geometry as feeling
While there is
great attention paid to cultural and technological processes of popular
‘action’ films and media in studies today, I believe it is still the assumption
that ‘non-narrative’ scenes should be awarded more symbolic value than
metaphoric. Supposedly they represent what ‘sells’, what captures the attention
of ‘mass-markets’ and is ‘formulated’ to provoke trained responses. What
concerns me is whether these statements encapsulate action choreography’s intentions,
for in texts where it does it becomes a troubling tool of Hollywood spawned businesses,
not only for its immediate financial return but in its dictation of what genres
are suited for classes of audience. If it is the power to associate the
representation of physicality as mere fantasy then the purpose of our basic
biology is detourned into a simulatory business loop. Alternatively the visual
representation of movement onscreen may be awarded a multiplicity of readings
and allowed to signify its own independently governed physical worlds.
This article will be a short review
of expressive themes in metaphors of visual movement. It will attempt to place
them in some context of narration and determine what Hollywood inspired devices
exist to separate the two and place constraints on adaptability of technology
and representations of imagination. Depatures from the observable physics of
filmed world as illustrated in hand-drawn animation will serve to highlight
mental recogntion of visual and geometric metaphors as an alternative to its
symbolism within social and cultural phenomena implicating the viewer’s
immersion into otherwise private worlds.
The use of language usually implies
the prescription of efficiency in the current communication. Whether passed
down through historically driven rules or implied through the logical choice of
associations, this efficiency itself is a value communicated to the listener
along with the ‘content’ of its encryption. The phenomenon then of ‘data’
compressed into highly readable symbols is not lost on media artists who gain
reputation and cultural capital through demonstrating their ability to
manipulate visual images and montage to communicate ideas that in everyday life
are usually constrained to verbal code in less-efficient dialogue between
audience members. Since this is such a departure from the norm a token amount
of viewer attention is usually awarded to such scenes in film and media. These
artists, after all, are assumed to be specialists in this field of
communication who invest private time into displaying polished public products.
In the corporate battle, audiences attempt to be best informed as to which
pieces to watch and how to interpret them best so as to not stray from the
socioeconomic times existing outside the of theatre. Producers attempt to weave
a maze with singular goals only at the exit so that funding may be continuous
to see out the end of possiblities of the technique by implying there can be no
better ‘complete’ representation of the base universal themes it prescribes
through idealised goal-seeking methods of the heroes and heroines onscreen than
what audiences and Hollywood is used to dealing with, that every release is a
worthwhile confirmation of that eternal fact. Of course both behaviours bely
the purpose of efficiency in communication. The viewer should not be wasting
time. This condition cannot be met while they must pay attention to the
boundaries created by investing companies between their product and the world
around them.
The language of visual representation
then should not be distracting. It should not fulfill the agenda of any single
investor in the medium, in punishing the viewer for living a life discontinuous
with the aspirations of their interpretation as applied to role models around
them. In this sense then, the role models on screen must acknowledge their
language is detourned by base metaphoric formalas before they decide to exhibit unique properties. In this sense
their individuality then becomes unconcerned by the possible cooincidents with
theoretical frameworks since they already have made up their mind on what it is
they want, or that as an agent to powerless to overlapping sources none of them
perfectedly timed their appropriation of his/her mind. To soak up culturally
aware icons of mythology and clinical methodology (outside intertexuality
purposes) is to suggest that only one body at a time may take up this stage
presence. In general, if the language is not open to more than revisitations by cultural and technological dialogue
then it may as well never require the viewer’s presence. In some ways the
efficiency of media representation is in the creation of signs for the viewer
that what has been filled here by the detailed effort of producers is a story
that through its demarkation of language is one extra reading that may be
applied to previous texts and future ones, so that hopefully its detail may
never need repeating again being implicit in the intertextuality of future
representations.
