Essay Cinema and Technological Innovation

This chapter explores the theoretical and historical development of the cinematic essay as a distinct form of filmmaking, and then goes on to examine the critical role that technology has played in carrying over the traits of the literary essay to audio-visual language. I begin by exploring the origins of the essayistic form in the writings of Michel de Montaigne, and then examine later conceptualisations of the literary essay in the words of György Lukács and Theodor Adorno. I demonstrate that, for these seminal theorists, the essay is understood not as a stable genre with a pre-determined set of formal characteristics, but as a critical approach to writing that articulates thought in an experimental, tentative manner while simultaneously reflecting on the nature of the language itself. I then examine attempts to conduct theory through film form in the seminal works of Soviet Montage artists Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov. Following this, I explore later efforts to conceptualise the ‘essay’ as a mode of filmmaking in the context of post-war European art cinema. I demonstrate that the inscription of a strong authorial voice, an impulse towards self-reflexively meditating on its own production methods, and the establishment of a dialogical structure of communicative exchange are frequently identified as key characteristics that distinguish the cinematic essay from other forms of non-fiction filmmaking. This chapter then recounts a history of the essay as a cinematic mode by considering several historical junctures where the evolution of the mode was linked to significant developments in filmmaking technology, starting with 16 mm equipment in the 1950s and 1960s, and then moving on to video technology in the 1970s and 1980s. I conclude this chapter by looking ahead to later chapters, providing an overview of the themes and ideas discussed in this chapter that will be further developed as I explore the role of digital technology in shaping the language of the cinematic essay in the twenty-first century.