The drama of the digital: D.N. Rodowick, Garrett Stewart, and narrative cinema

This essay considers recent work by D.N. Rodowick and Garrett Stewart on digital technology and cinema. By comparing Rodowick's The Virtual Life of Film to Stewart's Framed Time: Toward a Postfilmic Cinema, the essay argues that Rodowick need not be so pessimistic about the prospects of cinema in the face of digital technology, even if material film itself is becoming obsolete. Furthermore, the essay queries whether the boundaries between virtual and actual as proposed by Rodowick are so clearly defined, and posits that a more complex relationship between the two is in existence (and has perhaps existed for a long time). The essay also proposes that the work of Rodowick and Stewart, among others, suggests that film theory still has plenty to offer film studies, not least because this postfilmic cinema is expanding so rapidly.