Introduction: The Baroque and the Neo-Baroque

Postclassical, Modern Classicism, or Neo-Baroque? Will the Real Contemporary

Cinema Piease Stand Up?

Once upon a time there was a film caBed Jurassic Park (Spielberg 1992), and on its
release, audiences went to cinemas by the millions to be entertained by the magic that
it had to offer. On the one hand, the film' s story enthralled its viewers. Recalling that
other monster, King Kong, in Jurassíc Park, geneticalIy engineered dinosaurs were
brought to life by an entrepreneur who ,vas determined to place them within a theme
park habitat so that they could become a source 01' pleasure and entertainment for
millions. On the other hand, the computer effects that so convincingly granted filmic
Jife to these dinosaurs that inhabited the narrative space astoundcd audiences. 1'hen,
once upon another time 500n a1'ter, the dinosaurs migrated to another entertainment
format amI roamed the narrative spaces 01' the Sony PlayStation game The Lost Tl'orld:
jUTassic Park. 1'0 engage with this fictional world, audiences inserted a PlayStation disk
into their consoles and a different, yet strangely similar, narrative scenario emerged.
Dinosaurs were still genetically engineered; however. now the game player became
integral to the way the narrative unraveled. 1'rapped on an island inhabited by various
dinosaur species, the pi ayer now "performed" hy interacting with this digital enter­
tainment format, in the proccss progressively adopting the roles of dinosaurs and hu­
man5 alike in a struggle that culminated in the final survival of one dominant species.
And yes, once upon yet another time, there was a land called "Jurassíc Park," but
this was no film or computer space. 1'his was a geographical 10cale with which the
audicncc physícally engaged, one of the many lands in Universal' s Islands 01' Adventure
theme park in Orlando, Florida (figure 1.1). Here the audience experíenced an alter­
nate version 01' the jurassic Park story by traversing a land that was littered "'iÍth anima­
tronic dinosaurs. Literally entering the fictional space of Jurassic Park, the participant
lntroduction
Figure L 1 Thc Jurassic Park Riele, Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida. By 01' Universal Stndios.
now experienced thc narratíve space in archítecturally invasíve ways by taking a ride
through a technoIogically produced Jurassic theme park. T raveling along a river in
a boat, participants floated through a series of lagoons (including the "Ultrasaurus
Lagoon") whose banks were inhabited by animatronic versions of hadrosauruses, dilo­
phosauruses, triceratops, and velocitators. Soon after, however, the wonder of seeing
such deceptively real spectacles of extinct beíngs was destroyecl, and the participants of
the fiction f(mnd their wonder tum to terror when they were stalked by raptors amI a
mammoth Tyrannosaurus, barely escaping with their lives by plunging to their escape
down an eighty-five-foot waterfall. 1 Although each of these "tales" can be experienced
and interpreted independent 01' the others, much can be lost in doing so, for these
narratives belong to multiple networks 01' parallel ¡¡tories that are all intimately ínter­
woven. Each "tale" remains a fragment (JI' a complex and expanding whole.
In the last two decades, entertainment media have undergone dramatic transforma­
tions. The movement that describes these changes i5 one concerned with the traversal
01' boundaries. In the film jurassic Park (ancl its sequels The Lost WorlJ: jurassic Park II
and jurassic Pa[k J/J), film technology combines with computer technology to con­
struct the dinosaur effects that are integral to the films' success. Like the jurassic Park
films, the Terminator fihns ami the SpiJerman comic books find new media environ­
ments in the theme park attractions Terminator 2: 3D BattIe aeross Time and The Amazin8
AJventures Spiderman (both at Universal Studios). Computer games) like Phantasma­
1 and lJ and Tomb Raíder 1, 1J, and Jll cross their game borders by incorporating
film styles, genres, and actors into their digital spaces. And the narratives of the Alíen
film s extend into and art' transformed by a successful comic-book series. All these
configurations have formal repercussions. Media merge with media, genres unite to
produce new hybrid torms, narratives open up and extend into new spatial and serial
Introduction 3
ami special effects construct illusions that seek to collapse the frame
that separates spectator from spectacle. Entertainment forms have increasingly dis­
played a concern t()r enguHing and engaging the spectator actively in sensorial and for­
mal games that are concemed with their own medía-specific sensory amI pIayful
experiences. Indeed, the cinema';; convergence with am! extcnsion into multiple media
formats is increasingly reliant on an active audience engagemcnt that not only offers
multiple and sensorially engaging and invasÍve cxpericnces but also radically unsettles
traditional conceptions 01' the cinema' s "passivc spectator." AdditionalIy, many of the
aesthctic amI formal transformations currently confronting the entertainment industry
are playcd out against am! informcd by cultural and socioeconomic transf(xmations­
, the contexts of globalization am! postmodernism.
In "Modern Classicism," the first chaptcr of Storytellm8 in the New Hollywood: Under­
swnJín8 C!assícal Narrative Technique (1999), Kristin Thompson asks the question "Just
if anything, is ncw about the Ncw Hollywood in terms of what audiences sce
in theaters?" (2). For Thompson, it would appear that the answer to this question is
Httle." In this book, however, my response to this question is "a great clea!'''
claims to a "postclassical" or "postmodern" cinema, Thompson argues
cssentially, 1970s cinema has continued the storytelling practices of the
classical Hollyvvood periodo 1 that, fundamentally, Hollywood has retained
01' the narrative conventions that dominated its cinema between the 1910s and the
1940s: the cause-and-effect patterns that drive narrative deveIopment; the emphasis on
goal-oriented characters; the c1ear three-part structure that füllows an Aristotelian
pattern of a beginning, middJe and end (wherein narrative confIict is finally resolved);
and psychologically motivated characters \Vith clearly definecl traits. 1 Indeed, 1 would
suggest that, with respeet to its narrative, a film like juwssic Park is not only a classical
narrative, but a "superdassieal" narrative: the goals of the narrative and characters are
spelled out explicitly and economically, and thc cause-and-effeet patterns pound along
at a gripping pace until narrative disequilibrium (the threat of the dinosaurs and the
plannccl theme park) is removed. In this respect I agree with Thompson when shc
suggests that Jurassic Park has as "well-honed [a] narrative as virtuaIly any film in the
history of Hollywood" (1999, 9). In Storytellin8 in the New Hollywood Thompson has
contributed a fine body of research that seeks to locate the continuing rdevance 01' the
classical narrative tradition; the creature that now is (or, indeed, ever was) "Holly­
wood" cannot be limitcd to its narrative practices alone, however, especially when
some 01' these narrative traÍts are also being transformed. 4 The cinema, like culture,
is a dynamic being that is not reducible to a state 01' perpetual stasis. In thc words of
4 Introduction
Introduction
5

