
that is associated with capturing a past moment, Tykwer is playing on
our expectations of a specific medium. Even if the film does not solely
play out through Lola’s POV, she is the perceived ‘controller’ of events,
therefore if she cancels out a prior run and comes back to life for a
new rerun, then everything in that run is automatically cancelled, and
therefore not existent in a parallel forking path.
58 Gaming Film

Bordwell is not the only one to miss this inherent gaming logic
underpinning the narrative. Jim Bizzocchi follows a similar chain of
reasoning, and mentions ‘parallel narrative cells’ when discussing what
he perceives to be the film’s database structure (2005: 4). In line with
the parallel universe theory, when analysing Lola’s behavioural changes
in each of the three parts, Bizzocchi fails to mention how Lola builds on
her experiences from each strand and acts armed with the knowledge
from her previous mistake (i.e. after the initial surprise and fall when
tripping over the dog in the staircase, Lola is prepared for the dog the
second time round), just like a gamer would be, after failing a level and
replaying it. This game analogy is still applicable when we take into
consideration that Lola encounters new sets of challenges in addition
to running into familiar ones in the subsequent segments, as taking a
different route in a game would prompt slightly different circumstances;
so, while the gamer has the opportunity to rectify previous mistakes,
there is the danger of making new missteps.
In terms of Bordwell’s forking-path narrative tenet of linearity, there
is no doubt about the linear progression within each of the three nar-
rative segments in Run Lola Run, but there is less clarity when it comes
to assessing the entirety of the film. Bizzocchi, for example, mistakes
complex narrative structure for complex narrative, and assumes that the
film requires multiple viewings for the story to be worked out by the
viewer. But Tykwer’s film is not the type of puzzle or mind-game film;
there is no puzzle to work out beyond grasping that the story has reset
itself back to the start at the end of Act 1, and again at the end of Act 2,
with a structure that can be summed up as: try-fail > try again-fail again >
try again-succeed. Moreover, this jumping back to the outset does not
automatically denote a non-linear narrative, either, just because we’re
moving back in time. For if we continue reading the film through a
ludic prism, then the narrative progress is very much linear: Lola is not
allowed to jump ahead in time nor can she go to any point in the past
except to the start of the quest. If we understand Lola’s actions as akin
to that of a gamer, Act 1 is, in fact, a first linear run at the game; Act 2
is the subsequent second linear rerun; and lastly, Act 3 (the last run)
builds on the previous two Acts, and is also linear. Therefore, viewed
through a gaming perspective, in the linear progression of Lola, the
three narrative paths cannot take place simultaneously nor in any other
order than as they are presented. In gaming logic, the two jumps back
to the start still signify a linear structure, thus contradicting Murray’s
equation of interactive narrative with non-linearity. This distinction
means that we have to approach non-linearity in complex structures
 Narrative Architecture 59

with caution and apply greater refinement in terminology and assess-

ment. As Run Lola Run clearly demonstrates, the seemingly non-linear
structure reveals itself to be linear when a different analytical tool, such
as a gaming perspective, is deployed, and can instead be classified as a
reset/repeat structure.
Nicholas Rombes suggests that Run Lola Run, alongside other works
such as Memento, might represent the generation of films that will begin
to ‘naturalise the concept of nonlinearity and repetition’ (2009: 74).
This is a notion that gets even further expounded by Elsaesser (2009),
who holds that the media serve the function of conditioning and pre-
paring the masses for the next great change, which in this instance
would be the normativity of digital culture. But to return briefly to
the view stated at the start of this chapter that big shifts do not breach
with the past completely, but merely rearrange the balance between the
marginalised and the mainstream, some refining is needed in terms of
this theory’s hold.
Lev Manovich’s The Language of New Media (2001a) has been instru-
mental in outlining the influence of the avant-garde of the 1920s as
well as later avant-garde manifestations on digital media. From the
cut-and-paste computer function to the collage nature of a website, the
arguments for acknowledging this lineage are convincing and astute.
However, these generalised observations lead to specific instances of
similar comparisons, and this is where the ludic influencing risks get-
ting lost in the appraisal of more distant roots. For example, Rombes
likens Lola’s repeated actions in Run Lola Run to Maya Deren’s ‘multiple
selves repeating the same action several times’ (2009: 125) in Meshes of
the Afternoon, identifying a database logic shared by both films. Rombes
acknowledges that Deren’s work is a pre-digital example of the avant-
garde that attempted to ‘subvert or defy dominant modes of cinematic
storytelling’ (2009: 36), and in this light he regards Run Lola Run’s
‘recombinant’ nature as an example of the avant-garde ‘frame-dragged’
into the mainstream (2009: 36). This sort of comparison can lead to
minimisation or complete disregard of the ludic source of influencing
that takes place in Tykwer’s film. While there is no doubt that Run Lola
Run is a challenge to preconceived notions of cinematic story telling,
its logic is rooted in gaming practices rather than in the avant-garde
methods as manifested in Meshes of the Afternoon.
The normative effect of Tykwer’s work is not disputed, though. Run
Lola Run was not a blockbuster hit but a commercial arthouse film;
however, it certainly paved the way for a film like Source Code (2011),
a mainstream box office success. Jones’s sci-fi thriller exhibits several
60 Gaming Film

of the ludic structuring devices discussed here, and moreover presents

them without making concessions at the narrative level (as in simplify-
ing the storyline). Whereas Run Lola Run’s basic plot was very simple in
its premise and thus easily grasped, allowing for the audience to figure
out the unconventional structure, Source Code appears to assume an
audience sufficiently sophisticated to not require a simplistic plotline
as compensation for an ambitious narrative structure. It thus combines
the psychological puzzle plot with the repeat structure.
Source Code opens with a baffled Captain Colter Stevens (Jake
Gyllenhaal), who finds himself on a train, disoriented and not
recognising the person speaking to him, who is further adding
to the confusion by addressing him by a different name. This
Hitchcockian opener, with its train setting and involving a case of
mistaken identity, redolent of North by Northwest (1959), becomes
far more intellectually complex than what is usually associated
with blockbuster fare. After this puzzling opening sequence which
ends with the train compartment going up in flames following an
explosion, Colter finds himself propelled into a dark capsule-like
environment, communicating via a screen with military officer
Goodwin (Vera Farmiga). A cryptic exchange implies that Colter is on
a mission to discover the bomb and the bomber on the train, suggest-
ing the train is part of a simulated program. Not having identified
either, Colter is sent back, not just once, but several times, to relive
the eight-minute sequence leading up to the explosion. This repeat
structure brings to mind Groundhog Day, with only the protagonist
aware of the repetition, while all the other characters (within the
train sequence) remain oblivious to the reruns. And similarly to Lola,
Colter can alter the events through his behaviour, having ‘learnt’
about the characters around him on the previous runs.
However, the gaming logic underscoring this repetition becomes
more accentuated rather than just channelling the repeat motif of
Ramis’s film. During the third run, Colter even tells his companion
Christina (Michelle Monaghan) to treat the events as if they were part
of a game, and further observes how incredibly real this simulation
is, as he moves on from his confused state, entering into a more ludic
spirit. This notion of simulated reality where there are no consequences
is reinforced by Colter’s superiors, who urge him to display no inhibi-
tions when interacting with his fellow passengers; he is given free rein
to kill or abuse or do whatever he pleases in the name of completing
the mission, much like in a computer game. The eight-minute duration
further underlines the feel of a game, as it resembles a game level, and
 Narrative Architecture 61

as the sole focus becomes to figure out the puzzle (where the bomb is
and who the bomber is), without regard for any social norms or violent
behaviour.
However, it turns out that the train sequence is not a mere
simulation. Given that Colter is not performing his actions with
the speed and efficiency his superiors require, they intervene and
explain the true nature of the mission. It transpires that this is
a replay of real events (or, a simulation of the past), which are
accessed via the mind of one of the deceased bomb victims. The
electromagnetic activity of the brain being able to outlast that of
the body by eight minutes has allowed the military scientists to
hook Colter’s brain to the deceased person’s brain, as an entry
point to relive the last eight minutes and to identify the bomber
who is likely to strike again. This is the titular so-called source
code at work, allowing for such a complex set of operations to
take place. An additional surprising reveal is that Colter himself is
dead apart from his brain, which has been kept alive by scientific
means. This brings us to the final structural consideration in the
context of computer games – the death-defying, elusive ending.

Stories (and characters) that won’t end

In Act 1 of Source Code, we have the multiple deaths of Colter Stevens on

the train, after which he gets ‘reset’ and restarts his mission once again
(as with Lola although in greater number). Through this exercise as well
as through Colter’s own semi-dead state, we have a double case of defy-
ing death by virtue of digital technology, in a manner that probes the
link between death and technology in a more philosophical approach
than simply presenting a closure-resistant narrative structure. Bearing
some similarities with Jake in Avatar, Colter is also physically impaired
(albeit more drastically), and is only given full mobility within the
virtual and parallel existence. Not only is there a defiance of death in
Jones’s film, but the suggestion is that as long as the brain is connected
to the source code, Colter could ‘live’ forever and could go on to relive
the train sequence endlessly (or, alternatively, perform other missions).
In Reading for the Plot, Peter Brooks agrees with Walter Benjamin in
the view that ‘what we seek in narrative functions is that knowledge of
death which is denied to us in our own lives’ (1992: 22). But whereas
death as closure in a literary work or a film can be viewed as a desirable
outcome for the reader/viewer, in a game it can present a decidedly
unappealing prospect for one’s avatar. Although Brooks does not refer
62 Gaming Film

to games per se, he identifies that in the wake of what he terms the
postmodern condition, a new status of plot and endings has emerged,
marked by a more playful approach:

Ends, it seems, have become difficult to achieve. In their absence,

or their permanent deferral, one is condemned to playing: to con-
cocting endgames, playing in anticipation of a terminal structuring
moment of revelation that never comes, creating the space of an
as-if, a fiction of finality … This tenuous, fictive, arbitrary status
of ends clearly speaks to and speaks of an altered situation of plot,
which no longer wishes to be seen as end-determined […]. (Brooks
1992: 313–314)

What is interesting, then, is that this new perspective on the plot’s end
(or the story ending), at a cultural level, coincides with the emergence
of interactive narratives, which are far more successful at delaying the
end-point (apart from the temporary ‘death’ moments in a game until
it is mastered). However, while games can be, at least in theory, played
endlessly until a gamer’s own death, film is still defined by a clear dura-
tion that has not seen any great change in almost a century. So what
discernible revisions are apparent in cinema when it comes to endings
and closure, and what do they owe to computer games?
As mentioned above, at the end of Act 1 in Run Lola Run Lola dies, yet
moments later she is resurrected as if the death scene never happened,
armed with knowledge on how to avoid getting killed in the next rerun.
Similarly, when Phil becomes so weary of his inability to end the reliv-
ing of Groundhog Day, and tries to commit suicide, he fails. Or rather,
the accident happens, but he then awakens fully alive, as though the
events of the previous day/night had been wiped. This death-defying
moment encapsulates an important aspect of gaming – the avoidance
of closure as afforded by classical cinematic narrative. Murray sees the
favouring of potentially endless replays of electronic narratives as a
‘refusal to face mortality’ (1997: 175). Are we therefore no longer seek-
ing from narrative that ‘knowledge of death which is denied to us’?
What is at the root of this ‘permanent deferral’?
Without an end, there is no death, which may provide greater pleas-
ure for the continuation of the gameplay, but transferred to cinema,
this means that the stakes are different. Once we realise Lola has the
power to control her environment and that her destiny is malleable,
then Manni’s death in Act 2 no longer has the emotional pull it would
if it occurred in a classically structured narrative, for all Lola has to do
 Narrative Architecture 63

is reset the action and fix that event. From that point onwards, the
involvement becomes cerebral rather than emotional because of this
get-out clause. The last rerun is the definitive one, but not because of
Bordwell’s pronouncement that the last version holds the greatest sway
only because it literally takes place as the last rerun (and doesn’t coexist
with the previous runs). Rather, the story ends because the quest has
been fulfilled – Lola has both got the money and she’s saved Manni.
In a simple action adventure game, the successful achievement of the
game mission signals the end. Where many games, and especially the
MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, excel is in the potential for endless
quests and side-missions, meaning that the game doesn’t finish with
the accomplishment of the one single goal, and could, in theory at
least, continue to be played until the gamer’s own death.
Can cinema provide that level of endless expansiveness, though?
According to Henry Jenkins’s theory of transmedia story telling, it can,
albeit in a somewhat different guise than the continuum that a single
game can provide. As Jenkins describes in Convergence Culture:

A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms, with

each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the
whole. In the ideal form of transmedia storytelling, each medium
does what it does best – so that a story might be introduced in a film,
expanded through television, novels, and comics […] Each franchise
entry needs to be self-contained […] Any given product is a point of
entry into the franchise as a whole. (Jenkins 2008: 97–98)

Elsaesser holds a similar vision to Jenkins when imagining the full scope
of the mind-game film, which he regards as:

[…] the start of a database, to which all sorts of other data – trivia,
fine detail, esoteric knowledge – can be added, collected, shared.
[…] The text is thus part-text, part-archive, part-point of departure,
part-node in a rhizomatic, expandable network of inter-tribal com-
munication. (Elsaesser 2009: 35)

In this imagining of a narrative universe as a database or an expandable

network, what is also of note is the permanent visibility and accessibil-
ity that such an online collection presents. There is no start or finish
point to the viewing, as it is always ‘on’ and ever changing, as it is being
continuously added onto or modified. This dynamic nature also means
repeat visits. Such a perspective positions the film as one of many
64 Gaming Film

possible starting points of a personal exploration across a diverse range

of media content as well as enabling the person to contribute their own
response to the film in question. However, this is taking a larger view
of the media in relation to open-endedness, with film forming just one
part of the transmedia experience, therefore the impact of transmedia
on cinema requires its own discussion in Chapter 4.
To return to Jones’s film example, the idea of the act of gaming as
the death-defying, endless engagement with a ludic narrative (for the
duration of the gamer’s life) is taken to even further extremes in Source
Code, implying an immortality granted by digital technology, even if
that immortality is more akin to a sequence from Dante’s Inferno, with
the repetition and unlikelihood of ending/closure becoming a torment.
Yet perhaps here lies the answer to the trend of ‘permanent deferral’ of
death in contemporary plots: could it be that digital technology offers
the promise or the lure of immortality? In which case we no longer
require narratives that deal with death/endings, but instead we wish to
probe the possibilities of a digitally endless existence. To return to the
point about changing mental patterns being shaped by the digital era,
the increasing prevalence of open-ended structures can be interpreted
as a reflection of the underpinning open network structures that we
access and use on a daily basis online. It is in this sense that Manovich’s
(2001a) claim that the database will supersede narrative as the domi-
nant form of cultural expression becomes apprehensible, rather than
thinking of narrative as disappearing altogether.
Captain Colter’s cyborgian fusion of body and machine/technology
is evocative of eXistenZ, the comparison being especially pertinent in
Colter’s initial confusion over his train reality (just as Ted was unable to
tell at certain moments whether he was in the simulation or in reality).
And as in Cronenberg’s work, there is a blurring of lines between what
is real and what is virtual, which introduces another layer to the idea of
death-defiance. While the relived train sequence is initially explained as
a reliving of the past, there is a growing sense of it actually taking place
in a parallel universe, something that Colter implies in his conversa-
tion with Goodwin, talking about branching/forking points. While the
science behind the source code refutes this possibility, Colter persists in
believing this, in a manner that can be compared to the folk psychology
of Bordwell’s forking-path narrative logic. Just as Bordwell argues that
we are likely to imagine forking paths as having only minor deviations
from each other, as it is our human nature to not be able to imagine a
far more divergent and different set of universes, for Colter it is more
comforting to believe that his existence with Christina on that train
 Narrative Architecture 65

could be real in another, parallel universe, and therefore that is what

he believes. The scientific explanation is too remote and inhuman to
absorb for Colter, and the assumption is that it would likewise be too
unpalatable for the viewer.
As a result of this belief, Colter insists on having one last go on the
train, even though he has already identified the bomber and given the
department its much-needed success. The reason is that in this last,
successful mission, both he and Christina perish, having been shot by
the bomber. If he can go back, armed with all the knowledge, he can
save Christina. Goodwin reluctantly allows him this last run, promising
to switch him off (i.e. kill him) at the end of the sequence. This time,
Colter manages to disable the bomb, apprehend the bomber and save
Christina. He also sends a text message to Goodwin, as a gesture that he
hopes will prove to her that he is not operating in some unreal simula-
tion of past events, but that this is a bona fide alternate universe. After
the sequence ends, Colter does not get catapulted back to the capsule,
nor does he ‘end’, even though Goodwin switches him off. He contin-
ues to enjoy the day with Christina, signalling a happy ending. The
‘reality’ of this ending is further compounded by Goodwin being shown
to have received Colter’s text, in spite of the rational impossibility of
such an event, and we realise that the bombing has been averted, and
none of the events ever happened, while Colter is back in the capsule,
switched on, although not in use, so to speak, as there is no emergency.
In this way, the film narrative, while tackling an unconventional struc-
ture and challenging concepts relating to death and endings, can still
satisfy the norms of classical narrative, so that the viewer is provided
with narrative closure and the semblance of a happy end.
3
New Spatial/Visual Configurations

Before we meet the real Lola in Run Lola Run, we are first introduced to
her animated counterpart, or her avatar, who leads us through the cred-
its by continuously running through and past them. But even when we
switch to the real Lola, as a heroine she is visually closer to Second Life
styled avatars than a flesh and blood character, with her unchanging
stylised appearance: bright red hair, a vest and green tracksuit bottoms.
Margit Grieb (2002) points out Lola’s resemblance to Lara Croft as one
of several indicators of the film’s alliance with the computer game.
Apart from Lola’s uniform-like outfit, her running mode (emphasised in
the film’s title, in both the German original and the English translation)
is also sportily similar to Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft and accentuates the
kinetic quality of the film.
The narrative progression of Lola’s quest to secure the money and
save Manni, which is constructed through her running across Berlin,
echoes the spatial navigation of computer games, where the principle
of narrative architecture is key (as formulated by Henry Jenkins): by
encountering characters and/or clicking on objects, narrative/game-
play clues get unlocked. Similarly, Lola’s run through Berlin triggers
a series of obstacles and encounters, making her quest more challeng-
ing. And just like in a game, there is no time to pause and observe
any of the city’s landmarks. In her reading of the faceless Berlin,
stripped bare of historical and cultural meaning, Grieb remarks that
‘Tykwer’s aesthetic use of landscape corresponds to the techniques
used by videogames’ (2002: 163). The overview of the city in the
static image of the map early on in the film reinforces the gaming
aesthetic, as games often provide a similar overview of the game
world in a separate box to alert the gamer of the overall status of
the game.
66
 New Spatial/Visual Configurations 67

Apart from these visual game-like elements, it is Tykwer’s panoply

of different techniques (such as split screens, animation within live
action, still photography montage, switching from black-and-white to
colour, slow motion shots, and so on) that truly opens up a new kind
of reality – a ludic, database reality, offering new montage possibilities,
and thus opening up the visual language of cinema. The adherence
to a more collage-like visual style also points to a different aesthetic
norm, which brings up the concepts of immediacy and hypermediacy,
coined by Bolter and Grusin (2000). Western art, prior to the invention
of the photographic camera, strived to obscure the artist’s interven-
tion or authorship, and to this end the artist would ‘work the surface
to erase his brush strokes’ (Bolter and Grusin 2000: 25). Such a seam-
less surface would provide a sense of immediacy, which in Bolter and
Grusin’s interpretation is a close linguistic relative to the concept of
immersion. With no reminders of a human hand at work, the observer
could immerse himself in the world depicted within the pictorial
frame. With the automation and realism afforded by the invention
of the photographic camera, art could no longer compete with such a
polished immediacy, and from then on Western art moved away from
the figurative and realistic portrayals to more abstract and subjective
imagery, with the brush stroke no longer hidden, but often accentuated
(as typified by Van Gogh’s works) in an act of hypermediacy. Such tech-
niques draw attention to the mediated aspect of a work and preclude
immersion.
Classical Hollywood narrative was marked by the logic of immediacy,
with the editing conventions and general aesthetic designed to immerse
the viewer. Countering this aim to provoke a suspension of disbelief was
the hypermediacy of the first wave of digital filmmaking, most notable
in the output of the Dogme ’95 filmmakers. From the shaky handheld
camera to the resolute abstaining from using any special effects and
relying on poor light and sound quality, the overall effect was that of
hypermediacy: we were reminded that this was not just a mediated
work, but that of a human. As Nicholas Rombes states in his excellent
series of observations on the changing landscape in film in Cinema
in the Digital Age, ‘there is a tendency in digital media – and cinema
especially – to reassert imperfection, flaws, an aura of human mistakes to
counterbalance the logic of perfection that pervades the digital’ (2009:
2; italics in original). Rombes regards Dogme 95’s ‘return to basics’ or
‘a sort of primitivism’ (2009: 14) as an echo of punk, and a hallmark
of digital cinema, but an early one rather than one that defines digital
cinema in general.
68 Gaming Film

Since this initial wave of rejection (evoking the fears discussed in

Chapter 1), a different kind of hypermediacy is becoming the normative
concept in our perception of the screen. The ubiquity of the hyperme-
diated computer screen, with its simultaneously coexisting multiple
windows and icons, has informed the hypermediated visual language
of the computer game: within the frame of the computer screen,
the gamer is accustomed to following several different windows/boxes,
such as monitoring their progress on a map of the gameworld, or the
vital stat bars, to controlling their avatar’s movements. Governed by this
hypermediated aesthetic, digital technology has ushered in a new set of
montage types that changes the way we relate to the cinematic image.
Manovich identifies the three montage methods unique to digital
media: spatial montage, ontological montage and stylistic montage (2001a).
Manovich’s differentiation system for all three montage methods is that
they are derived from digital compositing, which is the technological
process of layering several elements/images from multiple sources in a
seamless blend (although, if desired, a less seamless effect can also be
created, foregrounding the compositing at hand). Manovich suggests
that the ‘digitally composed image […] can be seen as a continuation of
montage within a shot’ (2001a: 152), an observation that will be tested
below by comparing spatial montage to temporal montage. Following
on from this line of reasoning, ontological montage means ‘the coexist-
ence of ontologically incompatible elements within the same time and
space’ (Manovich 2001a: 159), whereas stylistic montage refers to the
mixing of different media formats within a shot. What stylistic and
ontological montage evoke are the practices of the avant-garde, whose
‘[k]ey techniques were montage and collage, assemblage and collision,
i.e. the combination of seemingly unrelated elements and materials’
(Elsaesser 2008: 13). Stylistic and spatial montage are both slowly
becoming normative methods in cinema, whereas ontological montage
is a slightly more elusive concept to apply to film, yet an argument can
be made for its emergence within transmedia, so this particular topic
will be discussed in Chapter 4.

