"Then one day I got in." computer imaging, realism Tron.

Morris, Justin

Director Steven Lisberger's groundbreaking effects film Tron (1982) concludes with a single static shot (captured from the roof of a skyscraper) of an anonymous city as it moves from light to darkness. As the grey cityscape transforms into a bustling neon glow and ultimately fades to black, the image's prescient metaphor becomes clear: the "real-world" nighttime city closely resembles the film's computer world (the Grid), suggesting that Tron is merely a step towards an inevitable future in which the audience's second life inside of the machine will become increasingly normalized. Tron's delayed sequel Tron Legacy (directed by Joseph Kosinski, released some 28 years later) mirrors Tron's fitting coda in its commencement--abstract lines over a basic "grid" slowly transform into a city street as Kevin Flynn (in voiceover) explains his conception of the Grid. If the finale of Tron is to suggest a hopeful utopian future enabled by computers, the opening of Tron Legacy seems to announce the arrival of that future. Though the likening of the corporeal body of the city to the abstract network of the machine interface seems appropriate for two films that often conflate reality and fantasy on the level of narrative, the changing attitudes between the coda of Tron and the prologue of its sequel are perhaps representative of a shift in Tron's means of presenting the inside world of the computer across the 28 years between their respective releases. The ultimate question posed by Tron and Tron Legacy is one of technology and realism, and how traditional cinematic codes thought to demarcate notions of "reality" have been adapted to the growing field of computer graphics, despite their inherent ability to represent anything conceivable to the human imagination.

In Chapter 4 of his monumental study of "new media", Lev Manovich takes up the question of realism in computer generated imaging, noting that after the 20th century art world's rejection of the pursuit of illusionism:

  The production of illusionistic representations has become the domain
  of mass culture and of media technologies--photography, film, and
  video [...] Today, everywhere, these machines are being replaced by
  new digital illusion generators--computers [...] this massive
  replacement is one of the key economic factors that keeps the new
  media industries expanding. As a consequence these industries are
  obsessed with visual illusionism. (1)

This "obsession" with visual illusionism, defined by the perceived ability of a computer generated image to faithfully "recreate" reality, mirrors similar concerns for illusionism in the visual arts at large, concerns that are reduced by Manovich into 3 primary arguments: the image's representations must share some features with the physical reality it recreates; the image should be presented in a manner that reflects natural human vision; each new image should contain an element of realistic representation that is superior to the last: "for instance, the evolution of cinema from silent to sound to color". (2) Manovich takes up these arguments and, using the film theories of four primary scholars of cinematic realism--Andre Bazin, Jean-Louis Comolli, David Bordwell and Janet Staiger--effectively asserts that the history of realism in computer-generated imagery (CGI)--from its development in the late 1970s to its renaissance in the early 1990s--echoes similar developments in the history of cinema from its emergence in 1895 to the present era of digital cinema. By addressing each of these theorists in turn, and examining Manovich's application of their theories to the medium of CGI, one is able to discover in Tron and Tron Legacy the fulfillment of Manovich's argument that "the history of technological innovation and research is presented as a progression towards real-ism--the ability to simulate any object in such a way that its computer image is indistinguishable from a photograph" (3) And yet while this teleological progress narrative of finding realism in computer representations can be discovered in the movement from Tron to Tron Legacy, the latter film's increased library of codes of cinematic realism marks a regression in the utopian potential of Tron's visual style. As Manovich asks (with no small degree of certainty as to the answer): "can we expect that cinematographic images [...] will at some point be replaced by very different images whose appearance will be more in tune with their underlying computer-based logic?". (4) It becomes clear that while Tron functions to suggest a revolutionary untried visual aesthetic (perhaps even demonstrative of an "underlying computer-based logic") its sequel works to nullify this visual revolution and return the Grid firmly to the realms of traditional cinematic representation.