David Bolter and Richard Grusin, "media technologies constitute networks or

ternate modes of media A new order emerges. This book is concerned with
that can be expressed bes! in physical, aesthetic, and economic terms"
this ncw order, an order that 1 cal! the "neo-baroque." As 1 wiII stress later, the terms
(1999, 9).5
"baroque" ane! are not uscd in this book ín any
While revealing contemporary cinema' s connections witb !he c1assical era of story­
baroque embraces the its features into its own complex
lelling, JUTassic Park also highlights a great many of the radical transformations that
In this book 1 ar!Jlle that mainstream cínema and other entertainment media are
have oecurred in the film incluslry in the lasl three deeacles. Thompson daims that,
Poínts of are
although the "basie eeonomie system underlying Hollywood storytelling has changed
entertainment 01' the late twentieth and
... the difFerenees are essentially superficial anel (1999, 4). h The fact
continuous and contlguous link;; between the
however, that the economic slructurc of the industry today is fundamentally difierent two eras. In "U~~<::"lll r)f'tW('en the two pcriods, 1 do not propose that our
from that of the pre-1950s era. Our society, audiences. and cultural current era stands as lhe mirror of Ihe seventeenth century. DilJerent
concerns have altered dramaticall)' in the interim. Conplomera and social
since the 1960s has reshaped the industry into media interests. the two periods. There are, how­
eH:'!", numerous
thc two that invite comparison in the treatment ane!
One outeome 01' this eonglomeration has been new between fllnclion of formal ledlurcs
an emphasis on serial narratives and the spectac.
entertainment media-comic books, computer games, theme ular: forms that
transformed mass cultures. Throughout this book, thcre­
television programs-- that have also had formal The advcnl
"baroque" will be considered not onl)' as a phenomenon of the sevenleenth
the eeonomic advantages it has altered the film industry s pro-
century (an era traditionall)' assoCÍated with the baroqlle), bUI also, more broadly, as a
duction with the result that new aesthetics have The home market
transhistorical s!ate that has had wider historical repcrcussions.
saturation of and OVO technolog)' has not onl)' what Jim Col­
I am especially conccrned with evaluating Ihe transformed poetics that have domi­
lins ealls new (1995, 6), but also alternate modes of
nated entertainment media of the last three decades. [t i8 suggested here that, as a
audience and an of media never bcfore witnessed in the
result of tcdmological, industrial, and economic transfOrmations, contemporary en­
of lhe cinema.
tertainment media reflect a dominant neo· baroque logic. Tbe neo-baroque shares a
she acknowledges the new synergies and on spectacle and action
baroque delight in spcctacle and sensor)' experiences. Neo baroque entertainments,
film industry favors, Thompson states that industr)' fcatures
however~which are the product 01' congJomerate entertainment industries, multi­
publicit)', and marketing have been a pan 01' the industry since
media interests, and spectacle that is 01'ten rcliant upon computer tedmolo!Jv~~nrp,,_
the 1910s and that currently the industry is involved merely in "intensifications of
ent contemporary audicnces with ne,,, baroque forms of
Hollywood's traditional practices." It i8 aH, says Thompson, a matter of "degrce" that are aligned
with late-twentieth- and eady concerns.
(1999, 3).8 Yet this matter of degree is surely an important one: "Intensification" can
bines the visual, the auditory, and the textual III wa)'s that paral1e1 the dvnamism of
reach a point at which it begins to transform ínto something clsc. In the instancc of the
seventeenth-century baroque form, but that
contemporary entcrtainment industry, this "something else" has embraced classical
tietb and earl\' twenty-first centuries in "HU 'Ullurau)' amerent ways.
storytellíng ane! placed it within new contexts, contexts that a further
the emer!J('nrc> of the
economizatíon oI' dassical narrative form, digital tedmology, cross-media ;nt,'r;\"ti"m
serial fórms, and alternate modes 01' spectatorship and
eXDandüw set 01' works that position the cinema and new
making,"
states Thompson, "contrary to the voices
ema of rupture, fragmentation, and
and visualíty. Because 1 adopt a
a tradition which bas flourished for
to the research 01' Barbara Maria
and shown every
(336). 1 agree. Not
does the dassical still but it is also perspecti\'es, discuss
of media. As Stafford states in ArtjLd Science: Enlightenment
 Introduction
6
Entertainment and the Eclipse Visual Education, "we need to backward in order to
move forward" (1994, 3). By our going backward, various parallels betwecn cpochs
may emerge, thus allowing us to dcvelop a clearer understandíng of the significanee of
cultural objects and thcir function during our own times. StaH'Jrd establishes thcse
links speeiflcalIy between the eighteenth and late twentieth centuries. For StaHord, the
audiovisuality of the baroque was translormed and given an "instructive" purposc in
the cíghtecnth century to usher in a new era 01' reason that came to be associated with
the Enlightenment. With specifie attention given to the dominance 01' digital media in
our own era, Stafford posits that our cultun~ i8 undergoing similar pivotal transfor­
mations. Our optical technologieshome computers, the Internet, cable, and other
information technologies-provide a means of using the image in ways that may
transport users to a new pcriod 01' technological reenlightenment (1
In Remediatian: Understandina New Media, Jay Bolter ami Richard Grusin are more
expansive in their historical focus. They argue that all media, no matter how "new,"
rely on a media past. New media always retain a eormection with past forms. Like
painting, architecture, and sculpture, 'Vvhich have a longer history of traditions to draw
upon, contemporary media such as the cinema, computer games, and the Internet
"remediate" or refashion prior media form8, adapting them to their media-specific,
formal, and cultural needs. In short, acconling to Bolter and Grusin, "No medium
today, and certainly no single media event, seems to do its cultural work in isolation
from other media" (1999, 15). This intcrdisciplinary, crossmedia, ami cross-temporal
approach remains integral to the ideas that follow.
Although thi5 book focuses on diverse mcdia such as computer games, themc park
ractions, ami comic books, as well as mainstream cinema, tüllowing thc works 01'
John Behon in particular, his 1 Seott Bukatman (1993, 1995, 1998),
Collins (1989,1 Vivían Sobchack (1987,1990), ]anet Wasko (1994), and Justin
\Vyatt (1994), thi8 hook considers the cinema' s continuing rdevanee in a world that
has become infiltrated by new media teehnologies and new economic structures. In its
combinatíon 01' narrative, image, and sound, the cinema remains paradigmatic and, as
is evident in the works of the above-mentíoned historíans and theori5ts, much of the
best analysís of new media emerges from cinema studies. Likewise, the wIitings of
Sobchack (1987), Bukatman (1993, 1995, 1998) and Brooks Landon (1992) have been
especially influential in the priority they give to science fiCtiOIl and fantasy cinema as
fundamental vehicles that o[cr insight into the impact of new media tedmologies in
the context 01' postmodernism. The new historícal poetics that this book explores are
evident in thesc genres. As Bukatman (1998) has noted, since the rclease
Introduction 7
of Star Wars in 1977, not only has science fiction become paradigmatic of the cross­
media and marketing possibilities of conglomeration, but the film s narrativize the
implications and e[ects 01' new technologics as well as implementing new technologies
in the construction of the films' spedal eH'ects. Science fiction and fantasy Jilms, com­
¡mter games, comic books, and theme park attractions bccome emhlematic of chang­
ing conditionscultural, historical, economic, and aesthetic-~as played out across
our entertainment media. In my cHorts to delineate !he transformations that the
entertainment industry has undergone in light 01' economic and technological shifts, 1
have reconsidered the research 01' the academics mentioned aboye from alternate
angles, considering ami e1aborating on theÍr arguments {rorn the perspective of the
neo-baroque. Before we travel the path of the neo-baroque, however, a brief overview
and darification 01' the usap"es of the term "baroque" is in order.
... 01 Thinos Baroque
"The baroque" is a term traditionally associated with the seventeenth century, though
it was not a label used by individuals of the period itself to describe the art, eco­
or culture of the periodo Although when the tenn "baroque" was originally
applied to define the art and music of the seventeenth century is not known, its appli­
cation in thi8 way--and denigratory associations-· gathered force during the eigh­
teenth century. During this time, "baroque" implicd an art or music of extravagance,
irnpetuousness, and virtuosity, all of which were concerned with stirring the all.'ections
ami sen ses 01' the individual. The baroque was believed to lack the reason and disci­
that came to be associated with neodassicism and the era ol' the Enlightenment.
The etymological origins 01' the word "baro(!ue" are debatable. One suggestion is that
it comes from the halian "barocco," which signifies "bizarrc," "extravagant"; another
is that the tcrm derives from the Spanish "barrueco" or Portuguese "barrocco,"
meaning an "irregular" or "oddly shaped pcarl."9 Whatever the terrn's origins, ít is
that, for the eighteenth and, in particular, the nineteenth century, the baroque
was increasingly understood as possessing traits that were unusual, vulgar, exuberant,
and beyond the norm. Indeed, even into the nineteenth century, cr¡tics amI historian s
perccived the baroque as a degeneration or decline of the dassical and harmonious
ideal epitornized by the Renaissance era.
As stated, the Jife span of the historical baroque i8 generally associated with the
seventeenth century, a temporal confine that i8 more 01't en a rnatter 01' convenience
(a convenicnce to which I admittedly sucl11mb in this book), as it is generalIy agreed
8 Introduction Introduction 9

