From ‘Redemption of Physical Reality’ to ‘Recreation of Perceptual (Hyper)reality’

Abstract

I undertake a comparative analysis of the distinctions between 2D and 3D cinema based on a correlation between production mode and perceptual physiologies. Moreover, with reference to Kracauer’s classic remark (Theory of film: The redemption of physical reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961) that ‘the nature of film is the redemption of physical reality,’ I argue for 3D’s enhanced ability to (re)construct and recreate a ‘hyper-reality,’ based on 3D’s (actual or virtual) two-camera mechanism and its integration with digital technologies. Furthermore, based on the above argument, I show how 3D’s hyper-reality leads to distinctive aesthetic approaches, comparing contemporary examples of 2D and 3D cinema. This chapter thus considers the question of ‘the very nature’ of stereoscopic cinema, from which its narrative tropes and techniques are derived. It therefore provides the ontological basis for my subsequent discussion of such tropes and techniques, from the spatiotemporal articulation of 3D ‘timespaces’ to the layering of narrational perspectives.