Part 2: Established Film Makers

One of the key reasons for the outpour of grief over the death of celluloid is that as the technology changes, what constitutes a film also changes. The ways in which films are shot are so very different from the ways in which they had been shot in the past, with much greater control over what the finished product looks like available to film makers.

Digital cinema is actually a different media to celluloid, even if the finished product often takes the same form, and because of this the ways it is interacted with and understood are different to that of traditional cinema (McLuhan 1964, 11). You therefore now have a generation of film makers who entered the industry working with one media now coming to terms with learning to work with a new media, understanding the ways in which the new tools shape what is created with them. This makes the significance of Midnight in Paris even more apparent, the story of the film represents Allen’s coming to terms with the new technology the industry now relies on, even if he is not particularly pleased with the new tools, as is highlighted by the line at the end of the film “That’s what the present is, it’s a little unsatisfying, because life’s a little unsatisfying”.  Even as Allen adapts to the new tools, and wishes for a return to the old, he realises that his longing for the old ways of production is coloured by nostalgia.