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Sayan Roy

Prof. Saugata Bhaduri

ES 475 E Critical Approaches to Literature: Popular Culture

21 December 2023

“You Only Live Twice”: Navigating ‘Cinematic Afterlife’ and the Ethics of Digital
Necromancy

“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is

no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the

dark.”

— Stephen Hawkins, in an interview with the Guardian.

Death suggests a form of finality for the corporeal existence in many religious

traditions where the promise of an afterlife is ensured through resurrection on the day of

judgement, or the transmigration of souls (in the context of Hinduism). Since antiquity, death

has been a realm of mystery and a subject of fascination for various thinkers who have

attempted to unearth the contours of this ‘experiential blank’. As human contemplation of the

afterlife evolved, so did our exploration of means to establish communication with the

deceased. The impetus behind such endeavours ranged from emotional to pragmatic, yet the

underlying efforts remained consistent. In his essay titled “The Origins of Necromancy or

How We Learned to Speak to the Dead,” Kapcár explicates how humanity, intrigued by

themes of death, dying, and the afterlife, began formulating various postmortem rites, rituals,

and funerary practices to accompany the departed. Amidst the conventional practices,

alternative rites that were founded on the belief that interactions with the departed could yield

specific benefits, guidance, or wisdom emerged. Several of these customs unfolded in

secrecy, shielded from public view, and steeped in an aura of mystery. He argues that it is
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perhaps within these obscured practices that the roots of occult traditions, eventually

identified as necromancy, can be discerned. However, with the proliferation of scientific

rationality and the secularisation of societal beliefs, the occult value of necromancy and other

such practices gradually eroded. Along with it, the mystified sphere of death became

medicalized and whispered about in Western culture, where it was sequestered from the

sphere of everyday life and was perceived as taboo. Despite this, with the advent of digital

technology and AI, “necromancy has left the incense-heavy realm of the spiritist and entered

the digital ether” (Gruvæus 1). This trajectory from the supernatural to the digital finds

manifestation in diverse facets of popular culture, notably in cinematic productions,

advertisements, and concerts where dead artists are ‘raised’ to “gain certain benefits for

oneself or a contractor.” (Kapcár 51) From using body doubles and cutting short screen time

to even completely scrapping a film due to the death of an actor during the filming of a movie

to digitally resurrecting them through technological mediations, the film industry has seen a

meteoric advancement in the use of computer-generated imagery as well as artificial

intelligence.

This paper attempts to explore how the technology behind digital necromancy, from

being used primarily to complete unfinished performances of actors who died midway, has

transcended its technological boundaries to now being used to reanimate ‘Delebs’

(D’Rozario) for commercial gains by exploiting their legacies. Thereby, promising a

‘cinematic afterlife’ where they are featured in movies or advertisements even decades after

their deaths. Drawing upon the theoretical postulations of Debera Bassett’s ‘Digital

Zombies,’ I would also look at how these re-animated, socially active ‘dead’ raise ethical

concerns surrounding digital necromancy and delve into the reception of such posthumous

performances by the audience as well as navigate their effects on the grieving process of the

actor’s loved ones.

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Historicizing Death and the Occult of Necromancy

Before we delve into our discussion of digital necromancy and its use in popular

cultural mediums, it is crucial to understand the complexity and shifting perspectives on the

concepts of death and necromancy. It is also pertinent to look at how the occult of

necromancy found its place in a supposedly rational and largely secular society, where it

became an instrument of re-enchantment (Sherlock) by destabilising the binary opposition

between life and death and a means for commercial gains. Following Mcllwain’s assertion

that popular culture “seeks to extinguish our fear of death not with… absolute certainty but

with the possibilities that pervade the realm of uncertainty” (Mcllwain 135), one can also

argue that digital necromancy is a means through which this promise can get fulfilled as the

physical death doesn’t deter the actors from appearing on the screen anymore, thereby

blurring the lines of life and death and facilitating ‘assisted immortality’. Thus, drawing our

attention to the practice of modern-day necromancy and exploring the line of departure from

its oldest known meaning. In Anthony Eliot’s words, “Death can be regarded as a

transhistorical point zero in every society; it is a ‘radical otherness’ that haunts human

existence.” (Eliot 116) The attitude towards death, especially in Western civilization, has

evolved with time. A seminal work in this field is Philippe Aries’ Western Attitudes Toward

