Reality vs. Computer. Digital Effects and Film Ontology

In the cinema, digital technology is present from script writing to film screening. At the level of the image, the computer-aided encounter of the media aims each single time at merging them imperceptibly to the eye. When the line between the reality recorded by the camera and digital image (deprived of denotatum in this reality) is blurred, the process of blurring becomes the basic aim of the filmmaker and the object of fascination of the viewer. At the same time the fact that the digital image pretends to be an analogue one must give rise to the question of a status of reality in such a hybrid film and reliability of the image itself. For many philosophers, the answer is clear: computer technology's entry into the cinema implies the death of the cinematic sign, now empty and deprived of denotatum in reality. Reactions of film spectators suggest, however, that such a diagnosis may be hasty and the question may be wrong. Present-day formula should perhaps be rejected or one should perhaps ask the question about a relation between the digital film and the (photographic) film, treating them as two separate phenomena on the map of the cinema