Stylistic montage

The intersection between computer games and film is beautifully real-

ised in Ben X, in which the visuals reinforce the storyline of a teen
gamer struggling with his environment, especially the bullies at his
high school who taunt him for being different (as in, autistic). Ben X
begins not like a film, but like a game. The screen mimics that of a
 New Spatial/Visual Configurations 69

computer, with the first shot showing a box asking for a gaming log-
in username and password, followed by similar boxes. And just like
in the case of Lola, before we meet the human protagonist Ben, we
first meet his avatar in the game Archworld, although with one differ-
ence: the strong, chivalrous and handsome avatar is not a copy of the
real Ben the way the animated Lola reflected the real one. After a few
moments of gameplay we exit the gameworld, and meet the ‘real’ Ben,
a pale teenager whose lank physique is far from the muscular one of
his Archworld self. What makes the incursion of the gameworld into
the film particularly interesting is not so much the frequent changes
from reality to the virtual environment of the game. Compared to Run
Lola Run, Ben X takes a step further in its usage of different visuals – the
presence of various on-screen boxes, game-like stats and maps, juxta-
posed onto the live action scenes signals a new kind of convention in
cinematic language. This blend of the computer game pop-up windows/
icons with live action is both an example of stylistic montage as well as
of the film’s hypermediacy.
Just as the different visual techniques in Run Lola Run were not purely
aesthetic experimentation but had a narrative function, the game-like
vital stats, health bars and maps in Ben X are not just gimmicks that
serve to remind the viewer that Ben is a fervent gamer. They actually
reveal the protagonist’s inner world, and even though the character
informs us of his thoughts and feelings in voice-over, we would be able
to glean almost as much about him just from the use of the gaming
overlay. Whereas in a game, these additional windows/icons fulfil a very
specific, practical function, informing the gamer of his progress status, in
Ben X these additional visual layers provide a window into Ben’s mood
and his state of mind. In Chapter 1, Ben’s attitude to getting ready was
briefly touched upon; he observes himself in the mirror, trying to find a
look and a facial expression that will make him seem the most ‘normal’,
so as to be able to blend into the background and not be picked upon by
others (his autism means that he cannot relate to the emotional expres-
sions of other people). Alongside his own reflection in the bathroom
mirror, Ben (and the viewer) sees the game window in which an avatar is
customised. The quick succession of different looks echoes Ben’s similar
confusion: Which is the most appropriate look? How does one adopt a
smiling expression? Whereas within the gameworld his avatar’s appear-
ance doesn’t change, meaning that he knows how he wants to appear in
the virtual domain, in real life it is a struggle, as the rules are not as sim-
ple and unchanging as in a computer game. The vital stats bars, another
important element of gaming, are here indicators of Ben’s obsessive
70 Gaming Film

compulsive nature, for example in the way he counts and knows his
heartbeat rate. Once he has got himself ready and emerges onto the
street, Ben’s anxiety heightens. In order to make it from his apartment
building to the bus stop he has to visualise a map, mentally clicking
on the location he needs to go to, additionally clicking on an arrow
that appears pointing to the right. His progress at this stage is akin to a
point-and-click game, which requires the gamer to point the mouse over
an object or an exit/passage in order to move on with the game. This
is a simpler form of gameplay, where the gamer’s actions are relatively
curbed; however, this is also not accidental, because at this point Ben is
not even considering his end location because it’s too daunting. He can
only make progress by considering smaller instalments, making small
‘clicks’ at a time, so to speak. And when reality proves too overwhelm-
ing for Ben, then his mind transports him to a purely virtual world,
such as in the example of the two bullies physically attacking him in a
city park. As they pounce on him, he switches to a gaming perspective,
whereby his avatar is battling two trolls. It is only towards the end of the
film that this technique is slowly abandoned, as Ben is finding a way of
handling his disability without relying purely on the gameworld as his
support system.
A similar gaming stylistic montage can be found in Scott Pilgrim vs.
the World (2010), a film based on a series of graphic novels by Brian
Lee O’Malley. While a lot of the juxtaposed animated elements are
referencing the graphic novel origin (e.g. the large letters accompanying
accentuated sounds, in the same kind of font as is usually used in
comic books), there are also many gaming-specific instances of stylistic
montage. The story follows Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) as he falls
for Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). In order to be with
her, he must battle her seven evil exes. This narrative structure evokes
gameplay levels, and as he squares up to the various exes, Scott’s actions
are accompanied by gaming visuals, such as points scored or vital stats
boosts, as can be seen in Figure 3.1 where he is fighting the last ‘evil ex’.
When Scott first introduces us to his abode, the many items in the
room are highlighted as though a mouse is moving over them, prompt-
ing a textual explanation and evoking the sense that they are ‘clickable’,
as in a gameworld. The stylistic montage in this film is not as narratively
intrinsic as in Ben X (although it does also provide narrative clues), but
is primarily used as a tonal device in that it adds an additional layer to
the kind of shorthand ironic way in which the characters communicate,
contributing to a richer sense of the film’s storyworld, and the main
characters’ cultural reference points and perspectives.
 New Spatial/Visual Configurations 71

Figure 3.1 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Stylistic montage

In both Ben X and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World the scenes featuring
stylistic montage stand out, especially in the early scenes, which qualify
them as hypermediated instances. We are drawn out of the story and
reminded that we are watching a work of fiction by absorbing this
new visual layer. However, I would argue that as the viewer becomes
accustomed to this method, and even anticipates it, it is no longer a
hypermediated experience but becomes an immediate experience. In
this respect the theory of flow1 in gaming is a useful springboard. Before
taking hold in game studies, the concept of flow was first introduced by
psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who alighted on the idea while
researching the theory of happiness. Csikszentmihalyi defines flow as a
‘subjective state that people report when they are completely involved
in something to the point of forgetting time, fatigue, and everything
else but the activity itself’ (1992: 59). Transported to gaming, flow can
be more simply described as the dynamic tension which exists between
gaming activities that don’t require conscious thought, but become
automatic (such as the clicking of certain function buttons to operate
the avatar) and activities that present either a mental challenge or one
of physical dexterity (i.e. reflexes). The former activities are categorised
as immersive, while the latter are engaging activities. Reflecting on
Csikszentmihalyi’s views regarding the antithetical qualities of anxiety
and boredom to the state of flow, Jesper Juul points out that in gam-
ing, ‘(T)o reach a state of flow, a game must be neither too hard (which
leads to anxiety) nor too easy (which leads to boredom)’ (2004: 139).
72 Gaming Film

To return to stylistic montage, flow theory can explain how to begin

with the juxtaposed stylistic flourishes are engaging, as they are new
and unexpected, but once they have been accepted as part of the film’s
visual language they are no longer new or taxing, and therefore they
change from engaging to becoming immersive. So after the stylistic
montage is perceived as normative, both films fall back into the
category of immediate and immersive, and they would only become
engaging/hypermediated if mid-way through the film, spatial mon-
tage were applied, thus presenting the viewer with another new visual
mode of presenting the story.

Spatial montage

To understand spatial montage – one of the key aspects of new media

storytelling – the properties of the computer screen or, to be more pre-
cise, the space within the computer screen need to be elucidated. The
most groundbreaking aspect of computer space is that it is navigable,
and in this respect games ‘return us to ancient forms of narrative in
which the plot is driven by the spatial movement of the main hero’
(Manovich 2001a: 246). Citing de Certeau’s etymological analysis of
narrative, Manovich reiterates this ancient link between narrative and
navigation, as the Greek word for narrative is diegesis: ‘it establishes an
itinerary (it “guides”)’ and it ‘passes through it (it “transgresses”)’ (cited
in Manovich 2001a: 246). The difference, however, is that we, as inter-
actors, rather than the tale’s hero, are the explorers of this space: we are
“transgressing” this space, or cyberspace, deriving from Norbert Wiener’s
neologism cybernetics2 (which has also spawned the word cyborg).
Cybernetics arose out of Wiener’s work for Vannevar Bush’s already
mentioned “iron triangle” project, where he was engaged in weapons
research. Wiener’s main objective was to create the most effective
weapon, which would be perfectly attuned to the operator’s (soldier’s)
nervous system.3 In this vein, he turned to the ship-steering apparatus
as the basis of an instantaneous feedback loop. The apparatus’ steering
function was what led Wiener to appropriate the Greek word kyberneˉteˉs
(meaning to steer, or steersman), underlining the navigational quality
of cyberspace. As such, space is not just an aesthetic principle of new
media, but ‘[f]or the first time, space becomes a media type ’ (Manovich
2001a: 251; italics in original).
And yet, within this new conception of cyberspace, there exists an
irony or rather a contradiction of terms, in that ‘there is no space in
cyberspace’ (Manovich 2001a: 253). The computer space is divided
 New Spatial/Visual Configurations 73

into discrete units (enabled by the properties of modularity and

digitisation), whereby the discrete units, which are given a digital code,
coexist in modular form, and thus can be modified, removed or altered
without affecting the overall space. Similarly, a cautionary note on
the term navigation needs to be included, and in ‘Critical Simulation’,
Simon Penny’s astute analysis of spatial navigation, he warns that ‘[t]
he notion of “navigation” in a highly metaphorical “space” of data is
several degrees more abstracted’, meaning that, for example, playing a
game like Quake is not the same as holding a gun and shooting (2004:
79). However, the physical manoeuvring and controls that cyberspace
affords are, at least in comparison to the written text or film, a distinct
kinaesthetic advancement in terms of interacting with a fictional world.
Taking a historical-cultural perspective, Manovich sees this particular
manifestation of cyberspace as part of ‘the oscillation between two ways
of understanding space […] “haptic” and “optic”’ (2001a: 253). The
terms haptic and optic are borrowed from Alois Riegl’s disquisition on
space in art history, and refer to space as composed of discrete entities
and space as a unified whole, respectively. This diverging view of space
can be interpreted at a philosophical level, and Manovich adopts art
historian Erwin Panofsky’s broad, historical theory of space as articula-
tion of abstract thought. The evolution of abstract thought progresses
from ancient philosophy’s view of the physical universe as discontinu-
ous and ‘aggregate’, to the post-Renaissance understanding of space as
infinite, homogenous, isotropic, and with ontological primacy to
objects – in short, as systematic. (Manovich 2001a: 254).
Within this oscillation, the digital era adopts the haptic perspective
of space, and this haptic quality is both the basis for the argument
of the denial of actual space existing in such a vision, as well as the
characteristic that provides the space with its navigability. What this
means, in terms of narrative, is that ‘the limits of the frame are not
respected anymore’ (Treske 2011: 32). One the one hand, every one of
these discrete units in the aggregate space is marked by its own fram-
ing, even if it is invisible, and on the other hand, the visible markers
between the modular objects are also creating a new attitude to what a
frame represents. One effect of this multiplicity of frames is that ‘linear
narratives increasingly open themselves to spatiality’ and ‘the question
of sequence becomes irrelevant when cultural forms become modular’
(Treske 2011: 32).
Manovich maintains that the computer is reinstating the multi-
ple screen as the dominant mode of cinematic representation, lead-
ing to a macrocinema (2001a: 324). He links this development to a
74 Gaming Film

wider sociological and philosophical interpretation of our digital age,

citing Foucault’s notion of the ‘epoch of simultaneity’ which echoes
the networked society, and sees an economic paradigm in this visual
language, comparing the Web’s profusion of information and signs
as correlating to the similar overload found in capitalism/advertising
(Manovich 2001a: 328).
Before analysing spatial montage in greater detail, an important
distinction needs to be made: spatial montage does not apply to all
multimedia and all cases of multiple windows. Manovich is at pains
to assert that a different logic – an anti-montage tendency, favouring
continuity – governs computer aesthetics (2001a: 143). Only when
specific conditions are met is spatial montage applicable and relevant:

Juxtapositions of elements should follow a particular system,

and these juxtapositions should play a key role in how the work
establishes its meaning, and its emotional and aesthetic effects.
(Manovich 2001a: 158)

In other words, he is describing the principles of cinematic montage;

therefore, for the purposes of this discussion, I am applying the term
‘spatial montage’ to film examples only. A good starting point in
analysing spatial montage is to briefly compare it to temporal montage.
What marks computerised spatial montage is the storage facility and
capacity. As opposed to temporal montage, which casts aside preceding
images/scenes with each subsequent frame, ‘spatial montage can
accumulate events and images as it progresses through its narrative’
(Manovich 2001a: 325). As Perry Bard’s Web take on Vertov’s film aptly
demonstrates,4 this allows for ever present visual contributions. The
storage aspect, whereby ‘nothing need be forgotten, nothing is erased’
(Manovich 2001a: 325) confirms spatial montage as the method ideally
suited to database narratives. Temporal sequentiality ceases to impart
the same significance it did for most of cinematic history, but time
as a category in itself gains relevance in the real-time perusal of an
interactive narrative.
The question to pose, however, concerns whether spatial montage is
a completely radical departure in its effect on the viewing process. In
Timecode, being able to choose which quadrant to watch suggests the
kind of democracy afforded to the viewer that was advocated by Bazin
in his praise of deep focus. The viewing pattern is unique not only to
each individual viewer, but on repeat viewings also, as it is unlikely that
one would manage to watch the quadrants in the exact same order or
 New Spatial/Visual Configurations 75

for the same length of time as during the previous viewing. Based on
this variability as well as the level of viewer agency (choice of quadrant),
the film appears to be an interactive experience, although the viewer
has no avatar-like presence or ability to influence the story world either
from within or without. Ultimately, though, the interactivity reveals
itself as superficial – or mimicked – because the screen is, after all, not of
the human-computer interface (HCI) kind – even allowing for the type
of selecting a DVD offers over a cinematic experience. Not only can the
viewer not click and enlarge the quadrant they are most interested in,
but the choice of quadrant the viewer is drawn to is not haphazard. The
viewer is guided towards the individual quadrants through a series of
carefully orchestrated techniques, from the soundtrack dipping lower or
louder, depending on whether the drama in the quadrant is reaching an
interesting point, to the composition of the four frames. For many of
the key moments, the segment we are led to watch is visually differen-
tiated from the other three at the level of mise-en-scène, i.e. favouring
a close-up when the other three feature medium shots or displaying
action while the other three quadrants show stasis. In Figure 3.2 (see
below) the top-left quadrant is favoured through this method: while
the two women argue, there is no dramatic action taking place in the

Figure 3.2 Timecode: Which quadrant are you drawn to?

76 Gaming Film

remaining quadrants (which are in a stasis of sorts), allowing the viewer

to fully focus on this segment.
Even if the viewer is set on intentionally thwarting the director’s
lead, and goes against the natural viewing impulse, this is still not
agency, but a reactive method of viewing. Such reactive engagement is
common among gamers, as noted by Barry Atkins, who describes the
gamer as being fully aware of the intended game progress and structure,
but by rejecting this path that is seen as limiting, the gamer ‘authors’
their own story/gameplay. Atkins reminds us of the unique proposition
this behaviour forms: ‘There is no other form of fiction where the
subversion of authorial design allows for the retention of a coherent
narrative and has become a common form of reading’ (2003: 50). The
difference between a gamer intent on creating their own path in the
game and the viewer of Timecode is that the gamer does have at their
predisposition the tools required to shape the gameplay according to
their transgressive impulses.
The four-screen grid found in Timecode, however, is not the only way of
implementing spatial montage. Building on McLuhan’s pronouncement
of 20th-century communications media forming a mosaic structure,
Janet Murray calls for a kaleidoscopic structure as the next logical
progression from the mosaic pattern, giving us ‘simultaneous actions in
multiple ways’ (1997: 157). If we are already accustomed to this viewing
pattern on the computer, then presumably following a cinematic
narrative in this layout should not be taxing or confusing. A split screen
such as that featured in Timecode, though, does not necessarily translate
into a mosaic screen. In an essay comparing Timecode to 24 (2001–10),
Sérgo Dias Branco points out the difference between a split screen (i.e.
Timecode) and a mosaic screen (i.e. 24). Branco infers that the mosaic
screen ‘splinters’ the screen, and the smaller windows within need not
be of identical size, colour, scale or shape, creating a more dynamic
state within the frame than that offered by the split screen, governed
by a geometric division (2008: 8). If the split screen draws attention
to points of division both along and within the screen edges, the
mosaic screen draws it to the relationships of the detached images set
out on a customarily black background. The split screen is routinely
used to connect images whereas the mosaic-screen is habitually used to
disconnect them. In disconnecting the images, Branco argues that the
mosaic screen prompts us to more actively participate in selecting the
window to watch. This argument, it has to be noted, is based on non-
dynamic, non-programmed examples, which do not enable the user
to click on either Timecode’s quadrants or on the many different-sized
 New Spatial/Visual Configurations 77

windows of 24. In fact, the mosaic screen in a dynamic system presents

more than just the opportunity to navigate the screen space and select.
In her description of the creative process behind making the Vertov
remake, Perry Bard muses on the relationship between the left side of
the screen, which continuously streams Vertov’s film and the right side,
which is composed of the various participants’ contributions, and finds
that an additional spatial factor plays a part in the viewing experience:

When there are no uploads for a shot, the right side of the screen
remains blank. This space reconfigures the viewing pattern, shift-
ing attention from a two window montage to the single window
on the left, the right remaining an active absence in recognition
of the missing upload. There are other significant absences or spaces
in the project: one is the space around and between the original
and the remake, which mutates according to the format of the
upload; the other is the absence of representation from places in the
world where there are no uploads. Almost three years later it is these
absences that I find most telling. These are the spaces of engagement
that determine the aesthetics of the piece, spaces I consider central
to the remake. (Bard 2011: 326)

This view opens up considerably the distinction between the split

screen as a connective mechanism and the mosaic screen as a discon-
nective mechanism. Perry’s impressions of her project remind us that
the black background can be perceived as a dynamic entity as much as
the windows placed upon it, and the absence of a window on the right
hand does not automatically render the viewing experience identical
to the single, non-split frame. The absence of a frame, emphasised by
the larger area of the black background, begins to take on a meaningful
function, and, as Bard recognises, it becomes the ‘most telling’ aesthetic
aspect of this piece.
Where Vertov documented the social reality of a day in Soviet Russia,
Bard sees the scope of her remake as documenting ‘the socio-politico-
economic conditions’ at a global level (2011: 324). From the uneven
quality of the uploads to the intermittent absence of uploads, which
are, in her opinion, reminders of the lack of digital access in many parts
of the world, Bard concludes that the aesthetics of the project is ‘in the
open spaces on the right’ and ‘in the space between the original and
the remake’ (2011: 328). And so a mosaic screen is shown to be more
than just defined by the relationship between the frames within it; the
background, which in predigital cinema was simply a framing device,
78 Gaming Film

its portions dependent on the film ratio aspect, now becomes a more
active component of the screen, carrying the potential to influence the
meaning and interpretation of the (overall) screen.
The closest correlative to this more actively represented background is
to be found in comic book art. In his originally conceived Understanding
Comics (1993),5 Scott McCloud muses on the potential of the back-
ground to convey meaning, or rather on the power the space between
the comic book panels holds. For example, widening the distance
between the frames can create the effect of time passing as well as of
providing narrative information (i.e. emphasizing a heavy silence in his
example); the effect of erasing the framing so that the image ‘bleeds’
into the background can also transform meaning so that ‘time is no
longer contained by the familiar icon of the closed panel, but instead
haemorrhages and escapes into timeless space’ (McCloud 1993, 2003:
721). With the emergence of digitally created space, it is no surprise
that this change of what is the perceived function of the background is
effected, as the logic of navigable space predicates that the entire spatial
area is opened up and accessible at some level. In a game this becomes
especially relevant: the haptic space of the game environment allows
the gamer to not just move through the game areas/levels, but it also
enables interaction with the objects found within this environment.

Eisenstein’s legacy

While the dynamism gained in the split screen suggests a radical shift
in viewing practice, are there still correlatives between spatial montage
and temporal montage? It is my proposal that Eisenstein’s methods of
montage (1929) can be discerned – in reimagined form – in the proc-
esses of viewing spatial montage. The logic behind this attempt to seek
points in common with a preceding form/technique has been guided by
the theories of Bolter and Grusin as well as McLuhan – new media forms
are remediations or hybrids of preexisting forms and are rarely com-
pletely new departures. If we take Eisenstein’s five montage methods
(metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal and intellectual) and apply them to
the spatial montage principles at work in Timecode, some unexpected
areas of commonality emerge.
The most basic method of montage, metric, based on the simple
manipulation of the film length, now correlates the closest to the
viewer’s act of glancing from quadrant to quadrant. So while the indi-
vidual quadrants have no cuts, the viewer’s ‘intervention’ creates them.
Rhythmic montage refers to the movement within the frame, so that
 New Spatial/Visual Configurations 79

the content is taken into account rather than the mere length of the
shot. If we expand this to cover the movement within our frame, so
that all four smaller frames are now considered as part of a whole, then
we can see how Figgis is controlling this aspect at nearly all times. By
matching movement or lack thereof in some of the quadrants in order
to accentuate the others, the rhythm of the movements within the four
frames are at all times closely coordinated. The same argument applies
to tonal montage, whereby the emotional mood is frequently the organ-
ising principle: the building emotional distresses of all the characters are
interconnected through Figgis’s playing-off of each character’s turmoil
and breaking points. If one character is at a more advanced stage of
distress, that quadrant serves as a lead-up and foreshadows the other
quadrants’ characters’ meltdowns. The overtonal montage, with its
dependency on all the previous elements coming together, is modifiable
through the DVD viewing option – by selecting a different soundtrack
option, the overtonal aspect can be altered.
While the montage methods discussed so far present a relatively
straightforward comparison, it is in the case of intellectual montage
that the most intriguing correlative emerges. Where Eisenstein hoped to
invoke a more sophisticated interpretation by juxtaposing different and
at first glance unrelated images in order to convey (usually) political/
ideological points, this method can no longer be seen as intellectually
challenging. Eisenstein’s pairing of the shot of a priest with the shot
of a knife in Battleship Potemkin embodies, for a contemporary viewer,
a heavy-handed instance of editing. Our advanced media/cinematic
literacy has outgrown this level of intellectual montage and requires
something more challenging, and this is where the mosaic screen
(or split screen), operated by spatial montage, provides the answer.
Intellectual montage’s ‘third’ meaning, emerging as a result of the
two juxtaposed images, now becomes a ‘fifth’ meaning in the case of
Timecode. It describes the way we engage with all four images and how
they interrelate to each other. The cumulative effect of the multiple
screens, therefore, provides the intellectual stimulus. As has been dem-
onstrated above, this doesn’t mean that the fundamental storytelling
effects change (i.e. portraying rhythmic or intellectual montage), sim-
ply that the means to achieve these effects are changing.
It is worth noting that Timecode is also very much a digitally imbued
film, with its adherence to DV (digital videotape) as its principal struc-
turing basis – the film is exactly 120 minutes long, which is the length
of the DV tape, with each storyline filmed in one uninterrupted long
take. This in itself is not a new strategy – since cinema’s inception,
80 Gaming Film

filmmakers have been forced to create films within the means of the
shooting limitations and film length, with the Lumière brothers’ first
films clocking in at around 50 seconds. The fact that digital cinema
requires no reloading of the camera suggests the advent of a ‘new gram-
mar’, as Rombes posits, intimating that the long take could introduce a
‘sort of hard-eyed realism against reality itself, stripped of style’ (2009:
38–39). The belief in a new level of realism that digital filmmaking
might usher in has also been bolstered by the cheapness and imme-
diacy of the technology. Manovich takes a step further, claiming that
Timecode is ‘a conventional film that adopts visual and spatial strategies
of video surveillance (multiple cameras tracking one location) while
following traditional dramatic conventions of narrative’ (2001b: 14),
and links this video surveillance aesthetic to reality TV aesthetics. This
observation conveniently glosses over the fact that video surveillance
strategies would mean fixed cameras, whereas Figgis’s camerawork is
far more fluid than that of a surveillance camera and in several scenes
there is clear adherence to the shot/reverse shot of classical Hollywood
technique.
There are also wider cultural and ideological considerations to be
taken into account, and Rombes brings the influence of science, namely
physics, to the fore. He cites Eisenstein’s interest in Einstein’s space-
time continuum in ‘The Filmic Fourth Dimension’, and its possibilities
of manifesting as a fourth dimension in cinema, which Marinetti and
the Futurists also took up when proposing a multiple-screen film: ‘As
reality splintered ever more deeply under modernism’s gaze, movie
cameras served as machines for deconstructing the visible […] with an
eye towards understanding it’ (2009: 110).
The 1960s and 1970s in particular flirted with the split screen in
the likes of The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and The Boston Strangler
(1968), a tendency that Rombes explains as societal ‘dissolution – as
the 1960s was collapsing in on its own dreams – but also an effort
to break free from a single point of view’ (2009: 112). Critiquing
Timecode, Nadia Bozak takes a similarly broad cultural view, and
explains the more recent tendency towards split screens as a sign of
the material and consumer excess of our times, both at the level of
produced/consumed goods and produced/consumed images (2008).
A number of writings have drawn parallels between the cinematic
experiments of the 1960s and Timecode, from Bozak to Ramírez
Berg. Ramírez Berg finds Timecode to be an unusual example of the
polyphonic or ensemble plot in the recent crop of unconvention-
ally plotted films in that it also exhibits stylistic experimentation,
 New Spatial/Visual Configurations 81

which would place Figgis’s film closer to the ‘new waves of the
1960s, which were fully fledged attacks on both stylistic and syuzhet
fronts’ (2006: 7). In New Punk Cinema Constantine Verevis especially
overstates the influence of Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls (1966) on
Timecode. Warhol’s collection of vignettes showing a motley crew of
(mainly) The Factory acolytes is a colourful impression of a particular
era in New York, and even a superficial glance reveals some natural if
obvious points in common. There is the split-screen technique, along
with the alternating soundtracks, and the opening sequence that
gradually fills the screen out. However, to claim Figgis borrowed from
Chelsea Girls ‘its radicalised sense of time, its determined formality
and its employment of multiple windows’ (Verevis 2005: 169) is to
miss or minimise the significance of digital technology as Timecode’s
guiding principle. The use of digital cameras, their determination of
the length of the film, and the title itself, which suggests digital code,
all point to a digital orientation. And even though the stylistic experi-
mentation does place Figgis’s work in the spirit of the 1960s New
Wave, I propose that the route of influencing that led to Timecode’s
spatial montage is as follows:

Art Classical Hollywood cinema Computer aesthetics

Timecode

In critiquing Figgis’s formal choice, Dancyger and Rush ascertain that in

Timecode nothing ‘is really simultaneous, and nothing would not work
if it were structured as interwoven stories, presented consecutively as
they would be in a script such as Short Cuts’ (2002: 299). I would argue
that not only does spatial montage allow for a different accumulation
of information and images but this parallel unfolding creates a different
sense of the film characters’ existence. Just like in a game such as The
Sims, while we are ‘away’ from one character (or quadrant), the other
characters continue to act and progress along their storyline irrespective
of our act of viewing.6 This is a unique trait in treating parallel narrative
threads which should not be minimised by claims that it is no different
to sequential, temporal montage. It immensely strengthens the sense of
immersion, building a far more believable fictional world as its existence
does not depend on the viewer’s gaze (or glance).7 This same argument
applies to 24, even though the series only used the mosaic screen at
moments of high tension as a means of reinforcing the simultaneity of
all the characters’ actions, and thus building tension as well as remind-
ing the viewer of the ‘real-time’ factor in the plotline. Crank (2006) is
82 Gaming Film

another cinematic example that foregrounds this aspect of simultaneity

in its occasional use of spatial montage (of the mosaic kind).
A film with a game-like feel, Crank features Chev Chelios (Jason
Statham), a protagonist who – with his shaved head, stubble beard and
tracksuit uniform – bears an uncanny resemblance to Niko Bellic in Grand
Theft Auto IV. (In fact Rockstar only released the game in 2008, so this
is a coincidental similarity.) The film’s first act is a Grand Theft Auto-like
extended car chase, but it is the combination of stylistic montage and
spatial montage that marks this film out. Both methods are used spar-
ingly, but effectively. Images of objects or letters are superimposed onto
the screen, indicating a character’s brainwave or confusion, and when
the screen splits, it is to encompass not just a simultaneity of events
but also to show the mental workings of a character. While the screen
mostly splits (in a time-honoured fashion) during phone conversations,
it does not stop at including the characters conversing. When Chev
asks a friend what he had been doing the night before, the character
doesn’t reveal his actions to Chev, but instead remembers his night of
debauchery, and we, the viewers, get to see the night as the screen splits
into smaller ones again to accommodate this quick succession of shots.
This example of spatial montage therefore presents an interesting way
of showing both flashback and a character’s train of thought without
having to resort to a jarring jump in time (as flashbacks can be) or to
verbalising. By keeping the flashback within the same frame of the
present time, it is contextualised in a way that a consecutive shot cannot
accommodate. The relationship between the present and the past is
thus visually maintained in a very clear way, and the way in which the
frames are organised on the screen is also an effective method of pitting
one character’s awareness of the events of the previous night against
the other character’s lack thereof. Chelios, although he shares the same
screen, is also divided from the other screens by the framing.

Global montage

In his definition of ontological montage, Manovich does not

problematise what constitutes ontological incompatibility. If digital
media has appropriated the postmodern spirit of bricolage (a view
Manovich subscribes to) then there is a case for the claim that we may
be more accepting of previously considered ontologically ‘incompatible’
elements, to the point, in fact, where they no longer seem incompatible.
I will put forward the argument that it is the blending of fictional with
factual that constitutes the most revealing ontological incompatibility
 New Spatial/Visual Configurations 83

in view of the changing storytelling landscape, although the question

is for how long. As evidenced by flow theory, if we become accustomed
to such ontologically incompatible elements coexisting, they will not
be perceived as incompatible for very long.
Once again the avant-garde is invoked, whose driving force, Elsaesser
reminds us by quoting Peter Berger, is to ‘reintegrate art into the
practice of life’, or to ‘shorten the distance between “art” and life’
(2008: 13). This stance can be regarded as a ‘reaction to aestheticism
and partly to counter the anti-technological stance of l’art-pour
l’art-modernism’ (Elsaesser 2008: 13), which makes this instance of
avant-garde ontological montage particularly apt in its countering of
Luddite attitudes. And yet the anti-aesthetic drive of the blending of life
and art now, in digital media, forms a new kind of aesthetic. For it is not
so much in the current manifestations of this conflation that we find
the most telling signs, but in the logical progression of such blending
that a more groundbreaking vision appears.
Another conflation, other than the fact-fiction one, is taking
place – that of technology and the environment. As Elsaesser predicts,
‘[e]ven the concept of “medium” will be expendable’ (2008: 17) so
that cyberspace as a term will lose the meaning currently attached to
it. The human–computer interface still modelled in most cases around
our presumed familiarity with the cinema (the screen), with the book
(the laptop) or the office desk, will increasingly model itself around our
primary perceptual organs and senses, that is: sight, hearing and touch,
and thus also become ‘transparent’ (Elsaesser 2008: 17).
What Elsaesser is describing is ubiquitous computing (a development
which is predicted to be the next stage in the digital evolution),
whereby our everyday surroundings will be imbedded with computer
chips, and cloud computing will minimise and even render hardware
completely redundant. In light of this development, Elsaesser suggests
that ‘we are moving from “immersion” (our old-fashioned cyberspace)
to “eversion” (localized virtual reality environments)’ (2008: 17), and
the prevalence of the space as haptic will once again disappear in the
oscillation described by Manovich above. This vision of the ‘future’
has already been imagined in various sci-fi films, from Minority Report
(2002) to I, Robot (2004), with public spaces rendered as computerised
screens, offering individual informational feeds to passers-by. And in an
interesting use of spatial montage, this idea of eversion is also seen in
Crank in a scene during which Chav Chellos talks on his mobile phone,
while running down a series of corridors and emerging into a backstreet
(see Figure 3.3).
84 Gaming Film

Figure 3.3 Crank

Eschewing the film’s favoured method of splitting the screen in half

to show the other person on the phone, here the person speaking
appears on the corridor and backstreet walls, as an interactive wall,
although they are only visible to the viewer. Using such areas of the
screen which have natural frames of their own, and using them as
screen frames, instead of creating a specific frame, exhibits this kind of
widening of the perception as to what constitutes a potential viewing/
interacting screen.
So what are the implications for the frame as we are accustomed to
it, in the cinematic sense? And more to the point, what are the effects
on the multiple-framed window of the computer screen? Referring
to Greenaway’s musings on the absence of frames in nature, Andreas
Treske quotes the filmmaker as stating that ‘[I]f the frame is a man-
made device, then just as it has been created, so it can be un-created’
(cited in Treske 2008: 32). But perhaps this is too radical a notion as
ubiquitous computing will still most likely mean ubiquitous screens,
in that the screens will be of multiple sizes, in both public and private
spaces and fulfilling different functions with varied content. Using the
cinematic screen as a departing point in discussing digital media’s use
of the screen is an approach that Jan Simons finds to be an unhelpful
and antiquated one in his essay ‘Between iPhone and YouTube: Images
on the Move’ (2008). Instead, he proposes to open up the screen cat-
egorization to include the many different screen manifestations, from
 New Spatial/Visual Configurations 85

urban screens (meaning billboards) to skinned walls (buildings with

video walls) (2008: 101–102). Returning to film theory, though, Simons
finds that the ubiquitous digital screen will have to compete for our
attention even more with the sheer profusion of images both indoors
and outdoors, and he finds that ‘Eisenstein’s approach to film editing
as a “slap in the face” for the spectator is more pertinent to contempo-
rary visual culture than Bazin’s concept of the film image as a reflective
redemption of the real’ (2008: 105).
Simons does not discuss the idea of spatial montage, though, and
how one screen’s accommodation of multiple windows will fare in the
near future, but this sea of screens does confirm the even greater blend-
ing of reality and fiction and reality and media to the point where an
exchange of places occurs. Elsaesser quotes Žižek on this point:

[…] life becomes more ‘artificial’ by being understood to be both

engineered and programmable, which raises an interesting prospect
and may even hold out a promise: namely, the possibility that art
will become more life-like (in the sense of emulating reproduction,
generation, replication, mutation, chance and contingency), in order
to remain ‘art’. (cited in Elsaesser 2008: 18)

If life is to become more ‘artificial’ and art more ‘life-like’ this does
not mean that there is a simple swapping taking place out of which a
slightly different perspective will evolve. This means that everything
within our field of vision becomes a case of spatial montage in which
fictional narratives do not so much compete with factual data, as
much as intertwine to create an endless variety of semi-fictional and
semi-factual accounts. In this context, will it matter to even insist on
establishing the delineation between the two? Should we embrace the
blurring of boundaries in this instance as in the case of the cyborg? If
life/reality assumes more artificial or fictional forms of expression, then
this will mean a radical paradigm shift in how fiction is perceived. If
everything is potentially factual and everything is potentially a fiction,
the two become, in fact, two sides of the same coin. And this is where
transmedia, the subject of the next chapter, comes in as a bridging
device.
4
Transmedia:
The Film–Game Symbiosis

Manovich cites the release of the game Doom in 1993 as the turning
point in the cultural economy in terms of what being a fan of an
entertainment product entailed. By releasing the game along with
the game codes, as shareware, id Software, the creators of Doom,
took a more radical approach, allowing the gamers to create and add
levels and characters, and ‘(T)hus hacking and adding to the game
became an essential part of the game’ (Manovich 2001a: 245). Since
this move, many gaming companies have followed suit, and it is this
development that has primarily made the productive fan intervention a
normative response to enjoying a game. This type of online convening
of fans in the creation of a database of sorts, containing all manner of
contributions, is precisely the kind of collaborative participation that is
prevalent among gamers. From providing tips on gameplay (so-called
walkthroughs, either in text format or in video) to building own levels
or game objects, gamers are among the most active database builders
(e.g. the World of Warcraft wiki far outstrips the entire Wikipedia in
terms of content). In turn, this practice has permeated film fans’ modes
of reception (in no small part because the younger generation of film
viewers also happen to be gamers), taking it far beyond the scope of
the early Star Trek fanzines distributed to the fan club members by post.
This kind of activity represents the very essence of interactive media –
the repurposing of existing media and the individual interaction with
the content as well as contribution to it. From the capitalist strong-
hold over a product, the new ideological ethos of the digital era veers
closer to the socialist outlook, with free sharing becoming one of the
dominant online behaviours. And while it is clear to see how these
practices manifest in games, has this interactivity ethos permeated into
cinema? If so in what ways? One cinematic development that resulted
86
 Transmedia: The Film–Game Symbiosis 87

from the software sharing and accessibility within gaming has been the
rise of machinima.

Everyone’s a filmmaker

Machinimas can be seen as an extension of the practice begun with

gaming, in what Manovich recognises as a ‘new cultural economy’
(2001a: 245). The word ‘machinima’ was coined by one of the found-
ers of Strange Company1 to reflect the blend of machine (as in the
computer) and cinema. Machinima refers to a film (usually a short
film although there is no prescriptive length) made solely using game
engine animation, mostly achieved through the manipulation of
the in-game camera option. Over such manipulated animated images
the machinima creator layers voice-overs (according to the script writ-
ten by the machinima creator) and edits the piece. While the narrative
and audio effects are added, the visuals are entirely preexisting and the
creative property of another company (it is rare in computer games
that such creative or intellectual property belongs to an individual).
With its trespassing into someone else’s creative endeavours, this kind
of appropriation of material brings up the notion of textual poaching,
introduced by de Certeau in relation to the written text and its reader
and applied more widely to media studies by Henry Jenkins (1992).
Jenkins addresses mainly TV fan culture; however, his findings have
significant bearing on the digital user’s interaction with online material:

Undaunted by traditional conceptions of literary and intellectual

property, fans raid mass culture, claiming its materials for their own
use, reworking them as the basis for their own cultural creations
and social interactions […] Fandom here becomes a participatory
culture which transforms the experience of media consumption
into the production of new texts, indeed of a new culture and a new
community. (Jenkins 1992: 18, 46)

This act of creation which matches the initial artistic creation in terms
of ‘consumability’ marks a departure from de Certeau’s assessment that
the reader’s intervention can never match that of the written text,
lacking the latter’s permanence and status. It is important to note that
while some ‘machinimators’ may be budding filmmakers who have
recognised this form as a cheaper way of making shorts that will gar-
ner them industry recognition, overall, for a long while machinimas
were not money-making endeavours,2 therefore their creators were not
88 Gaming Film

seen as profiting at the expense of someone else’s hard toil. For game
companies, they also represent free marketing, garnering potential
new gamers. Microsoft recognised this promotional opportunity when
Rooster Teeth Productions created the machinima webseries Red vs.
Blue (RvB), based on the game Halo. Not only did they officially allow
the team to continue with the webseries, but they also developed
in-game features that would allow easier machinima production. It is
this marketing aspect that is of significance, though, for although the
digital era has brought in the file-sharing ethos of the ‘new cultural
economy’, there is an interesting mix of this type of new digital interac-
tive culture featuring as part of a feature film campaign.

This is not a game

Just over three months before Spielberg’s AI: Artificial Intelligence had
its premiere at the 2001 Venice film festival, an unusual promotional
campaign was launched to market the film in the form of an alternate
reality game (ARG) entitled The Beast. The game was set 50 years after
the events of the film, and did not feature any of the characters or
storylines of the film, although thematically it also dealt with robots,
with the central mystery concerning the robotherapist Jeanine Salla
and her role in the death of an Evan Chan. Clues were released
through three different rabbit holes, and the film’s promotional posters
contained one lead. As the game progressed, the murder appeared to be
linked to Evans’s AI-boat called Cloudmaker (an empathetic robot in the
vein of the central child robot in the film itself), and the destruction of
Cloudmaker within the game’s storyline reflected once again human fear
of such sentient machines. However, it is not the story that is of interest
in this ARG, but the manner in which the game was played, decoded
and solved. Jenkins describes the esoteric and eclectic nature of the
scope of the game, and provides a very astute definition of it:

The Beast was a new form of immersive entertainment or encyclo-

paedic storytelling, which was unfolding at the points of contact
between authors and consumers. (Jenkins 2008: 129)

An online Yahoo group of players called Cloudmakers (taking the name

after the boat) were so well-organised and skilled that they kept the
puppetmasters on their toes, influencing the game’s difficulty levels,
and pushing the boundaries as well as feeding the newly generated
game developments (as the ARG was being developed in real time,
 Transmedia: The Film–Game Symbiosis 89

alongside the playing of it). This mode of fans sharing their knowledge
in a joint quest to get to the bottom of the mystery (rather than compet-
ing against each other) is a key characteristic of ARGs, epitomising what
Jenkins (drawing on the work of Pierre Lévy) identifies as ‘knowledge
culture(s) based on collective intelligence’ (2008: 133). Such knowledge
sharing is at the root of open source file sharing and typifies the hacker
ethos, and it is also diametrically opposite to the competitive capitalist
ideology where the individual is pitted against the individual in the
race to corner markets and capital. In this sense, the participants’
construction of the narrative/meaning based on the variety of clues
is, in ideological terms, inspired by the ideas behind socialism – the
joining of forces and resources for the greater good. This collaborative
knowledge is reflected in the writing process in ARGs, which is not
only a collaborative affair, but the complexity of the narrative clues and
riddles is geared precisely towards a collective knowledge base rather
than aimed at an individual’s ability to solve the puzzles.
Jenkins talks about Lynch’s TV series Twin Peaks as an early example of
transmedia storytelling reliant on additive comprehension (2008: 127), a
term he borrows from Neil Young which refers to the scattering of clues
across the various narrative platforms so that each of these clues feeds
the following format. The cumulative effect of the consuming of all the
different narrative manifestations results in additive comprehension. Twin
Peaks (although not an ARG, it displayed similar puzzle-challenges to its
viewers) had arrived at the inception of the Internet and while it sparked
online fan activity, with speculations on the murder mystery clues, there
was a great divide between the TV followers, who were mostly left baffled
by the cryptic plot, and the online fans, who had, through the pooling of
their joint knowledge, managed to ‘overtake’ Lynch and felt the plot was
‘becoming too predictable’ (Jenkins 2008: 34). This divide aptly defines the
raison d’être of this particular type of interactive narrative: it is intended
for a collaborative audience and precludes an individual stance, meaning
it would be next to impossible for a single viewer/user to partake in and
decipher the entire ARG.
The misstep or the gap in knowledge/understanding that Jenkins
perceives between the TV viewers of Twin Peaks and the fans who
were communicating online is still very much an ongoing negotiation
within transmedia, which, as has been noted already, relies on several
different media platforms and is supposed to expand in content without
duplication. This presents a problem if a viewer/user chooses to sample
only one media format, and by doing so becomes short-changed. This
is the criticism that befell The Matrix transmedia project, an early and
90 Gaming Film

impressive example of several platforms carrying new and different

content. In 1999 The Matrix, the feature, was released in cinemas,
marking the main ‘entry point’ to the transmedia experience. The
additional content did not accompany the film’s release simultaneously,
nor did it follow straight after the film’s run in the cinemas. However,
in 2003, coinciding with The Matrix Reloaded, the second part of the
trilogy, a collection of nine animation shorts was released called The
Animatrix, alongside Enter The Matrix, the first of three computer games.
The game was designed as a parallel storyline, a sort of companion piece
to the film, whereas the animated pieces fleshed out both characters’
backstories and plot details. Six months after the second feature, The
Matrix Revolutions was released, and following not long after this the
MMORPG The Matrix Online was launched as well as a third computer
game The Matrix: Path of Neo plus comic books under the title The Matrix
Comics. Given the intertwined nature of all the narrative components,
spread out across the various media platforms, it is not surprising
that many of the franchise fans were left baffled, bemused or even
disappointed. On the one hand, the film viewers were denied all of the
answers to the mysteries posed by the three features, and on the other
hand, the most avid fans, who participated in all of the additional
content, found that they had overestimated the big finale, having
already guessed correctly at most of the answers. Jenkins defends the
project for its ambition, arguing that as one of the first such transme-
dia works, it suffered precisely because of the novelty factor as well as
the absence of ‘good aesthetic criteria for evaluating works that play
themselves out across multiple media’, concluding that it was both a
‘flawed experiment’ as well as an ‘interesting failure’ (2008: 99).
As a standalone transmedia work, Jenkins is probably right in
evaluating the Wachowski brothers’ work in these terms, but as a
harbinger of things to come, The Matrix franchise paved the way for
transmedia and the idea of ontological montage – the experiencing of
a fictional work across several platforms, and involving the fans’ own
reality (whether it be virtual or real). For if it had not been for this
precedent, The Beast might not have been conceived, just as The Dark
Knight’s (2008) viral campaign Why So Serious? might not have played
out, after which such ludic marketing accompaniments to feature
releases became far more normative. The Why So Serious? ARG was also
noteworthy in its advancement of the interactive mode compared to its
precedents. By organising the interaction around viewers posting their
own contributions, and then weaving those contributions (i.e. posted
photos) into the final clue/reward (an image of the Joker), the game
 Transmedia: The Film–Game Symbiosis 91

not only blended real-time, real-world elements with online, virtual

ones but it also seamlessly encompassed the fictional characters of the
Batman franchise with the fans: through the intermingling of their own
contributions and the fictional world of The Dark Knight, and through
the interaction between the fans and that world, an example of effort-
less ontological montage took place.
Four years after Why So Serious?, another milestone in the transmedia/
cinematic viral campaign was the release of Prometheus (2012). Whereas
The Beast was only thematically linked with AI: Artificial Intelligence and
had no narrative/character links to the film’s plot, and Why So Serious?
offered only the briefest of glimpses into the visual look of The Dark
Knight, the Prometheus viral campaign (which unlike its predecessors
did not carry a distinct title) featured the characters from the film,
thus presenting a more unified front, as though the viral aspect was
no longer considered an add-on designed for a specific fanbase but
was part of the overall storyworld. In fact, the story of Prometheus itself
is an offshoot of the Alien franchise, at first touted as a prequel of sorts,
and then described in terms of belonging to that narrative universe
but without specific links to it, which epitomises Jenkins’s notion of
transmedia as a sprawling and ever-expanding storyworld. Given that
films as a medium are not as focused on character development as TV
would be, by posting clips in advance which introduced the various
characters of the film, the creators were introducing the world of the
film without giving away any vital plot points. The short clips were
part of the ARG, which followed the format’s predilection for blending
reality and fiction, so that clues were scattered across fictional websites
as well as in real media (i.e. The Wall Street Journal), and the first clip
featured the character Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) giving a speech at a
TED Conference (the acronym stands for technology, entertainment,
design), presenting his vision of the future (see Figure 4.1). The TED
Conference is an established event among the scientific/academic
research community, providing another layer of reality within the
fiction.
The short, online clip of Weyland presenting his ideas mimics
the manner in which other, ‘real’ thinkers and their TED speeches
are accessed – through online clips posted on YouTube, where the same
TED logo is visible, although the setting is not as grandiose as the large,
packed stadium picked for this purpose. And while the clips and the
gameplay provided fans with material that was not present in the film
itself, the ARG did not reveal significant details that would have left
the film viewers feeling cheated or left in the dark. This shows that the
92 Gaming Film

Figure 4.1 Prometheus: The TED viral clip

transmedia method works at its best when it is exploring additional

content, whether it is a whole new side-story, in the sense of Prometheus
belonging to the overarching Alien fictional world, or whether it
is fleshing out character and certain details of the world. This means
that viewers who chose only one platform, i.e. the film, do not feel
as though vital narrative information has been withheld from them.
For a transmedia narrative should not be about planting hooks that
force the viewer/interactor to seek other platforms in order to resolve
the mystery. Instead, each platform instalment should work towards
strengthening viewer engagement so that the interest in the storyworld
builds naturally.