in art and music was already evident in the late slxteentll cen­
tinued to ha ve alife, albeit one beyond the limits of a canon. Por example, later­
turylO and progressed weH into the eighteenth century, especially in the art, architcc­
historíans and theorists of the barogue have noted the impact of the
ture, and music of northcrn Europe and Latin America. 11 Until the twentieth century,
on nineteenth- and twentieth-century art movements. Sassonc, for
seventccnth-century baroque art was ignored by art historians. The
has cxplorcd the prescnce of a lJa¡-oque attitude to form in the artistic movements of
was generally considered a chaotic ami exuberant form that lacked the order and rea­
surrcalism, impressionism, and neo-gongorism (Overesch 1981, 70, citing Sassone
son of neoclassicism, the transcendent wondcr of romantícism, or the social awarencss
Buci-Glucksman (1986, 1994) eguatcd what she laheled a baroc¡ue dl1
of realismo Not until the late nineteenth century did the Swiss art critie amI historian
voír with the early-twentiethcentury modernist shift tovvard abstraction. Similarly,
Heinrich Wüllflin reconsider the signitlcance of the formal qualities and function of
Martín Ja}' (1 liberated the baroc!ue from itB historical confines, stating, Iike Bud
baroque art. Not only were his Renaissance and Baroque (1965; originally published in
Glucksman, that the ínherent "madness of vision" associated \Vith the baroque was
1888 and rcvised in 1907) and PrincipIes al An in lhe nineteenth-century romantic movement ami early-twentiethcentury
in rater A rt (1 originally published in 1915) important in thcir carnest con­
surrealist arto In associating it with these instances of modernist art, the word
sideration of the key formal dlaracteristics of seventeenthcentury art, but thcy estab
"baroquc" is bcing adopted by historians and theorists who recognize the moderníst
lished the existence of a binary rcIationship hetween the c1assical (as cpitomized
and abstraet gualities inherent in the baroclue; the harogue becomes a tool critical to
Renaissancc art) and thc baroque 12 that has persisted into the twenty-first centuryY'
understanding the naturc of thcse early modernist artistic movements.
Although I draw on the studies of Wülfflin, Walter Benjamín, Remy Sasseilin, and
With respcct to the cinema, the baroque is often conjured up to signify or Iegiti­
José Maravall on the seventeenth-century barO<lue, one of the most inAuential works
mate lhe presence of an auteurist Aaír in the Hlms oi' specific directors. In most cases,
on my own deliberations is Henri Focillon's The Ufe ~f Forms in
thc term "baroquc" is used ralher loosely to describe a formal guality that Aows
lished in 1934. FociHon's arguments diverge from those oI' the aboye
"freely" and "cxcessively" through the I1lms of particular dircctors, the implication
authors. Despite his strictly formalist conccrns ami lack 01' engagement with cultural
being that to be baroc!uc implies losíng control (whereas on the contrary, as will be
issues beyond an abstract framework, Focillon understood form in art as an entity that
Iater, seventeenth-century baroque ofien revealed an obscssive concern v,rith
was not necessarily limited to thc constraints of time or specific historical
control and rationalíty). To be baroquc is (supposedly) to give voice to artistic free­
a polítical tract from Balzac, Focillon stated that "everything i5 form and lifc
dom ami Hight from thc norm. Classical I Iollywood, contemporary Hollywood, and
itsdf is form" (1992, 33). For Focíllon, formal patterns in art are in perpetual states
art cinema dircctors alike have been evaluated from the perspective of the
of movement, bcing specific to time but also spanning across it (32): "Fonn may, it i5
The films 01' directors Federico Fellini,14 Tim Burtan,15 Michael PoweH and Emeric
true, become formula and canon; in other words, it may be abrllptly frozen into a
Pressburger, Tod Browning, James Whale, Michael Curtiz,16 Raul Ruiz,17 ami Peter
normative type. But form i5 primarily a mobile life in a changing world_ Its metamor
Greena,vay1~ have been discussed as rcAecting baroque sensibilities. Whcn the word
phoses endlessly begin anew, and it is by the principIe of style that thev are aboye al!
is used to describe particular films, again the term carries with it con­
coordinated and stabilized"
notations of something' s being beyond the norm or 01' a quality that is in excess of thc
Although the historical baroc!ue has traditionally been contained within the rough
nonn. Thus the Soviet film Raspoutine, I'Agonie (Klimov 1975) is
temporal confines of the sevcnteenth ccntury, to paraphrase Focillon, 1 suggest that
given its emphasis on themes 01' aberration, the mystical, amI the fantastic
baroque form still continued to have alife, one that rccllrred throughout history but
1985). The ltalian film Maddalena (Genína 1953) is defined as baroque because of íts
existed beyond the limíts of a canon. Therefore, whereas the scventeenth century ,vas
tnelodramatic style and its f()cus on the excess spectacle of the Catholic church. 19 il,fad
a period during which baroc!ue form became a "formula and canon," it does not
Max: llevond Thl1nderdome (Miller 1995) may be understood as baroque hecause of its
necessarily follow that the barOC!lle was frozen within the temporal parameters of the
proportions," its grandeur, and its sense 01' the hyperbolic.)O In
seventeenth century. the latter part of the ei~hteenth century witnessed the
Luhrmann repcatedly refcrs to the baroguethe theatricality, lushness, ami
dominance of a new form of dassicism in the neoclassical style, fonn con-
spectacle of the mise-en-scene and editingthat inspired his trilogy StrictIy Ballroom
 Introduction 11
10 Introduction

decorative schemes that included trompe l' oeil illusions influenced by the seventeenth­
(1997), Romeo Juliet (1999), and Moulin Rouge! ). AmI Potter' s Orlando
century baroque. In the 19205 Lord Gerald Wellesley' s bedroom in his London town­
(1992) has been descrihed as a postmodern, film that draws upon ba­
house displayed the "Magnasco society taste," and a neo-baroclue farm was evident
roque devices, including intertextuality, parody, and a attitude that
in his bizarre and spectacular bed, the paintings that hung on the walls, and other
transforms Virginia Woolf' s 1928 novel Orlando: A which the film was
schemes in the room's decoration (48), Likewise, Cecil Beaton's
based) into a "staged" world of stylistic excess and pcrformativity
house, Ashcombe --which induded baroque furniture, door cases, putti
To return to Focillon's argument regarding the simultaneously fluid and stablc
trompe l' oeil ellccts and as well as light sconces on the walls that
properties of art form, in all the instances cited above, baroque traits How
were cast in pIaster in the form oI' human arms (a featurc that was to reappear in
through various art movements ami films but retain their freedom of motion: the
Cocteau' s La Belle et la Béte of 1 trends (8690).23
baroque, in this case, is not "frozen" or "canonized" as a style. With the exception of
Ataste for things neo baroque was also ¡nto the exuberant anc! "dandified
the seventeenth century, it was not until the twentieth century that baroque form
fashions" of eccentric characters like Cecil Beaton and Sacheverell Sitwell (whose book
underwent a series of metamorphoses that resulted in the stabilization of the baroclue
011 the sevcnteenth-century Spanish also contributed to an understanding of
as a style. Throughout the twentieth century, baroc!ue form altered its identity as a
earlier haroque culture) (Calloway ] more eccentric tastes were 800n
in di verse areas of the arts, continuing restlcssly to move on to new metamorphic
to enter a more mainstrearn market when I'ashion like Coco Chanel, Helena
states and cultural contexts. 22
Rubenstein, and EIsa Schiaparelli chose to market the "new concept of Chic" by pro­
ducing stage salon shO\vs and fashions that were marked by a baroque extravagance
The "Baroque Baroque" and the Hollywood Style: The 1920s and 1930s
(79-81).24 This renewed interest in the baroque was al80 evident in the theater and
ballet of the periodo For example, the Seregei Diaghilev greatly influ­
Whereas art-historical and historical research on the baroque
enced the look of the Ballets Russes, reigniting a coneern for the spectacle of the ba­
in the latter part oI' the twentíeth the impact of the
roque through the indusion of exotic costumes of barogue design, baroc!ue settings,
baroque on culture made itself felt in even more immediate
and spectaeular firework displays traditionally associated with seventeenth-century