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Introducing Bazinian notions of realism, Manovich emphasizes that, for Bazin, "realism stands for the approximation of phenomenological qualities of reality, 'the reconstruction of a perfect illusion of the outside world in sound, color, and relief' [... and] that a realistic representation should also approximate the perceptual and cognitive dynamics of natural vision". (5) Indeed, discussing the films of William Wyler, lean Renoir, and Orson Welles, Bazin argues: "depth of focus brings the spectator into a relation with the image closer to that which he enjoys with reality [...] it implies, consequently, [...] a more active mental attitude on the part of the spectator". (6) Manovich relates this Bazinian notion of cinematic reality to computer imagery by suggesting that "in interactive computer graphics, [...] the user can freely explore the virtual space of the display from different points of view", suggesting that the ability to "navigate space" in the new computer image allows for the same type of freedom afforded by deep focus cinematography! Though Tron presents a traditional cinematic viewing experience, devoid of any real computer interactivity (though the concept of user activity forms the primary plot thrust of the film), many of Tron's computer-generated images nonetheless underscore Manovich's assertion that "the new media image is something the user actively goes into, zooming in or clicking". (8) Zapped by a giant laser, Kevin Flynn's entrance into the world of the Grid, an elaborate point of view computer-camera tracking shot that takes the viewer down the proverbial rabbit hole (Fred Glass recognizes that, in the world of Tron, "allusions to L. Frank Baum and Lewis Carroll abound" (9)) is suggestive of this conception of the "new media image". By establishing the Grid through a continuous shot that implies not only Flynn's, but the viewer's entrance into the computer, Tron grants a sense of agency to the viewer that is not dislike that afforded by deep-focus cinematography. Fred Glass, discussing the computer as character in a number of films of the 1980s, recognizes this invitation to audience interaction in his description of the sequence: "we break free into a series of computer-generated planes, which set abstract geometric constructions revolving around one another, dissolving through one plane to the next" (italics mine).10 In addition to Tron's adoption of Bazin's understanding of viewer agency vis-a-vis deep-focus realism into a new media paradigm, the evolution of computer based graphics between the release of Tron and Tron Legacy points to a kind of teleological narrative of technological progress embedded in Bazin's theory.

Adapting Bazin's teleology to the development of CGI, Manovich endorses a comparative approach to suggest that the history of computer graphics can be read as a natural progression towards increased realism. Manovich observes that to "follow Bazin's approach and compare images drawn from the history of 3-D computer graphics with the visual perception of natural reality, his evolutionary narrative appears to be confirmed [...] during the 1970s and the 1980s, computer images progressed towards a fuller and fuller illusion of reality--from wireframe displays to smooth shadows, detailed textures, and aerial perspective". (11) This description of the "illusion of reality" in the computer images of the 70s and 80s finds a potent example in Tron. Observing Tron's first elaborate chase sequence in which the characters of Flynn, Tron, and Ram are pursued throughout the Grid on light-cycles, one is able to identify each of Manovich's markers of realism in 70s and 80s CGI. Designed to resemble a computer mainframe, the long lines of the literal grid that the light-cycles traverse serves to diegetically and non-diegetically represent early computer technology: the literal "grid" makes up the computer landscape of the film, while being a marker of a pioneering technique in computer imaging. As Flynn and co. race around the Grid (the actors' human bodies situated in the computer space not by CG manipulation, but clever editing), we are often given quick and overly-smooth camera movements that track from an aerial perspective into the dark, sleek space in which objects cast realistic shadows, despite the fact that light seems to emit from objects in the Grid, as opposed to coming from an external light source. In addition to these shots, we are frequently given point of view shots that further emphasize linear perspective in an attempt to make the space feel three dimensional and therefore fully realized. For Manovich, these are markers of a progression in computer images from those of the 1960s and early 70s, during which time "computer imaging was mostly abstract because it was algorithm-driven". (12) Comparing this sequence from Tron to its equivalent in Tron Legacy, one is able to further follow the progression of digital images from the 1980s to the early 21st century.