Super-genre

The multiplicity of forms and formats that The Matrix franchise

introduced – live-action, animation, gaming, comics, feature-length
films, short films, an MMORPG as well as console games and serialised
comic books – brings up the question of genre, an already much
debated topic in Film Studies in recent years. The term ‘transmedia’
does signal that many formats and platforms have been deployed, but
if there are different genres within this entity, how does one begin to
classify such a work? While transmedia covers the mode of distribution/
reception/interaction, it does not and cannot encapsulate the generic
aspects. Gaming is a similarly beleaguered field of study in terms of
genre categorisation, with games more often than not lumbered with
a whole set of terms, from genre classifications borrowed from cinema
 Transmedia: The Film–Game Symbiosis 93

(referring to the gaming narrative), to the gameplay mode, as well as the

gaming platform. When a game has more than one mode of gameplay
and more than one possible platform, the list becomes quite taxing. If
we look at genre in a wider context, this plurality of terms used and the
hybrid nature of games are actually in keeping with the postmodernist
view of genre. One of the defining characteristics of the postmodern,
according to Ihab Hassan, is ‘hybridisation, or the mutant replication
of genres’ which ultimately leads to the ‘deformation of cultural genres’
(1992: 196–197). Hassan goes on to state that:

[…] traditionally, genre assumed recognizable features within a

context of both persistence and change; it was a useful assumption
of identity […] [b]ut that assumption […] seems ever harder to
maintain. Even genre theorists invite us, nowadays, to go beyond
genre […] (Hassan 1992: 196–197)

But what does going ‘beyond genre’ entail? Does it mean relying on
very specific descriptors for each and every work? Looking at plot
types, it is interesting to note that ‘a more recent trend in the study of
plot types has been to trace the development of more specific plots in
narrative fiction’ such as the ‘tested woman plot’ and ‘coincidence plot’
(Herman et al. 2008: 440). So based on this trend, does the call to go
beyond genre mean giving up altogether on attempting to classify, or
does it mean turning the focus to more specific plots? In the latter case,
this suggests a tendency towards the micronarrative, or an emphasis
on the nuanced differences between works rather than the unifying
commonalities in the theories of James Campbell, Vladimir Propp and
Lévi-Strauss.
Marie-Laure Ryan, a theorist of interactive narrative, quotes the
musings of R. Howard Bloch and Carla Hesse on the future of genre in
the digital era:

Genres, until now considered to be discrete, suddenly will mingle

indiscreetly on the screen; any text will be able to mate electronically
with any other text in what looms as the spectre of a great
miscegenation of types. (in Ryan 2001: 202)

So if the vision of the future in narrative is that of a kaleidoscopic

mishmash, then perhaps it is only prudent to take heed of Derrida’s
call (as part of his destructuralist view) for ‘undoing genre’ (Hassan
1992: 200), in which case do we need to find a completely different
94 Gaming Film

taxonomy system, based on different parameters? Perhaps it is the

concept of genre that needs rethinking? And if so, what would this new
classification organisation be?
In Genre and Hollywood, Steve Neale observes that questions regarding
genre:

[…] require thinking about genre as ubiquitous, multifaceted phe-

nomena rather than as one-dimensional entities to be found only
within the realms of Hollywood cinema or of commercial popular
culture. (Neale 2000: 26)

If we take Neale’s ‘multiple generic’ (2000: 2) approach to genre,

though, we still are no closer to resolving the problem of too many
adjectives needing to be used in order to describe a work in a way that
would do justification to all of the different components of a franchise
like The Matrix. So, instead of a micronarrative approach, perhaps a
more ‘macro’ line of reasoning is required. This move from describing
films/games from very specific genre categories to broader categories
ties in with Manovich’s expansion on Metz’s idea of the fictional film
representing a super-genre. Manovich goes one step further, in stating
that it is the live-action aspect that will become the defining distin-
guishing quality:

From the perspective of a future historian of visual culture, the

differences between classical Hollywood films, European art films,
and avant-garde films […] may appear less significant than this
common feature – their reliance on lens-based recordings of reality.
(Manovich 2001a: 294)

Considering so much of current cinematic output is a mixture

of live-action and digital effects, this distinction might not be as
significant, but Manovich is right in foregrounding Metz’s super-genre
idea as becoming more relevant to the study and analysis in cinema
and visual culture. It is my view that instead of live-action, it will be the
transmedia titles that will earn the moniker of super-genre. For example,
rather than the franchise title epitomising a genre, it would epitomise
a fictional universe in which any genre might be found or any genre
could be dabbled in from the point of view of fan input. And if we once
again reflect on the reality–fiction rapprochement discussed thus far,
the idea of a super-genre appears even more fitting, as distinguishing
 Transmedia: The Film–Game Symbiosis 95

between the fictional/factual elements of a narrative experience would

additionally complicate matters.
Joss Whedon’s The Avengers (2012) is a prime example of a cinematic
narrative resistant to closure or an end point. Based on the fictional
universe provided by the Marvel comic books, it gathers characters
from preexisting comics and films (meaning that the entry point for
some fans will be the comic books, while for others it may be any of
the recent films, from Captain America to Iron Man), deepening the sense
that all of these heroes’ and heroines’ paths intersect, and setting the
foundation for more cross-pollination among the different superheroes,
ensuring a potentially endless narrative engagement and endless narra-
tive configurations.
5
Escapism versus Involvement

The ubiquity of the screen in our daily lives is in evidence in both the
public and personal sphere: the iPhone is operated in tandem with the
urban screens and images encountered in reality are checked against
images on the phone screen (i.e. interactive architectural spaces). As
Elsaesser has asserted, we are poised for ‘eversion’ as the new alterna-
tive to immersion. If gaming-like interaction is set to permeate reality
to ever increasing levels, then the role of games and fictional entertain-
ment (as in a transmedia type of entertainment) in general is about to
be fundamentally transformed. Marie-Laure Ryan problematises this
shifting landscape, stating that games are aligned with fiction in their
therapeutic providing of escapism from reality. Without the escapist
property:

[…] if games absorb the whole of reality, or if the boundary between

fiction and reality disappears, the possibilities of escape into other
ontological domains will be forfeited, and we will become prisoners
of the game, unable to remove the skin of our make-believe identi-
ties. (Ryan 2009b: 175)

This concern would be warranted if there were nothing to replace or

compensate for the loss of escapism in the ludic situations pervading
reality. But there are benefits to be gleaned from such blurring of real-
ity and fiction. On the one hand, Ryan bemoans the danger of losing
the therapeutic value of games and fiction if the pervasiveness removes
the escapist aspect. Yet on the other hand, Jane McGonigal, the ARG
designer and author of Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and
How They Can Change the World (2010), claims (rather provocatively)
that gaming can save the world and make us better people. She argues
96
 Escapism versus Involvement 97

that the benefits of gaming that seep into real life are manifold and
should be harnessed for the greater global good, and rather than being
escapist, games are ‘returnist’, meaning that the skills and behaviour
absorbed through games can be applied to real life. It is my view that
through a reimagined assessment of catharsis we can move forward
from this kind of theoretical impasse.

Cathartic flow

E. M. Forster, in his seminal collection of lectures Aspects of the Novel

(1927), describes the difference between story and plot by proposing
two simple questions: ‘If it is in a story we say “and then?” If it is in a
plot we ask “why?”’ (1990: 87). Beyond the ‘why’ of the plot causality,
though, there is the ‘why’ of watching drama, the point of which in
Aristotelian theory is to experience catharsis. In the Poetics, Aristotle
did not fully elucidate on the full meaning and implication of catharsis,
which continues to elicit contradictory interpretations. The common
interpretation, which dominates screenwriting manuals, is that of pur-
gation (in the metaphoric sense) of the build-up of emotions caused by
the dramatic incidents (a point that is refuted by Aristotelian scholars
such as Golden and Belfiore, see below). Or, to be more precise, catharsis
is the culminating result of the release of emotions of pity, hope and
fear. Its function can be summed up as a form of psychotherapeutic
release of pent-up negative emotions such as anger, frustration and
stress, which then get released along with the emotions stirred up as a
direct response to the drama.
Within Game Studies, much has been written on the subject of the
seeming impossibility of achieving or experiencing catharsis in an
interactive medium, and Janet Murray asks how we can ‘have cathar-
sis in a medium that resists closure’ (1997: 175). This view is firmly
grounded in the tenets of classical tragedy, whereby the hero’s demise
brings about catharsis and closure. Examining the material causes of
catharsis – the emotions of pity, hope and fear – raises the question
of whether interactive narratives are capable of triggering the same
intensity of emotion a classical narrative can provide. Ryan provides an
insightful commentary on the different emotions involved in interac-
tive narrative:

Narrative has a unique power to generate emotions directed toward

others. Aristotle paid tribute to this ability when he described the
effect of tragedy as purification (catharsis) through feelings of terror
98 Gaming Film

and pity inspired by the fate of characters. By contrast, the emotions

we experience while playing games – excitement, triumph, dejection,
relief, frustration […] – are overwhelmingly self-directed ones, because
they reflect our success and interest in playing the game. But their range
is much smaller than the self-centered emotions of life […] Whereas
narrative interest regards characters as persons, ludic interest regards
them as means to an end. (Ryan 2004: 57)

Ryan uses the example of a gamer rescuing a princess as a case in point:

the motivation is not romantic (as it would be perceived in a film),
but goal-oriented; the mission might well unlock the next level for
the gamer or bring him closer to the main goal. But perhaps it is the
emphasis on the emotional aspect of catharsis that is proving to be the
theoretical stumbling block.
In Aristotle in Hollywood, Ari Hiltunen (2002) identifies the
intellectual dimension as one of the four dimensions of the ‘proper
pleasure’ derived from drama. The intellectual in this interpreta-
tion does not refer to ‘high-brow’ cerebral content, but rather to
our ability to cognitively process language and enactment in order
to understand a dramatic performance. From this cognitive abil-
ity Hiltunen stretches the point to cover the pleasure derived from
deciphering the mystery of the story, or the intellectual ‘puzzle’.
In the introduction to Puzzle Films, Warren Buckland goes as far
as categorising the titular puzzle films as a third type of plot, right
after the Aristotelian simple and complex plots (2009: 3). If the
complex plot is advanced compared to the simple plot through
its secondary line of causality, bringing about reversal and recog-
nition, then the puzzle plot is marked by the rearranging of the
plot in such a way that necessitates the viewer to work out the
lines of causality. In other words, the plot is the puzzle game that
the viewer needs to figure out. This hypothesis of the intellectual
source of pleasure is seconded by Leon Golden, who is credited
by Elizabeth Belfiore with spreading the idea of the cognitive/
intellectual source of catharsis. Belfiore quotes Golden as stat-
ing that catharsis is ‘that moment of insight which arises out
of the audience’s climactic intellectual, emotional and spiritual
enlightenment’ (1992: 1). Therefore, if games can be described as
providing an intellectual kind of catharsis, then catharsis in cin-
ema needs reassessing in light of the puzzle/mind-game film and
transmedia in general. Perhaps, then, the tenability of catharsis in an
 Escapism versus Involvement 99

interactive narrative is dependent on both the emotional landscape

and the intellectual ‘puzzle’ factor. If we apply the flow theory to this
proposal, then we could regard the emotional and the intellectual
components as being offset in a continual struggle, trying to create
the perfect balance, with first one dominating then the other.
In the previous chapter, the communal nature of working out ludic/
cinematic puzzles was emphasised. In this kind of ludic participation,
McGonigal identifies among the gaming boons increased self-confidence
(and self-image) and an increased tendency towards belonging to
communities as well as optimism and the commitment to hard
work within gaming. She suggests that gaming creates ‘eustress’, a
combination of euphoria and stress, which is, in fact, a reinterpretation
of flow theory. The stress of solving game puzzles and obstacles is
not a negative one, but a positive mental state that leads to feelings
of accomplishment and self-worth. This brings in a different level
of emotional involvement to that which applies to classical drama:
the communal, participatory nature of the Internet and the involved
manner of viewing/interacting with a transmedia narrative/game fulfil
the emotional aspect that is found to be lacking in a goal-oriented,
overly cerebral ludic challenge.

The ‘narratory principle’ of mimesis

Mimesis, another component of classical drama, is also a category that

needs ‘refreshing’. In a transmedia landscape in which one can both
watch Bond and be Bond, by looking at mimesis, whereby the viewer
may be inhabiting a Bond avatar, or may be partaking in an online
community under a fan alias, the understanding of the emotional
involvement of the viewer can be deepened. Mimesis is a term that has
met with even more diverging views than catharsis, starting with the
two different stances taken up by Plato and Aristotle respectively. Plato
favoured diegesis, in which ‘poets speak in their own name without
pretending to be someone else’ (in Herman et al. 2008: 309), as opposed
to the poets’ corrosive and corruptive pretence of inhabiting a fictional
character’s voice, which was how he regarded mimesis. Aristotle’s
reading of mimesis was less charged and more measured, extolling
the creative virtues of mimetic art, although there has been some
misunderstanding of Aristotle’s notion of mimesis as the imitation of
life. Jerome Bruner points out that Aristotle’s understanding was not a
broad and vague inclusion of any and/or all of life’s events in the act of
100 Gaming Film

imitation, but rather, mimesis for Aristotle was about representing life
in action (1990: 46).
Over time, mimetic art became synonymous with reproductive art;
however, there have been arguments that call for a reconsideration of
mimesis as being a site of productive art. Paul Ricoeur, throughout his
extensive work on narrative, highlights the significance of the mimetic
quality – mimesis, or imitation of action, he says, is ‘the very definition
he [Aristotle] gives of the narrative’ (in Wood 1991: 28). Following on
from this claim and picking up on the active form of the verb employed
(mimesis), David Wood asserts that ‘(n)arrative mimesis for Ricoeur is
not reproduction but production, invention’ (1991: 170). Bolter and
Grusin similarly argue that their concept of remediation follows such
an understanding of mimesis, quoting Derrida’s interpretation of the
idea: ‘Mimesis here is not the representation of one thing by another
[…] “True” mimesis is between two producing subjects […]’ (in Bolter
and Grusin 2000: 53, italics in original).
In the productive context of mimesis, Ricoeur equates narrative with
metaphor as sites of new creation: if metaphor is ‘the capacity of “seeing
as” […] the narrative activity of story-telling opens to us the realm of the
“as if”’ (Wood 1991: 171). So, after the folk-psychology take on ‘What
if?’ in Bordwell’s forking-path narrative and the scientific ‘What if?’ of
Wendy Everett’s fractal films, we alight on a third narrative prompter,
albeit not technically speaking a question per se: ‘As if’. The ‘What if?’
query was also at the basis of the Choose-Your-Own Adventure series,
and as such, we may liken it to a plot-oriented interactive question. The
‘What if?’ marks the forking in the branches as the story opens up more
and more plot possibilities. The fractal film ‘What if?’, although still
heavily indebted to careful plotting, is permeated by a more philosophi-
cal approach in the manner in which the various ‘What if?’ offshoots
manifest. In light of these two approaches, the ‘As if’ can then be seen
as a character-oriented interactive question. The question firmly assigns
a certain role to the interactor, regardless of the character type they are
being invited to behave as.
Moreover, even activities such as posting comments, communicating
with fellow fans, or partaking in an ARG within a transmedia
environment, can be subsumed under the process of narrative
constructs. Contrary to the expectation that these non-narrative
activities weaken a narrative experience, they can build towards the
creation of a coherent narrative. Bruner points to the predisposition
towards ‘narrative accrual’, whereby any random events can be assem-
bled, through accrual, into a cohesive narrative. The argument put
 Escapism versus Involvement 101

forward by narrative psychology bases itself on the assumption that

we all create stories out of everyday moments in order to process them
and incorporate them into the greater narrative that is each person’s
life story (Bruner 2004). This tendency to narrativise even situations
that don’t contain what we might consider a story becomes, therefore,
highly significant when transposed to a participatory transmedia sce-
nario. These self-narrative constructs are not just limited to situations,
but encompass emotions, too: a person creates a story around a certain
emotion so that either the pleasant or negative effect of the emotion
can be incorporated into the larger life narrative (Bruner 1990; McLeod
1997). Theodore Sarbin’s ‘narratory principle’ is particularly appropriate
to bring into this discussion. Michele L. Crossley summarises Sarbin’s
theory of ‘narratory principle’ as ‘the idea that all human beings think,
perceive, imagine, interact and make moral choices according to narra-
tive structures’ (in Herman et al. 2008: 361), and reaches the conclusion
that:

[…] narrative is more to do with its role in constituting the sense

of the actions we engage in and the events we live through, its
role in organising temporally and giving shape and coherence to the
sequence of experiences we have as we are in the process of having
them […]. (Crossley 2000: 6)

This point significantly changes the perspective on how gameplay can

be related to narrative, as well as involved participation in a transmedia
narrative. And, it is through these narrative constructs, derived from
everyday occurrences, that the self is shaped. Brooks holds that ‘we
sense that there ought to be a correspondence between literary and
psychic dynamics, since to an important degree we define and construct
our sense of self through our fictions’ (1992: 36). So, how has our sense
of self begun to change as a result of this multi-alias, participatory,
involved mode of entertainment consumption?

Productive pathologies of the digital mind

Discussing the mind-game film, Elsaesser puts forward quite a provocative

theory, arguing that conditions such as paranoia, schizophrenia and
amnesia can be regarded as an ‘appropriate – or even “productive” –
pathology of our contemporary network society’ (2009: 26). Elsaesser goes
on to explain how such pathologies can be perceived as productive, start-
ing with paranoia, which, if viewed as operating within the networked
102 Gaming Film

system, can open up a more complex view of the world. The paranoid
person, by ‘[b]eing able to discover new connections, where ordinary
people operate only by analogy or antithesis’ (Elsaesser 2009: 26) is thus
placed in an advantageous position in relation to the non-paranoid
individual. If everything is hyperlinked and connected within a net-
work/rhizome structure, and if these digital structures fractally reflect
and repeat in every aspect of our lives, then believing everything is
connected becomes a reasonable assumption rather than a conspiracy
theory created by an overactive imagination. Using Donnie Darko
(2001) as one example of productive schizophrenia, Elsaesser finds that
this condition allows Donnie to function within his environment, once
again making the point that such a mindset creates its own unique
patterns of connections and perceptions that are useful (under specific
circumstances) rather than damaging. Elsaesser is primarily discussing
film – mind-game films to be precise – and therefore does not engage
with the behavioural tendencies in the digital domain, but his point
about schizophrenia can be extended to the multiple personae users
create for themselves in various online activities. As Sherry Turkle
assesses:

The Internet has become a significant social laboratory for

experimenting with the constructions and reconstructions of self
that characterize postmodern life […] What kinds of personae do we
make? What relation do these have to what we have traditionally
thought of as the ‘whole person’? (Turkle 1995: 180)

Turkle does not answer her questions with a definitive theory of online
psychological behaviour except for understanding that the multiple
personae have become the norm rather than being perceived as an
aberration or, in Elsaesser’s words, pathology.
Elsaesser problematizes amnesia in Memento, suggesting that ‘the film
foregrounds the idea of “programming” as opposed to remembering’
(2009: 28), so that Leonard’s actions come to resemble ‘procedures
and protocols’ (2009: 29), which are symptomatic of a larger, societal
shift. Digital technology, with its encyclopaedic property of storage
and memory, removes the need for remembering information, as it is
all available to look up a click or two away. To ‘remember’ therefore
starts to assume a different meaning – it entails knowing how to
access the system in order to draw the required set of data. In terms of
memorising, only the knowledge of how to access/search/identify data
 Escapism versus Involvement 103

has to be retained/remembered. Sarah Késenne holds a similar view

of memory, which, ‘[i]n the case of image recognition technology […]
becomes completely defunct’ (2011: 65). Expanding on Barthes’s idea
that ‘photographic images are to a certain extent able to redirect, add,
rewrite or replace memories’ (2011: 65), Késenne argues that in the
era of YouTube when we are all uploading our personal photographs/
videos for everyone to see (strangers included), the special role of the
image as a memory trigger becomes meaningless. Moreover, given
Barthes’s theory of the ability of the image to simulate a non-existent
memory (‘counter-memory’) through the power of the visual medium
alone:

[…] when the real experiences behind user-generated content are

injected with the fictions of ‘blocked memory’ and ‘mystified
relations’, the inevitable result is a voyeuristic playground. Now
that they can be viewed by millions of strangers in a single click,
amateur pictures have lost their exceptional power to create an
intimate viewing experience as a ritual of remembrance. (Késenne
2011: 65)

Thus memory is not only no longer required for data recall, as the
computer substitutes this function, but at a personal level memory
has lost its special ‘ritual’ quality, enmeshed with numerous personal
memories of others. The digital system, therefore, cuts the cord with
the past, both of the history of a person’s learning and accumulating of
facts and knowledge, and the personal past/mythology.
Amnesia also happens to be a convenient character device for a game
avatar (as seen in Silent Hill 2), because it places the gamer in a more
plausible alignment with the avatar’s situation, whereby the gamer
learns at the same time as the avatar, as the game progresses, of events
in the past and what led to the current gaming situation.