At this point I would like declare
how this model may be directly analogous to visual representations used within
such orientated film and media. Imagine the concept of a single text being a
fork brancking in a given direction. If this is the ‘open’ model which lends
its language and structure to any texts willing to subject themself to it then
allow this fork to be translated along all axes of some archival space of
media. Now consider what visual scenes might be included in this text. Should
we have a character brandishing a huge weapon linearly exert energy into
guiding it on to its target, or have only one bullet left and closing his/her
eyes and firing and winning, this would barely be a fork and could be
considered more of a straight line. Such a model may relate to other texts and
fighting scenes but trivially since it employs a fundamental element of contact
between two objects, i.e. being a straight line it can be superimposed on to
any branch of any fork a text may choose to forge. In this since whatever
detailed inscribed into the scene is simply luggage attached in almost all
future texts no matter how that future evolves and cannot be said to convey
‘information’ significant in ratio to all the other straight lines in forks; if
the viewer is to see this structure in every future text eventually it loses
distinctiveness. Instead, should the character in fluid motion be
simultaeneously opening and closing his or her avenues for pursuing the target
by passing through cover and choosing a direction to appear behind it,
propelling themself into the air and changing directional momentum by pushing
against reappropriated environmental objects, feigning attacks by a variety of
weapons, overshadowing the mindset of the target and to a degree the audience
and only in the end narrowing down
all of the combat options to the final choice evidenced by a split second
framing of the character finding the right aiming position, we have a story
information rich enough to allow that character to live through society after
it. At each frame which reveals a decision made by the character, a change in
path, a choice of target, a new branch is opened by the fork. This is to make
no huge comment on what lies down that branch, but it is conceivably connected
to the avenues the character continues to forge and deny. In fact, it is
precisely by not commenting on what
lies down the other avenues that the texts around it find some way to interact
with the scene. On our space of text-archive which can translate this
fork-structure parallel to or connected to scenes in other texts of similar
scale and grant all the characters and stories the possibility in our
processing of information that it is us,
the viewer, who has actually been forced to make decisions with each opening
and closing of avenues in the scene to accept that this character be allowed to
be defined at all within our conception of a living entity in our own
conception of physical space simply because we double guess exactly what that
character does not know. What lies down those unchosen avenues are the ‘laws’
of physicality which allow the character to breathe and feel and the more of
them which exist the more chance the viewer has at giving life-support to the
character – through, of course, intertextual play. An all-knowing character
simply is not feasible to conceptualise within the mind of anyone who considers
that the state of this character knowing what would have happened without the
viewer’s presence is unknowable. Finally, consider another visual option which
omits all representation of the engagement, or only stills of the engagement at
a handful of intervals, and opens up a chasm in temporality. the camera/frame
will still be pointing at something and in some other way this will have to
interpret the experience of time in relation to the significance of the encounter.
This sort of intertextuality is calling on the dense representations of action
scenes around it, working on a ‘high-level’ to piece together pre-made forks
into a larger construct which through other appropriations of forks from other
texts or from its own will offer a similar high-level fork to be examined
against other texts with similar scales or as an enclosure for smaller ones.
Though no decisions are evident on the mechanics of the engagement the signpost
here is that commentary will be substituted in its place and the decisions then
will rely on what impact this consequently has on the characters and story –
the narration is still very much connected internally and in the presence of
other texts.
In all cases there is never a
‘necessity’ to convey information to the viewer through ‘brute-force’ representation
of visual detail. Nonetheless there is
a choice which leads to lack of information. Because this is not something
which conditionally occurs by accident it becomes a tool of power relations and
I believe can be read in the decisions of Hollywood-constructed formula. This
is believe is the issue fundamental to the action genre as a means of reinforcing
cultural stereotypes in that scene is created purposely lacking in decisions
that the viewer is to look elsewhere – into the cultural signs onscreen – if
they are determine its consistency with narrative/purpose. This may *sit in*
for an ‘active’ participation however it will always be the last choice left
with such a constructed scene and so a device which may be manipulated.
If some models for intertextuality
are so analytical as I have presented here, could this then bely the experience
of communication which is the primary purpose of a text’s production? In trying
to answer this I purposely expressed the intertextual models as direct
analogies to what was represented visually in the film. This should represent
the possibility of visual communication’s ability to encode within itself an
installable interface fairly universal in its assumptions, opening with it the
ability of action sequences to be openly linked narratively and with the
viewer’s experience (and hence intertextually) with the decision to include
each frame, and in this sense is a rich process of communication.