wavs within the

/
sphere. While the Western world was 25

ist revolution in art through postimpressionism,

and German expressionism, the baroque also Py'm'l-,P,n('('<1

In the United States, the young film industry began a love affair with baroque flair
and momlment;llitv The sets, costumes, themes and designs of grand Hollywood epies
In BOTOque Baroque: The Culture (Jf Stephen
of seventeenth-century baroc!ue design, art, and architecture on twentieth· 1 QEeen (von Stroheim 1928), The Scarlet Empress
culture. Labeling the self-conscious fascination with the baroque in the twentieth cen­ 1926) (whose interiors were modeled
on those of the Davanzanti reiterated the spectacular grandeur of
tury the "barogue baroque" (1994, 1.5), Calloway traces its influence8 in the worlds of
baroque style (Calloway 1994, to Calloway, the "visual richness
theater, cinema, architecture, interior design, and haute couture fashion. The 19208
of film culture" ami the evident sueeess of the star system by the 19208 shifted the
and 19305 in particular can be characterized as stabilizing a new bar()(lue style. In
cinema's evocation of fantasy and glamour off the sereen and onto the private lives of
London, an elite and influential group of upper-class connoisseur5 in the 19205 formed
its stars amI the public sphere they inhabited (.56). film culture nurtured an environ­
the Magnasco society (named after a rather obscure seventeenth-century painter Ales­
ment that allowed barogue farm to infiltrate the space of the
sandro Magnasco, who was kllown fa!' his "fantastic" style) with the intention of
wood arrd Beverly Hills). A baroque opulenee the likes of which had never been seen
exhibiting baroque art (48). Soon, what came to be known as a "neo-baroclue" style
sinee thc seventeenth century soon exploded, and what carne to be known as the
was all the rage. As Calloway states, "magazines of the day decreed that the neo­
"Hollywood style" emerged. Following the likes 01' stars like Douglas Fairbanks and
" especially in interior design (50). As early as 1906, Sir Edwin
Mary Pickford, whose palatial abode, Piekfair, was constructed on the outskirts of
Landseer Lutvens's Follv Farm residence (West Berkshire, 1906-1912) introduced
 Introduction Introduction 13
12

a spate of movie moguls ami film stars commissioned grand mansions that
often explicitly imitated the seventeenth-century palazzi of European aristocrats and
monarchs. The dcsigns 01' Hollywood picture palaces 1'ollowed suit. An aristocratic
was reborn 10 herald a new aristocracy, onc engendcred by the Hollywood film
The most 1'amous fantas)' mansion 01' the period was, 01' course, William
Randolph Hearst's San Simeon (figure I.2). Adorned with booty plundered from
Europe, this mansion (which aooroached thc size 01' a citv) also included a
cinema in lhe style ol' Louis XIV (57).
The monarchs in this new Hollvwood
/
aristocracy< were the movie stars and media
moguls, and lile)' asserted tbeir power and starlike c¡ualitics through a baroc{ue visual
The cultural space of Los Angeles was imbued with a new idcntity, one that
would with a reviscd fervor at the end of the century, when lhe neo-haro({ue
was to bccome canonizcd within a radically diH(;~rent cultural context. 26

The Latín American and Spanish Neo-Baroque l

Omar Calabrese (1992), Peter W olIcn (1 993), Mario Perniola (1995), and Christina
Dcgli-Esposti (1996a, 19961>, 1996c) have evaluated (from dift(~rent perspectives) lhe
affinities that exist between the baroc{ue- or, rather, the neo baroque- -and the post
moderno It is as a formal cluality ol' the postmodern that the nco-baroque has gained a
stability that from a wider cultural contcxt. Initially, the strongest connection
bctwcen the postmodcrn and the baroque emerged in the context of Latin American
art,27 and criticism, in particular, in the writings of the Cuban author
Severo Sarduy, who consciously embraced the baro(¡ue as a revolutionary form, one
capable of countcring the dominance of capitalism and socialism (Sarduy 1975; Bev­
988, 29). Frum the 19505, in Latin America, the baroc{uc was revisited as the
neo- baroque, becoming a signií-icant polítical form in the process. Particularly in liter­
ature, the seventecnth-century baroque' s obsessive concerns with ilIusionism and the
naturc of reality ,vas adapted to a new cultural context, becoming a for­
mal stratcgy that could be used to conte5t the "truth" 01' dominant ideoloíJies and
issues of identity, gender, and "reality" itself.
!iterary historians have associated the Latin American neo-baroclue with
the rise of the metafictional new-bistoricist novel that flourished during the boom
(1960s 19705) ami particularly in the postboom period of the 1980s. Although I.2 WiIlíam Randolph Hears!', California resídence, San Símeon. Bv nt:rmissíon of The KobaJ
which authors are to be considerecl part 01' the boom period and which are part of the ColJection_
postboom is much debated, the tendency 10 eguate both (and in particular the
 Introduction
14
with the neo-baroque is a point rarely debated. N ovels such as Fernando del Paso' s
Noticias del Imperio (1987), Roa Bastos's Yo, el Supremo (1975), and Carlos Fuentes's
Terra Nostra (1976) are viewed as simultaneously emerging from a postmodern context
and as reflecting neo-baroque formal concerns (Thomas 1995, 170). Emphasizing the
radical and experimental possibilities inherent in baroque form (as also outlined in the
writings of Buci-Glucksman and Jay), Latin American writers such as Luis Borges,
Severo Sarduy, Fernando del Paso, José Lezama Lima, Alejo Carpentier, and Carlos
Fuente developed a deconstructive style that owed a great deal to philosophical writ­
ings of theorists such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Fredric Jameson.
Embracing the postmodern, these novelists also consciously mclded theoretical con­
cerns with stylistic strategies adapted from the seventeenth-century baroque tradition:
the instability and untrustworthiness of "reality" as a "truth"; the concern with simu­
lacra; motifs like the labyrinth as emblem of multiple voices or layers of meaning; and
an inherent self-reflexivity and sense for the virtuosic performance. The movement
that emerged as a result carne to be known as the neo-baroque. 28 Additionally, many
of the writings of these authors also invested in a Bakhtinian concern with the carni­
valesque, intertextuality, dialogic discourse, and "heteroglossic, multiple narrative
voices"; as Peter Thomas states, in all, a "neobaroque verbal exuberance ... [and] ...
delirious" style ensued (1995, 171).
In "The Baroque and the Neobaroque," Severo Sarduy suggests that, whereas the
Latin American baroque (of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) was simply a
colonial extension of the European (and, in particular, the Spanish) baroque, the neo­
baroque embraces a more critical stance by returning to the European (as opposed to
colonial) origins (Thomas 1995, 181; Sarduy 1975, 109-115).29 The aim was to re­
claim history by appropriating a period often considered to be the "original" baroque,
thereby rewriting the codes and "truths" imposed on Latin America by its colonizers.
By reclaiming the past through the baroque form, these contemporary Latin American
writers could also reclaim their history. The new version of history that resulted from
this reclamation spoke of the elusive nature of truth, of historical "fact," of "reality,"
of identity and sexuality. According to the neo-baroque, truth and reality was always
b~yond the individual' s grasp.
In Spain, the baroque transformed along similar formal lines, becoming associated
in the second half of the twentieth century with the literature of the period and with
postmodernism. Freeing themselves from the oppressive censorship of the Franquist
regime, in the 1960s and 1970s Spanish writers began to experiment with modernist
and antirealist literary styles. 30 Critics labeled the emerging Spanish style, which was
Introduction 15
influenced by the Latin American boom authors who had deliberately embraced the
styles arre! concerns of Golden Age writers such as Miguel de Cervantes and Calderón
de la Barca, "baroque" or, more often, "neo-baroque" (Zatlin 1994, 30; Overesch
1981, 19). Following the lead of many Latin American authors, Spanish writers such
as José Vid al Cadellán, Maria Moix, José María Castellet, Manuel Ferrand, and Juan
Goytisolo adopted stylistic features integral to seventeenth-century Spanish baroque
literature. 31 Francisco Ayala's El Rapto (1965), for example, retells one of the stories
recounted in Cervantes's Don Qyixote. Reflecting on the layered nature of the baroque,
Ayala travels back in time to the seventeenth century to comment on Spain of the
presellt, particularly on the "disorientation pervading contemporary Spanish society"
under the post-Franco regime (Orringer 1994,47). As with the Latin American neo­
baroque, particular features of a baroque poetics emerged: 32 minimal or lack of con­
cero with plot development and a preference for a multiple and fragmented structure
that recalls the form of a labyrinth; open rather than closed form; a complexity and
layering evident, for example, in the merging of genres and literary forms such as
poetry and the novel; a world in which dream and reality are indistinguishable; a view
of the illusory nature of the world-a world as theater; a virtuosity revealed through
stylistic flourish and allusion; and a self-reflexivity that requires active audience en­
gagement (Overesch 1981, 26-60).33 For these Latin American and Spanish writers,
the neo-baroque became a potent weapon that could counteract the mainstream: They
embraced the neo-baroque for its inherent avant-garde properties. 34 The contempo­
rary neo-baroque, on the other hand, finds its voice within a mainstream market and,
like the seventeenth-century baroque, directs its seduction to a mass audience.
The Spatial Aspect cif the Cultural System
In recent decades, the neo-baroque has inserted its identity into diverse areas of the
arts, continuing restlessly to move on to new metamorphic states and contexts, nur­
tured by a culture that is attracted to the visual and sensorial seductiveness integral
to baroque formo In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, we have expe­
rienced the reemergence and evolution of the baroque into a more technologically
informed method of expression. A baroque mentalit y has again become crystallized on
a grand scale within the context of contemporary culture. The spectacular illusionism
and affective charge evident in Pietro da Cortona' s ceiling painting of The Gloriflcation
?! Urban VIII (Palazzo Barberini, Rome, 1633-1639), the virtuosic spatial illusions
painted by Andrea Pozzo in the Church of S. Ignazio (Rome, 1691-1694) (figure 1.3),
 Introduction 17
16 Introduction

