Tales of Downward Mobility: <i>Life of Pi</i> and Virtual Camera Movement in Liquid Modernity

Abstract

This article analyzes how the virtual camera’s downward, submarine movement in Life of Pi’s “tiger vision” sequence emblematizes the protagonist’s descent into “liquid modernity” and gives spectacular expression to the forces of global capitalism that have, since the 1970s, sent the world—and visual effects labor—plunging toward catastrophe.