If we understand these illnesses as anthropomorphized versions of

mathematical code and automated programs, then they seem to
liberate and create new connections, establish new networks, but
these are not ‘open’ and ‘free’. (Elsaesser 2009: 29)

Elsaesser believes that these new networks are not yet fully understood –
they suggest the future, but the full ramifications are still unclear, and
as a result, there is a ‘short-circuit’ (2009: 29) among the connections.
104 Gaming Film

In order to unpick these ideas, both game theory and psychology can
provide useful frameworks. The ability to negotiate playful (read online)
actions and everyday life situations, all at the same time, contradicts
the theory held by Roger Caillois who, along with John Huizinga,
had laid the foundational tenets of gaming and play (before computer
gaming, that is). Caillois identified the benefit of play in its separate-
ness from other activities, for ‘play and ordinary life are constantly
and universally antagonistic to each other’ (cited in Lister, Dovey et al.
2009: 297). Caillois likewise warned that it ‘is precisely the sharp
delineation between fantasy and reality that protects the player from
alienation from the real world’ (in Lister, Dovey et al. 2009: 298). This
view becomes an antiquated one in the age of digital technology, when
such delineation is not only not sharp, but is no longer manifesting as
a clear line.
It is in this negotiation of gaming and real worlds that Elsaesser’s
notions of amnesia, schizophrenia and paranoia become especially
useful as pointers to new behavioural patterns. Rather than using
the medical understanding of schizophrenia as delusional, paranoid
and hallucinatory behaviour, its original meaning can help us regard
the term in a more positive light. Etymologically, the term can be
separated into skhizein (σχίζειν, ‘to split’) and phreˉn, phren- (ϕρήν, ϕρεν-;
‘mind’) – a split mind. In the context of a ‘productive pathology’, then,
schizophrenia can be viewed as the multiple personalities of a person –
the collection of their many selves. Or, in Turkle’s words, one’s identity
is to be perceived as multiplicity, if we go by Lacan’s theory of no
ultimate, all-defining core self.
This multiplicity requires adept handling, which is where amnesia and
paranoia come in. Once again, if we do not retain a literal understanding
of the term – loss of memory – but apply it in a metaphoric sense, its
positive and productive aspects come to the fore. For a person to manage
the multiplicity of selves, they cannot coexist at the same time in the
same voice. They are each and every one compartmentalized as per their
specific usage. And so a gaming self from one particular game will be
differentiated from another game’s self and, likewise, these avatar selves
will not be carried over into a work self. For this to work, a superficial
state of amnesia has to hold. Yet this amnesia is only surface-deep, for
the paradox of a person’s engagement with the digital world is that
several of these selves may be expressing themselves almost simultane-
ously. I suggest that in a correlative of the flow state, the state of amnesia
alternates with the state of paranoia (but in Elsaesser’s understanding of
the term as an awareness of the hyperlinked connectivity of the net),
 Escapism versus Involvement 105

so that the selves are able to remain sufficiently separate for the seamless
functioning of the person, yet at the same time the connections between
these selves are apparent to the person (which, of course, also separates
this positive/productive use of the terms from the medical ‘unproduc-
tive’ understanding of the conditions).
Furthermore, the idea of a digital self serving as a psychological
self-help tool is not to be misunderstood for a therapy replacement.
Even though this slant appears in some sections of Turkle’s writings,
she does not suggest that gaming can hold the key to self-transfor-
mation, either. Even in Murray’s understanding of transformation, it
implies some change, but does not automatically mean a radical or
complete transformation. It is more the case that the proliferation of
identities can satisfy certain perceived lackings in the real life self, or
can serve as experiments, parts of which may be imported to the real-
life self, or to other selves (and some change in a person’s life/behav-
iour may indeed occur as a result of these interactions). The self-help
argument is also problematic as it denies the digital multiplicity of
selves as it implies one, superior self that is strived towards. On the
one hand, digital identity, shaped through the process of interaction
rather than in relation to the fetishising of an external object, is, like
the ending-resistant computer game, resistant to a clearly defined,
core self. Yet on the other hand the multiplicity of identities is not
necessarily a set of highly distinctive and different personae/voices.
The avatars may only be differentiated by mere nuances of behav-
ioural shifts.
In line with Manovich’s endeavours to find a wider, socio-cultural
application of the computer logic – the so-called act of transcoding – I
would argue that the identity multiplicity of the digital age has points
in common with the genre profusion found within transmedia story
telling. The transmedia franchise is bound by a central theme/narra-
tive idea, but this premise then gets numerous iterations, demonstrat-
ing a variety of genres and registers (as well as manifesting in the
slippage between reality and fiction in the case of ARGs for example),
the differences between which may be negligible or quite consider-
able. And so a digital identity becomes a transmedia identity – able
to switch tone and genre to varying degrees, depending on the situa-
tion at hand. The person is still recognisable but has a wider array of
personae to ‘cycle’ through and play with and experiment behaviour-
ally. And just as in the ideal version of Jenkins’s transmedia story tell-
ing, in which there is no distinction between the multitude of entry
points, with transmedia identity, the idea of a starting point or ‘core’
106 Gaming Film

self loses cogency – each version is as valid as the others, without any
one taking hierarchical precedence, in compliance with the database
structuring.

The gaze/the glance/the glaze

If there is no core self, or core viewer, but if several types of viewers/

interactors coexist within us at all times, and furthermore, if we are
engaging in multiple actions in our engagement (interaction) with a
transmedia narrative, then how does this impact the cinematic gaze?
As discussed in the Introduction, according to the reader–response
school of thought,1 any reading is in and of itself an interactive process.
The closest appropriation of the reader–response in cinema can
be found in the incursions made by the likes of Lehman and Luhr
with their application of reception theory, which follows the reader–
response logic of taking into account audiences’ differences (i.e. social,
historical or cultural) and how their varying subjective viewings mean a
homogenous interpretation of any given film is near impossible (2003:
169–170). Lehman and Luhr distinguish between preferred, negotiated and
oppositional reading. Preferred reading refers to the meaning intended
by the filmmaker, negotiated reading is conditioned by socio-cultural
factors and oppositional reading actively goes against the grain of the
preferred reading. Lehman and Luhr’s theory significantly opens up
the apparatus theory discussion as laid out by Jean-Louis Baudry in
1970 in the construction of the cinematographic apparatus. In the
essay ‘Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus’,
Baudry argues that cinema can ‘appear as a sort of psychic apparatus
of substitution, corresponding to the model defined by the dominant
ideology’ (in Mast et al. 1992: 312). Invoking Freudian and Lacanian
psychoanalytical thought in relation to the process of identification and
Althusser’s theory of interpolation, whereby the dominant ideological
system is represented in (and communicated via) various areas of
life, the arts (and cinema) included, Baudry argues that the spectator
is influenced at a deeper, subconscious level by the ideological. This
view is a reiteration of the passive spectator and does not allow for a
divergent reading of a cinematic text.
It has to be noted that Metz had already brought attention to this
difference in the spectator’s conception of the film to that of the
filmmaker’s view in his influential Film Language in 1974, by labelling
the produced film as the text, to be differentiated from the textual
system, which was the film as perceived by the ‘analyst’ or viewer.
 Escapism versus Involvement 107

However, Metz’s strict adherence to de Saussure’s model of structural

linguistics meant that the semiotic analysis superseded other enquiry.
So, for instance, the text-textual system model doesn’t take root as
a sufficiently convincing argument, as the linguistic starting point
predicates that the analyst or user be conversant in the language that is
being used, whereas Metz recognises that this is not fully possible, with
the filmmaker occupying more of a creator role of cinematic language,
and as a result perhaps not using familiar or decodable signs as would be
the case in a shared language system (despite certain shared cinematic
conventions).
It is in Perverse Spectators, Janet Staiger’s analysis of modes of recep-
tion in US cinema, that a more measured look at viewer responses
emerges. Comparing the writings of Tom Gunning, Miriam Hansen
and Timothy Corrigan on the subject of reception theory, Stagier first
explores the differences and similarities between the three theorists.
Gunning’s binary distinction between the cinema of attractions and
narrative cinema leads to a very clear differentiation between the
exhibitionist, engaged spectator of the modernist cinema of attractions
versus the voyeuristic, passive spectator of (classical) narrative cinema,
ideologically bourgeois-oriented as opposed to the prior’s populist
stance. Although not using ‘cinema of attractions’ that Gunning
appropriated from Eisenstein, Hansen builds a similar set of binary
traits to discern the early modern cinema and postmodern cinema
on the one hand and classical cinema on the other. What is of note,
especially in the non-classical category, are a few additional aspects that
Hansen proposes: the spectator is distracted, presented with a ‘variety
of competing spectacles’ (Staiger 2000: 14) and the viewing is marked
by intertextuality. Corrigan adds a third category, choosing to separate
preclassical from postmodern cinema, in between which classical
cinema is nestled. Corrigan introduces the notion of the immersed gaze
of classical narrative, which gets substituted by the more fleeting glance
of the other two periods (Staiger 2000: 16).
What is valuable in Staiger’s assessment of these three interpretations
of reception theory in Film Studies is her conclusion that all of the
categorising (Lehman and Luhr’s negotiated/preferred/oppositional
version included, although Staiger finds this grouping to be
symptomatic of the cultural studies perspective rather than solely
associated with the two theorists in question) is, in fact, specious.
For a viewer is likely to inhabit some or all of the states and modes
ascribed to them in the various categories during any one particular
viewing, irrespective of what type of film they are watching or in
108 Gaming Film

what circumstances they are viewing it. Staiger calls for a reconfigur-
ing of the rigid categorisation, and urges for a more open attitude
that doesn’t eliminate certain viewer responses based simply on the
type of film they are watching or the era the film was produced in.
After all, the title of her book is not accidental: she finds viewers to
be perverse, not conforming to inflexible pigeon-holes. This, more
open perspective of modes of reception is of great value when look-
ing at interactive responses, as, correctly predicted by Staiger, ‘the
new media of computers and the Internet will be a continuation of
this variety of stimuli and activities’ (2000: 24). So, for instance, even
in an interactive environment there are instances of more passive
engagement, and the gaze and glance may alternate within one inter-
acting session with a computer game. Or, to name a specific example,
a viewer watching a classical narrative film on their laptop may view
the film itself with a more immersed gaze, while engaging (with
quick glances) with various pop-up windows competing for attention
onscreen during the viewing (echoing Hansen’s variety of competing
spectacles and intertextuality).
Staiger points out that modes of production and exhibition must
also be taken into account when studying modes of reception, and
technological changes usually represent a demarcation point in both
exhibition/distribution modes and reception modes. The transition
from cinema as main purveyor of moving images to television opened
up the interactive scope at the ‘functional’ level: TV viewers are more
active/interactive than cinema viewers: they actively select chan-
nels as opposed to the passive attendance in a cinema auditorium.
With digital television, the functional interactivity has increased:
viewers are able to perform a greater array of actions, from access-
ing information about a certain programme while watching another
programme, to voting for a reality show’s outcome. The juxtaposition-
ing of several channels’ information within one frame may create
different meaning to that in the predigital TV frame, but this is still
not narratively meaningful. TV remains, as Ryan puts it, a ‘mildly
interactive medium’ (2001: 205). It is only in one-off examples that
we find a more substantial use of this kind of functional interactiv-
ity, such as the D-Dag project (as mentioned earlier) screened on the
first day of the new millennium (1 January 2000) on Danish televi-
sion. The Dogme filmmakers Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Soren
Kragh-Jacobsen and Kristian Levring each filmed real-time running
films that were all narratively linked. The first four TV channels
 Escapism versus Involvement 109

showed these four works; the fifth channel showed all four in split-
screen, with four quadrants running simultaneously, and the sixth
and seventh channel showed the equivalent of the DVD extras: the
behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. So by switching from
channel to channel, each viewer was given the chance to construct
their own unique version of narrative events based on the channel-
switching path they took. However, now that an increasing amount of
viewers prefer to watch their TV programmes online, on their laptop/
iPad, in a time/place of their choosing, we are closer to Dade’s unortho-
dox approach to TV (in Hackers) when he hacks into the TV station in
order to view a programme of his choosing.
This more engaged mode of viewing brings to the fore the cinematic
gaze. As Bolter and Grusin assert in Remediation, in the digital age it is
the process of viewing that draws almost as much attention as the object
of our viewing, calling into existence the ‘aesthetic of the glance’ rather
than the gaze (2000: 54). Yet Bolter and Grusin do not allow for Staiger’s
more expansive take on the glance/gaze, allowing for the possibility
of the viewer glancing and gazing within the same viewing. Instead,
their theory aligns with the reception theory of Gunning, Hansen and
Curran, whereby the glance is the trait marking postmodern works (as
well as modernist cinema), replacing the gaze of the classical narrative
period. Nicholas Rombes, though, is quick to alight on the next logi-
cal progress of digital viewing, by bringing up the existence of avatars
and questioning the possibility of watching your avatar in the process
of watching a film in an environment such as Second Life: ‘What does
it mean to watch yourself (your avatar) watching a movie?’ (2009: 56).
In Rombes’s view, this particular example suggests ‘more than simply
a new paradigm of spectatorship, it involves an entirely expanded
narrative framework surrounding the viewing experience’ (2009: 56).
What Rombes means is that the process of watching becomes itself
narrativised, which corresponds with the above discussed narrator
principle, whereby everyday occurrences are transformed into small
narratives.
Rombes’s avatar-Doppelgänger-viewer confirms Staiger’s theory, as
such viewing would entail glancing at the avatar occasionally (it is
unlikely the avatar would merit a gaze) while gazing (and/or glancing)
at the film itself. What the glance introduces into the discussion on
viewing modes in the context of this chapter, though, is its relationship
to the editing. For instead of performing the role of an active agent, the
viewer’s role can be seen as that of an editor. For example, in the case
110 Gaming Film

of Timecode, the only editing taking place is the viewer’s eye movement
from square to square, as there are no cuts within the four storylines.
So the glance from square to square doubles as the editing, while in
between the glances, the viewer is most likely (at least occasionally)
gazing at the individual square.
In relation to gaming, Chris Chesher (2004) proposes a blend of
glance and gaze, glaze, separating the process of ‘glazing’ into three
areas: that of immersion, interactivity and mimetic simulation. Chesher
finds that the immersive state leads to a ‘glazed over’ state, typified by
complete absorption (2004: 4). The interactive quality of keeping the
gamer interested in continuing to play Chesher likens to the ‘stickiness’
of a cake glaze. In the third meaning of the word glaze, referring to a
glazed surface which offers a reflected image of the person looking at
it, Chesher suggests that ‘[p]layers recognise themselves, and a familiar
world, in the game’, albeit distorted to an extent (2004: 4).
While Chesher’s interpretations of the glaze significantly open up
how we interpret the multilayered aspect of viewing/interacting, I
propose to further define the term in relation to the notion of suture
in film. If we understand the gaze as the immersed look of the classical
narrative, this state of immersion can be compared to the immersed
component of the flow state. The distracted glance can equally be
ascribed to the state of engagement – the expression of the active mind
glancing at the screen intent on mastering the challenging activity/
puzzle. Once the challenge is overcome, this activity that required
glancing transforms into an immersive aspect, as it no longer needs
mastering and is absorbed as such in order to free up the mind for the
next task, and so the shifting between the gaze and the glance occurs
on a continuous basis, the dynamic of which keeps the flow state
undisturbed.
This dynamic is not unlike suture, which can be explained as the
‘constant movement of the spectator between the dual domains of the
Imaginary and Symbolic, a movement which “holds us in place” as
we watch and enjoy the film’ (Cook 1996: 246–247). The term ‘suture’
derives from psychoanalysis, specifically from Jacques Lacan’s revision
of Freudian theories. The relationship between a person’s unconscious
and conscious is defined as the tension between the Imaginary and
Symbolic, which Pam Cook explains as the:

[…] perpetual flux and reflux between the favoured realm of the
Imaginary, which functions […] as a recurring desire of the individual
to seek and foster the wholeness of the unified ideal ego; and […] of
 Escapism versus Involvement 111

the Symbolic, which forces our acknowledgment of the morass of

determinations at work in the constitution of the psyche. (Cook
1996: 246)

While this psychological reading of suture does not immediately

demonstrate the link with flow and the glaze, it is via film theory’s
appropriation of the term that the comparison becomes clear. On one
level, suture is the flow between the state of being immersed within
the fictional world of the film and the disconcerting awareness of the
mediated form, when the viewer becomes aware that they are simply
viewers. Within classical Hollywood films, there is the ‘emphasis on
the shot/reverse shot pattern’ as an additional argument towards
suture, whereby the viewer is positioned as ‘the privileged observer’,
and in the reverse-shot, the source of that look is revealed as belonging
to a character, and not the viewer, thus ensuring the Brechtian fourth
wall is not broken (Cook 1996: 247). Cook astutely observes that the
focus on the shot/reverse-shot editing ignores the manifestation of
suture in other kind of shots, opting, instead, for Stephen Heath’s
definition of suture as ‘separation in identification’ (cited in Cook
1996: 247), which perfectly encapsulates the contradictory but coexist-
ent dynamics of flow.
If we picture a viewer watching a film on their laptop, while also
checking their emails, observing various social networking messages
pop-up, and monitoring their iPhone, this glazing encompasses both
the fictional and the reality realms, epitomising ontological montage.
The disconcerted awareness of watching a fictional form is accentuated
by the myriad of other competing activities, while the immersion can
also manifest while both gazing at the film and gazing at a competing
window on the screen. It represents a mode of viewing in which all
manner of different media types are connected through the person’s
glazing, evoking Elsaesser’s paranoia, and in which a person shifts from
being a viewer to a worker to a gamer, eliciting the schizophrenic, while
momentarily ‘forgetting’ each of these ‘aliases’ as they move from one
task to another.

The post-gendered cyborg

While the nature of the digital gaze has been expanded to allow for
the changing modes of reception/interaction, the question of the gaze
inevitably brings up the issue of gender identification, as famously
problematised by Laura Mulvey (1975) in her seminal ‘Visual Pleasure
112 Gaming Film

and Narrative Cinema’. One of Mulvey’s central arguments was cinema’s

gendered space: the gaze was that of the male, objectifying the woman
on the screen. The woman did not look; she was looked at. A female
audience member was invited to identify with the male perspective in
viewing the objectified female form. Mulvey did not just ascribe this
gender imbalance to the patriarchal social norms, but delved deeper
into Freudian psychoanalytical readings on castration anxiety. In such
a positioning, the woman becomes defined by her lack of a phallus,
which represents ‘a privileged source of meaning’ (Cook 1996: 248)
in a patriarchal society. Cook ponders the fact that the unresolved
problematic Mulvey raises has remained open, speculating whether
the answer is to seek a radically different mode of viewing to that of
‘separation in identification’.
Ten years after Mulvey’s essay, Donna Haraway published the influential
(and already mentioned) ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’. In a highly original writ-
ing style (a mixture of New Age ideas with rigorous academic thought),
Haraway proposes a solution to Mulvey’s call for rethinking pleasure and
desire in narrative cinema. In the cyborg Haraway recognises ‘a creature in
a post-gender world’, who by ‘subverting the structure of desire’ subverts
‘the structures and modes of reproduction of “Western” identity’ (2003:
517–532). Haraway explains this cyborgian freedom as resulting from its
teleology, namely that it is freed of the Freudian, Oedipal traumas and
complexes, which Mulvey identifies as causes of the male castration
anxiety that contributes to the suppression of the lacking female. In fact,
not only does the cyborg not have such a trauma-marked beginning, it
is also suggestive of a ‘world without end’, echoing the death-defying,
closure-resistant narrative of games. Haraway does acknowledge the
male, patriarchal and military origins of the technology that enables
the cyborg, but in the same breath dismisses this heritage by irrever-
ently claiming that cyborgs are but ‘illegitimate offspring’ who ‘are
often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins’, labelling such paternity
as good as relative (2003: 517).
The central argument of Haraway’s piece, as aired in previous
chapters, is the call to take pleasure in the confusion of boundaries
that the cyborg presents, and only by assuming such an attitude can
we leave behind the constraining dualistic way of thinking which
is reductive and not productive for our age. Yet, when alighting
on the subject of videogames, Haraway is less enthused by such a
meeting point of human and machine, and in her assessment of
gaming culture as being geared towards competitiveness, militancy
and fantasies of destruction, she leans towards the view of ‘gendered
 Escapism versus Involvement 113

imaginations’ (2003: 527). This ambivalence, oscillating between

wonderment at the possibilities of technology and then recoiling is
not dissimilar to the philosophical underpinning of eXistenZ, which
in light of Haraway’s manifesto can be regarded as an example of
a cyborg-imagined reality with the gamepod’s physical porting. In
Haraway’s defence, in 1985 games had not yet reached the level of
sophistication and variety they exhibit today. Interestingly, though,
when gender is invoked in game analyses, Mulvey appears to hold
stronger sway than Haraway’s ideas.
Writing about Tomb Raider (the game, not the film) in ‘Playing With
Lara’, Diane Carr (2002) examines the gender issues surrounding the
act of playing the sexualised avatar of Lara Croft. Visually, Carr finds
Lara to epitomise the female sexualised object; however, the act of
playing as Lara complicates ‘attempts to cement a static subject/object
allocation’ (2002: 175). The contradiction that Carr identifies is that
alongside existing as ‘an objectified on-screen woman, […] she (Lara)
simultaneously functions as a sadistic agent relative to those she so
effectively and relentlessly annihilates’ (2002: 172). Like Mulvey, who
is referred to openly as the theoretical starting point, Carr directs her
attention to psychoanalysis by looking at manifestations of sadism
and masochism. Circumventing Freud’s interpretation of the two
behavioural modes as ‘complementary Oedipal perversions’, Carr sides
with Deleuze’s separation of the two into different developmental stages,
whereby ‘masochism involves the draw of maternal symbiosis, sadism
involves the idealisation of the father’ (2002: 177). By identifying Lara’s
origins (idolised father, absent mother) and her sadistic behaviour, Carr
concludes that Tomb Raider presents ‘(T)he notion of play as an attempt
to placate a paternal authority’ (2002: 178), whether it is played by a
male or female gamer.
Like Haraway’s recognition of the cyborg’s parentage, Carr adds
that Lara Croft is marked by being a male, patriarchal creation, and
also reflects on the game as being nostalgic in a Boy’s Own adventure
or Indiana Jones style, but spends little time discussing Lara’s other
qualities – bravery, physical dexterity, and her intelligence and language
skills – which are remarkable for a female protagonist. At a games
conference at Brunel University in 2007, Ian Livingstone, one of the
founders of Eidos, and the main creative force behind Tomb Raider,
explained that Lara had initially begun her ‘life’ as a male adventure
hero, and only when the team realised that the similarities to Indiana
Jones were dangerously close to copyright infringement did they
decide to change the avatar gender to female. And so the creative
114 Gaming Film