articulated so admirably by numerous writers, including pioneers like Fredric Jame­

son, Jean Lyotard, Robert Venturi,36 Jean Baudrillard, Perry Anderson, and Steven
Best and Douglas Kellner. It is within the context of the postmodern that the neo­
baroque has regained a stability that not only is found in diverse examples of enter­
tainment media cultures but has exploded beyond the elite or marginalized confines of
eccentric European aristocrats, Hollywood film stars, and elosed literary cireles and
into our social spaces.
That which distinguishes earlier phases of the twentieth-century baroque from its
currcnt guise is the reflexive desire to revisit the visualit)' associated with the era of
thc historical baroque. The "baroque baroque" deliberately reintroduced variations of
se"enteenth-century fashion, theatrical, ancl architectural designs, grand-scale specta­
ele, and baroque historical narratives in the context of the cinema, theater, and ballet.
The Latin American and Spanish neo-baroque emerged from a conscious effort on the
part of writers to manipulate seventeenth-century baroque techniques for contempo­
rary, avant-garde purposes. The late-twentieth- and early-twenty-first-century expres­
sion of the nco-baroquc emerges from radically different conditions. As was the case
with the scventcenth-century baroquc, the current expression of the neo-baroque has
logically emerged as a result of systemic ancl cultural transformations, which are the
result of the rise of conglomeration, multimedia interests, and new digital technology.
Cultural transformation has given birth to neo-baroque formo The neo-baroque articu­
lates the spatial, the visual, and the sensorial in ways that paraIJel the dynamism of
seventeenth-century baroque form, but that dynamism is expressed in guises that are
Figure 1.3 Andrea P0Z70, The GloTJofS. IgnaLio (detail), Chureh ofS. Ignazio, Rome, 1691-1694. K~ Photo
technologically d!fferent from those of the seventeenth-century formo In the last three
Vasari, Rome.
decades in particular, our culture has been seduced by visual forms that are reliant
on baroque perceptual systems: systems that sensorially engage the spectator in ways
the seriality and intertextual playfulness of Cervantes' s Don Q!1ixote (1605 and 1615),
that suggest a more complete and complcx parallel between our own era and the
and the exuberant and fantastic reconstruction of Versailles under Louis XIV have
seventecnth-century baroque. In this respect, my concern is with broader issues and
metamorphosed and adjusted to a new historieal and cultural contexto Specifically, I
general tendencies that give rise to dominant cultural sensibilities.
follow the lead of Ornar Calabrese (1992), Peter Wollen (1993), and Mario Perniola
As history has shown us, human nature being what it is, we cannot resist thc drive
(1995), all of whom understand (from different perspectives) the neo-baroque and
to locate and label such dominant sensibilities: baroque, Renaissanee, medieval, mod­
the postmodern as kindred spirits. Although I recognize the multiplc and conflicting
ernist, postmodernist. Underlying all such categories is a desire to reduce and make
theoretical responses to the postmodern condition, however, 35 postmodern debates do
comprehensible the complex and dynamic patterns and forces that constitute culture.
not constitute the primary concern of this book. A specifically neo-baroque poetics
In his study of German baroque tragedy, Benjamin raises a significant query with
embedded within the postmodern is my primary point of reference. Although sorne
regard to issues of categorization, in particular, the typing of "historical types and
postmodern tropes and theories underpin the analysis to follow, I am not concerned
epochs" such as the Gothic, the Renaissance, and the baroque (1998,41). The problem
with reiterating the immense body of literature and analysis that has already been
18 Introduction
for the historian líes in homogenizing the cultural phenomena indeed, the cul­
ture) specific to dilferent historical epochs:
As ideas, however, such names perform a scrvice they are not able to pedorm as con­
cepts: they do not make the similar identical, but they effect a between
extremes. Although it should be stated that conceptual analysis, too, do es not invaríably
encountcr totally heterogencous phenomena, and it can occasionallv reveal the outlines
of a synthcsis.
Systematization of cultural phenomena need not preclude variety. Likewise, cate­
gorization of dominant and recurring patterns need not refIect the revelatíon of a statíc
cultural zeitgeíst. The value 01' hístorical labding and searchíng for a synthesis 01' dom­
inant forces-rangíng from the thematic, to the stylistic, to the social-is that it en­
ables critical refIection. As Benjamín notes, the "world of philosophical thought" may
unravel only through the articulation and descriptíon of "the world 01' ideas"
Like Benjamin, 1 do not seek to defend the methodological foundatíon that underlíes
the arguments in this book; 1 do, however, draw attention to my reservations with
"zeitgeisting" and reducing the complex and dynamíc processes in operatíon in cul­
tural formations to simplistic and reductive conceptual observations, and I hope that
what foIlows does not travel that path.
In recent years, a number of historians, philosophers, and critical theori8ts, includ­
ing Ornar Calabrese, Gilles Delcuze, Mario Perníola, Francesco Guardini, Peter Wol­
len, and José MaravaIl, have explored the formal, social, and historical constituents of
the baro(lue amI neo-baroque. Delcuze understood the baroque in ít8 broadest terms
"as radiating through histories, cultures and worlds of knowledge" including arcas as
diverse as art, science, costume design, mathematics, amI philosophy (Conley 1993,
xi). Likewise, in his historical and cultural study of the seventeenth- century Spanish
baroque, Antonio Maravall observed that it is possible to "establish certain relations
between external, purely formal e1ements of the baroque in seventeenth-century Eu­
rope and eIements present in very dilferent historical epochs in unrelated cultural
arcas .... [Therefore] it is also possiblc [to] speak of a baroque at any given time, in
any field of human endeavour" (1983, 4
MaravaIl, who is concerned with the seventeenth century, is interested in the ba­
roque as a cultural phenomenon that emerges from a specific historical situation. Mar­
avall also, however, privileges a sense of the baroque that encompasses the breadth
01' cultural diversity across chronologk"'al confines. His approach is a oroductive one.
Introduction 19
exploring distinct centuries that have sets of cultural phenomena particular to
their specific historical situations, it is nevertheless possiblc to identify and describe a
certain morphology of the baroclue that is more fluid and is not confined to one specific
in history.
The formal manifestations of the baroclue across cultural and chronological cunnnes
also concern Ornar Calabrese in hi5 Neo-Baroque: A .'ligD cfthe Times (1992). Dissatisfied
postmodernism as a consistent, unified framework of analysis that explains aes­
thetÍC sensibilities, Calabrese suggests that the neo· baroc¡ue olfers a productive
with which to characterize the transformations of cultural objects 01' our epoch
(1992, 14). Recognizing, like Maravall before him, that the baroque is not merely a
specific period in the history of cultures situated within the seventeenth
with grcater focus than Maravall on the twentieth century), Calabrese ex­
plores the baroque as a general attitude and formal quality that crosses the boundaries
of historical periodization. For Calahrese, therefore, "many important cultural
nomcna of our time are distinguished by a specific internal 'form' that recalls the ha­
roque" in the shape of rhythmic, dynamic structures that have no respect for rigid,
dosed, or static boundaries (5). The protean forms that he locates in blockbuster
televisual serial structures, and the hybrid alíen or monstrous hero are, in turn,
placed (briefly) within a broader c1.dtural sphere in which chaos theory, catastrophe
theory, and other such "new sciences" reflect similar fluid transformations that contest
scientific "norms" (171 172).
According to Calabrese, neo- baroque forms "display a loss 01' cntirety, totality, amI
system in favour of instahility, polydimensionality, and change" (1992, xii). Following
Yuri Lotman' s organization of knowledge according to "the spatial aspect of the cul­
tural system," Calabrese suggests that space must have a border:
When used of systems (even of cultural ones), the tenn "border" should be understood
in the abstract sensc: as a group of points belonging simultaneously to both the inner and
outer space of a configuration. Inside the configuration the border forms part of the sys­
tem, but limits iL Outsidc the configuratíon the border forrns part of tlle exterior,
whcther or not this too constitutes a system .... We might say that the border articu­
lates and renders gradual relations between the interior and the exterior, between aper­
ture and closure. (47 48)
Although the formal and aesthetic attributes of the (neo- )baroque remain the focus
of th¡, book, historical and cultural transformations abo underpin the analysis that
20 Introduction
CoIlows. As Rémy Saisselin has observed, "the arrival of a new style may herald
within a society" (1992, 4). Specific sets of stylistic trends and aesthetic
norms are complexly interwoven with the institutional structures that give rise to
them (Jenkins 1995, 103). In Univme if the Mind Yuri Lotman has argued that cultures
operate within the apatial boundaries of the semiosvhere. the semiotic SDace in which
sociohistorical and temporal conditions, both gave voice to wide­
cultures define their borders (1990, 123):
Since symbols are important mechanisms of cultural memory, they can transfer texta,