Death from the Middle Ages to the Present, where he points out how modernity has brought

with it a new meaning to death. He argues that before the seventeenth century, people were

acutely conscious of their imminent death, and this lacked “theatrics” and a “great show of

emotions,” unlike the “wild” death of the twentieth century, where people feared and avoided

death. He calls it Tamed Death, which lies in juxtaposition with Forbidden Death. The

prevailing ethos of the twentieth century is characterised by an acute aversion to death and
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the pervasive suppression of associated emotions. Ariès identifies two prominent societal

shifts that significantly influenced the transformation of attitudes towards death during this

era. Firstly, the emergence of the hospital as a place of dying, and secondly, a burgeoning

societal sentiment emphasising the paramount importance of happiness in life. Consequently,

all facets related to illness and death witnessed an escalating trajectory of subjugation to

technical and medical control, culminating in the ultimate regulation of the dying process

itself. However, with the widespread adoption of cable televisions and growing interest in the

lives of celebrities among the masses, every aspect of their lives started to get documented

and served for consumption, even their deaths. The public broadcasting of the ‘event’ of the

deaths of renowned celebrities, the subsequent police investigation, and the burgeoning

tradition of social grieving (Elliott’s research on the cultural mourning of John Lenon can be

looked at) all contributed to what Whitaker claims, a “public reclaiming of death” (Whitakar

22). Death is taken away from its modernist remnants of a closeted, sequestered domain to

the space of public discussion. Thereby, facilitating a renewed interest (that can be displayed

and discussed in the public) in death, dying, and the afterlife. With that, there is a renewed

desire to communicate with the dead and transcend the boundaries of corporeal existence.

Digital necromancy, or the practice of digitally resurrecting dead actors from their graves,

enables this ‘post-death’ communication by facilitating posthumous appearances of dead

actors in films, advertisements, or concerts.

The origins of necromancy, as argued by Kapcár, can be traced back to the ancestor

cult of the Stone Age. However, what I am interested in is not the genealogy of necromantic

practices but how they have assumed a distinct characteristic in an age of technological

advancements and Taylorian secularity1. The word ‘necromancy’ was borrowed from the pre-

classical Greek word νεκρομαντεία (nekromanteía), consisting of two words: nekrós – νεκρός

(dead, corpse) and manteía – μαντεία (divination) (Kapcár32) In the context of digital
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necromancy as well, the advertising industry, capitalising on the perception of the deceased

as sagacious entities, often utilises them to endorse products. Production houses also leverage

the rhetorical potency inherent in the image or voice of deceased actors and tap into the

ingrained belief that the dead possess wisdom, making their messages more compelling and

credible. Here, the CGI artist can be equated with the modern-day necromancer who digitally

resurrects the image or the audio of the dead actor, while “we look at images of the dead with

a new perspective—the quest for knowledge, truth, or explanation.” (Sherlock 171)

One of the earliest literary accounts of necromancy can be found in Book XI of the

Odyssey (Kapeár 33), where, guided by the sorceress Circe, the protagonist Odysseus delves

into the underworld to glean insights into his impending journey homeward by raising the

spirits of the dead. Odysseus’ engagement with necromancy was not directed towards a

specific individual, despite his initial intent to consult Tiresias. Furthermore, the absence of

necromantic control over the dead is conspicuous; there is no manifestation of obedience or

obligation on the part of the summoned entities. Instead, they exhibit agency. In contrast,

digital necromancy diminishes this agency, reducing the resurrected images from ‘digital

crumbs’ of the deceased actor to mere tools manipulated by production houses for their own

interests. Traditionally, necromantic rituals were discreet and shrouded in privacy, and the

summoned dead remained confined to their realm, accessible only through ritualistic means

or with the sanction of a higher deity. Despite numerous mentions of necromancy in

literature, the specifics of its manifestations and rituals were often vaguely described.