process entailed combining characteristics associated with male action

heroes with a pneumatic physique. The irony, therefore, is that Lara
represents both genders blending together, as well as blending with the
machine in a manner that is closer to Haraway’s views, even if Lara is
not a cyborg per se.
Much has been written about Lara Croft and gender;2 however, it is
noteworthy that since Tomb Raider, no game has triggered the gender
debate in quite the same fashion. It is my theory that the active
engagement with interactive narratives (i.e. games) has freed up the
viewing experience from Mulvey’s uneven male-favoured gaze. For all
the fetishisation of Lara’s appearance, a gamer cannot focus much of
their attention on these visuals. They are for the most part forced to
direct their attention to the enemies and obstacles, and Lara is but an
extension of the gamer. This is not to minimise Carr’s perceptive read-
ing of the game, but at the level of the identifying gaze, the combina-
tion of being able to control the avatar (thus removing the viewer’s
passive role) and the fact that a gamer can assume a wide variety of
different gaming identities means that the dichotomy of the passive
female versus the active male in Mulvey’s gendered gaze has lost its
meaning. Maybe before we fully leave the ‘maze of dualisms’ (Haraway
2003: 535) we will first have to grapple with the last stage before
Haraway’s post-gender cyborg, which is the proliferation of gender in
every individual.
The most revealing psychological aspect of the digital gaze/glaze
does not lie in gender, but in the interactive sphere, with strong indica-
tions that the gendered gaze will no longer hold any relevance. Recent
technological developments in the area of mouse control are indicative
that it will be replaced by ‘gaze control’. This suggests that the gaze
will soon become an instrumental way of accessing the computer and
performing functions that up until now have involved the hand placed
on the mouse. And so the gaze will no longer be solely loaded with
a subjective interpretation, as an expression of our desires, but it will
serve a practical function, as an extension of our mental processing and
as a means to interact with the computer.
In Limitless, the protagonist Eddie (Bradley Cooper) develops
superpowers thanks to a special drug which enables him to recover
any data and any memory that his brain has stored over his lifetime,
allowing him to think in fast, complex patterns. The drug does not
provide him with intelligence, it merely enhances his brain’s full
potential, opening up this organ like an accessible database operated
 Escapism versus Involvement 115

by a fast, efficient search engine. Although an exaggerated presenta-

tion of the human mind, Limitless has a certain grounding in fact.
With the emergence of hypertextual (and hypermedia) navigation, the
human mind has adapted (on a regular, daily basis) to highly complex
modes of thought, involving Byzantine patterns of associative leaps
that cover a wide array of very disparate material. One particular shift,
as observed by Manovich, regards our identification patterns when
interacting with the computer (as opposed to when we watch a film).
Instead of the physical, or sexualised, identification with cinematic
characters, (as Manovich’s puts it, the ‘lusting’ after the actress), the
hypertext structure of the Web is ushering in a new thought pattern
that removes us from the physical immediacy of what Laura Mulvey
calls ‘the gaze’ in the context of male scopophilia (1992: 746–757).
According to Manovich, by continuously prompting the user to
click, follow links and move across the network of endless links, the
computer creates a situation in which to interact, following a path
of association, is to ‘identify with somebody else’s mental structure’
(2001a: 61). Citing Althusser’s concept of ‘interpellation’, Manovich
takes the point further, by stating that ‘we are asked to mistake the
structure of somebody else’s mind for our own’ (2001a: 61). While
it is true that someone surfing the web is following preexisting links
rather than creating their own links, it is perhaps too rash to claim
their particular (and in most cases unique) path of clicks is but a reflec-
tion of the programmers’ minds. This assessment also conveniently
ignores the fact that the triggers for perusing sites are not just the
hyperlinks available: the user is just as likely to start a new search based
on an idea that has been sparked by a site rather than just to ‘follow’
onwards, which makes the interaction more intellectually original than
Manovich’s claim. Despite the imprecision of the statement, this idea
proves thought-provoking.
The gaze control technology constitutes yet another step towards
the ‘post-human’, which Elsaesser defines as a state that ‘privileges
informational pattern over material instantiation’ (2008: 16), evok-
ing Manovich’s comparison of the identification with the program-
mer’s mind as replacing the previous identification and lusting after
the physical appearance of the cinema star. Furthermore, ‘the post-
human view configures human beings so that they can be seamlessly
articulated with intelligent machines’ (Elsaesser 2008: 16), reflecting
a view that echoes Haraway’s cyborg postulates. The gaze control also
comes close to the subjective camera viewpoint advocated by Vertov,
116 Gaming Film

which would result in the viewer as an ‘unmediated, surrogate “Kino-

eye”’ (Miles 1996: 10). In fact, taken to its etymological roots, Kino
(deriving from the Greek kineˉma) signifies movement, so in a literal
application, gaze control is Kino-eye, if we understand movement not
as that of the eye following the movement on the cinematic screen, but
rather as being itself the source of the motion as well as the instigator
of further motion.
While the subject of gaze control still belongs to the realms of specu-
lation, in the present interaction between human and computer, the
gaze is already typified as a more active state, as Manovich remarks in a
comparison with modern fiction (and which we can extend to encompass
cinema, too), where ‘looking and acting are usually separate activities, in
games they more often than not occur together’ (2001a: 247). The gaze,
in the interactive digital domain, has become a constituent of agency,
an action that is reflected back to us in the two-way dialogue between
man and machine that can be likened to an expression of the seamless
articulation with intelligent machines. In More Than a Game Barry Atkins
takes his cue from Lacanian thinking on what it means to watch an object
that is, in fact, gazing back at the observer:

We do not simply ‘look’ or ‘gaze’ or ‘watch’ the unfolding text, but

the text is watching us in a way that can only have the potential
to disturb in our age of increasing technological surveillance […]
The text we read watches us over time, it presents the illusion of
‘knowing’ us as we come to ‘know’ it, of ‘reading’ us as we ‘read’
it. […] We are not only given authorial responsibility by the
interactive text, but we are becoming the textual subject. (Atkins
2003: 146)

And so we are no longer able to occupy the voyeuristic position in

relation to the object viewed, as in cinema, nor do we exist in that
semi-acknowledged position of a theatrical audience. Our actions and
our gaze appear to be matched by the computer’s actions and ‘gaze’.
Atkins is astute to differentiate between the gamer being objectified
by the machine and becoming a textual subject, because the gamer’s
ability to act and respond in an interactive manner precludes the for-
mer becoming the case. In the sense that then both the gamer and the
machine are taking turns in being the subject, there is a case to argue
that this, then, is the equivalent of the shot/reverse-shot pattern of clas-
sical Hollywood narrative. But more importantly, this aspect of the gaze
opens up the discussion on identity, a central notion in this chapter.
 Escapism versus Involvement 117

Taking a slightly different view of the subject role, Bolter and Grusin
believe that we occupy the simultaneous role of both subject and object
in digital media. Bolter and Grusin posit that we ‘employ media as vehi-
cles for defining both personal and cultural identity’, and that ‘these
media become simultaneously technical analogs and social expressions
of our identity’ (2000: 231). Like Elsaesser, the two theorists recognise
an analogy between the technology and the construction of identity,
and this identity (or identities, if we take up Turkle’s point) manifests
through our various online activities, gaming being one of them. And
so the networked structure of the mind reemerges, in Lacan’s reworking
of Freud’s ‘decentred view of the self’ (Turkle 1995: 178) in his defini-
tion of the unconscious as ‘a network of deep structural patterns in
which our conscious thinking and discourse are intimately caught up’
(Cook 1996: 170). Turkle elaborates on Lacan’s views, explaining that
in his work:

[…] the complex chains of associations that constitute meaning for

each individual lead to no final endpoint or core self […] In this he
joins psychoanalysis to the postmodern attempt to portray the self
as a realm of discourse rather than as a real thing or a permanent
structure of the mind. (Turkle 1995: 178)

In a curious echo of the death-defying mode of gaming, here we have

the idea of the absence of a ‘core self’: if there is no core self, then
which self is it that dies? More pertinently, though, this absence of an
established, permanent sense of self lends itself well to ‘thinking about
identity as multiplicity’ (Turkle 1995: 178).
Another view that countered Freud’s notion of the decentred self
was Jung’s idea of the self ‘as a meeting place of diverse archetypes’
(Turkle 1995: 178) which are shared by all humans alike. So, for
example, we contain within us the parental archetype as well as its
negative, shadow version. Linking Campbell’s monomyth with the
Jungian principle, William Indick makes the case in his practical guide
Psychology for Screenwriters that ‘(T)he mythological hero is the primary
symbol of the self’ or ‘the central archetype’ (2004:114), but that he
contains all of the other archetypes that make up the self, and that
are in constant flux. The archetypal figures of the helper, mentor and
foe encountered in the Campbell-Vogler structure are also present in
this set of archetypes. The Jungian approach would suggest that the
multiple identities that we cycle through (in Turkle’s parlance) are all
archetypal parts of our self. In addition, Jung’s idea that a ‘balanced
118 Gaming Film

self incorporates both masculine and feminine traits’ (Indick 2004:

123) – with the anima representing the female archetype residing in
the male, and the animus the corresponding male archetype present
in the female – provides a possible way forward in terms of Mulvey’s
theory of the gendered gaze.
Conclusion

In the age of the computer game, cinema is demonstrating ongoing

change in structure, style, montage, as well as in the mode of reception/
consumption/interaction. And yet the one question that has not been
tackled is whether interactive, ‘playable’ films are likely contenders for
the next big cinematic shift. Interactive film does exist, but it is still in
the experimental stages, without taking a consistent form, and with
highly disparate pieces being labelled as interactive film, leading to a
degree of confusion as to what exactly constitutes an interactive film.
This begs the question of why it has failed to establish itself either cul-
turally or economically, given the thirst for interactive entertainment
reflected in the gaming industry. By taking a look at some of the more
notable examples, the limitations and possible new directions should
become easier to glean.
In her analysis of I’m Your Man (1992), one of the rare-for-its-time
interactive films, Marie-Laure Ryan comments on this anomaly, observ-
ing that the ‘biggest obstacle to the implementation of selective inter-
activity in movies or drama is the conflict between the solitary pleasure
of decision making and the public nature of cinematic or dramatic
performance’ (2001: 271). Ryan is referring to the (limited) cinematic
release of the I’m Your Man film rather than the later DVD version,
whereby the voting system favoured a majority of votes, meaning that
such a strategy robbed the minority of enjoying the pleasure of seeing
their dramatic selection. The film itself is only 20 minutes in duration
per run, and in its cinematic release featured voting joysticks which the
viewers were invited to click at six junctures in the plot, with a choice
of three possible directions/characters to follow. The plot was a sim-
plistic one, involving a heist of sorts, with three main characters: the
good guy, the bad guy and the femme fatale. The voting and the choice
119
120 Gaming Film

of a cinematic environment make this project quite dated, so it merits

mention more on the basis of primacy rather than any lasting impact.
Although I’m Your Man’s DVD cover proudly cites it as being ‘the
first interactive movie on DVD’, it has to be noted that this man-
ner of eliciting viewer participation/interaction was not a new one
(although their DVD claim stands). In 1967, at the Montréal Expo,
Radúz Činčera presented his Kinoautomat,1 which is officially listed as
the first interactive film. During the film’s exhibition (at 45 minutes’
duration, half of a feature-length film), the projector was paused at
nine narrative branching points and votes were taken – the choice was
only ever between two options/scenes. As there were only two projec-
tors running the two alternative options, we can assume the structur-
ing to be of a simplistic directed network, with only two through-lines
continuously recombining. To a more sophisticated audience today,
the illusory quality of the choice making would quickly have become
apparent, especially given that the two reels conjoined in the one same
ending – the burning down of the protagonist’s building.
The end is, in fact, a replay of the opening scene, conforming to
a circularity, as the burning building is presented as the result of
the protagonist’s actions, after which the action goes back in time,
showing in flashback the causal chain of events leading to the fire.
That the audience’s choices always lead to the same result was ascribed
to Činčera’s satire on democracy and the irrelevance of voting on the
final outcome. Činčera’s intention seems to have been similar to that of
Menzel’s in Closely Observed Trains (1966): to make a political statement
about the inability of influencing the more important things in life,
regardless of the surface changes in circumstance. However, this device
produces a distancing effect on the interactivity of the experience
and denies the audience the reward for their participation, making it
more of an art-cinema movie rather than a genuine exploration of the
possibilities of interactive cinema. The one valuable (if not surprising)
finding that the multiple showings of the work at various festivals
demonstrated was that the viewers’ voting was identical the world over,
and was motivated by the promise of the more dramatic turn of events.
Illegal, violent or immoral choices were always favoured over the more
wholesome alternatives.
The obstacle of communal cinema voting, however, is no longer rele-
vant in the face of contemporary media consumption habits. Film view-
ing alone, whether at home or in transit, on a portable wifi-connected
device, has become far more prevalent, so it would be feasible to release
such an interactive product for individual use only. As for interactivity
 Conclusion 121

in the form of audience voting, it belongs to the lower, functional end

of interactivity modes, and has been largely appropriated by TV real-
ity shows of the X-Factor ilk, although there has been an example of
a film created by following such interactive voting guidelines. Touted
as an interactive-film-in-the-making, Faintheart (2008) used MySpace as
its launch pad, with the film’s producers encouraging MySpace users
to pick favourite film pitches, gradually narrowing down the selec-
tion process to find the script idea and then the cast and crew. The
film’s homepage on MySpace proudly cites it to be the ‘world’s first
fully user-created feature film’, yet this is a purposeful obfuscation
of fact, termed in such a way as to maximise the novelty factor when
promoting the film. For while some of the early-stage selections were
offered to the public for the vote, as the process tightened towards the
final draft of the script, the options available for voting were carefully
managed and manipulated in order to ensure an optimal outcome
from the production company’s point of view. And the end result – a
formulaic, farcical take on Braveheart with an ordinary Joe having to
find his inner confidence to save his crumbling marriage and life – was
non-interactive. If the initial strategy seemed unorthodox, the result
was, ironically, orthodox to its core.
The most interesting and promising examples of interactive cinema
are those that employ dynamic spatial montage, expanding on the
promise of Timecode by actually allowing the interactor the option of
clicking the individual frames, or clicking objects in order to progress
the story. However, as will be seen from the analyses below, there are a
number of drawbacks in the construction of a programmable narrative.
The interactive film A Space in Time (2006) by Diego Bonilla, initially
released as a CD-ROM, is indicative of the issues prevalent with the kind
of algorithmic approach that informs program-constructed narrative.
The disc offers two modes of watching/playing the film: stream of
consciousness and limbo. Stream of consciousness promises to be a
random selection of events (each time different) from which the viewer
has to construct a meaningful narrative. Limbo frames the interaction
as a visit (the preferred mode of interactive narratives, with navigation
the key interactive behaviour), although not before the opening three
scenes (identical to the stream of consciousness version) play out. Once
the navigational mode starts, the user has full access to a seemingly
abandoned building. Each room reveals narrative details through
various objects that are clickable, presenting a mode of interacting that
soon becomes monotonous (the sparseness of clickable objects and
the static nature of the windows prove the opposite of stimulating).
122 Gaming Film

Although the limbo mode correlates to point-and-click games such as

Myst, it is not an algorithmic structure and does not offer up an apposite
basis for discussing combinatorics at work, which is why the stream of
consciousness mode is better suited to a deeper probe.
The appeal of the stream of consciousness structure is that it is
evocative of a puzzle, and the genre, ostensibly a mystery, further
supports the desire to figure out the narrative mystery. It has to be
noted that this mode still offers a degree of viewer interaction in that
the main window of the randomly shuffled scenes can be paused and
any of the smaller windows on the screen can be clicked and played
for additional scenes. This technique of multiple windows would fall
into the more dynamic mosaic rather than split screen, although less
ambitious in scale, as we don’t get to see the big window and the
smaller ones simultaneously (only by pausing one window can the
other one be triggered), which falls short of Murray’s suggestion of
the simultaneous narrative kaleidoscope structure. It also makes for a
somewhat dubious case of spatial montage, as there is only ever one
active window at a time.
The plot revolves around the mysterious disappearance of a girl called
Panda (short for Pandora, an allusion to the metaphoric box and the
drama its opening unleashes). The eerie soundtrack and the atmosphere
of unease coupled with banal settings suggests the film maker is
striving for a Lynchian universe. We see scenes of an investigative duo
questioning a homeless elderly character, but only managing to elicit
cryptic remarks; there are carefree scenes of Panda and her friends
preparing for a party and just hanging out in the building and then
there is a large proportion of scenes involving Panda and her friends
angrily denouncing the greed and corruption of our consumer society.
A lot of the scenes have barely any dramatic tension, but because of the
scenes informing us that Panda has gone missing, the anticipation of
finding out just what happened makes up for this lack.
The promise of a random scene ordering proves a fallacy on repeated
viewings. Not only are certain scenes withheld until the last act, just
as a certain number of scenes always play out in the first act (although
not necessarily in the exact same order), but the story itself doesn’t
offer multiple variations or POVs or endings. It turns out to be a crudely
devised plot, with Panda’s death accidental rather than the result of a
conspiracy to silence her outspoken views as is hinted by her paranoid
counterparts. The promise of a gripping mystery is just that, and in its
place we are served up a stream of clumsily phrased manifesto-speak
against advertising and consumerism, all delivered by undeveloped,
 Conclusion 123

one-dimensional characters, and with no intrigue present to compel us

to keep on clicking/viewing.
The trouble doesn’t lie in the fact that the order of certain scenes
is predetermined, or that the overall mathematical programming is
on the simplistic side. A Space of Time, while formally ambitious and
laudable for its attempt at an interactive format, sinks when it comes to
narrative clarity and engaging the viewer. The question that emerges is
whether the failure of this interactive film is simply down to storytelling
skills (one can imagine Bonilla would have been more engrossed in the
technical aspects than the narrative side), in which case this story-
generating system could be a promising model with a better crafted
plot, or whether it is impossible to factor in that many discrete narrative
units in a feature-length film and then expect that a reshuffle of these
narrative events can produce engaging drama. Bonilla appears to
concede that the latter may be the case given that he consigns certain
scenes to preordained segments. To call these segments acts would be
to apply the term far too loosely; however, these segments can be seen
as fulfilling a narrative function in that they pair up certain scenes in
a cause-effect manner. Upon several replays of the film, it gradually
becomes apparent that many of the scenes do not have a narrative
function nor do they shed much light on the characters. They appear
to be redundant fillers, perhaps designed to add more mystery, and to
ensure variety on each replay, so that the viewings do not seem exhaus-
tive. In which case, the question changes somewhat from concerning
itself with the possibility of a story-generating system to the matter of a
viable variable-story-generating system.
The challenge then becomes to create the perfect balance between
the randomly generated story events (micronarratives) and the loose
structure (which should remain invisible to the user) that still manages
to mathematically organise the micronarratives into a set of manageable
combinations that will yield sufficient coherence to prompt interacting/
viewing/playing.
Lost Cause (2007), produced by Kirsten Johnson as part of her
practice-based Masters research, is an interactive film with a dynamic
interface. Four windows are at all times visible, with the top window the
largest one, while the remaining three are relegated to thumbnail status,
although they all continue to show the simultaneously occurring action.
Superficially, the set-up is not dissimilar to that of Timecode: apart from
the screen size difference, there are four windows in total, organised in
split-screen rather than mosaic manner (in spite of the different size of
screens), with concurrent action unfolding. However, the three lower
124 Gaming Film

windows represent the three narrative strands that we can navigate and
select, and the one that we click on appears in the enlarged window. So,
instead of our eye doing the editing, as in the case of Timecode, here it
is our clicking on the mouse that effects the montage.
There are three characters to follow: Colin, Arie and Tina, with a
fourth character, Chloe, who links all of them, as she is Colin’s wife,
Arie’s lover and Tina’s daughter. Like in films such as L’Appartement
(1996) and Go (1999), the shifting perspectives provide a change in
perception as we learn new things and view the same events with new
eyes, learning more about Chloe. Chloe has cheated on Colin with Arie,
and now regrets it, no longer wanting to see Arie, but he won’t take no
for an answer. Colin becomes suspicious, and Tina feels dejected by the
inattentive and preoccupied Chloe.
Compared to early examples of interactive film such as I’m Your
Man, where the viewer was severely limited to the number of switches
between different characters’ perspectives, Johnson creates a more
flowing experience by creating an interface that allows the viewer to
switch from one character to another at any moment throughout the
film, and for as many times as they wish. What the interface does not
allow, though, is moving in time, so there is no rewinding or jumping
forward, and this is in line with the way the three storylines themselves
run concurrently, in real time, which brings to mind Timecode’s real-
time, linear progression.
The fact that one window dominates the screen means that the
character we’ve committed to tends to hijack our attention and we
are more likely to watch the bigger window rather than the smaller
ones. Also, it soon becomes apparent that Tina’s segment is lacking in
dramatic incident (at least in the first half), so after a while (and espe-
cially in any subsequent replay) the viewer is most likely to stick with
Colin and Arie’s storylines, ushering a more simplistic viewing pattern,
which makes for quite an unexpected finding: the choices appear to be
narrowing down rather than expanding as one might expect. In terms
of spatial montage, Johnson’s opting for a split-screen organisation
does not belie a deeper motivation reflecting the narrative. There is no
additional meaning to be extrapolated from the way the windows are
arranged, yet given the fact that the setting is an apartment building,
and the characters move between floors (Tina lives above Chloe and
Colin, and the characters descend both to the laundry room and Arie’s
janitor room), this narrative set-up naturally lends itself to a more crea-
tive solution that could communicate more directly through the win-
dows’ correlation, the architecture of the building and the characters’
 Conclusion 125

movements (i.e. the windows mimicking the building layout and

rearranging themselves across the screen depending on the characters’
position vis-à-vis each other). Considering spatial navigation represents
such a basic component of interactivity, and given Jenkins’s narrative
architecture concept, this feels like a missed opportunity for providing
an additional dimension to the interactive experience.
The viewer, by selecting the main ‘channel’ so to speak, is fulfilling
the role of editor (as in Timecode). As the film begins, the viewer is asked
to choose between three different versions of Chloe: first, there is Chloe
in red, in seductress pose; second is a depressed-looking, drawn Chloe in
black; and lastly, there is chaste, sweet Chloe in innocent pale lavender.
The colour is here used as an accentuated narrative device, in a manner
close to Patti Bellantoni’s interpretation of the use of colour in cinema
in If It’s Purple, Someone’s Gonna Die (2005). In Bellantoni’s reading, each
colour signals both emotional states and the character’s demise (as the
title implies, the colour purple indicates death). These versions of Chloe
are presented as the differing perspectives (i.e. how Colin sees Chloe is
very different to how her mother perceives her), and while it is easy to
forget about this opening detail once the story gets going, the occasional
jarring caused by watching the same scene play out with one flagrant
difference – the colour of the top – reminds us of the subjective nature
of what we’re viewing. This spot-the-difference generated clue is on
the heavy-handed side in terms of signalling how each character views
Chloe before we’ve even got into any of the story, because it explicitly
tells us that Arie sees her as a temptress, Colin as depressed and Tina as
innocent. The mystery element that Johnson writes about in her thesis
in terms of how she perceives the user’s motivation to keep watching is,
therefore, spoiled. It would have been far more effective to have omit-
ted the opening and left the clothing difference uncommented – this
would have sparked curiosity and strengthened the relativity of the
truth element that Johnson aimed for (as is referred to in the thesis).
Without the explanatory opening, the viewer may speculate not just on
how each character perceives Chloe, but also on their general percep-
tive abilities (by ‘colouring’ what they see), which could then apply to
other things they perceive, thus introducing a far more complex note
of unreliability of what is seen/shown. Furthermore, if colour indicates
each of the three characters’ feelings towards Chloe, this device could
have been expanded to imbue the other interrelationships with greater
complexity – for example, Colin would appear differently to Arie than
he does to Tina, and Tina would be viewed differently by her son-in-law
than by her daughter, and so on.
126 Gaming Film