outlines and other semiotic formations frum one leve! uf a culture's memorv to ~
another. The stable sets of symbols that recur diachronically throughout culture serve
very largely as unifying mechanisms: by activating culture's memory of itself they pre­
vent culture from disintegrating ¡nto ¡solated chronologleal layers. 'Ibe national and arca
boundaries of cultures are Iargely determined by a long-standing basle set of dominant
symbols in cultural liJe. (104)
in other words, relate to and are the products of their cultural context
(104). Recurring language systems, or what Lotman characterizes as smaller units of
semiosis, respond to a larger semiotic space that is culture. For Lotman, the
modela created by culture are evident in an "iconic continuum" whose "foundations
are visually visihle iconic texta" (204). The larger semiotic space informs smaller se­
miotic units that are, for example, embodied in cultural artifacts like paintings and the
cinema. Although Calabrese's analysis of the "semiotic space that is culture" i8 míni­
mal, he explores these semiotic spaces according to two coexisting systems, the classi­
cal and the baroque. Importantly, Houting the traditional oppositional rclationship
between the classical and haroque (a point to which 1 will rcturn), Calabrese suggests
that the two forms always coexist and that the one form dominates the other at differ­
ent historical points in time.
Lotman's abstract ruminations on the spatial formations inherent in culture fasci­
nate me for a numher of reasons. First, 1 am attracted to the deceptívely
notion tbat the dominant aspects of a culture can he expressed in spatial terms. IIow
does such space articulate itself? How does it find a voice across various cultural
domains? How are the spatial formations of one culture to be distinguished from those
of anotber, and is a distinct break or transition point visible from one cultural domi­
nant to another? Considering such questions, 1 was drawn to the issue of why 1 have
been fascinated by these two different points in history: the seventeenth and
late twentieth/early twcnty-!1rst centuries. Primarilv. it was the articulatíon of the
Introduction 21
units within periods of cultural transformatíon tbat lured me: the dominant
social and cultural drives that resulted in an cqually dominant productíon of a baroclue
formal system. Both epochs underwent radical cultural, pcrceptual, and technological
that manifested themselves in similar aesthetic forms. Although both were the
products of
scale sensíbilities. Although the specific historical conditions surrounding each
radically, a similar overall formal efrect resulted from both. Social crisis and
change "created aclimate from which the baroclue emerged and nourished itself"
1983, 53). lnforming the semiospheric boundaries of both eras ia a spatial
attitude dictated by economic and technological transitions. The more 1 researched and
studicd examplcs [rom both periods, the more 1 was convinced that this transitional
state is reflected semiotically in open, dynamic visual and textual forms.
Drawing on the influential study by Thomas Kuhn, The Structure ?I
Scientific Revolu­
tions (1970), in The Postmodem Tum (1997), Steven Best and Douglas Kellner recon­
sider Kuhn's evaluatíon of "paradigm shifts": According to Best and
a "paradigm" is a "constdlation" of values, beliefs, and methodological assumptions,
whether tacít or explicit, inscrihed in a larger worlddew. Kuhn observed that through­
out the history 01' science there have been paradíam shifts, conceptual revolutions that
threw the dominant approach into (Tisis and eventual dissolution, a discontinuous change
provoked by altogether new assumptions, theories and research programs. In science,
Kuhn argued a given paradigm sllrvives until another one, secmingly having a
",v"l~m'~~" power, supersedes it. (1997,
The seventeenth century is an era frequently associated with transitJon.
Kuhn' s work focuses on such a transition from the perspective 01' the scienti!1c revolu­
tion. MaravalI has consídered the haroque era more broadly as a period of wide-scale
social ami economic transition. Paradigm shifts were evident in religion,
the sciences, the social, the class system, philosophy, and the arts. Extending Kuhn's
argument, Best and Kellner assert that during any period, the cultural dominants of
any discipline can be challenged and overturned so that "a new approach ... emerges
posing a decisive challenge to the status quo; if successful, this new approach
becomes dOminant, the next paradígm, itself ready to he deposed by another nA","""'"
challenger as the conatellation of ideas continues to change and mutate" (1
argue that we are currentlv experíencing a "postmodern turn" in which the
t
"Pos modern paradigm" has infiItrated "virtually every contemporary theoretical
 Introduction
22
discipline [industry, teehnology, eeonomies, politics, science, and the arts] and artistic
ficld," whieh, in turn, has influenced culture amI society on a wide seale (1997,
The devclopment of new imaging and infonnation technologies, the dominance of
globalization and transnational corporatism, and new theoretical paradigms ín the
sciences (such as quantum mechanics and chaos theory) not only have transformed our
entertainment medía but are also "challenging our definitions 01' subjectivity amI ob­
jectivity" (Best and Kellner 1997, 30).
As Best and Kellner eloquently observe, however, "Historical epochs do not rise
and fal! in neat patterns or at precise ehronological moments" (31). Identifying sudden
amI complete breaks with history is an impossible feat, just as it is impossible to detach
present from ita hístorical past. Consider the term "transformation": It suggests
coexisten ce of the-thíng-that-has-beentransformed and that-which-it-has-been­
transformed-into. As Best amI Kellner note, "Often what is described as 'postmodern'
is an intensification of the modern, a development of modern phenomena such as
commodification and massification to such a degree that they appear to generate a
postmodem break" (31). Maravall argues a similar point with to the sev­
century. Be understands the baroque not as a break \'Ilith history
larly, the Renaíssance and mannerist periods that preceded it), but as a condition that
is intimatcly connected to history. The Renaissanee, he asserts, is a prelude to the ba­
roque shíft to modemíty. The conditions that were transformed and the innovations
that were introduced during the baroque were "inherited from the precedíng situa­
tíon" (1986, 34).
We have reaehed a point at which the old and the new coexíst, when older para­
digms that dominated throughout the modem era are being unsettled and contested.
This is a time of cultural shift; chaos and uncertainty appear to reign--and from the
a new order emerges. For writers like Baudrillard, our times mark the "end of
" Francesco Guardini follows a similar train of thought. Guardiní understands
the seventeenth-century baroque as leading to modernity, "while the Neoharo'lue
moves away from ít," being more aligned with the concerns of the postmodern (1996,
n. p.). The baroque amI neo-baroque, he suggests, operate as "interfaces" that are
informed by innovative ehanges. Guardiní understands our culture as being, like the
seventeenth-century era that ushered in the scientífie revolution, in the "eye of an
storm, in the middle oI' a gigantic transformation" of cultural and socioeeo­
nOillÍc proportions.
1 too understand the baroque and neo-baro(lue as emerging during periods of radical
cultural transformation. My from Guardini, however, Hes in the conclu-
Introduction 23
sions he draws. In his deliberatíon on the eflects of the neo-baroque (in particular, the
neo-baroquc's postrnodern relianc(~ on computer culture), he turns to "new Cassand­
ras" such as Alvin ToHIer who foresee centuries of doom, with democracy itself in
(1996, n.p.). 1 wish to avoid sueh simplistic cause-and-effect pattems that lapse
into predictive ruminations on the destruetion of as we know it. Through the
vehíde of science fietion, I am more concerned with synthesizing features of the neo­
banx]ue to evaluate the nature and form of the parallels across both eras, whilc also
eonsidering traits that dístinguish the baroque from the neo-baroque. The establish­
ment of opposítions ami hicrarehies (the modern/the postmodern, the dassical/the
(neo-)baroque, coherent culturelincoherent culture) will be avoided. lndeed, 1 do not
understand (neo- )baro(lue as a degenerative state that opposes its harmonious, dassieal
double and reflects cultural decay through formal means. Instead, 1 will argue that un­
derlying the chaos of the neo-baroque i5 a complcx order that relies on ¡ts
ownspecific system of perception.
The Neo-Baroque and Contemporary Entertainment Media
HA long time ago in a galaxy far, far away .... " So it began. The Star Wars franchíse
has been one of the greatest suceess stories in the history of entertainrnent cinema, and
in many respects, the franchise has become paradigmatic of the directíons that con­
temporary entertainment media have taken. Lucas' s strategy was heavily rdi­
ant on his expansion of the original film into multiple story varíations that also
extended media boundaries. The begínning of Star WaTs (1977) (figure 1.4) aHudes to a
serial tradition frorn an earlier period in the history of the cinema: the B-serial. The
film commences with textual narratíon víewed against the baekelrop of an infinite, dark
uníverse, ami the is imrnediately situated as an imaginary continuation oi' a pre­
vious series. The text relates events that took prior to the film's commence­
ment, events that tell of the rebel forces' first victory against the evil Galactic Empirc
and the acquisition of seeret plans for the Empire's "death station, whích i5 ca­
pable of destroying an entire planet. This textual introduction recounts the events of