If, in the CGI of the early 1980s, one can identify distinct markers of cinematic realism at work: wireframe displays, aerial perspective, and shadow, observing the computer effects of the early 2010s adds a number of representative codes to this list. Having been rescued by "isomorphic algorithm" Quorra from a light-cycle battle, Sam Flynn travels "off-Grid" into a mountainous area to meet his father. Gone are the wireframe environs and overly robotic camera movements, replaced with rocky terrain and smoother pans and tracking shots. Removed from the pristine sleek exteriors of the Grid, this off-Grid environment is virtually indistinguishable from a real-world mountain range, complete with dust and, interestingly, weather (in the form of a seemingly constant lightning storm). While the "reality effect" of Tron was essentially dependent on the illusion of a multi-dimensional space, Tron Legacy ties into Manovich's contention that "rather than utilizing the single dimension of visual fidelity; they [the computer programmers] construct the reality effect on a number of dimensions", including "the accuracy of the simulation of physical objects, [and] natural phenomena". (13) Though the rugged "off-Grid" environment of Tron Legacy seems counter to the computer world established in Tron, it functions to display the capabilities of the rendering technology to present various elements of a real-world experience. The progression traced here can be read as a movement, from a computer based image concerned with representing objects in space through perspective, to one that has transcended these primary concerns to become obsessed with presenting each individual aspect of real-world perception in an effort to achieve a "total" computer-generated image. This vertical movement within CGI technology can be likened to a similar progression in the history of cinema as outlined as Bazin, who notes that "if the origins of an art reveal something of its nature, then one may legitimately consider the silent and sound film as stages of a technical development that little by little made a reality out of the original 'myth' where the perhaps crude images of Tron are read as simply a stage on the road to fuller competency in achieving the "reality effect" in Tron Legacy. (14) Though this Bazinian understanding of progress is certainly apparent in the comparison of these two films, the addition and subtraction of codes that constitute the "reality effect" in these films suggests a different understanding of cinematic realism altogether.

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Reading the history of cinematic style as non-teleological, Jean-Louis Comolli is "against Bazin's 'idealist' and evolutionary account" as he "proposes a 'materialist' and fundamentally nonlinear reading of the history of cinematic technology and style". (15) Manovich acknowledges that, for Comolli, the cinema is a social medium that "works endlessly to reduplicate the visible, thus sustaining the illusion that it is the phenomenal forms that constitute the social "real" [...] cinema must maintain and constantly update its 'realism". (16) Indeed, Comolli emphasizes that cinematic realism is not a process of recreating reality on the screen, but rather consistently acknowledging the limited perception that human vision allows: "the human eye loses its immemorial privilege; the mechanical eye of the photographic machine now sees in its place, and in certain aspects with more sureness". (17) Because the mechanical eye is not bound to recreating reality, as it is perceived with the human eye--which is undeniably subjective and flawed--cinematic style need only to point towards markers of reality to be identified as such. Spectators are placed in a position of "disavowal" and "each new technological development (sounds, panchromatic stock, color) points out to viewers just how 'unrealistic' the previous image was". (18) Images captured on film are therefore not an archive of a reality, but rather a "negative index, the restriction the disavowal of which is the symptom and which it tries to fill while at the same time displaying it". (19) The changing value of various codes of realism allows the audience to disavow the previous image, which is now understood as "unrealistic", while also disavowing that the present image must therefore be as well. ComoIli notes this transition in early cinema by marking the loss of deep focus (which was, as we have seen, an early indicator of realism) and its replacement with more enhanced shading and the development of sound technology. Similarly, Manovich demonstrates that early 3-D computer animation, of which Tron is an example, was primarily concerned with "the indication of an object's volume". (20)