However, the age of digital necromancy marks a departure from this ambiguity, embracing a

more transparent approach. Additionally, thanatechnology allows the creation of a digital

heaven, as claimed by Bassett, where they are not confined but ‘stored’ in a regulated

environment, characteristic of a distinct spatio-temporality where the timing and frequency of

‘summons’ can be controlled by the modern necromancer. In parallel with ancient beliefs,
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where a shaman might embark on an arduous journey to retrieve a stolen soul, contemporary

CGI artists undertake meticulous tasks to reconstruct the digital remnants of a deceased

individual. Yet the capabilities of CGI artists lack the supernatural attributes associated with

traditional necromancy, such as bilocation or the suspension of life for wisdom attainment.

Historical references by figures like Homer, Lucan, and Horace allude to the use of blood in

necromantic practices, signifying its role as a life force facilitating communication with the

dead. In a modern context, technology assumes the role of mediation between the realms of

the living and the deceased. However, the most notable shift in the practice of necromancy is

its extensive use for commercial benefits, thereby almost stripping away the cloak of enigma

it was endowed with.

From Unfinished Performances to Commodifying ‘Delebs’: The Role of Digital

Necromancy in Cinematic Afterlife

On the morning of November 28, 1981, Natalie Wood was found dead near Santa

Catalina Island under mysterious circumstances. The autopsy report found motion sickness

pills and painkillers in her bloodstream; the yacht’s captain reported a fight between Wood

and her husband, Wagner, on the previous night; two witnesses claimed to have heard a

woman scream for help on that very fateful night; and her sister raised concerns that how can

someone who feared water all her life leave her yacht all on her own to take a dinghy? All

these raised suspicion over her death, which was ruled to be accidental drowning and

hypothermia by the court. The mystery remains unsolved to date, and the investigation,

incomplete. But Wood’s untimely death had not only shocked the world but also had a

crippling effect on her last film, Brainstorm (1983), which was left incomplete. Although

most of the filming was done, some of the principal photography and special effects were still
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left. At a time when there was scarcely any technological assistance or studio backing2, the

director Trumbull had to rewrite the script to eliminate Wood’s character from those scenes

that were left unshot.

The demise of a leading actor during film production poses a dire challenge for

filmmakers. Historical instances reveal diverse strategies employed to salvage projects under

such circumstances and instances where films are completely abandoned. In the case of Jean

Harlow's incomplete scenes in Saratoga (1937), a stand-in was utilised, while for Robert

Walker's unfinished segments in My Son John (1952), reliance on outtakes from his prior

film, Strangers on a Train, became imperative. Marilyn Monroe’s Something’s Got to Give

was abandoned after her untimely death, and the raw, unedited footage remained in the vaults

until it was rediscovered in 1989. The footage underwent editing, condensing it to slightly

over 30 minutes for incorporation into a series of documentaries. Following James Dean's

fatal car crash days before the completion of his film Giant (1956), the climactic sequence

featuring Dean's character delivering a drunken speech had to be re-recorded by actor Nick

Adams, a close associate of Dean. when River Phoenix died due to an overdose during the

production of Dark Blood, the makers encountered the arduous task of completing the project

without him. As a result of many delays in reshooting and mounting production costs, it took

twenty years since Phoenix’s death to release the film. (Farber) However, with the advent of

technological advancements and a surge in production budgets, there was a gradual shift in

the filmmaking process. Especially during the 1990s, when CGI started to be used to digitally

‘replace’ or ‘impose’ a character’s face on a body double. A key example of this would be

Brendon Lee’s The Crow (1994), where Lee sustained injuries during an accidental prop gun

shooting and was later declared dead. Chad Stahelski, serving as Lee's stunt double,

functioned as a stand-in, and digital face replacement techniques were applied to overlay

Lee's face onto the double. Thus, Brendon Lee became the first dead actor to be recreated
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with CGI. (Grenier) With motion capture, enhanced 3D modelling, improvements in

texturing to generate photorealistic colours and details, and advancements in simulation,

composition, and 3D rendering, CGI evolved with time to recreate better graphics. From

Oliver Reed in Gladiator (2000) to Paul Walker in Fast and Furious 7 (2015), CGI helped

complete numerous unfinished films. The production houses were quick to realise the

potential of these new technological innovations, and the act of ‘forced recreation’ soon

turned into a ‘voluntary resurrection’ of dead celebrities, or ‘delebs’ as D’Razario might call

them, and turned it into a multi-million dollar venture. CGI was no longer used just to

complete the movies when their actors died midway but began to be used as a tool to

resurrect the dead and bring them back to the world for commercial benefits. This rapid

commodification of the dead actors, where they are converted into products for exchange,

symbolises the entrenched ideals of capitalism that “serves to reify human activity”

