Abstract
Whereas the currently emerging configurations of audiovisualcy in the age of digital networks are often addressed in terms of absolute novelty and innovation, this article wishes to shift the focus slightly, articulating instead the new in terms of the old. This essay proposes the argument that it was within the Nouvelle Vague and the French film culture of the 1960s that the DVD was “invented”. Obviously, this is a contrafactual argument, but if we understand the DVD as a discursive construction articulating a specific perspective on film, then the DVD simulates and emulates some key features of 1960s cinephilia that emerged within the context of the new waves. On the other hand, the Nouvelle Vague is understood as a broad discursive movement encompassing all segments of the institution cinema rather than five auteur-directors — Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer and Rivette — and their respective films. By arguing for the continuing importance of film history and culture, this article wishes to underline the fact that technological as well as aesthetic transformations are central to our understanding of media culture.
Highlights
The Nouvelle Vague is certainly one of the classic movements in the history of film
The Nouvelle Vague provided many concepts that continue to have an influence on film culture as we still know it today: our categorisation of films relies on the notion of the director as the origin and creator of the film, a conception heavily indebted to the politique des auteurs developed and popularised within the pages of Cahiers du cinéma
The film culture that developed in the wider context of the Nouvelle Vague was not limited to methods of analysing favoured films and ways of paying homage to favoured directors, but it was a restructuring of the cinema experience as such, often called cinephilia
Summary
Not surprisingly given the logic of capitalist entrepreneurship and the size of the home cinema market, the DVD has after its introduction in the late 1990s quickly differentiated into several distinct segments delineated by price range, extras and release date. DVDs can be classified into standard releases (director’s commentary, a few extras such as making-of or blooper reel in addition to the film), stripped-down versions for retail (just the film priced at the lower end of the prize range, trailing the standard version by a couple of months), extended and special editions (often signalled by an unusual packaging such as steel book, characterised by extensive extras and sometimes even material gimmicks), and boxes which collect several films by topic, genre, star or director or even DVDs included in traditional print magazines (usually a way of marketing films that would stand no chance on their own even at bargain prices) There is another notable market that is interesting when considered in relation to traditional cinephilia: in the cultural sector as a niche market, the Criterion Collection came first as the company began already in the 1980s with publishing highly valued Laserdisc editions for collectors and cinephiles. As opposed to the Hitchcocko-Hawksiens of the 1960s, the current cinephile were raised not so much in the cinematheque, and with late-night TV and video, as a consequence combining the classic canon with the cult films of the 1980s and 1990s.10 There are significant differences between the two phases: while many of the auteurs of the 1960s were declared in retrospect and quite regularly in opposition to the film industry and the actual statements of the directors themselves, the media conglomerates of today were quick to transform this notion into the idea of the “commercial auteur” which in turn helped market films to the consumer. A key element in the construction of the commercial auteur, as far as the DVD is concerned, is the commentary track to which I will turn
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