The Shane Denson reading for this week draws attention to the idea of post-cinematic affect. My attention was drawn to the idea that technology and camera apparatuses can alienate the viewer by creating a distance between what is diegetic and non-diegetic.

Denson explained that, “structural homology—between spectators’ embodied perceptual capacities and those of film’s own apparatic “body,” which engages viewers in a dialogical exploration of perceptual exchange; cinematic expression or communication, accordingly, was seen to be predicated on an analogical basis according to which the subject and object-positions of film and viewer are essentially reversible and dialectically transposable.”

The 2016 film, Ghost in the Shell, is essentially a case study in this reading’s argument.

“these cameras therefore fail to situate viewers in a consistently and coherently designated spectating-position.”

The original animated film seemed to be a human story, as human as it could be given that it focussed exclusively on cyborgs. The camera positions and cinematography are entirely logical for a human spectator. In this video (“How Not to Adapt a Movie”), Evan explains that the new film breaks all kinds of diegetic rules by placing the camera in impossible places, and presenting entirely un-human forced perspectives. If immersion is the practise of essentially forgetting ones own self for a moment and being taken into a piece of art then alienating cinematography is inherently distracting and makes the audience feel even farther disconnected from the characters within the film in a story that desperately needs to pull its audience in.