(Vandenberghe 25) and, in this case, exploits the ‘image’ of the dead. The commercialized

and mediatized public persona of a 'deleb' wields influence and has the potential to instigate

transformation. As argued by P. David Marshall in his essay “The Commodified celebrity-

self,” celebrities by their definition are both extra-textual and intertextual, as their influence

extends to different cultural spaces, endowing them with the capacity to sell goods and

services through their legacy and personal influence. Advertising agencies and production

houses exploit the potency of this image to sell their products or films to a larger audience.

This form of digital necromancy runs parallel with Kapcár’s notion of beneficial necromancy,

where necromancy is practised “to conjure a person that has some sort of knowledge about

events beneficial to the contractor” (Kapcár 53). An ancient literary example would be that of

Odysseus, who conjured Tiresias to learn the safe passage back to Ithaca. In an age where

necromancy is digitised and practised for its commercial benefits, advertisement agencies

resurrect delebs to promote their products. As was the case with Audrey Hepburn, whose face
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was digitally recreated from scratch for a Galaxy Silk advertisement in 2013, where the

makers claimed that it was a strategic and creative choice to have Audrey (who had been

dead for twenty years before the ad was released) since she represented “heritage, classiness,

and elegance” unmatched by anyone else and perfectly suited for their product. Other such

instances include the Johnnie Walker Blue Whisky advertisement, where Bruce Lee was

digitally reanimated to promote alcoholic substances, about which Lee himself once claimed,

“As for alcohol, I think it tastes awful.” Movies across genres have also used digital

necromancy to bring back dead actors, not because they died during the shoot but, in some

cases, to cash in on the legacy of the actor for commercial gains. In the past, both Peter

Cushing and Carrie Fisher have been digitally brought back to life by reenacting their roles in

the movies Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and Star Wars Episode IX (2019),

respectively. Remembered as a cultural icon of the 1960s, James Dean has been cast in a

movie called Back to Eden (perhaps a sequel to Dean’s East of Eden), where a digital clone

of the actor created using artificial intelligence and CGI will appear on the screen. But all is

not murky and lost. Digital necromancy is also used to raise awareness through the image of

prominent actors. A poignant example of it would be Bob Monkhouse, who was brought back

to life for an advertisement aimed at heightening awareness of prostate cancer, a disease that

had claimed his life four years ago, or when Joaquin Oliver, who tragically died in the

Parkland school shooting, was resurrected to feature in a gun safety voting campaign.

However, our understanding of digital necromancy would be reductive if we looked at it only

from the perspective of commercial gain for the filmmakers. The innate urge of the fans to

see their favourite actors back on screen, the constant desire for the actor’s presence, and the

difficulty in accepting the death of their favourite celebrity (thus somehow taking us back to

the lingering effects of the modern attitude of forbidden death) lead them to consume such

posthumous performances. These posthumous appearances, mediated by modern

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necromancers through the use of technological advancements, promise what I call a

‘cinematic afterlife’ to the actors. Borrowing the term ‘Digital Afterlives’, I propose that by

the technological resurrection of delebs, their cinematic career stretches beyond their mortal

existence, where an afterlife orchestrated by digital technology brings together their

‘cinematic crumbs’ or what Mitra might call ‘narbs’ to (re)enact or portray newer roles or

characters. The cinematic afterlife is, however, regulated by various forces, none of which

accentuate the individual’s agency. It promises ‘assisted immortality’ with the help of digital

technology, thereby blurring the notions of life and death where the ‘delebs’ are dangling in a

liminal space of mortal ‘death’ and digital or social ‘life’. An interesting distinction needs to

be drawn between ‘cinematic immortality’ and ‘cinematic afterlife’. In the former, the

cinematic frame serves as both an archival repository and a timeless canvas, which grants

actors an enduring presence beyond live performances. It acts as a metaphysical mediator,

transcending mortal limitations by capturing the essence of the actor in a visual continuum.

