The recent uproar over NSA dataveillance can obscure the fact that surveillance has been part of our lives for decades. And cinema has long been aware of its powerand potential for abuse.
In Closed Circuits, Garrett Stewart analyzes a broad spectrum of films, from M and Rear Window through The Conversation to Dj Vu, Source Code, and The Bourne Legacy, in which cinema has articulatedand performedthe drama of inspections unreturned look. While mainstays of the thriller, both the act and the technology of surveillance, Stewart argues, speak to something more foundational in the very work of cinema. The shared axis of montage and espionagewith editing designed to draw us in and make us forget the omnipresence of the narrative cameraextends to larger questions about the politics of an oversight regime that is increasingly remote and robotic. To such a global technopticon, one telltale response is a proliferating mode of digitally enhanced surveillancinema.
In Closed Circuits, Garrett Stewart analyzes a broad spectrum of films, from M and Rear Window through The Conversation to Dj Vu, Source Code, and The Bourne Legacy, in which cinema has articulatedand performedthe drama of inspections unreturned look. While mainstays of the thriller, both the act and the technology of surveillance, Stewart argues, speak to something more foundational in the very work of cinema. The shared axis of montage and espionagewith editing designed to draw us in and make us forget the omnipresence of the narrative cameraextends to larger questions about the politics of an oversight regime that is increasingly remote and robotic. To such a global technopticon, one telltale response is a proliferating mode of digitally enhanced surveillancinema.