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Viewing a early scene in Tron, in which Flynn's avatar CLU is pursued in his tank by large O- shaped crafts known as "recognizers" across the Grid, one can easily identify the use of deep space, with the Grid moving back into the shot for an indeterminate distance before disappearing into blackness. The depiction of the Grid in this manner does not use the deep focus effect (in which objects in the distance become increasingly blurry) but is instead presented in full focus, with the Grid and its vehicles visible until the abrupt end of the space. Here it is evident that what is important is the display of each object's volume, of their place situated in space. This technique allows the historical viewer to disavow the elements of Tron that are decidedly unlike reality--the sharp rendering of vehicles, grayscale characters that are placed into what seems to be a hand-colored environment, etc. When comparing these shots of perfect deep space in Tron with those of Tron Legacy, one can begin to identify the former as perhaps being an epitomization of Manovich's question of a computer cinema firmly rooted not in traditional cinematic techniques, but in an inherent "computer based logic", a question that will be further explored later on. Tron Legacy's introduction to the Grid, shown in vast aerial shots as the camera follows a recognizer on which Sam Flynn is a prisoner, allows the audience to take part in this disavowal of the unrealities of the original Tron. As the camera follows the recognizer up into the skyline of the Grid (now embodied as a fully rendered city), we are given the depiction of deep space, but now the deep-focus effect is in full employment as objects further in the distance are shown as blurry and obscured by mist and weather. Though the "programs" that Sam Flynn meets are designed to look sleek and pale (one program is even missing part of his face, displaying his binary insides underneath), they are very obviously in full color, unlike the black and white characters of Tron. Finally, returning once again to the presence of weather, the straight black computer sky of Tron has been replaced with a consistently stormy, and far more textured firmament. These changing codes are characteristic of Comolli's understanding of the "addition and substitution" of cinematic codes to allow for the "state of disavowal" needed to recognize realism in Tron Legacy in opposition to thal of Tron. (21) The disavowal between the codes of realism in Tron and its sequel seems to be an element that was recognized even by the studio that released the films, Disney, who withheld releasing Tron on DVD until the sequel had been released, with some suggesting that Disney was "afraid [the] now-hokey special effects [of Tron would] alienate the sequel's most important demographic: teens". (22) The idea that Comolli's notion of addition and substitution in the creation of cinematic codes of realism can be linked to the economic structure of the film industry signals another interpretation of cinematic realism, one intimately linked to industry.

Linking the development of codes of realism to the economic drive of film producers, Manovich recognizes that the theory of David Bordwell and Janet Staiger asserts that for "production companies, the constant substitution of codes is necessary to stay competitive [...] as in every industry, the producers of computer animation stay competitive by differentiating their products". (23) The process of promoting the novelty of technological cinematic development in an effort to sell tickets is a project that is, for Bordwell and Staiger, one of the fundamental concerns of Hollywood film production. The authors maintain that "Hollywood has promoted mechanical marvels as assiduously as it has publicized stars, properties, and genres [...] sound, color, widescreen, 3-D [...] and other novelties were marketing strategies as much as they were technological innovations [...] today, [...] Star Wars, Superman, Tron, et al. continue the cult of special effects". (24) In the push for production companies to stay current, "old techniques disappear [...] new algorithms to produce new effects are constantly developed [...] to stay competitive, a company has to incorporate quickly the new software into their offerings". (25) Analyzing the release contexts of Tron and its sequel, one can identify some interconnections with Bordwell and Staiger's theory.

Ironically, the status of Tron as a pioneer in computer graphics would suggest that it is outside of this system of economic innovation, but that it is part of a body of films that created the economic drive for computer animation houses to consistently improve their product. Tron's narrative is decidedly anti-corporation, "detailing the problems generated by large corporations for the people they employ: deadly competition among executives; dehumanization of workers; encouragement of immoral acts for profit", as Flynn enters into the computer in an attempt to find proof that former employer ENCOM stole the designs for their best selling games from him. (26) Tron's narrative concerns and pioneering status places it at the beginning of chain of films defined by the economic model posed by Bordwell and Staiger, and, as a result, the originality of Tron's computer animations in the context of 1982 render those of Tron Legacy common-place and largely derivative in the Hollywood of 2010. Of particular note is Tron Legacy's status as a 3-D film, a technique that has become increasingly popular following the release of James Cameron's Avatar (2009). Though it has been noted by William Paul that "stereoscopy is almost as old as photography, and 3-D cinematography has been available to filmmakers from very early on", the technology has only been used in various stages as a money making scheme (such as in the 1950s and the 1980s) when Hollywood feared a reduction in ticket sales brought on by the introduction of competing technologies (television, the internet). (27) Though Tron was released well within the timeframe of the development of 3-D technology (interestingly, Paul notes 1982 as a representative year for the 1980s 3-D boom) its revolutionary computer animations served as novelty enough, while Tron Legacy's release into a market dominated by computer generated films required Disney to produce it in 3-D to "stay competitive". (28) If one is to describe the immersive experience of 3-D films as an extravagant extrapolation of both the effect of deep-focus photography, as defined by Bazin, and the inherent immersion defining the new media image, as suggested by Manovich, Tron Legacy's use of 3-D technology reveals a further concern with realism, albeit one that is defined by monetary gain. John Belton contends that the proposed innovation of digital cinema is in fact a "false revolution", beginning "in the realm of special effects-a field that is now dominated by computer-generated imagery [...] the digital revolution is more clearly being driven by [...] corporate interests in marketing, that it is by a desire [...] to revolutionize the theatrical movie going experience". (29) Therefore, though we can read the evolution of Tron Legacy's style over its predecessor as a teleological development of computer technologies, or as an interplay of varying codes that suggests a comparative realism to the audience, it also becomes clear that the producers of Tron Legacy needed to present the film in a style congruent with the latest in digital technology in an effort to "stay competitive".