However, in the context of the cinematic afterlife, the actor's digital crumbs are reanimated

after their death, heralding a rebirth of their cinematic persona. But the digitally mediated

resurrection portrays an on-screen persona that diverges from the lived ‘image’ of the

celebrity. In the cinematic afterlife, what is shown on screen is not the life that preceded it but

the life that is given to the image of the deleb by the modern necromancer, divorced from any

agency of the deceased. The self is no longer of the actor but becomes an extension of the

necromancer or those involved in the creative process. This extension encompasses the words

spoken, deeds enacted, and emotions elicited on screen by the deleb. Consequently, it

delineates a paradigm where the authority of creative authorship prevails over the influence

of the original subject, raising serious ethical implications, which we shall discuss in the next

section.
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Digital Necromancy and Its Ethical Implications

While raising suspicions and concerns about the sanctity of death, Debra Bassett

introduced the term “digital zombies” in her essay “Who Wants to Live Forever? Living,

Dying, and Grieving in Our Digital Society” to describe the dead who are resurrected,

reanimated, and made digitally and socially ‘alive’. Bassett argued that these digital zombies

are both dead and alive at the same time; besides, they do things at death that they never did

while being alive. She claims that examples of digital zombies can be dead celebrities who

are used in advertisements. While recounting the digital resurrection of Bob Monkhouse, she

asserted that this ‘modern necromancy’ made Monkhouse an ‘accidental’ digital zombie.

Instances of other such digital zombies could be Tupac Shakur, Elvis Presley, and Roy

Orbison, who were digitally resurrected through holograms to perform ‘live’ after their

deaths. But such posthumous appearances, both in films, advertisements, and music concerts,

where the dead are summoned without any legal compliance with the dead artists, raise

severe ethical concerns. They spark fundamental queries concerning the proprietorship and

control of one's digital identity and the unauthorised resurrection of individuals without

explicit consent, along with the entitlement to dictate virtual representation. In some

instances, the family members of the dead permit such digital reanimation, but this also

underscores the critical question of whether the kin has the ethical right to consent to the use

of the digital remnants of the deceased. The emergence of digital necromancy, leveraging

digital data to recreate individuals, introduces profound ethical considerations. Another

ethical dimension in the domain of digital revival pertains to the commercialization of

personas belonging to deceased individuals. The use of CGI and AI-driven reanimated

figures for commercial purposes triggers inquiries about potential exploitation, preservation

of dignity, and respect for the deceased. The resurrection of deceased individuals in a digital
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format for purposes of entertainment, marketing, or other commercial pursuits raises

apprehensions regarding the “commodification and the possible exploitation of their likeness

in the absence of explicit consent.” (Hutson and Ratican 5) Such practices prompt reflections

on the ethical obligations of both companies and individuals involved in these ventures. This

can be true in the case of Hepburn’s Galaxy advertisement or screen appearances by James

Dean or Marlon Brando in Superman Returns (2006). Consequently, the digitally resurrected

persona “may inadvertently convey views or actions inconsistent with the deceased's lifetime

stance, leading to a misrepresentation that distorts the individual's legacy, misinforms

observers about their authentic character, and infringes upon their right to accurate

representation.” (Hutson and Ratican 5) A clear example of this would be the Johnny Walker

advertisement, where Bruce Lee is reanimated to promote an alcoholic beverage, something

he had avoided all his life. Moreover, as Bassett argued, “the digital version... would become

‘rogue’... technologically, this rogue digital zombie could ‘evolve’ as a separate ‘person’.”

This hints at the possibility of a rogue digital zombie, akin to a Frankenstein-like monster,

ceasing to identify with its creator and evolving (enacting) freely. Digital necromancy carries

several ethical implications, ranging from privacy to the ethics of commercialization, consent

procedures involving the deceased and their relatives, distortion of values, and the impact on

the grieving process.

The Strangeness of Grief and the Valley of Uncanny: The Audience in Digital

Necromancy

For the actor’s loved ones, these digital resurrections can be a disruption to their

grieving process. If looked at from the perspective of Kübler-Ross’ patient-focused,

death-adjustment pattern, this can act as a painful dislocation, which can disorient
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them and hurl them into an abyss of melancholy (in a Freudian sense). However,

from the lens of Klass et al. Continuing Bonds theory, digital necromancy can foster

newer connections for the actor’s loved ones, and this also includes their fans, who

can grieve and be at peace by constructing new relationships while seeing them on

screen in new roles. The consumption of digitally resurrected celebrities can also

highlight the difficulty in coming to terms with the actor’s death, where there is a

constant need for their presence to perhaps avoid the grimness and uncertainty of

being dead. This absent presence can be comforting for their fans and loved ones.

