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Under slightly different historical circumstances, we could see them as avant-garde. (Although, as Robert Ray has eloquently argued, avant-garde movements have typically been star-driven and have courted acceptance from the mainstream.) But is a cinematic avant-garde possible today? The Paranormal films are illustrative. On one level, I wonder if this deforms the reality-TV tropes that are so familiar.Īnother characteristic of post-cinema relates to the avant-garde which, historically, played an important role in maintaining some critical distance between cinema and mass culture and cultivated a certain aura and mystique around “movies” in general. In the Paranormal films, it’s not the house or the characters who are haunted, but the cameras, whether they be moving and hand-held (as in the first film) or stationary and fixed (as in the second).

How cinema achieved this state of feeling remains clouded in mystery and needs to be theorized to do so, we might turn to the disciplines of quantum physics and psychopathology, whose methods are (at their best) experimental in the best and most radical sense of the word. Post-cinema is living as much as it generates affect in us, we generate affect in it. I’d turn here to a concept used by some psychiatrists- limbic resonance-to describe how human beings seemingly “tune into” each other via neural attunement and mirror neurons.

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My own still-in-progress mapping of post-cinema would begin with this phenomenon: the totalitarian immersion of our everyday lives in the slipstream of the digital, cinematic imaginary, as captured so well in the Paranormal films which, at their most fundamental level, tackle the question of how to navigate the private spaces of this new media landscape. Particularly right-on, I think, is Steven’s phrase about how the expressive nature of post-cinematic media gives rise to “a kind of ambient, free-floating sensibility that permeates our society today” ( Post-Cinematic 2). My thinking about post-cinema has certainly been influenced by Steven’s writing, especially in his Film-Philosophy essay, “Post-Cinematic Affect: On Grace Jones, Boarding Gate, and Southland Tales” and his book, Post-Cinematic Affect. Nick Rombes: Great to be here, and thanks for this opening question, Therese.

It would be helpful if you gave a brief definition of the “post-cinematic,” or an equivalent term you work with, and include some introductory remarks about these movies as post-cinematic. Therese Grisham: I want to start at the most theoretical level, to find out where you position your thought with regard to the two films we are discussing, Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007) and Paranormal Activity 2 (Tod Williams, 2010). BY THERESE GRISHAM, JULIA LEYDA, NICHOLAS ROMBES, AND STEVEN SHAVIRO

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