One form which illustrates the
theory behind recognition of visual metaphor by filtering out the immediacy of
cultural symbolism is at animation. Created ‘from scratch’ it is a model of
connecting representation directly with the artist’s ‘ideas’. Briefly I will
add here one additional reason why cultural thematic background need not be a
glaring distraction from the interpretation of visual metaphor; that death can
symbolise more than biological end. ‘Action’ films traditionally incorporate
the kinds of movement and implications of agency which I discuss in this essay
however this is more of a stigma than prerequisite for composition. They come
to mind for being a great resource of intertextual material including war
films, cartoons, action games and media ‘reportage’ of historical and cultural
physical conflict. The open model should not isolate other visual patterns from
becoming recognisable and cross-referenced. Sport, digital space hacking (like William Gibson’s sequences of ‘ICE’
penetration), illustrations of maths and physics and basically all material
crafts (cooking!) have implicit methodologies of efficiency illustrated within
them. Although they may be read as allusions to situations of greater magnitude
(cooking?), if these are to ellicit similar responses then this would support
the idea that the visual model embeds with it concepts of information relay
detached from cultural and technological symbolism.
Strictly this is the assumption
behind all interpretation of animation when identifying ‘life’ within its artificial
representations. However this leads to some free interpretation of what happens
between the register of ‘picture’ in the mind to ‘object’. Specifically there
is much one can do to reverse engineer the cultural/semantic meaning of drawn
objects, bullets and explosions no longer mirror pure representations but can
be accepted as wild and fantastic shapes and colours along mathematical
pathways. If this were to be perceived during the experience of filmed space
then it would somewhat detract from the ‘photo-realistic narrative’ condition
the characters were in. This association then is the form of visual
communication, a simultaneous journey and creation for the viewer as it was for
the artist:
“For
art (true art) artificially returns the viewer to the stage of sensuous thought
– which is also the stage of a magical relationship with nature. When you
achieve, for example, a synthetic blending of sound and image – you have
subjected the viewer’s perception ot hte conditions of sensuous thoughts, where
synthetic perception is the only kind possible – there is not yet any
differentiation of percpetions, and our viewer is ‘rebuilt’ in accord with
norms not of the present, but those of primordially sensuous perception – he is
‘returned’ to the conditions of the magical stage of experience the world, and
an Idea, carried by means of such a
system of influence, given form through
such means – irresistibly controls emotion.” [1]
In one sense the simplification of
hand-drawn animation is an artist’s ‘filter’ to what thematic details should
best represent the text. Construction-wise, this involves circling imagination
around the eyes, sharpness of facial features; in a sense, our gaze saturates
around the enclosed boundaries of these parts and collects at sharp corners
like liquid. Accute and sometimes painful empathy can be made with any supposed
awareness of a character of themself by questions of aesthetics. The flat
shades of colour around line-art become the well from which all of our
unfocused ideas of physicality and movement can be drawn out at will according
to what the artist is illustrating in his/her boundaries between each polygon.
It becomes clear that our everyday conception of physicality is in many ways
‘overdetermined’, not only due to psychological perception cues like
convergence and closure but in the very solidness of dimensional form itself.
We choose a convenient number of degrees of freedom to picture where this
object is heading or how it will next reconfigure but when the story is instead
being told to us issues of accuracy
fade away and animation in its 2D depiction demonstrates that we only need
reference symbols to mark states of transformation in order to analyse the
decision making of each character. Sequence-wise, an artist may choose to
exaggerate the focus of a character’s hair-flow in the wind, ascribing detail
to that animation only with the rest of the scene still as a means of
portraying a character’s consciousness or imply what parts of it they cannot
reveal. Or, should more ‘effort’ be used to animate several parts of a scene
simultaneously a dynamism is set-up between objects within a scene. These are
the ways in which the visual language limits its vocabulary within any
particular scene so that the viewer engage with their own background. This is a
narration outside of textual narrative and breaks realist conventions of
character singularity.
As a minimalist technique then
animation faces the same dilemmas outlined in the preceding model of intertextual
sequencing – a generalisation of detail renders the scene invisible in the face
of its countless incorporations in everyday movement. The intent of animation
is not simply a matter of assimilation if it can produce consciousness towards its
decisions of what is namely style. Experimentation
with the form can produce exaggerated effects which inform the viewer ahead of
the frame which direction an object is travelling, or produced a multiple
possibilities as to its origins. Rather than attempt to assimilate all
derivative paths of motion animation employs the overdetermination of frame to
assume that the basic physical mechanics are well known to the viewer and
focuses its extra detail on contextualising the characters’ presences within
the scene.
