Old Media and New Diegesis in Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind

Michael Cramer, Yale University

Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind imagines, in the form of “sweded cinema,” alternatives to current forms of film production, distribution, and exhibition. My paper will analyze Gondry’s proposed alternative not simply as an alternative filmmaking practice, but rather as a new mode of diegesis, following Thomas Elsaesser’s broadened re-definition of the term in his 2007 article “Discipline Through Diegesis.” The diegesis constructed by sweded cinema, I will argue, entails the mental and physical re-orientation of the spectator in respect to the image, and consists of three primary elements: the overturning or transcendence of the dichotomy of illusionism/anti-illusionism, a participatory relationship between spectator and image, and new forms of both production and screening/projection as “event.” My paper will compare these attributes of sweded cinema to similar ones often associated with new media and digital paradigms in order to illustrate how Gondry rhetorically deploys it as both a critique and alternative to the kinds of experiences they purport to offer. Unlike the tautological progress-based utopian narratives deployed by new media enthusiasts, Gondry’s alternative minimizes the importance of technology as instrumental in cinematic paradigm shifts and explores other ways in which “new” kinds of cinema may be created. It insists that a “break” in modes of film practice, unlike those suggested by new media, would not so much usher in a new era and a radical break with the past as it would require us to redraw our maps of it, forcing us to rethink our conceptions of media history.