Ingmar Bergman in the museum? Thresholds, limits, conditions of possibility

Abstract

‘THE CINEMA IS DEAD*LONG LIVE THE CINEMA (IN THE MUSEUM)’ For several decades now, the cinema’s demise has been presented as a fact: at first, television took away the family audience, then the video recorder killed off the neighbourhood cinemas, and now digitisation has broken the indexicality of the photographic image, undermining its ‘‘documentary’’ value by replacing the optico-chemical link to physical reality with numerical code. News of the cinema’s death is thus no longer new, and some will say that it is greatly exaggerated: the hegemonic might of Hollywood movies reigns unabated, but young auteurs continue to emerge in Asian countries, Latin America and the Middle- East, and a myriad of festivals show new films from all over the world*even from ‘‘old’’ Europe* to crowded venues.

(Published: 2 December 2009)

Citation: Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 1, 2009. DOI: 10.3402/jac.v1i0.2123