Table Of Content3-D Cinema and Trauma
Poetics of Remembrance
and Loss
Dor Fadlon
3-D Cinema and Trauma
“In this erudite book, Dor Fadlon develops a most compelling account of 3D
cinema as telling of transformations in cultural trauma in America from the Cold
War to the Way on Terror—and from analog to digital. Fadlon adds here a crucial,
perviously missing, dimension (literally!) in understanding the social life trauma as
technologically mediated. This book will prove valuable to those interested in criti-
cally analyzing the intersections of film studies and trauma studies.”
—Amit Pinchevski, Professor of Communication, Department of
Communication and Journalism, The Hebrew University
of Jerusalem. Author of Transmitted Wounds:
Media and the Mediation of Trauma
“This rigorously researched and thought-provoking text brings an entirely new
lens to our understanding of 3D cinema’s history. By deftly weaving together
theories of trauma, phenomenology and the distinct aesthetics of the medium,
Fadlon has expertly laid out the complex ways in which 3D cinema speaks to its
audiences. The interlinking of 3D cinema with its surrounding socio-cultural con-
texts allows a nuanced understanding of the medium that lays to rest public and
scholarly tendencies to diminish 3D cinema as simply a profit- oriented gimmick.
This book contains significant coverage of the contexts in which 3D cinema oper-
ates and the scholarly theories necessary to understand its impacts, all supported
by rich textual analysis to illustrate its points. With close attention to some of the
best-known 3D films and lesser known but equally significant works, this book
provides a range of thoughtful insights into the ways that 3D cinema has caught
the public imagination and channelled underlying societal currents into a unique
visual experience.”
—Miriam Ross, Independent Scholar. Author of 3D Cinema:
Optical Illusions and Tactile Experiences
“Dor Fadlon’s observation that there is a clear relationship between the popularity
of 3D cinema and traumatic events in recent American history is so simple and yet
so profound that it begs the envious question: why did we not all see earlier what
was jutting out of the cinema screen and staring us directly in the face? Luckily for
us, though, Fadlon has not only made precisely this link, but he has made it in a
meticulous, detailed and engaging fashion. 3-D Cinema and Trauma: Poetics of
Remembrance and Loss adds great depth to the scholarship on stereoscopic cin-
ema, progressing beyond attack or defence of the form (or medium), and instead
articulating in a fascinating and astute fashion what it is that 3D cinema is actually
doing – formally as well as in terms of the stories that it tells. This is a provocative
book that will generate further debates – not least because 3D would seem on the
verge of yet another so-called comeback, which of course coincides with the col-
lective trauma of a global pandemic. A crucial and critical addition to the field.”
—William Brown, Associate Professor of Film, University of British Columbia.
Author of Supercinema: Film-Philosophy for the Digital Age
“The shifting fortunes of 3D cinema have elicited a considerable body of scholarly
analysis, and Dor Fadlon opens up new vistas for the subdiscipline with this inno-
vative study of the 3D format’s intersections with trauma as both a psychological
phenomenon and a complex of issues relating to cinema, narrativity, and modes of
vision and representation. Casting a wide historical and theoretical net, Fadlon
examines the classical 3D epoch of the 1950s, the wave of digital 3D that followed
in the 2000s, and the divergent approaches of stereoscopic documentary, pornog-
raphy, and horror in the 1980s. Probing the B-movie intricacies of It Came from
Outer Space and House of Wax in the first section, the more sophisticated work-
ings of Life of Pi and Gravity in the second, and the variegated attractions of the
nonfiction Cave of Forgotten Dreams, the transgressive Love, and the exploita-
tional Jaws 3D in the third, to mention only some of the films analyzed in these
pages, Fadlon employs conceptual frames derived from Marx, Freud, Benjamin,
Deleuze, Sobchack, Buckland, and many others to support his arguments and
solidify his conclusions, which illuminate areas of cinema that are as important as
they are understudied in the existing literature. Combining academic rigor with
clear and vigorous language, Fadlon’s study should be welcomed by cinephiles and
trauma scholars alike.”
—David Sterritt, editor-in-chief, Quarterly Review of Film and Video
Dor Fadlon
3-D Cinema and
Trauma
Poetics of Remembrance and Loss
Dor Fadlon
The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv, Israel
ISBN 978-3-031-12820-2 ISBN 978-3-031-12821-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12821-9
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To Dana, Renen, and Matti
A
cknowledgements
As much as this book has been an academic journey, it has also been an
emotional one, and it was made possible by many people, too many to
thank. Nonetheless, here is a short list. I wish to thank Miriam Ross and
Paul Wolffram who supervised my PhD thesis, which served as the depar-
ture point for this book. I will be forever grateful for their advice and
input. Their knowledge, generosity, criticism, advice, and patience had an
immense impact on this project. To Yaron Bloch and Raz Yosef of Tel Aviv
University, for taking an interest in my work and making time to hear me
ramble on about 3-D cinema. A special thank you to Boaz Hagin, for
discussing trauma and 3-D with me at length, for reading early versions of
some of the chapters, and for always suggesting new and fruitful routes to
explore. To Paul Frosh and Amit Pinchevski, of the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, who during my post-doctorate year helped further shape ideas
regarding media and trauma. To the Golda Meir Postdoctoral Fellowship
Trust for their generous support through 2020–2021, a COVID-19-
ridden year, when the writing of this book commenced. To the 3D Film
Archive, for their wonderful work of restoring 3-D films and for being an
immense source of knowledge on 3-D. To my editor Lina Aboujieb, pro-
duction editor Kishor Kannan, and the rest of the team at Palgrave
Macmillan—thank you for seeing this project through. It has been a plea-
sure working with you. To my family for their unconditional love and
support. Particularly to my little sister, Shiri, for teaching me what courage
is and always giving the best advice; to my father, Gedi, for his sensitivity,
support, and persistence; to my mother, Judy Fadlon, for the long talks,
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
the longer reads, and for paving the road in which I now walk. I am so so
lucky to have you.
Last but not least,
To my wife, Dana Direktor, and my sons Renen and Matti—I love you
in all the possible dimensions, and then some more.
The analysis of Life of Pi in section II is derived in part from an article
published in Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 2022, ©Taylor and
Francis. Available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/105
09208.2022.2077622.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
Part I History and Trauma in 3-D Cinema of the Fifties 17
2 They Won’t Believe It Back Home: 3-D Cinema, Trauma,
and Representation 23
3 Films That Ache, Films That Injure: 3-D Cinema and the
Body 47
4 Any-Space-Whatever and Radioactive Fossils: 3-D Cinema
Meets Deleuze 67
Part II Digital 3-D Cinema and September 11 83
5 Which Story to Believe? Mediating Trauma in Digital
3-D Cinema 89
6 Becoming Bodies and Empowering Kinaesthesia 107
7 From Bodies to Worlding 131
ix
x CONTENTS
8 Deleuze and the Traumatic Temporalities of Digital
3-D Cinema 149
Part III Ongoing Fascinations 175
9 Documentary and 3-D Cinema: Preserving Absence 183
10 3-D Sex 213
11 3-D Horror Cinema of the Eighties 233
12 Conclusion 249
Bibliography 255
Index 277