By clicking from one character’s POV to another one, the viewer/

user can create tension, which enhances the dramatically highly
charged scenes; however, applying this same technique of fast POV
switching to a sequence containing barely any dramatic incident
proves significantly less stimulating. In the opening scenes, the user’s
intervention of fast editing injects the sequence with anticipation,
suggesting the thriller genre, and this act builds expectations for a
highly dramatic event to take place. By contrast, switching between
Colin’s and Arie’s POVs once or twice during this same sequence
creates a completely different tone: with the slow pace, the tonal
expectation is altered. This discrepancy between the scope of creating
different tones and the narrative promise presents a problem. What is
the point of being able to playfully edit a film if the narrative events
do not play out accordingly? If we are building towards a crescendo
and instead there is no such climax, the likelihood is that we will feel
such extended interactive options are ultimately pointless. This ties
in with Murray’s insistence on meaningful interactive agency; if the
user’s actions feel arbitrary to the fictional world, the urge to interact
will be lessened.
The simultaneity of the action is underlined by the opening device
of a phone call linking all three storylines within the same timeframe:
when Tina rings Colin’s mobile, we hear it ringing in both Colin’s path
as well as in Arie’s, who overhears it while outside on the balcony.
Creating such a sonic motif to link the characters and their space and
time evokes Timecode’s earthquake tremors ‘shaking’ all four quadrants
at the same time. Although the phone call itself is not the inciting inci-
dent, what ensues is an Aristotelian-influenced narrative structure in all
three strands. After the exposition explains how the characters are inter-
linked, the complication triggers the climax. In Colin’s case, an argu-
ment with Chloe prompts Chloe to walk out and Colin spends most
of the second act searching for her, getting only occasional glimpses of
her. Arie is also on Chloe’s trail, trying to convince her to run off with
him. Tina has encounters with both men, and in Arie’s case she suspects
he is a thief. The climax, as in Timecode, sees all the characters united
within the same frame, and the splintered strands momentarily conjoin
before branching off again. Chloe is shot, although how this happens
varies depending on the POV watched. The epilogue then provides one
of three different endings.
No matter how frequent the viewer’s editing may be, the Aristotelian
causal chain doesn’t break, but this achievement is also in great part
due to the simplicity and brevity of the plot. The length is 15 minutes,
 Conclusion 127

so even with a second replay, the cumulative 30 minutes still falls

short of feature length. In the writings on the project, Johnson and
Bizzocchi cite Berg’s plot taxonomy as being a key narrative theoretical
underpinning for Lost Cause, and Johnson explains that:

The experience in Lost Cause functions similar to 21 Grams [sic]

jumbled plot structure. As viewers navigate through the database of
Lost Cause they may not understand the connections between the
characters right away. However, after navigating between the three
characters [sic] storylines, connections between the characters and
common themes may be discovered. ( Johnson 2008: 79)

That Johnson equates the discovery of the characters’ connections in her

interactive film with that of Iñárritu’s films suggests both a perfunctory
take on the complex plots found in the Mexican film maker’s works and
a lack of faith in the user’s ability to navigate the work. For the appeal of
such complex plots as Iñárritu’s is in the gradual discovery of how these
seemingly disparate strands and unconnected characters are actually
linked, conforming to Everett’s network film theory, with the network
connections of our global society revealing themselves in unexpected
ways at a local level. In Lost Cause, the links are immediately apparent
and there is no mystery as to how the characters are interrelated. If the
title represents a metaphoric take on the user’s discovery of the ‘lost’
cause-effect in the film, it does not bear out convincingly. Moreover,
the interconnectedness of the different strands is not of an unusual or
unexpected kind; Chloe’s links of wife–lover–daughter are obvious and
without twists. Perhaps if the characters were not introduced within
the apartment block, but were assembled in a location that didn’t
suggest their ties quite so explicitly, then an element of mystery might
have been possible. As mentioned above, the opening three shots of
the different Chloes almost renders what follows redundant, as none
of the three characters’ perspectives of Chloe changes in any way by
the end of the story. If, instead, Arie began to see Chloe in ‘black’ and
Tina started to perceive her daughter in red, as a seductress, and so on,
then the relationships would feel more dramatic, in shift and unpredict-
able. That Johnson cautiously states that the connections and themes
may be discovered, rather than will be discovered, demonstrates just
how low an opinion she has of the level of viewer understanding and
sophistication. Despite adhering to Berg’s theories, Johnson ignores his
point about legibility no longer being reliant on one-time viewings,
which allows for far more complex narrative interweaving.
128 Gaming Film

Such a basic plot situation is perhaps to be expected in Timecode and

Run Lola Run, in order to counterbalance the effort needed to process
the absorption of new structural and formal modes. Yet Timecode, for
all its Aristotelian causal clarity, still provides a more complex narrative
experience. The love triangle, for instance, is invigorated by the twist
of involving one homosexual and one heterosexual relationship; the
characters’ connections are not straight away revealed; the challenges
facing the protagonist are on multiple fronts. Another factor going
against Johnson’s favour is the timespan between the work and the
aforementioned films – over a decade – meaning that the interactivity
challenge should not apply to the same degree. Especially if we
consider that Lost Cause was not released to an audience expecting a
conventional film, as Figgis’s and Tykwer’s films were; the film can be
viewed (for free) online, therefore it is distributed on a platform with
which users are familiar by virtue of already being online.
The viewer’s involvement while absorbing all four windows at
once falls under the cognitive level of interaction; however, the plot
requires only minimal piecing together of plot information from
the three different strands and so it would be a stretch to make a
claim for the complex plot. As for the choices presented to the user,
there is only one type of choice offered: that of switching character
perspective. Therefore, in Lost Cause, the interactivity is of an external
and exploratory nature rather than internal and ontological, meaning
that the viewer’s interaction cannot affect the storyworld/characters’
outcome in any way. The external and exploratory category is less likely
to ensure agency of the order that Murray prescribes: a meaningful
narrative intervention with palpable repercussions. In part, Johnson has
attempted to meet this requirement in the way the different endings are
generated: depending on which character has been followed the most,
the ending will recalibrate itself based on the time-count statistics of the
strands selected. So even if the viewer chooses Tina in the last sequence,
if Arie’s story has been followed the most, then his ending will play.
This is a clever device, but considering there are only three versions
of the end, the viewer is likely to exhaust all versions in the subse-
quent two replays. In addition, the screen’s composition also mediates
against a varied interpretive range, as the thumbnails will reveal to the
observant viewer even on the first playing the entire story. This suggests
that for a work to demonstrate interactivity allowing for unpredict-
able results, spatial montage cannot be organised around strands that
are individually identical on each re-run, no matter how different the
route taken each time. Thus, the promise of spatial intellectual montage
 Conclusion 129

is not reached in Lost Cause, as the cumulative effect of all the screens
together does not produce additional meaning that can only be derived
from such a juxtaposing of the many screens. What this analysis reveals
is that spatial intellectual montage is more than just the dynamics of all
the multiple windows, and the narrative pattern that their interactions
form. The viewer’s interaction with the windows – both at the func-
tional and cognitive levels – is key in the notion of intellectual montage.
Hence, the most fitting equivalent to Eisenstein’s intellectual montage is
the cumulus of the cognitive and functional interaction with multiple
windows.
At around the same time as Lost Cause, the interactive film Late
Fragment2 was released, bearing interesting points in common as well as
some telling divergences. Also a Canadian production, with three central
characters, whose stories were written and directed by three different
film makers (Cloran, Doron, Guez), it somewhat disingenuously touted
itself as the first North American interactive film.3 The one distinction
that has to be acknowledged is that it is a feature-length film; however,
the length very much depends on the user’s mode of interacting, and in
some cases a viewing run may be as short as 30–40 minutes. All of the
scenes together amount to 168 minutes, and the demo suggests
that the average length is 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours, although
this is for one viewing rather than replays. It is not my intention to
delve into a detailed discussion of Late Fragment, as this would entail
repeating many of the points already made on the current potential
and limitations of spatial montage, but a brief comparison is useful as
in some respects this film is a counterpoint to Lost Cause. The three
main characters – Faye, Kevin and Théo – are all thematically linked
by having suffered or perpetrated acts of violence. They are strangers
until they meet in restorative justice meetings, the setting of which
provides the entry point for the viewer to start to unravel their stories
(what brought them to the meeting, what is troubling them, etc.).
There are three different endings, and once all the narrative units are
put together, each character’s storyline is grasped in its linear, cause-
effect way, with a three-act structure governing the dramatic tensions.
And as in Lost Cause, three endings are contained within the film, again
depending on the character followed.
The mode of interaction offers up a dual system. The central window
plays the film, however, what is unique about this window is that the
‘world’ within this frame is ‘clickable’, like a navigable computer game
world, qualifying it as internal exploratory interactivity. The film’s web-
site states that there are in fact 380 clicks within the film, which means
130 Gaming Film

that many of the objects/surfaces/characters could reveal something

through a click. Compared to the very few and highly sign-posted
clickable objects of A Space in Time, this creates a far more engaging
navigable space. The only drawback with this unique trait is not in its
interactive potential, but in the fact that the clicking can end up sending
the user on a click-fest, with the viewer often clicking on random areas
of the screen in the curious hope of triggering the next development,
not unlike the way players in the game Doom run into walls in the
hope of unlocking secret areas or further game developments. This
mode, therefore, does not use the hypertext/hypermedia technique of
providing highlighted hyperlink points via which to navigate, which,
although curtailing the navigation open-endedness, also provides a
useful structuring device that guides the user towards meaningful clicks.
As a result, the viewer, at least in the first run, is likely to be distracted
by this new way of playing with the material, and less attention is spent
on following the narrative content. Additionally, many of the scenes
are quite slow-paced, which will also prompt the user to click out of the
current window and onto a potentially more interesting scene (evoking
the negative aesthetic of boredom, whereby the interaction is motivated
by the search for something more engaging, mimicking the restless
zapping of TV channels). Consequently, such interaction becomes
meaningless save for jumping or speeding up the story, and there is a
sense of random shuffle mode in the click-generated edits.
The second interacting option involves clicking on the smaller
windows below the central one. These smaller windows (the number
of which changes depending on the scene, but often showing as
many as six) not only indicate the subsequent chapter, serving as a
sort of preview of what to expect from clicking on the main screen,
but they also appear in a diagrammatic style, with red and white lines
connecting various boxes, suggesting the character/story links, as well
as revealing (via the colour) the order of scenes should the user decide
to refrain from clicking and to follow the default path. A comparison
would be if a Choose Your Own Adventure chapter ending included
not just the lead to the suggested jump, but also provided a more
detailed overview of what the subsequent jumps would look like and
then compared it to the narrative arc of the linear sequence of the
chapters. As a result, this second, lower half of the screen requires
quite a lot of study (and in the early stages of viewing, when the
jumbled plot fragments make little sense, the connections are void of
any revelatory quality), and it distracts from what is taking place in
the main window.
 Conclusion 131

To sum up, even though Late Fragment is more ambitious in its inter-
face and its structure than Lost Cause, both examples demonstrate a lack
of flow, albeit coming from the opposite ends of the spectrum. Where
the use of space in Lost Cause does not tax the user in either narrative
or interactive mode, Late Fragment’s spatial organisation of the story and
interaction becomes too incomprehensible and hard work, thus tipping
the balance towards the overly complex and unfamiliar, which leaves
the viewer with too little by way of familiar elements to absorb in order
to enjoy the experience. Where the intellectual montage in Johnson’s
work proved too simplistic, in Late Fragment it becomes an impenetrable
spatial system, with cryptic and illogical jumps in space and time.
Created by Michael Mateas and Andreas Stern, Façade (2005), a work
of computer-generated imagery (CGI) rather than live-action, is best
described as an interactive drama that was specifically designed with
non-gaming and non-technologically savvy users in mind. Mateas
admits that he and Stern consciously avoided the kind of stories usually
favoured by games, filled with monsters and magical objects, in order
to ‘appeal to the adult, non-computer-geek, movie-and-theatre-going
public’ (2004: 29). Loosely inspired by Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of
Virginia Woolf, Façade tells the story of the marriage breakdown between
Trip and Grace, and the unfolding of this domestic drama is activated
by the interactor’s interventions, as the user is designated the role of
their long-standing friend who visits them for dinner. Considering
that Façade is an animated, CGI-created format, governed by artificial
intelligence (AI) programming, it is easy to see why it is sometimes
referred to as a game. It is certainly playable, but two factors contribute
to changing the perception of it as a game: the length and the genre.
The average interaction is around 10–15 minutes, making it decidedly
shorter than any conventional computer game, and the melodramatic
register also sets it apart. Games do not foreground the breakdown of
a relationship and its concomitant emotional issues. The intention is
clearly to engage a wider demographic that would normally eschew
games; however, it is telling that even two individuals who are involved
in digital media to such an extent would inadvertently lapse into the
more negative stereotypes and perceptions attached to gaming and
those who play them. By saying they want to reach an adult audience,
they are as good as branding all gamers juvenile or trapped in a perma-
nent state of adolescence, and there is also the implication that those
who go to the cinema or theatre do not seek entertainment in gaming.
Mateas advises that for the user to be prompted to take action,
‘the interface must in some sense “cry out” for the action to be taken’
132 Gaming Film

(2004: 24–25). The technique to deploy in creating this sort of an inter-

acting lure is the creation of affordances/constraints. Because constraint
has a negative connotation of limiting the player’s experience, Mateas
ultimately settles for the term affordance. These affordances, which
can be as simple as prompting the user to press a switch in a room,
open a drawer, pick up a book or help a non-player character (NPC),
become the user’s material causes for the action (such as the means
to accomplish a task), or the building-material equivalents. The user’s
understanding of the form (i.e. what is expected of them within the
game world) constitutes the user’s formal cause, which shapes the way
they interact with the environment. In Mateas’s words, ‘a player will
experience agency when there is a balance between the material and
formal constraints’ (2004: 25). This definition clarifies the crucial role
that structuring plays in shaping user agency and contributing to the
interactive experience.
Façade is a good example of using a minimal amount of objects/space
to produce a compelling interactive experience and a strong sense of
navigation. The drama does not have numerous game-like levels with
awe-inspiring visuals, but it uses its limitations to its advantage. There
is also an interesting overlay of textual interaction with the spatial
navigation, which harks back to the first-generation text-based adven-
ture games like Zork and also brings to mind stylistic montage. To start
the interaction, the user is prompted to select a name, through which
their gender is defined. Although the interaction is from a first-person
perspective (as in first person-shooter games, such as Half-Life), and there
is no physical embodiment of the avatar, save for a mouse symbol in
the form of a little hand that represents the user (and which can pick
things up and hold things), this still represents a mask, which, as Murray
reminds us, ‘creates the boundary of the immersive reality and signals
that we are role playing rather than acting as ourselves’ (1997: 113).
The first scene plants the user in front of Trip and Grace’s apartment,
and the natural impulse is to knock – the absence of any objects to click
and the fact that the door dominates the screen offers a first glimpse of
the way the interactive affordances operate. The only alternative action
to knocking is to remain standing still, which is counter-productive, as
it will not result in progress. In this way, the interaction is framed as a
visit, which is a frequent strategy found in games for a very specific
reason, as Murray explains:

For purposes of experiencing multisensory immersion, one of the

simplest ways to structure participation is to adopt the format of a
 Conclusion 133

visit. The visit metaphor is particularly appropriate for establishing

a border between the virtual world and ordinary life because a visit
involves explicit limits on both time and space. (Murray 1997: 106)

The visit device therefore signals that we are entering a different realm,
but, interactively speaking, it also conditions the user to behave as a
visitor to a new territory, namely to explore, to navigate, which is why
it is so effective. Murray goes on to suggest that the visiting metaphor
of navigable space is related to the archetypal journey stories, harking
back to the times of oral bards and epic tales such as Homer’s Odysseus
(1997: 137). However, in Façade, the knock on the door is neither the
start of an adventure story nor does the experience provide ‘shivers of
physical fear’ (Murray 1997: 135) that games exploit when presenting
the gamer with a mysterious door behind which all manner of dangers
and monsters may lurk. Instead, the door opens to Trip and Grace, old
‘friends’ who are celebrating a marriage anniversary. And the fact that
the viewer/user is the only visitor suggests a third-wheel type of situa-
tion in the offing.
The action takes place in Trip and Grace’s living room, with access
to the kitchen. The room is designed sparsely, which means that as the
conversation and action progress, the user will be prompted to click on
the few visible objects (such as the painting, the wine bottle or the tele-
phone), which ties in with Mateas’s notion of affordances – populating
the navigable space with objects that ‘cry out’ to be clicked, embodying
the gaze-to-click process. Because of this sparseness in the décor, there
are actually very few items/areas that do not yield to such clicking and
discovery, and so almost every object/detail becomes infused with some
level of significance, thus transforming the space into a meaningful
arena rather than one full of arbitrary clicking opportunities. The navi-
gation of the space is simple, without necessitating any particular effort;
it is the conversational part of the interaction that takes finessing and
presents the greatest challenge.
The dialogue is enabled by a complex AI system which recognises
quite a wide array of words the interactor may type. The typed words
appear at the bottom of the screen, whereas Trip and Grace’s lines are
just spoken. Once the user moves onto the next line they want to say/
type, the previous line disappears, so that only the current one stays
in view (thus ensuring that the screen is not overrun with text). Part
of learning how to ‘work’ Façade is adapting one’s conversation and
fine-tuning the words used. As the AI characters’ recognition trigger
system is limited, certain expressions, words and in particular long
134 Gaming Film

strings of dialogue do not get acknowledged. The advantage, though,

to any non-sequiturs and blank looks while getting to grips with the
dialogue system is that in the narrative situation of a social evening
with a couple who are trying to hide the fact that they’re in the middle
of a marital crisis, such conversational stutters and sentences trailing
off unanswered are acceptable as naturalistic, as they simulate the
awkwardness of human relations.
The combination of moving through the space and being able to
interact with both the objects and Trip and Grace (you can hug them,
kiss them) and writing text at the same time creates a state of flow,
but the effort and time spent on writing the dialogue (and the drama
unfolds mainly through dialogue) means that the limitations of the
small apartment and the number of affordances does not become
as apparent as it would if the user did not have to produce written
input. The etymology of the word text shows that the word derives
from textere, Latin for weaving, indicating a sedentary occupation of
creating something that did not exist before (a woven piece of fabric
from wool) and, as such, it does not imply any navigation that diegesis
suggests. So here we have an interesting combination of the ‘sedentary
weaving’ of the text coupled with spatial movement, two ontologically
incompatible elements. Therefore, this technique can be argued to
represent ontological montage.
Considering the number of possible dialogue exchanges the user can
experiment with, as well as the different personae they can enact, the
playability factor of this drama is much higher than in the previous
examples cited, and there is a strong sense of meaningful agency, for
the user’s behaviour towards Trip and Grace can lead to either the
couple’s split (and the user may end up with either one of them), an
impasse, or getting kicked out (after drunken and unruly behaviour
by the user) with Trip and Grace reconciled and united after having to
deal with their ‘unpleasant’ guest. However, the CGI programming is
what gives Façade this kind of latitude, so the challenge still remains
how to incorporate this level of ludic engagement within a live-action
interactive film.
On this note, one big obstacle in producing an interactive film lies
in the viewing time. Film convention has set the feature length norm
at anything between 90 and 120 minutes, which presents quite a
daunting length for an interactive narrative without gaming compo-
nents. Therefore, anything much shorter than that, even if it encour-
ages several replays, still doesn’t come up to a 90-minute mark at three
reruns, and will struggle to convince anyone of its cinematic credentials.
 Conclusion 135

Yet if gaming components are to be incorporated, not only does this

present an additional programming challenge but it also entails signifi-
cantly higher costs, which are only justifiable with a lengthier viewing/
interacting experience. A newly released game, for example, costs much
more than a cinema ticket, and so the gaming fan expects the value
to be reflected in the numerous hours of gameplay as opposed to the
120-minute cinematic mark. And at the opposite end of the scale, the
ubiquity and power of smartphones means that whilst people are on
the move, they are more available and open to interact with an enter-
tainment product than ever before; however, the timespan is likely to
be confined to shorter bursts, which again mediates against the feature-
length norm. Perhaps it is, therefore, the 90–120 min standard that will
ultimately have to be abandoned if interactive film is to take hold.
There is one aspect, though, in which traditional cinema still has
the edge over interactive works. Non-interactive films, such as those
discussed in Chapter 1, are still able to portray aspects of interactivity
that are not yet possible in actual interactive experiences. Even
in computer games, which are considered to be the most evolved
interactive narrative formats, the interactivity can be deceptive, relying
on a wide range of ploys and techniques that suggest rather than deliver
interactivity. Building on his argument regarding illusory interactivity
in his analysis of eXistenZ, Keane points out that ‘what such restrictions
reveal is that there is still a developmental gap that can be exploited
by science fiction cinema’ (2002: 149). What Keane means is that
the shortcomings of interactivity can be redressed in cinematic form,
where such failings can be glossed over or used to cinema’s advantage.
By still being able to communicate a more complex story and more
psychologically nuanced characters, cinema retains the advantage in
that it can mimic interactivity to a certain degree. In light of this point
of view, it becomes apparent that cinema does not need to concede
its advantages in exchange for turning interactive. Where the actual
interactivity will increasingly take place is in the online participation
of transmedia spaces, in which fans can communicate, collaborate and
post their own creative efforts and responses to the film/game/graphic
novel in question. It is in the ontological montage of reality and fiction
that interactive film will take hold.
Notes

Introduction
1. Syd Field’s Screenplay, The Foundations of Screenwriting (1994) has been published
in numerous editions, as well as spawning add-on books and follow-ups, practi-
cally reaching franchise status within screenwriting.

1 Is This a Game or Is This Reality?

1. Vannevar Bush was the engineer behind the Manhattan Project, which has
been dramatised in The Watchmen.
2. In 1950 Alan Turing devised a test (called the Turing Test) for computers,
explained in his paper Computer Machinery and Intelligence as a way of testing
whether machines can think. A person would be prompted to communicate
with a computer and a real person and based on whether they could tell the
difference, the computer would either pass or fail the test. Turing’s question
was quite provocative. However, he didn’t believe that a computer could liter-
ally think; rather he meant to explore whether they could simulate thinking.
Turing is widely credited as the father of artificial intelligence.
3. While the term ‘conscript’ refers to the status of the programs within the
mainframe, there is a play on words here, as programs are all ‘scripted’.
4. In Chapter 3 these visuals will be examined more closely.
5. Rockstar no doubt welcomed the controversy sparked in the media, which
saw parent groups across America calling for the game to be banned, as it
provided Bully with the kind of anti-establishment badge that made it even
more attractive to its targeted youth demographic.
6. The cyborg is the melding of man and machine: a bionic man/woman.

