Video Games

Why introduce video games into a museum of cinema? 

The history of cinema and video games is full of mutual influences. The two forms of entertainment have, over time, borrowed characters, settings, atmospheres, great stories from each other. The first encounters are often described as unfortunate: the film adaptations of video games, the so-called tie-ins, did not turn out to be the hoped-for success.

However, the history of convergences, intersections and frictions between these two media is definitely articulated and full of key moments, capable of influencing the trajectories of cinema and video games. Both share the same intricate and complex intermediary context as well as a common language: the same audiovisual syntactic nature. Indeed, both exist in the same complex intermedial context and share a common language: the audiovisual syntactic nature. On the other hand, the video game can also be placed in that tradition of spectacle/illusionistic media in which the cinema of the origins and, before that, the pioneering works on the moving image are fully inscribed; the shadow theatre, the magic lantern as well as the various vision amplification devices, which sought to envelop the spectator in images and suggest interaction, express an ante litteram video game idea. And then, again, the production paradigms: the evolution of video game launch trailers and the introduction of live action segments are constructed to foster an authentically cinematic experience, techniques such as rotoscope first and motion capture and photogrammetry later are used in both production phases.