The recent uproar over NSA dataveillance can obscure the fact that surveillance has been part of our lives for decades. And cinema has long been aware of its power—and potential for abuse.
In Closed Circuits , Garrett Stewart analyzes a broad spectrum of films, from M and Rear Window through The Conversation to Déjà Vu , Source Code , and The Bourne Legacy , in which cinema has articulated—and performed—the drama of inspection’s unreturned look. While mainstays of the thriller, both the act and the technology of surveillance, Stewart argues, speak to something more foundational in the very work of cinema. The shared axis of montage and espionage—with editing designed to draw us in and make us forget the omnipresence of the narrative camera—extends to larger questions about the politics of an oversight regime that is increasingly remote and robotic. To such a global technopticon, one telltale response is a proliferating mode of digitally enhanced “surveillancinema.”
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motw/Closed Circuits_ Screening Narr - Garrett Stewart.pdf

Garrett Stewart

United States, United States of America

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Adobe PDF Library 10.0.1

Memory of the World Librarian: Slowrotation

The recent uproar over NSA dataveillance can obscure the fact that surveillance has been part of our lives for decades. And cinema has long been aware of its power-and potential for abuse. In Closed Circuits, Garrett Stewart analyzes a broad spectrum of films, from M and Rear Window through The Conversation to Déjà Vu, Source Code, and The Bourne Legacy, in which cinema has articulated-and performed-the drama of inspection's unreturned look. While mainstays of the thriller, both the act and the technology of surveillance, Stewart argues, speak to something more foundational in the very work of cinema. The shared axis of montage and espionage-with editing designed to draw us in and make us forget the omnipresence of the narrative camera-extends to larger questions about the politics of an oversight regime that is increasingly remote and robotic. To such a global technopticon, one telltale response is a proliferating mode of digitally enhanced "surveillancinema." Book jacket

Contents 8
Preface: Returns of Theory 10
Introduction: Narrative Spycams — A Foreshortened View 24
1. The Prying “I” of Montage 45
2. Telescreen Prose 83
3. Feedback Loops of the Technopticon 103
4. In Plane Sight 140
5. The Othering of Lives 173
6. Digital Reconnaissance and Wired War 191
7. Retrospecular Eyes 213
8. Parallel World Editing 233
Postface: On Mediation as Interface 263
Notes 280
Index 296

Explores a panoply of films, from M and Rear Window to The Conversation and The Bourne Legacy, to analyze the ways in which cinema has articulated the concept of surveillance. While it has long been a mainstay of the thriller, surveillance, the author argues, speaks to something more foundational in the very work of the camera.

2025-10-27