Cinema in the Digital Age was another book I discovered when writing my dissertation.
Rombes's central claims is that we are haunted by the "specter of perfection" (2). His point is that imperfection is the human signature, and that there has been a tendency in current cinema to insert mistakes. His argument is similar to Manovich's take on photorealism. For Manovich, computer images are too good and need imperfections to meet our ideas of realism.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Manovich's work on photorealism was significant in my book Capturing Digital Media. Nicholas Rombes's claim on flaws, mistakes and imperfections in cinema also greatly informed my research. I was specifically interested in how his idea performs in today's special effects. Rombes states, "Reality is today's special effects" (5). I thought of the long takes in Children of Men and Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Both films utilize digital effects to create a documentary like effect in their use of the long take.
Lastly, I love how Rombes's structures his book. His method is A-Z. For example, the first chapter is "The Adorno Paradox," then it goes to "Against Method," and so on. Very cool book.
