Essay Cinema in the Digital Era

This book explores the impact of digital technology on the essay film in the early 21st century, arguing that the cinematic essay has been associated with technological evolution throughout its history. The author considers the output of four towering figures in essay filmmaking: Harun Farocki, Chris Marker, Chantal Akerman and Jean-Luc Godard, and explores the ways in which these directors utilise aesthetic strategies, editing techniques, and modes of spectatorial address that are rooted in the capabilities of digital technologies. Slaymaker conceptualises the cinematic essay as a self-reflexive mode of nonfiction cinema―one that foregrounds the filmmaking apparatus and the act of its own making, and which thereby launches an inquiry into the ontological nature of the cinematic image, the tools which construct it, and the wider artistic landscape in which it is embedded.

James Slaymaker is a filmmaker, researcher and Teaching Fellow in Film Studies at Trinity College Dublin. He has written numerous journal articles, book chapters and conferences papers on digital technology, European cinema, the essay film, and experimental film. He is also a prolific writer of popular film criticism.