Cinema and death

Cinema, as a mechanical recording device, shares a unique relationship with death. This connection redefines the cinematic experience, which is inherently diverse depending on each viewer’s culture and personal history.

What is cinema?

Cinema is a mechanical recording device that captures successive photographs, creating the illusion of natural movement from a sequence of roughly 16 images per second. It is a machine—whether photographic, film-based, electronic, or digital—that mechanically records by imprinting reflected light onto light-sensitive surfaces (chemical or electronic) and stores this recording on a physical, mechanical, or electrical medium—or even a logical one, if the information is converted into a series of numbers that can then be stored on any type of support before being reinterpreted for playback.

Mechanical recording devices are so advanced today, and this entire process happens so quickly, that it creates a sense of magic. It alters the conditions of life because, particularly through live broadcasting, we can feel an immediate connection to a context that is not *here and now*, but *now and elsewhere*.

What is death?

Death is a phenomenon understood in vastly different ways, depending on culture as well as personal life experiences. If someone has lost their parents, it is not the same as losing only their grandparents. If someone has lost one or more of their children—as is my case—that, too, is entirely different from someone who still has all of theirs. Even friends, lovers, or more distant family members can, in passing away, have a stronger or weaker impact and alter our perception of what life is—which is to say, what death is. Because death and life are intrinsically linked. We only understand life because it ends in death and was preceded by void—or by ancestors. But some believe in an afterlife, or even a life before life, through the process of reincarnation.

Thus, when we say that cinema has something to do with death—which is the subject of this article—we are adopting a very reductive perspective. While the definition of cinema is likely quite widely shared in its physical-mechanical understanding, that of death is extremely variable. And yet, cinema can “bring the dead to life”: we can see and hear people who are no longer physically with us moving and speaking.

When death redefines cinema

By extension, the definition of cinema is, in reality, as different for each person as that of death. Cinema is a form of represented negation of death, since it is a mechanical recording of what once was—something entirely distinct from drawing or painting, which are reinterpretations. One can draw someone from memory, even if they are no longer here, whereas one cannot film someone from memory.

I therefore believe it is important to keep in mind that cinema is something that, depending on the individual, their culture, and their life experiences, carries exceedingly diverse resonances. If two people sit side by side in a movie theater watching the same film, their intimate, almost physiological experience of the phenomenon before them may be fundamentally different. And that’s without even considering the multiple narrative forms—from the movie theater to the television screen to all the various social media platforms, with their countless formats—that reshape the relationship between creators and viewers.

But before all these differences—and this is the purpose of this article—I believe we must recognize the inherent diversity of the cinematic experience based on who is watching. Acknowledging these differences means understanding that what we create for others will be received in very diverse ways, and that we cannot even presume the effect it will have on viewers based on who they are.

Let us be aware of this. Let us be informed before making an image. Let us know that it will be as polysemic as its viewers are singular in their understanding of cinema, shaped by their cultural and personal relationship with death.