A short corollary in computer games
– for the near future the state of technology will place constraints on what
kind of models can be represented in 3D space. Games which ignore the the model
of the exterior physical world around us and create texture and lighting
effects which make the world look internally coherent manage to make the game
look ‘stylised’. This can appreciate our acceptance since we won’t be
distracted by attentions to detail in our mental expectations, and at the same
time get to use our experience during the interaction to process our ideas in a
framework which clearly saves people time in having to piece together
themselves and yet can’t be accesssed in many other areas of the physical
world.
In employing the models of
self-imposed limitations and uniqueness a demonstration of the sense extracted
from the vivid style in an episode of Neon
Genesis Evangelion (1995) can be made:
Of all the choices available to it,
the giant Eva unit crawls out of the geofront. We allow this, it is a walking
empathetic being, and we are not going to let all of the considerations brewed
during our education about machines stop this robot from looking around and
investigating and changing directions and circling its gearbox. New life is on
the prowl. As we watch this thing, every new move is an instinct refound, for how
else to explain the prediction of leg servos absorbing the massive impact of
jumping around, the concentrated effort of throwing a punch drawing energy
until it can be unleashed at the last moment. The latency of a being’s movements
tells all the stories. There is a sadness in the inevitability of its next move
just as it is inevitable that the monster forced to be by itself during that
delay before the instant it lashes out with its limbs. To be ‘in the rhythm’,
in the channel of repetitive moments, to be by one’s self again, and again, and
again, watching the land before you tear apart. This is the story the Evas
communicate to us, it is a generalised silence that refused to be stopped by
the generalised capacity of us viewers to grope the implications of a machine’s
place on the field. It’s identity is formed by its pauses. And the design of
its sinewy limbs only ‘stretches’ out this confession by the monster, Eva. They
act like a questioning child when they have to bear the weight of the massive
alien dropping from the sky. They ran so fast to get there and are immediately
asked to follow up with my strenuous exercise. Why? Who is watching me, they
may as well think. And for us viewers, the question becomes does the image of controlled
robot become shattered in representations like Evangelion?
Before I depart from animation as an
example of form I would like to parallel the viewership of animation with the
decision to theorise academically. The lack of realist physical representation
in animation implies processes of psychological interpretation. The moment we
recognise our perception is constrained to ourself alone we acknoweldge the
instantaneous multitude of other indivduals’ experiences which will be
equivalently complete. What are the odds of us recognising the same emotions
from simply drawn images? How is it that we can extract a wealth of temporal information
from a scene involving four frames? All of these questions points to a dynamic
involvement of the mind not only piecing together the origins of its individual
development but the co-existence of others who send messages that their history
is built with the same code. With each ‘new’ re-simplified image don’t we have
a chance of going further ‘back’ in that code’s upbringing? In this sense
creative and minimalist form imply the same collection of thoughts about ‘progress’
as any external theory could.
As an abstract conceptualisation of
visual movement geometric metaphors can be identified as the mechanism with
which feeling and empathy is recognised. Whether they should resemble
anthropomophic movement or fractal recursion there is an innate consciousness
made to mathematics in the rationale of desire. An arm reaching for an object
can be exaggeratedly drawn taking a roundabout shape to create sense of the
temporality of a character’s pre-awareness
and anticipation of imagined fulfilment. The motion of a jump may be sequenced
in logarhythmic time to alternate states of deterministic consequence and
‘heightened’ decision-making awareness. An enemy mechanoid employing various
calibre devices to deal with a library of situations is perceived as either a
well-thought out or naturally evolved inhabitant of the playing field. An
unfolding origami-style hexagonal entity conveys some sense of how it travels
through space and makes its environmental assessment. Through sufficient
demonstration of a character’s conceptial grasp for efficiency in physics, a
pause in the midst of action can allude to all of them in the latent decision-making
process. Many action anime like Cowboy
Bebop (1998) and Ghost in the Shell use
these examples. In essence, it is the geometry of movement’s mechanism which is
behind the efficiency/suitability of an object and in a sense becomes the
appraisal of the viewer as to how quickly they are being fed information. The
ecstacy of ‘good character design’ or ‘good choreography’ can be a
manifestation of the short timespan required for the mathematical possibilities
at stake to be acknowledged by the scene. Similarly it can generalise the
action beyond screentime communicating a sense of the narrative history and
space instantly. Though also a byproduct of psychological cues the innate
pattern recognition of audiences allows their ‘identification’ with screen to
be mediated by possibilities of mathematical coherence as well as entropic
‘informational sources’ on a latent level of recognition, audiences can take
the form of geometric shapes so that they may ‘enter’ the logical space and
witness and interpret events on the narrative’s level. Subsequently they may
choose to ascribe the geometric details on to their own physical forms to abstractly
question how it might feel for a human body to find a way to be put through
such motions. The indication of any sort of applied geometry to the ‘problem’
is a cue that the scene is a product (manufactured or otherwise) of naturalised
drama, an investment of the time and effort of the producers, and in this sense
geometrical metaphors as statements of self-prescribed efficiency can be
connected with emotion.
