Breaking the Norms: How Virtual Reality Counter-Cinemas Can Push the Limits of Storytelling

Curator’s Note

Counter-cinemas offer a different mode of representation as opposed to mainstream Hollywood cinemas. Counter-cinemas intentionally break the norms of mainstream film techniques, and provide ways of breaking down their illusions of reality (Rushton 21). As Virtual Reality (VR) films are available now, Counter-cinemas have hadmore opportunity to push the limits of storytelling than traditional Counter-cimenas could have done.

Counter-cinemas encourage audiences to compare and contrast various different types of filmmaking (Grainge 394). “Counter-cinemas’ funtion is to struggle against the fantasies, ideologies and aesthetic devides of one cinema with its own antagonists fantasies, ideologies and aesthetic devices” (Wollen 373). Since virtual cameras can extend into spaces that are impossible or prohibitive for physical cameras, filmmakers now have even more freedom to experiment with much broader subjects with fewer limitations on space and imagination (qtd. in Willis 138).

“Imagine immersing yourself in an artificial world and actively exploring it, rather than peering in at it from a fixed perspective through a flat screen in a movie theatre… Imagine that you are the creator as well as the consumer of your artificial experience, with the power to use a gesture or word to remould the world you see and hear and feel” (qtd. in Willis 149)

VR films can adapt traditional Counter-cinema’s various approaches such as breaking the narrative, not having a plot in the conventional sense of the word, having multiple layers of worlds within a film, and blurring  fiction and reality without having a fixed perspective through a flat screen in a movie theatre. VR films can challenge the audience’s perception and question the ideological workings of cinema itself (Grainge 392) more than traditional Counter-cinemas are able to.

The distinctions between fiction and reality will get blurred as filmmaking technology evolves. It is even more crucial to find a balance between fiction and reality within VR films rather than treat them as two different elements (Wollen 372-373).

VR films certainly have endless possibilities to explore the space and imagination. “A VR environment is generative and dependent on the actions of the participants” (Willis 145). The audience become the creators as well as the consumer of the artificial experience, with the power to use a gesture or word to remould the world they see and hear and feel. They can walk around in the three-dimensional space of the preject whle choosing their own point of view and manipulate the world in some way (Willis 149). If the filmmakers are willing to explore the space, VR spaces can certainly provide many possibilities.

Works Cited

Brown, Tom. “Counter-Looks: Direct Address and Counter-Cinema.” Breaking the Fourth Wall: Direct Address in the Cinema, Edinburgh University Press, 2012, pp. 22–40. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt3fgqrq.7.

Rushton, Richard. “Beyond Political Modernism.” The Reality of Film: Theories of Filmic Reality, Manchester University Press, 2011, pp. 20–41. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt155j85v.6.

Grainge, Paul, et al. “Radicalism, Revolution And Counter-Cinema.” Film Histories: An Introduction and Reader, Edinburgh University Press, 2007, pp. 392–407. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1r28dt.20.

Willis, Holly. “Virtual Reality and the Networked Self.” Fast Forward: The Future(s) of the Cinematic Arts, Columbia University Press, LONDON; NEW YORK, 2016, pp. 135–159. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/will17892.10.

Wollen, Peter. “Godard and Counter Cinema: Vent D’Est.” Film Theory and Criticism, 8th ed., Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 365–373.

Braudy, Leo, and Marshall Cohen. Godard and Counter Cinema: Vent D’est. Film Theory and Criticism, 8th ed., Oxford University Press , pp. 365–373.