earlier narratives that did not (up until 1999) yet exisí. 37 The seriality and poly­
centrism that was to emerge from StaT Wars i5 typical of a neo-baroque attitude toward
Henri Focillon has stated that baroque forms
pass into an undulating continuíty where both beginning and end are earefully hid­
den.... [The baroque reveals] "the 01' the series" ~~a system composed of
 Introduction
24
lA Prorno!ional posler tor the
sion 01' rhe Kobal Collection.
discontínuous elcments sharply outlincd, strongly rhythmical and
b(x:omes "the of the labyrinth," which, by means of mobíle strctches
itself out in a rcalm of glitteríng movemcnt and color. (1992,
Claiming it~elf as a story continuation rathcr than a new beginning, Star Wars rccalls
Focillon's "hidden beginning" ofbaroque form-a bcginning that líes somewhere in a
mythical past (which was, in 1999, finally revealed to the audience in The Phantom
Menace). It i8 appropriate to begin an analysis of what eonstitutes the formal properties
of the (neo- )baroque by outlining its traditional opposition; the dassical. History has
made rivals of these two entities. Yet from thc perspective of the baroque, the two
operate in unisono The baroque rclíes on the classical and embraces its "rules," but in
so it multiplies, complicates, and plays w1th classical fórm, manípulating it with
Introduction 25
a virtuoso Aair. In the baroclue' s deliberate establishment of a díalectic that embraces
the classical in its system, the classical is finally subjected to a baroque logic.
The baro(\ue' s difference from classical systems lies in its refusal to respect the lim­
its of the frame that contains the illusion. Instead it "tend[sJ to invade space in every
direction, to pcrforate it, to become as one with alI its possibilitics" (focillon 1992,
58). The lack of respect for tbe limíts of the frame is manifest in the intense visual
dircctncss in (neo- )baroque attitudes toward spectacle, a topie that \vill be the f'ocus
of the second part 01' the book. In the case of narrative space, if we consider classi­
cal narrative forms as being contained by the limits of tite frame (as manifested
in continuíty, linearity, and "beginnings and endings"), then the perforation oi' the
frame~the hidden beginnings anel cndings--are typical of the (neo- )baroque. Like
(neo-)baro'lue spectacle, whieh draws the of the spectator "decp into tbe enig­
matic dcpths and the infinite" (Perniola 1995, 93), (neo- )baroquc narratives draw the
aucliencc into potentialIy infinite, or at least multiple, directions that rhythmically re­
call what Focillon labels tite "system of the series" or the "system of the
The central characteristic of the bar()(lue that informs this study i8 this lack of re­
spect for the limits of the frame. Closed forms are replaced by open structUl-es that
favor a dynamíc and expanding polycentrism. Storics refuse to be contained within a
single structure, expanding their narrative universes into further sequels and seríaIs,
Oistinct media eross oyer into other media, merging with, inHuencing, or being influ­
enced hv other media torms. The granel illusions of entertainment spectacles such as
attractions and special-eH'ects 61ms seek to blur the spaces of fictíon and
film companies seck to expand their markets by eollapsing tite traditional
boundaries and engaging in multimedia conglomerate operations. And so it continues.
Entangled in this neo-baroque order is the audience. True to the (neo-)baroque, the
passive remains suspeet, and active audience engagement dominates (Perniola 1995,
(Neo-)baroque form rdies on the active engagement of audience members, who
are ínvited to participate in a self-reHexive game involving the work's artífice. It is the
audience that makes possible an integral feature of the baroquc aesthetie: the priliciple
of virtuosit y. The dclight in exhibitionism revealed in displays of teehnical and artistic
virtuosíty rdleet;; a desire of the makers to be reeognizecl for taking an entertaimnent
to new Iimits.
of this book explores issues of narrative and spatial format[oTls, in partic­
ular, the serial structures and serial-like motions that characterize eontemporary media
and culture. The seriality integral to contemporary entertainment examples succumbs
26 Introduction
to an open neo-baroque form that complicates the closure of classical systems. A poly­
centric system is favored, one that provides a capacity to expand narrative scenarios
infinitely. Integral to this emerging neo-baroque logic is an economic rationale. In the
seventeenth century, the emergence of capitalism and mass production was an integral
cultural backdrop to the of baroque formo The exoansion of the mas ses
into urban environments was accompanied by the mass
been steadilv on the rise since the Renaissance. The burgeoning prmt máustry recog­
01' consumerism on a mass scalc, and as the dissem­
ination 01' plays, novels, bíblical texts, and printed books, as well as other media such
as the thcater, opera, and mass-produced paintings, proliferated, a nascent popular
culture emerged, one that was accompanied by a new fascination with the serial and
the copy.
During our own times, entertainment industries have responded to the era of con­
glomeration. The film industry that emerged in the post-1950s the com­
petitive nature of a new, conglomerate economíc infrastructure that increasingly
favored global interests on a mass scale. Entertaínment industries film com­
puter game companies, comic-book companies, television studios, and theme
stries-expanded their interests by investing in multiple companies, thus combat­
Whereas the seventeenth century was the culminatíon of a radically new understand­
N'mpetition within the entertainment industry more effectively and mini­
ing of space in light of newly discovered lands and altered perceptions of the nature of
loss or maximizing financial gain by dispersing their products across
outer space and Earth' s place in relation to it, our own era explores the mysterious
multiple media. Horizontal integration increasingly became one of the successful strat­
01' the revitalized film industry, and formal polycentrism was supported by a
conglomerate structure that functioned according to similar polycentric logic: Invest­
ments were dispersed across multiple industry interests that also intersected where
financially appropriate.
The dialectic between economics and production further perpetuated a transforma­
tion in audience reception: a rampant media literacy resulted in the production of
that rdied heavily on an intertextual logic. A serial logic of a different form
explored in chapter 2, "meaning" became reliant upon an audience
that was capable of traversing multiple to give coherence to a specific work
riddled with intertextual references and allusions. Simultaneously adhering to an older
cultural system and adjusting to a new mass culture, the seventeenth-century aristoc­
raey, the learned, and the lower classes became more active in the ways they partici­
pated in the deciphering of works of arto During our own times, the rise of audiovisual
technologies such as VCRs, DVDs, cable, ami the Internet has amplilied the ability of
audiences to familiarize themselvcs with multiple examples of entertainment culture.
Introduction 27
'fhe polycentrism of scriality persists, but in this instance it is the íntertextual allusions
themsclves that weave the audience seductively into a series 01' neo-baroque, labyrin­
thine that demand that audience members, through interpretation, make
out 01' As in the monadic structure proposed by the baroque philosopher
Leibniz ami the baroque "folds" described by Gilles Deleuze, each unít
in the form of a serial, a specific allusíon, or a distinct media format) relies
on other monads: One serial folds into another, and into yet another still; one allusion
Icads to an alternate path outside the "text," then finds its way back to affect inter­
pretatíon; or one mcdium connects fluidly to another, relying on the complex inter­
connectedness of the system as a whole. The series of monads make up a unitv. and
the series of folds construct a convoluted labyrinth that the audience i8
invited to explore. Yet the baroque and neo-baroque diHer in a significant way. Digital
technology, as used within the world of computer games, has created more
literal labyrinths for players to traverse. Highlighting a crisis in traditional forms of
symptomatic ínterpretation, the multilinear nature of game spaces sugge8ts that our
mo<lcs of interpretatíon need to reflect an equally neo-baroque multiplicity.
The labyrinthine paths dfected by digital technology have broader ramifications.
realms of the computer. Cyberspace, like the newly discovered material spaces of
the seventeenth century, has expanded not only our conception and definition of
space, but also our understanding of community and identity. Chapter 3 focuses more
directly on issues of space, particularly in rclatíon to the baroque mapping of newly
the nco-baroque mapping of expandíng digital environments.
fascination with expanding spatial parameters is further high­
in its love of spectacle. Chapter 4 evaluates the contexts of the seventeenth and
late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries' sharcd fascination with spectacle, iHu­
sionism, and the principIe ol' virtuosity. Focusing on two genres-seventeenth-century
quadratura painting and the post-1970s science fiction film-I will make a comparison
between tcchnical and scicntific advances of seventeenth-century spectade and techno­
10gical advances oI' latc-twentíeth- and early-twenty-first-ccntury spectacle to evaluate
and distinguish between the haroque and neo-baroque nature of these forms. 1 will
argue that a dual impulse, resulting from an alliance between artist and
operated in both eras, scientific amI tech­
in the boundaries of the understanding of
28 Introduction Introduction 29