Aeon
Flux can be heralded as an extremely self-aware philosophical treatise on
the geometric influences of the environment on our perception. In particular
the series exceeds at generalising ‘compressed’ senses of time through its
interaction with causal geometrised space; in essence narration and spacetime
become one knowledge with the viewer as pieces together implications of a
scene’s past and future. In the opening to Aeon
Flux’s video releases the character is descending through a shaft weaving
through security traps. The speed with which she makes her moves from one
platform to another is suggestive of Aeon’s ‘immersion’ into the environment,
and the frames which we see of her mid-leap, body twisted and legs stretched
perform an identifer of efficiency in the agent’s deployment. The point though
is to show how she has not ‘blindly’ been inserted into the scene, as the
various traps in the shaft are having
an effect on her trajectory implying that she has not painstakingly avoided any
influence of the environment but somehow has assessed its threat potential and
been satisfied that she can enjoy some leeway in carelessness so that the
environment ‘naturally’ slow-down the increased speed she gains at the expense of
safety considerations. As the security system ensnares Aeon in a web at the
very bottom of the shaft she is caught hanging neatly above the platform on
which she wished to set her bomb. Time is literally stretched out to focus on being
present when causality’s rate of approach is slowest at the very point it is
nearest. All of the scene’s sequences and motivations become channeled into one
and there no longer is any way to read the history ‘separate’ from its
destination. Note also that this is specific information demonstrated as a
result of narrative and natural processes and not as a segregated suggestion by
the text. This is a complete defeat of any external agency by assimilating it
into the framework of destination and evolution and is conveyed to the viewer
exactly because it describes Aeon’s condition, having no place to actually ‘go’
and not even any freewill to improve the efficiency of her undertakings, she
simply is made to ‘be’ but in the surrealist aesthetic of movement. Through the
series we see neatly executed backflips into tiny slots, dislocations of
artificial spines to weave through fences and recursive dilemmas outlining
Aeon’s futile agency on the field. Another Aeon
Flux short has her infiltrate an alien base, and having established that she
is familiar in hurdling through complex cage-like patterns of obstacles in her
training shows her being discovered by a spider-like alien who proceeds to shut
off her exit with a similar cage of metal bars shot out from the corridor
walls. With a smug expression Aeon re-establishes her proficiency in navigating
the cage as the alien is left behind half-impressed for a second. We then see
the aliens long legs put into action as it runs through the cage ‘web’
transparently and devours the main character. Despite our ideas and decisions
in configuring scenarios the infinitely scalable nature of geometric design
never allows us to triumpth over what can be communicated between perceptions.
It is evident that after painstaking detail worked on geometrical recognisability
and its successful parsing into viewer awareness, ‘knowing’ all the rules to
the game yet still identifying an additional narrative space with questions of
their own only speculates some ‘creativity’ beyond that which can be coherently
(physically) ‘described’.
Pattern recogntion here does not end
with low-level mathematical rules but can be analogised to any academic spatial
models, from Freudian (ego, super-ego) to physical (Pauli exclusion principle,
Heisenberg uncertainty principle and quantum behaviour) each with their own
‘emotional’ implications. In general, visual media shares the same ‘open’
gateways as all metaphorical languages such as these; ‘classical’ narration
could not exist without an interpretation of the circuits made through these
various levels and the loss of originality with generalised logical systems and
viewer-specific background determining the recognition of these high-level
metaphors suggests narration’s situation within an intertexual and postmodern
framework.
Although I have outlined mechanisms
with which visual forms can ‘overlap’ intertextually they similarly describe formulas to close
narrative by appealing to universalised (in this case ‘rational’)
generalisations. The attempt to communicate an implied universal amount of
information betrays continuity with the interpretation of narration to that
point and will in some way by exhibited by a pause in the viewer.