2 Narrative Architecture: Databases, Labyrinths

and Stories that Won’t End
1. Manovich is referring to this uncovering at a metaphorical level, as the gamer
does not perceive an actual algorithm. However, there is a case when such
algorithmic uncovering becomes literal: when gamers use the game’s code
(provided by the game designers as in the case of Doom or hacked into) to
modify the game (game-modding).
2. The technique of using numbers as an organising principle permeates
Greenaway’s work, from the 92 examples in mockumentary The Falls to the
92 suitcases in The Tulse Luper Suitcases, a multimedia project that mimics
the transmedia storytelling principle in its manifestation across multiple plat-
forms (from DVDs, CD-ROMS to websites, books and gallery installations).
It is in the digital domain that Greenaway’s predilection for database logic
appears to have found its natural home.
136
 Notes 137

3. dziga.perrybard.net.
4. The discrete units of any new media object allow for modularity, meaning
that a new media object can be altered, added to or elements can be deleted
without affecting the whole, as the discrete characteristic means that all
the individual components of a piece retain their qualities irrespective of the
whole of which they are part.
5. D-Dag was screened on the first day of the new millennium (1 January
2000) on Danish television. The Dogme filmmakers Lars von Trier, Thomas
Vinterberg, Soren Kragh-Jacobsen and Kristian Levring each filmed real-time
running films that were all narratively linked. The first four TV channels
showed these four works; the fifth channel showed all four in split-screen,
with four quadrants running simultaneously; and the sixth and seventh
channels showed the equivalent of the DVD extras: the behind-the-scenes
footage and interviews. So by switching from channel to channel, each
viewer was given the chance to construct their own unique version of narra-
tive events based on the channel-switching path they took.
6. The Shoah Foundation’s project of collecting and archiving the entire Jewish
Holocaust experience, which will yield more filmed material than any indi-
vidual would be capable of viewing in a lifetime, can be seen as a macroc-
inema of sorts. Without trying to trivialise this project, what if a fictional
project were to mirror this strategy and produce a huge database of scenes/
characters/storylines in what could be seen as a ‘macro-soap’?
7. Hypertext means text that is linked to other textual segments via links
(hyperlinks).
8. Nolan has openly admitted to being influenced by Borges’s stories, and
shares with the Argentinian author a similar predilection for the themes of
time, infinity, non-linearity and labyrinths.
9. Aarseth draws on the research completed by Penelope Reed Doob on laby-
rinths in The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle
Ages (1990).
10. Even on the topic of the labyrinth of Crete there are disagreements, with
Eco’s understanding of it as unicursal, which clashes with Aarseth’s argu-
ment that it is multicursal.
11. I will return to the film’s visual gaming aspects in Chapter 3, only taking into
consideration the structural organisation for the time being.

3 New Spatial/Visual Configurations

1. Flow theory in gaming is not to be confused with flow as understood in tele-
vision studies, as the ‘contradistinction to cinema as a moving image expe-
rience […] characterised by the unending relationships of one programme
segment to another’ (Lister, Dovey et al. 2009: 229).
2. This term also appeared as the title of Wiener’s book, published in 1948.
3. In this melding of man and machine, Wiener’s research is regarded as an early
vision of the cyborg.
4. As discussed in Chapter 2.
5. The book, which is both a comprehensive guide to writing comics as well as
a thought-provoking theoretical treatise on comic book art, is designed as
138 Notes

a comic book: McCloud features as a character on the pages, teaching and

showing the art of comic books.
6. Albeit, the approach in The Sims is somewhat different in that instead of the
screen being divided into the various avatars’ quadrants, we get updates on
their status/actions, a technique that marks all real-time strategy (RTS) games.
7. The discussion of the gaze will be taken up in Chapter 5.

4 Transmedia: The Film–Game Symbiosis

1. In 1997 Strange Company was formed by a group of gaming enthusiasts to
create films from computer games, and in 2000 they launched the website
www.machinima.com which offers a wide range of information on this spe-
cific form.
2. It is only in the last year that the Machinima.com company has started to
develop in a commercial direction, planning to create their own TV serialised
content; however it is too early to comment on and assess such a development.

5 Escapism versus Involvement

1. Although drawing on some writings from the 1920s and 1930s, the reader–
response strain of literary theory established itself in the 1970s as a response
to the Formalists, who conceived of written texts as static and unaffected by
the reader. Some of the prominent reader–response theorists were Roland
Barthes, Stanley Fish, Norman Holland, Wolfgang Iser and Hans-Robert Jauss.
Over the decades, the school of thought has modified its name to reader-
oriented criticism, with an emphasis on interpretive strategies, such as focus-
ing on the characteristics of an interpretive community.
2. In 2002, Helen Kennedy wrote ‘Lara Croft: Feminist Icon or Cyberbimbo?’
For the Game Studies journal, and in Architectures of Illusion Maureen Thomas
(2003) discusses Lara as an action heroine.

Conclusion
1. After the Canadian exhibition, the film received a subtitle One Man and His
House, but as this subtitle had not been used in that first showing, I am not
including it.
2. No mention is made of the title being referential to Raymond Carver’s famous
poem of the same name; however, the Carver reference provides a circuitous
link to Lost Cause, whose ensemble plot Johnson likens to Shortcuts, a film
that was based on a Carver story.
3. Conveniently ignoring the existence of the likes of A Space of Time, and I’m
Your Man.
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Filmography

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Wrs: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, Dir: Stanley
Kubrick. US, UK, 141 mins.
AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001) Wr: Steven Spielberg, Dir: Steven Spielberg.
US, 146 mins.
Amores Perros (2000) Wr: Guillermo Arriaga, Dir: Alejandro González Iňárritu.
Mexico, 154 mins.
A Space of Time (2003) Wr: Diego Bonilla, Dir: Diego Bonilla, US (duration not
applicable due to film being interactive).
Avalon (2001) Wr: Kazunori Itô, Dir: Mamoru Oshii. Japan, Poland, 107 mins.
Avatar (2009) Wr: James Cameron, Dir: James Cameron. US, 162 mins.
L’Avventura (1960) Wrs: Michelangelo Antoniotti, Elio Bartolini, Tonino Guerra,
Dir: Michelangelo Antoniotti. Italy, France, 143 mins.
Babel (2006) Wr: Guillermo Arriaga, Dir: Alejandro González Iňárritu. France, US,
Mexico, 143 mins.
Battleship Potemkin (1925) Wr: Nina Agadzhanova, Dir: Sergei M. Eistenstein.
USSR, 75 mins.
Being John Malkovich (1999) Wr: Charlie Kaufman, Dir: Spike Jonze. US, 112 mins.
Ben X (2007) Wr: Nic Balthazar, Dir: Nic Balthazar. Belgium, Netherlands,
93 mins.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)Wrs: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez, Dirs: Daniel
Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez. US, 81 mins.
Blind Chance (1981) Wr: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Dir: Krzysztof Kieslowski. Poland,
114 mins.
Blow-up (1966) Wrs: Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra, Dir: Michelangelo
Antonioni. UK, Italy, US, 111 mins.
The Boston Strangler (1968) Wrs: Edward Anhalt, Gerold Frank, Dir: Richard
Fleischer. US, 116 mins.
Chelsea Girls (1966) Wrs: Ronald Tavel, Andy Warhol, Dirs: Paul Morrissey, Andy
Warhol. US, 210 mins.
Closely Observed Trains (1966) Wrs: Bohumil Hrabal, Jirí Menzel, Dir: Jirí Menzel.
Czechoslovakia, 93 mins.
Cloverfield (2008) Wr: Drew Goddard, Dir: Matt Reeves. US, 85 mins.
Crank (2006) Wrs: Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, Dirs: Mark Neveldine and
Brian Taylor. US, 88 mins.
Crash (2004) Wr: Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco, Dir: Paul Haggis. US, Germany,
112 mins.
The Dark Knight (2008) Wrs: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan, Dir: Christopher
Nolan. US, UK, 152 mins.
Donnie Darko (2001) Wr: Richard Kelly, Dir: Richard Kelly. US, 113 mins.
The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982) Wr: Peter Greenaway, Dir: Peter Greenaway.
UK, 103 mins.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Wr: Charlie Kaufman, Dir: Michel
Gondry. US, 108 mins.

149
150 Filmography

eXistenZ (1999) Wr: David Cronenberg, Dir: David Cronenberg. Canada, UK,
97 mins.
Fahrenheit 451 (1966) Wrs: Jean-Louis Richard, Ray Bradbury, François Truffaut,
Dir: François Truffaut. UK, 112 mins.
Faintheart (2008) Wrs: David Lemon, Vito Rocco, Dir: Vito Rocco. UK, 92 mins.
The Falls (1980) Wr: Peter Greenaway, Dir: Peter Greenaway. UK, 195 mins.
Fight Club (1999) Wr: Jim Uhls, Dir: David Fincher. US, Germany, 139 mins.
Gamer (2009) Wrs: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor, Dirs: Mark Neveldine, Brian
Taylor. US, 95 mins.
Go (1999) Wr: John August, Dir: Doug Liman. US, 102 mins.
21 Grams (2003) Wr: Guillermo Arriaga, Dir: Alejandro González Iňárritu.
US, 124 mins.
Groundhog Day (1993) Wrs: Danny Rubin, Harold Ramis, Dir: Harold Ramis.
US, 101 mins.
Gummo (1997) Wr: Harmony Korine, Dir: Harmony Korine. US, 89 mins.
I’m Your Man (1992) Wrs: Bob Bejan, Jeffrey Gurian, Dir: Bob Bejan, US.
Inception (2010) Wr: Christopher Nolan, Dir: Christopher Nolan. US, UK,
148 mins.
Inland Empire (2006) Wr: David Lynch, Dir: David Lynch. France, Poland, US,
180 mins.
Kinoautomat (1967) Wrs: Pavel, Jurácek, Radúz Činčera, Miroslav Hornícek, Ján
Rohác, Vladimír Svitácek Dirs: Radúz Činčera, Ján Rohác, Vladimír Svitácek,
Czechoslovakia, 63 mins.
La Jetée (1962) Wr: Chris Marker, Dir: Chris Marker. France, 28 mins.
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) Wrs: Patrick Massett, John Zinman, Dir: Simon
West. US, UK, Japan, Germany, 100 mins.
The Last Starfighter (1984) Wr: Jonathan R. Betuel, Dir: Nick Castle. US, 101 mins.
Last Year at Marienbad (1961) Wr: Alain Robbe-Grillet, Dir: Alain Resnais. France,
Italy, 94 mins.
Late Fragment (2007) Wrs: Daryl Cloran, Anita Doron, Mateo Guez, Dirs: Daryl
Cloran, Anita Doron, Mateo Guez. Canada.
Limitless (2011) Wr: Leslie Dixon, Dir: Neil Burger. US, 105 mins.
Lost Cause (2007) Wr: Kirsten Johsnon, Dir: Kirsten Johnson. Canada, 15 mins.
Magnolia (1999) Wr: Paul Thomas Anderson, Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson. US,
188 mins.
Man with a Movie Camera (1929) Wr: Dziga Vertov, Dir: Dziga Vertov. USSR,
68 mins.
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) Wrs: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pea Froehlich,
Peter Maerthesheimer, Dir: Rainer Werner Fassbinder. West Germany, 120 mins.
The Matrix (1999) Wrs: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski, Dirs: Andy
Wachowski, Larry Wachowski. US, Australia, 136 mins.
Memento (2000) Wrs: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, Dir: Christopher
Nolan. US, 113 mins.
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) Wr: Maya Deren, Dirs: Maya Deren, Alexander
Hammid. US, 14 mins.
Minority Report (2002) Wrs: Scott Frank, Jon Cohen, Dir: Steven Spielberg. US,
145 mins.
North by Northwest (1959) Wr: Ernest Lehman, Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. US, 131 mins.
 Filmography 151

The Passenger (1975) Wrs: Mark Peploe, Peter Wollen, Michelangelo Antonioni,
Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni. Italy, Spain, France, 126 mins.
Prometheus (2012) Wrs: John Spaihts, Damon Lindelof, Dir: Ridley Scott. UK, US,
124 mins.
Pulp Fiction (1994) Wrs: Roger Avary, Quentin Tarantino, Dir: Quentin Tarantino.
US, 154 mins.
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) Wr: Woody Allen, Dir: Woody Allen. US, 82 mins.
Rashomon (1950) Wrs: Ryûnosuke Akutagawa, Akira Kurosawa, Dir: Akira
Kurosawa. Japan, 88 mins.
Ring (1998) Wrs: Hiroshi Takahashi, Kôji Suzuki, Dir: Hideo Nakata. Japan,
96 mins.
Run Lola Run (1998) Wr: Tom Tykwer, Dir: Tom Tykwer. Germany, 81 mins.
Saving Private Ryan (1998) Wr: Robert Roday, Dir: Steven Spielberg. US, 169 mins.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) Wrs: Michael Bacall, Edgar Wright, Dir: Edgar
Wright. US, UK, Canada, 112 mins.
Short Cuts (1993) Wrs: Robert Altman & Frank Barhydt, Dir: Robert Altman. US,
187 mins.
Sideways (2004) Wrs: Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor, Dir: Alexander Payne. US,
126 mins.
Sliding Doors (1998) Wr: Peter Howitt, Dir: Perter Howitt. UK, US, 99 mins.
Smoking/No Smoking (1993) Wrs: Jean-Pierre Bacri, Agnès Jaoui, Dir: Alain Resnais,
France, Italy, Switzerland, 298 mins.
Source Code (2011) Wr: Ben Ripley, Dir: Duncan Jones. Canada, US, France,
93 mins.
Sucker Punch (2011) Wr: Zack Snyder, Steve Shibuya, Dir: Zack Snyder. Canada,
US, 110 mins.
Superbad (2007) Wrs: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Dir: Greg Mottola. US, 113 mins.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) Wr: Alan Trustman, Dir: Norman Jewison. US,
102 mins.
Timecode (2000) Wr: Mike Figgis, Dir: Mike Figgis. US, 97 mins.
Too Many Ways (1997) Wrs: Matthew Chow, Kam-Yuen Szeto, Ka-Fai Wai, Dir:
Ka-Fai Wai. Hong Kong, 90 mins.
Tron (1982) Wr: Steven Lisberger, Dir: Steven Lisberger. US, 96 mins.
Tron: Legacy (2010) Wrs: Edward Kitsis, Anthony Horowitz, Dir: Joseph Kosinski.
US, 125 mins.
The Truman Show (1998) Wr: Andrew Niccol, Dir: Peter Weir. US, 103 mins.
Videodrome (1983) Wr: David Cronenberg, Dir: David Cronenberg. Canada,
87 mins.
WarGames (1983) Wrs: Lawrence Lasker, Walter F. Parkes, Dir: John Badham.
US, 114 mins.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) Wrs: Edward Albee, Ernest Lehman, Dir:
Mike Nichols. US, 131 mins.
TV-ography

The Big Bang Theory (2007–present) Crs: Chuck Lorre, Bill Pracy, CBS; 21 mins
x eps.
Chuck (2007–present) Crs: Chris Fedak, Josh Schwartz, Warner Bros; 40 mins x
eps.
D-Dag (2000) Crs: Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, Kristian Levring, Thomas Vinterberg,
Lars von Trier, TV Danmark; 70 mins x eps.
Lost (2004–2010) Crs: Jeffery Jacob Abrams, ABC; 42 mins x eps.
Twin Peaks (1990–1991) Crs: David Lynch, Mark Frost, ABC; 47 mins x eps.

152
Ludography

Adventure (1976, 1977) Developed by: William Crowther, Don Woods. CRL.
American McGee’s Alice (2000) Developed by: American Mcgee, Rogue
Entertainment. Electronic Arts.
The Beast (2001) Developed by: Microsoft.
Bioshock (2007) Developed by: 2K Boston. 2K Games.
Bully (2006, 2008) Developed by: Rockstar. Rockstar Games.
Doom (1993–) Developed by: id Software. Id Software.
Dungeons and Dragons (1974) Developed by: Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson. Tactical
Studies Rules, Inc.
Fable (2004) Developed by: Peter Molyneux, Lionhead Studios, Big Blue Box.
Microsoft Game Studios.
Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) Developed by: Rockstar North, Rockstar Toronto.
Rockstar Games.
Half-Life (1998) Developed by: Valve Corporation. Sierra Entertainment.
Halo (2001–) Developed by: Bungie, Ensemble Studios, Robot Entertainment,
343 Industries, Certain Affinity. Microsoft Game Studios.
The Last Express (1997) Developed by: Smoking Car Productions. Brøderbund.
The Legend of Zelda (1986) Developed by: Nintendo. Nintendo.
Max Payne (2001) Developed by: Remedy Entertainment. Gathering of Developers.
The Movies (2005) Developed by: Lionhead Studios. Activision.
Myst (1993) Developed by: Robyn and Rand Miller, Cyan. Brøderbund.
Pac-Man (1980) Developed by: Namco. Namco, Midway.
The Sims (2000–) Developed by: Will Wright, Maxis. Electronic Arts.
Sim City (1989) Developed by: Will Wright, Maxis. Brøderbund, Electronic Arts.
Silent Hill2 (2001) Developed by: Konami Computer, Entertainment Tokyo.
Konami.
Tetris (1984) Developed by: Alexey Pajitnov, Vadim Gerasimov.
Tomb Raider (1996) Developed by: Core Design. Eidos Interactive.
World of Warcraft (2004) Developed by: Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard
Entertainment.
Zork (1980) Developed by: Infocom. Personal Software, Infocom.

153
Machinima Reference

Red vs. Blue (2003–) Crs: Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Gustavo
Sorola, Jason Saldaña. YouTube, accessed May 2007, <http.Machinima.com>;
cca 3.5 mins x eps>.

154
Index

Aarseth, Espen, 50–1 Dogme ’95, 67, 108

AI: Artificial Intelligence, 6, 88, 91 Donnie Darko, 102
alternative plot types, 34, 43, Doom, 10, 86, 130
48, 55 Draughtsman’s Contract, The, 39, 42
Apatow, Judd, 20
ARG, 88–91, 100 Eisenstein, Sergei, 78–80, 85, 107,
Aristotle, 7, 97–100, 126 129, see also montage
Atkins, Barry, 4, 76, 116 ELIZA, 14–15
avant-garde, 59, 68, 83 Elsaesser, Thomas, 10, 34–5, 47, 54,
Avatar, 25, 29–30, 61 59, 63, 68, 83, 85, 96, 101–4, 111,
avatar, 4, 17, 22–3, 26, 29–30, 115, 117
46, 61, 69–70, 103–4, 109, Everett, Wendy, 33–4, 42, 45, 100, 127
113–14 eversion, 83, 96
Avengers, The, 95 eXistenZ, 24–8, 48–9, 64, 113

Babel, 41–2 Façade, 131–4

Bard, Perry, 40, 77 flow, 71–2, 83, 99, 104, 110–11, 131,
Baudry, Jean-Louis, 106 134
Bazin, André, 74 forking-path plot, 33, 35, 44, 46–7,
Ben X, 22–4, 68–71 57–8, 64, 100
Bizzocchi, Jim, 56, 58 fractal film, 34, 42, 100
Bolter, Jay David, 8–10, 67, 78, 100,
109, 117 Garden of Forking Paths, The, 44–5
Bordwell, David, 33–4, 44–7, 57–8, gaze, 11, 81, 106–12, 114–16, 118
64, 100 glance, 9, 81, 108–10
Borges, Jorge Luis, 44–5 Greenaway, Peter, 39, 84
Bruner, Jerome, 99–101 Grieb, Margit, 56, 66
Buckland, Warren, 1, 98 Groundhog Day, 55–6, 60, 62
Bully, 23 Grusin, Richard, 8–10, 67, 78, 100,
Bush, Vannevar, 13, 72 109, 117

Caillois, Roger, 104 Hackers, 19–20, 109

Campbell, Joseph, 7, 93, 117, Halo, 88
see also monomyth Haraway, Donna, 11, 27–8, 30,
catharsis, 97–9 112–14, 115
Crank, 8, 81–3 Heroes, 20
cybertext, 50 Huizinga, John, 104
cyborg, 11, 27–31, 64, 72, 85, hypertext, 42, 45, 115, 130
112–14
immersion, 4, 25, 67, 81, 83, 96,
database cinema, 35–7, 39 110–11, 132
Deleuze, Gilles, 113 immediacy, 67
Dark Knight, The, 8, 90–1 hypermediacy, 67–9, 71–2, 130

155
156 Index

interactivity, 1–4, 14, 23, 26, 32, 75, Quixote, Don, 5, 12

86, 108, 110, 119–21, 128–9, 135
iron triangle, 13, 16, 72 Ramírez Berg, Charles, 34,
48, 80
Jenkins, Henry, 43, 55, 63, 66, 87–91, Rashomon, 47
105, 125 Ricoeur, Paul, 100
Juul, Jesper, 71 Rombes, Nicholas, 38, 41, 44, 54, 59,
67, 80, 109
Kinder, Masha, 35, 37 Run Lola Run, 33–5, 42, 45, 55–60, 62,
66, 69, 128
labyrinth, 45, 48–53, see also maze Ryan, Marie-Laure, 2, 4, 93, 96–8,
Limitless, 114–15 108, 119
loop, 54–5
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 70–1
machinima, 87–8 screen,
macronarrative, 43–4 mosaic, 76–7, 79, 81
micronarrative, 93–4, 123, 43 split, 9, 67, 76–81, 109,
Manovich, Lev, 1–2, 8–9, 32, 35–41, 122–4
43, 54, 59, 64, 68, 72–4, 80, 82–3, Silent Hill, 52
86–7, 94, 105, 115–16 Silent Hill 2, 51–4, 103
many-worlds interpretation, 44 Simons, Jan, 84–5
Matrix, The, 8, 25, 29, 89–90, 92 Source Code, 59–61, 64–5
maze, 48, 50–3, see also labyrinth space,
super-maze, 52 haptic, 73, 78, 83
Memento, 41, 52–4, 59, 102 navigable, 72, 78, 129–30,
Metz, Christian, 37, 94, 106–7 133
mimesis, 99–100 optic, 73
mind-game film, 34–5, 54, 58, 63, 98, Staiger, Janet, 34, 107–8
101–2
modular narrative, 35 three-act structure, 7, 129
monomyth, 7, 117 Tomb Raider, 10, 66, 113–14
montage, Lara Croft, 66, 113
global, 82 transmedia, 10, 29, 55, 63–4, 68,
ontological, 68, 82–3, 90–1, 111, 89–96, 98–101, 105, 135
134–5 Treske, Andreas, 73, 84
spatial, 68, 72–5, 78–9, 81–3, 85, Tron, 16, 18, 25, 28, 30
121, 124, 128–9 Tron: Legacy, 18, 25, 30
stylistic, 68–72, 80, 82, 132 Timecode, 35, 40–3, 74–6, 78–81,
temporal, 78–9 110, 124–6, 128
Mulvey, Laura, 11, 111–15, 118 Turkle, Sherry, 10–11, 102, 104,
Murray, Janet, 3–5, 28, 56, 58, 62, 76, 117
97, 105, 122, 126, 128, 132–3
Vertov, Dziga, 39–40, 74,
Neale, Steve, 94 77, 115
network, 34, 37, 41–2, 63, 74,
101–3, 117, 120, 127 WarGames, 12–19, 25
Wiener, Norbert, 72
Prometheus, 91–2 World of Warcraft, 22, 63, 86
psychological puzzle film, 34, 48, 55, 60
Pulp Fiction, 35, 47–8 Zimmerman, Eric, 3