Plastic Reality by Julie A. Turnock

Author:Julie A. Turnock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: PER004030, Performing Arts/Film & Video/History & Criticism, PER004010, Performing Arts/Film & Video/Direction & Production
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2015-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

If, thematically, Star Wars is about Luke Skywalker’s worldview being shaken up and even destroyed in order to see his own role in the potential for a better tomorrow, then Close Encounters is about the ordinary person’s assimilation of otherworldly information. Star Wars rockets the viewer into a fully realized diegesis, a universe that may expand into infinity if Lucas chooses to show it to us. Close Encounters juxtaposes the mundane everyday of traditional principal photography in the same frame as the spectacular with otherworldly effects objects. The effects objects are often wider than the borders of the frame, encouraging the viewer to take a step toward these mysteriously attractive foreign objects. In both cases, the special effects programs force the viewer to think about how he or she interacts with the world and forces beyond his or her control. The 1977 special effects stage not only the enjoyment and exploration of the loss of control, but also they exploit the fantasy of entering a special effect.

Optimism in relation to the cinema of this era has become strongly associated with Reagan-era triumphalism and blind American patriotism. Certainly, a retrospective look at Star Wars and Close Encounters must occur through the historical lens of 1980s conservative politics. The fact that these films were largely the impetus for the ascendancy of the special effects–heavy Hollywood blockbuster that is so often politically allied with the business-friendly Reaganite 1980s has not helped their critical reputation. And perhaps they should not be entirely absolved of their availability for conservative embrace. However, it is also worth remembering that the 1980s’ conservative rhetoric of “optimistic futurism” was quite different than the earlier trend that was co-opted.52 The Reaganite technological imagination is one that is in awe of technology, but it emphasizes a wonderment of its destructive possibilities rather than its liberatory or connective potential. In other words, a Reaganite view of the world would have us fear technology, and further fear the political realities that produced these potentially destructive devices (the Reagan-era “Star Wars” weapons system serves as a primary example). It invites Cold War American exceptionalism and nostalgia for golden age American individualism, rather than focusing on the more liberal version’s technologies which aid intersubjective and immersive communication. It is primarily through the distorting lens of 1980s politics and related criticism that Star Wars and Close Encounters are so easy to misconstrue today. However, optimistic futurism within the context of the expanded blockbuster provides these and other late 1970s films with a more nuanced framework for analysis.

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