human perception to new Iimits. Second, artists in both eras consciousl

has stated that "the essence oI' lhe Baroclue entails neither talling into nor emcrgíng
that exploited scientific and technological developments
from illusion but rather rea!izÍIl8 something in ilIusion itsclf, or oI' it to a spiri­
boundaries that separated illusion from reality. It wil!
124). The haroque oI' media is revealed
spectacle strategicalIy makes ambiguous the houndaries
rY\nllV"""'¡ to those of these earlier
illusion. Wüh unabashed virtuosity, the (neo-)baroque dassical
relations through the illusion of the collapse of the frame; rather than relying on static, fiction cinema rclies on visual ~"",rhrl of
stable viewpoints that are controlled amI enclosed by the limits of the frame, "new science." The nco-baroque nature of science fiction cinema resides in a
)baroque pcrceptions of space dynamically engage the audience in what Deleuze magical wonder that is transI'ormed into a - a presence "írM'r~,1
(1993) has characterized as "arcrutectures of vision." Neo-baroque vision, especialIy as by scientifically and technologícalIy ereated illusions
in the quadratura ami science hction genres, is the product of new oplical Ornar Calabrese took a brave {irst stcp in popular cul­
models of perception that suggest worlds of infinity that lose the sense of a center. ture, as opposed to modernist traditions, has baroque
\Vhereas critical ami historical writings have focused on baroque spectacle and vision, approach is, essentialIy, a formalist one. There is mueh to be
it is anrued here that the word "spectacle" necds to be reevaluated to encompass other formalist concerns, and in this book, 1 savor folding my own words into various
in the context of current entertainment examples-----baroque amI neo-baroquethrough close analysis. Calabrese, however,
iIlusions is a desire to evoke sta tes of transcen­ neglects to consider the p08sihilities inherent in understanding the present through the
dence that amplify the viewer' s experience of the iIlusion. The underlying concern pasto Adopting the tropes 01' the baroque, but none oI' the works themselves, he <loes
wíth evoking an aesthetie of astonishment reveals the baroque present in the not consider the specihcs 01' remediation or the audienee's experience of the haroque.
of the cinema. As Tom (1990) has explained in his analysis of tlle As a result, other dimcnsions of the (neo-)baroque that exist beyond the strictly for­
pre-1907 film Deriod (a cinema he characterizes. vía Eisenstein. as a "cinema of malist are bypassed. What are the parallels and differences between the baroque and
attractions"), astonishment is achieved ambívalent relation­ neo-baroque? What is to be gained by considering tbe neo-baroque's formal prop­
ships generated in the spectade's construction of a that emphasizes erties, particularly its historical and cultural dimensions? This book proposes that there
rational and scientific principIes, while also Cll~,lCjlllC: response that is a great deal to be learnee! about the (neo- )haroque as a spatial I'ormation. Like the
evokes states of amazement in the audience that have Httle lo do wilh precious baroque mirror, culture and its cultural products nurture amI reflect hack on
Remediations of technologically illusions that evoked similar re­ one another in a series of endless I'olds, that fracture ¡nto multí­
sponses in audiences of the seventeenth whieh finallv also conmrise a single entity.
continuing the production oI' magical wonders
cameras obscuras, and multireHective mirrors on display in wUIlderkammers such as that
of the ]esuit Athanasius Kircher, tlle cinema has never lost the baroque delight in con­
juring ilIusions. lts inherently baroque nature has, however, revealecl ítselI'
during periods of technologieal advancement: during the pre-1907 period that ushered
in the inventíon of the cinematic apparatus; bríeBy during the 19205, when experi­
ments with wide-screen tecbnology were conducted but the format faíled to become
standardized; during the 19508, whieb ushered in a more successful version oI' neo­
baroque audiovísuality by showcasing new wide-screen and sun-ound-sound LeUlilUIU)!
through the epic amI musical genres; and finally, during our own times, which
provided a more conducive climate for the stabilization of the neo-haro<lue. D