In addition to the aforementioned developments between the release of Tron and Tron Legacy, one can find in the latter a concern with "the ultimate goal of computer animation": the realistic recreation of the human form. (30) As Manovich elaborates: "a lot of research activity has been dedicated to the development of moving humanoid figures and synthetic actors [... yet] the task of creating fully synthetic actors has turned out to be more complex than was originally anticipated". (31) In Tron Legacy, the figure of CLU (Kevin Flynn's computer avatar and totalitarian ruler of the Grid) is a computer rendered character that is an attempt to physically represent Jeff Bridges as he was 30 years prior in the original Tron. Scenes including the character, particularly those in which he is interacting with Kevin Flynn (played by the aged Jeff Bridges, in the flesh) are at once impressive and disturbing in their uncanny presentation. It could be argued that CLU is an example of Manovich's controversial proposition that "we should not consider clean, skinless, too flexible, and at the same time too jerky, human figures in 3D computer animation as unrealistic, as imperfect approximations to the real thing [...] they are perfectly realistic representations of a cyborg body yet to come". (32) Though the fantasy space of the Grid implies a cyborg future where the somewhat disturbing mannerisms of the computer-rendered Bridges seem commonplace, Tron Legacy's use of this computer based figure suggests a more complex reading.

Within the narrative context of the film, CLU wishes to escape from the Grid and lead a digital army that could take over the world outside the Grid's computer confinement. However, in a manner of speaking, CLU has already escaped the Grid. Tron Legacy opens with a flash back to 1989 in which a young Sam Flynn is told the story of the original Tron by his father, Kevin. The scene mostly serves to catch the audience up on the plot points of the previous film and for the majority of the scene Flynn's face is obscured, suggesting traditional techniques of hiding an actor's age in flashbacks. However, as the scene draws to a close and Flynn turns to leave we are given a medium shot of Flynn's head and torso, revealing that he is computer generated. The film then moves into a sequence detailing the disappearance of Flynn, complete with archive footage also featuring the computer-generated character. Though the use of this technique is obviously an indicator of the filmmakers' and computer animators' confidence in their ability to effectively represent a younger Bridges without confusing or discomforting the audience, the obvious nature of Flynn's computer construction (which later mirrors CLU) suggests a bleeding together of the real world and that of the computer. Addressing the ability of computer-generated imagery to transcend the limits of human perception and lens-based photography, Manovich insists: "synthetic computer-generated imagery is not an inferior representation of our reality, but a realistic representation of a different reality". (33) This is a prescient reality, a "cyborg" future where the distinctions between the real and the artificial have begun to blur. Manovich contends that ingrained societal fears accompanying the revelation of this unknowable future (represented by the hyper-real digital images of computer animation) is often alleviated by placing the digital image within an understandable context, in which the audience may, in a manner suggested by Comolli, disavow the disturbing qualities of the image. In the case of Jurassic Park, this disavowal was afforded by situating the film's subject matter in the context of Earth's past (dinosaurs) and by degrading the film's CG images--"their perfection [...] diluted to match the imperfection of [35 mm] film's graininess". (34) In the original Tron, the computer world of the Grid appears "unnaturally clean, sharp, and geometric looking", yet the confinement of the Grid to the internal fantasy world of a computer still allows for audience disavowal. (35) Tron Legacy, while featuring computer world that is aesthetically smoother yet matched to look like 35 mm film, negates Tron's methods of disavowal by allowing the computer generated Flynn to exist in the real world and its computer counterpart. Thus Tron Legacy poses (accidentally) a disturbing look into this "alternate reality" of the future, where the aesthetics of the artificial have become one with the aesthetics of reality.