While digital necromancy can bring back the delebs from the realm of death to act

on screen, the experience can sometimes be creepy for the audience as well. Seeing

someone dead come ‘alive’ in a film can be unsettling for many. Especially when

the CGI renders the human eyes lifeless or makes the skin or facial features of the

digitally resurrected actor waxy or mechanical. This can produce a strange revulsion

towards such animated visuals, which appear nearly human but not entirely. When

Volkswagon made a commercial with Elis Regina, one of Brazil’s most renowned

musicians, it was unsettling for many who felt uncomfortable watching Regina in an

advertisement, knowing that she had died long ago and that the digital rendition

appeared uncanny for them. Coined by Masahiro Mori in 1970, the term “uncanny

valley” can be used to explain such peculiar aversion, which is rooted in an

evolutionary inclination to recoil from anything that appears diseased, unhealthy, or

otherwise aberrant. This phenomenon, often attributed to ‘pathogen avoidance,’

evokes an instinctual fear of mortality, as the facial expressions and appearance of

actors on screen bear a resemblance to lifeless puppets, thereby prompting viewers

to confront their own existential vulnerability. This concept of the uncanny is

intricately connected to themes of death and dead bodies, encapsulating elements

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that elicit feelings of dread and creeping horror, as elucidated by Freud. The

foremost challenge confronting digital necromancers resides in eroding the sensation

of the uncanny through the creation of more authentic visual representations. This

entails the endeavour to diminish the perceptible semblance of lifelessness in the

countenance of those resurrected on screen. However, the visuals may still evoke

feelings of dread and creepiness, stemming from the subconscious recognition of the

celebrity’s deceased nature. This complicates the reception and consumption of

digital necromancy, where on one hand, the audience might feel that it (re) connects

them with their favourite actor and helps them foster newer relationships with them;

on the other hand, it can evoke the valley of uncanny, making them feel unsettled

and eliciting their repressed fear of death.

Conclusion

Digital necromancy has blurred the boundaries between the living and the dead.

While some consider these technological advancements, which enable contact with

the dead, a disruption of cultural norms, others believe that they provide an

opportunity to reconnect with their favourite stars by prolonging their acting careers

and outliving their mortal existence. However, in a world of commodified images,

the ‘aura’ (as Benjamin would say) of the actors somehow gets diminished due to

the mass reproducibility of their soulless digital ‘crumbs’ that are knitted together by

a modern-day necromancer. While initially, films faced issues in completion due to

the deaths of their actors, the advent of technological mediation in filmmaking has

carved out a possibility for not just digitally resurrecting the actor for remaining

scenes but also entire movies from scratch to squeeze out the legacy of a celebrity.
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Despite the ethical concerns and the unsettling effects it has on its audience, digital

necromancy is here to stay and evolve with time. Its transition from bearing mystical

connotations and encompassing occult rituals to the digital coalescing of visuals to

resurrect delebs for commercial gains shows the shifting perspectives of our society.

Digital necromancy’s promise of a cinematic afterlife that can be both unsettling and

comforting for the audience reinforces our fascination with death, dying, and the

afterlife since antiquity, even in a secularised and rational society. We can see the

dead reanimated, rethought, and, dare I say, refurbished to bring to the world of the

living. This spectacle re-enchants our society and ushers us into an age where for the

“...first time in history, the living have been able to see the dead. That’s quite

something,,, a life after death.” (Gill 6)

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Notes

1. A society that could, in theory, be highly “secular” even if a significant

majority holds beliefs in a deity or follows a specific religious creed.

Secularity, in this context, pertains to shared societal conditions rather than

the prevalence of individual beliefs, encompassing a collective understanding

irrespective of individual faith or lack thereof.

2. The studio, MGM, which was behind the production of the film, wanted to

shut it down and claim insurance because they were going through a severe

financial crisis. (Farber)

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