Video Surveillance in Hollywood Movies

Abstract

This paper examines the representations of CCTV in contemporary popular culture, namely Hollywood film from the perspective of culture and film studies. It starts from the observation that a growing number of Hollywood films are not only using (fake) CCTV images within their narrative, but are actually developing 'rhetorics of surveillance'. Following the argument of Thomas Y. Levin, contemporary Hollywood film is increasingly fascinated with (the images of) video surveillance. This fascination can be explained with the use of 'real time' and a shift from spatial to temporal indexicality in these movies. The paper then takes a closer look at three recent films: Tony Scott's Enemy of the State, Steven Spielberg's Minority Report and David Fincher's Panic Room. The role and uses of CCTV imagery in these films are analyzed; the role of the heroine under surveillance is examined; modes of (im-)possible resistance against CCTV are discussed.

Attaching Hollywood to a Surveillant Assemblage: Normalizing Discourses of Video Surveillance

“…Depicting this to some degree fits the notion of film's critical potential in relation to surveillance observed by Kammerer (2004). Yet, such crude resistance is typically not portrayed as administered by an average citizen but instead by criminals avoiding capture.…”

“…The utility of the technology is slowed by its operators or eliminated by their absence. Thus, film conveys the notion that video surveillance is limited by human failure (see also Kammerer, 2004) and there is no obvious reason to doubt the effectiveness of video surveillance on its own. However, Hollywood film's very inclusion of humans in these arrangements, befitting Gad and Hansen's (2013) assertion noted above, suggests that surveillance is best understood as a complex assemblage of technology and humans.…”

“…Of most pertinence to this paper, because of a closer focus on video surveillance in Hollywood film, however, are Gad and Hansen (2013) and Kammerer (2004) (from the perspective of film studies, see also Stewart (2012) regarding two 2012 Hollywood films, Total Recall and the Bourne Legacy). Gad and Hensen (2013, p. 153) argue that a key theme expressed by the film, Minority Report, is that prevention is achieved when involving a "complex assemblage" of humans and surveillance technologies (rather than suggesting that prevention is somehow linked, for example, to a panopticon).…”

“…He found a major discourse was the flawlessness of surveillance technology. According to Kammerer (2004), these films attest to technological infallibility; only human use of surveillance technology is error prone. Kammerer argued, contrary to Turner (1998), that Hollywood films like these can effectively raise vital issues about video surveillance in society, suggesting not all Hollywood film necessarily contributes to normalization (see also Kammerer, 2012, p. 105).…”

“…Unfortunately they do not extend their argument further to suggest films like Minority Report are discursively or structurally attached to that same assemblage. Kammerer (2004) analyzes three films (Enemy of the State, Minority Report, and Panic Room) with surveillance as a primary theme. He found a major discourse was the flawlessness of surveillance technology.…”