Tron Legacy concludes with a tracking shot following Quorra and Sam Flynn as they cross a bridge into the city, the sun dramatically rising behind them. The sequence serves to anchor the characters and the film in reality, and to document the fulfillment of Quorra's desire to see "a real sunrise", suggesting the film's ultimate thesis: the beauty of terrestrial reality greatly transcends the artificiality of the computer mainframe. This thesis is negated however by the filmmakers' concern for depicting the Grid as an elaborate, fully-formed space complete with weather, dimension, and color--a sleeker avatar of our own reality. The concern for elaborate cues of cinematic realism in Tron Legacy renders the dichotomy established between real and artificial a falsity, suggesting that no matter how rich one's imagination, it is inevitably rooted in an understanding of actuality. Attempting to understand the functioning of the reality effect in computer animation, Lev Manovich asks: "can we expect that cinematographic images [...] will at some point be replaced by very different images whose appearance will be more in tune with their underlying computer-based logic?". (36) Applying the aesthetic of Tron Legacy to the query, the answer seems a resounding "no". But looking back to the pioneering computer animation of Tron (1982), one is able to identify a very real potential for computer animation to break the "paradox of digital visual culture [...] that although all imaging is becoming computer-based, the dominance of photographic and cinematic imagery is becoming even stronger" (37) Tron points freely to a synthetic image unbound by the constraints of human perception, an image that "can have unlimited reso- lution and detail", an image where "everything is in focus [...] free of grain" with colors that are "more saturated". (38) Though the development and aesthetics of the synthetic image have closely followed that of traditional lens-based photography, Tron poses an alternate kind of representation that could provide for a wholly original art form.

Notes

(1.) Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media (Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2001), 177-178.

  It is important to note here that in discussing "realism" in the
  computer created images of the Tron films, two works of science
  fiction that take place within the fantastical world of a computer
  mainframe, I do not in anyway suggest that their narratives are in
  whole or part "realistic", or that they have real world equivalents.
  Rather, that the computer-generated fantasy worlds of Tron and Tron
  Legacy are constructed using conventional cinematic visual codes of
  realism- color, depth of field, shading, integration of human forms
  into space, in the creation of their worlds.

(2.) Ibid, 181.

(3.) Ibid, 184.

(4.) Ibid, 180.

(5.) Ibid, 185-186.

(6.) Andre Bazin, What is Cinema? Hugh Gray, Trans. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 35-36.

(7.) Manovich, 189.

(8.) Ibid, 183.

(9.) Fred Glass, "Sign of the Times: The Computer as Character in 'Tron', 'War Games', and 'Superman Ill'," Film Quarterly 38.2 (1984-1985): 17.

(10.) Ibid, 18.

(11.) Manovich, 189.

(12.) Ibid, 179.

(13.) Ibid, 182.

(14.) Bazin, 21.

(15.) Manovich, 186.

(16.) Ibid.

(17.) Jean-Louis Comolli, "Machines of the Visible," The Cinematic Apparatus, Teresa de Lauretis and Stephen Heath, eds. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980), 123.

(18.) Manovich, 186.

(19.) Comolli, 141.

(20.) Manovich, 190.

(21.) Ibid, 186.

(22.) Ramin Setoodeh, "Where Has 'Tron' Gone?" Newsweek, December 2, 2010, http://www.theciailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/12/02/the-mysterious-case-of-the-missing-tron.html.

(23.) Manovich, 190.

(24.) David Bordwell and Janet Staiger, "Technology, Style, and Mode of Production," The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (London: Routledge, 1985), 243.

(25.) Manovich, 190.

(26.) Glass, 19.

(27.) William Paul, "The Aesthetics of Emergence," Film History 5.3 (1993): 322-323.

(28.) Ibid, 321.

(29.) John Belton, "Digital Cinema: A False Revolution," October 100 (2002): 100.

(30.) Manovich, 201.

(31.) Ibid, 194.

(32.) Ibid, 202.

(33.) Ibid.

(34.) Ibid.

(35.) Ibid, 201.

(36.) Ibid, 180.

(37.) Ibid.

(38.) Ibid, 202.