“Thus,
positive reception of the films of mainstream digital cinema depends as much on
a fascinated spectator, immersed in
dazzling and ‘spellbinding’ imager, as on identification with character and the
machinations of plot and theme... If, ultimately, the spectacular aspect has
always been viewed as subordinate to and in a sense subject to the control of a
repressive narrative logic, this is precisely because spectacle is, in many
respects, the antithesis of narrative. Spectacle effectively halts motivated
movement. In its purer state it exists for itself, consisting of image whose
main drive is to dazzle and stimulate the eye (and by extension the other
senses).[2]
It is true that spectacle is beyond
efficiency (being geometrically inspired by division by zero) and causes
disjuncture in narrative invitation. However it is a model contextualised again
and again and due to this repeated usage has an extreme role in altering the
duration of screentime over the body of media as a whole, should self-conscious
examples spend time to foregrounding themselves in the viewer’s eye and so on.
This has implications in the efficiency of the visual model as a distraction
from the cross-referencing process.
I believe the phenomenon of visual
illusion (spectacle) has created a stuttering point in attempts to link imagery
with cultural reference. This, like the dominance of action genre in ‘visual
concept’ films, may be symptomatic of producers’ hesitations towards geometric
metaphor playing the sole premise as described earlier. To ignore metaphorical
narrations and treat violence as token symbolism of current social structure is
to leave the viewer saddened that it might equate to entertainment and will
either be expressed through distrust being so removed from everyday life (paternal/maternal
model) or change of subject in conversations. Action genres then become literarily
classified or privately entertaining. Either way this is not a reading which
examines transcultural exchange. I will cite one more reading in this vain of
thematic incompatibility with visual stimulus and suggest a counterpoint the
argument.
The
term “state of the art,” applied to science-fiction films, refers to effects.
There’s no state of the art of storytelling, only different storytellers...
Even in anti-technological moves such as THX
1138 and Silent Running, notes La
Valley, wondrous special effects render their protests half-hearted, offering
us such an intriguing spectacle of the new that the plight of the individual
characters is subverted.[3]
In Hoshi no Koe (2002), is the imagery the
backdrop to the themes or are the themes a backdrop to the imagery, for the
imagery is almost completely tied to character development and plot rather than
to further the conception of scientific idea. High school, sunsets, streets,
cockpit, these tell us about the places which we inhabit regardless of the
‘spectacle of theme’ and ultimately how it overpowers that which is universal
in favour of what the individuals pilot in detailed space.
Inside a designed space inner logic
holds the ability to connect with any text that has been similarly coded and
likewise connect to viewers’ ideas of how decisions imply possibilities rather
than cut them off. Cultural symbolism then can only add to the narrative, not
restrict it. The interpretations I have speculated come without unfolding the
possibilities of surrealism as in Jan Svankmejer’s work or the diverse postmodern
non-action genres of anime produced today such as FLCL (2000) or Kareshi Kanojo
no Jijou (1999). My reservation is made against the spectacular conversion
of image into symbolism by means of depriving the image of narrative
continuity, for this is a manufacturer of fashion. Ultimately movement can be
freely interpreted as narration, for it is in the latency that all stories lie
within.
Bibliography
Anderson,
A., “Action in motion: Kinesthesia in martial arts films”, Jump Cut, no. 42, 1998
Darley, A., “The
Waning of the Narrative”, Visual Digital
Culture: Surface Play and ‘Spectacle in New Media Genres, Routledge, London
2000
Landon,
B., The Aesthetics of Ambivalence,
Greenwood Press, Westport & London 1992
O’Pray, M., “Eisenstein and Stokes
on Disney: Film animation and omnipotence”, A
Reader in Animation Studies, ed. Pilling, J., John Libbey & Company,
Sydney 1997
[1] quoting Eisenstein, O’Pray, M., “Eisenstein and Stokes
on Disney: Film animation and omnipotence”, A
Reader in Animation Studies, ed. Pilling, J., John Libbey & Company,
Sydney 1997, p200
[2] Darley, A, “The Waning of the Narrative”, Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and
‘Spectacle in New Media Genres, Routledge, London 2000, p103
[3] Willis, D., “Variety: Complete Science Fiction
Reviews”, quoted in Landon, B., The
Aesthetics of Ambivalence, Greenwood Press, Westport & London 1992,
p67,68
[4] Anderson, A., “Action in motion: Kinesthesia in
martial arts films”, Jump Cut, no.
42, 1998, p1