DATABASE LOGIC, INTERACTIVE

NARRATIVE AND FILMS

MIKLÓS SÁGHY

Database Logic and Narrative

Not only is it a well-known fact, but also it is our common experience

that at the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st, a series

of critical changes was taking place in the history of media: digital data

storage and computers were both gaining ground, and, at the same time but

not independently, previously used data storage devices (books, photos, etc.) were merging into new devices. Photo based moving picture was no

exception to this process, as this latter greatly transformed cinematographic

distribution, storage and production mechanisms and procedures. No

lengthy statistics are necessary to demonstrate the changing rate of those

who watch films on a computer screen or in movie theatres, or the

changing proportions of time spent with shooting a film with actors

(weeks or months) and the years spent with digital post-production.

Another well-known tendency is the fact that distribution companies

prefer digital, even online distribution to the production and shipping of

expensive copies. Or, in other words, the whole spectrum of filmic

existence is permeated with digital culture.

Taking into consideration the procedures affecting media and film history lightly touched upon above raises the question whether these

fundamental historical changes in the media influenced the language or

techniques of narration as well. And in case of a positive answer: how and

to what extent are well-established procedures transformed?

Answering “yes” seems to be evident and one can quickly affirm it as

films like Avatar (James Cameron, 2009), Clash of the Titans (Louis

Leterrier, 2010), or Terminator Salvation (Joseph McGinty Nichol, 2009)

and others would not have been possible, had it not been for decades of

development of various software and hardware. Films like the ones

previously mentioned have brought something new to the fore, namely, the

achievements of novel digital technologies allowing for the pinnacle of

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photorealistic representation of reality. Or, to put it differently, these films

have pioneered the development of reality-based reference-driven aesthetics.

In this sense, feature films like the ones mentioned here simply enhance

through digital means what was aimed at by analogue technologies, that is

reality and photorealistic credibility (including the increase of the

photorealistic credibility of possible or fantasy universes). The “old” goals

and “old” procedures of the analogue mediums are transferred to the

context of “new” digital mediums, or, to use Bolter and Grusin’s term:

they remediate the old medium in the context of the new one.1

Two questions remain: in terms of moving picture in general, on the

one hand, is the digital revolution that is permeating the film industry a mere remediation, and, on the other hand, have contemporary medial

(trans)formations really left the language and narration practically

unchanged?

Answering these questions is to be started with cataloguing those

features that characterize computers, the fundamental medium of the

digital age, and then taking this list of characteristic features and checking

them against the corresponding features of films. Inventorying the medial

features of computers exhaustively and comprehensively exceeds

obviously the limitations of this paper, so we'll foreground the brief

overview of those (medial) features only that play a more important role in

the argumentation. As contemporary human culture and medial environment is basically

defined by computers, and mimicking the workings of the Gutenberg

galaxy, the metaphor of book culture, not surprisingly, the fundamental

theoretical metaphor for the digital age has become the software, or, to

refer to a more complete human experience: the cultural software.

According to J. M. Balkin, this metaphor merely refers to the comparison

of a culturally overarching principle or mechanism with software “that is

installed on a computer and that allows a computer to process information.

Simply put, cultural software enables and limits understanding as software

1 Cf. Bolter and Grusin (1999). In a way, all new mediums or technical devices undergo a remediation phase: if we take the first cars, they resembled buggies, or to put it differently, they recontextualized them under new machine-operated circumstances so that the new invention would appear to the users under the guise

of something familiar, and, consequently, something easily acceptable. Or, in a similar way, information appearing on the monitors of computers also mimics the format of previous mediums (television and books) depending on the nature of information: (moving) pictures or texts even though the storage and management of these happens digitally. That is, these media forms are remediated by computers.

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enables and limits a computer” (Balkin 1998, 4). The metaphor of cultural

software as proposed by Balkin is not different from the notion of

ideology, since similarly to a dominant ideology, human relationships,

behavioural patterns, procedures, etc. are either controlled and limited by

cultural software as well, or supported if that is what is needed by the

ideology. After this explanation, it is, therefore, an inevitable question how

the inherent operational properties of the new medium (computers) – or to

quote Marshall McLuhan, its medial message(s) – influence the workings

of the cultural software, or, to put it differently: the new ideology. Or, how

is the metaphor influenced by its literal meaning or its objective, real,

medial realization? In numerous texts, Lev Manovich analyses thoroughly the workings of

contemporary culture as characterised by a certain focus on computers

(operated by computers). One of his many piercing insights is that

database logic has become a dominant principle in sorting information,

following the logic of computers and the way in which these latter process

and store information. Or, to quote his words “after the novel, and

subsequently cinema, privileged narrative as the key form of cultural

expression of the modern age, the computer age introduces its correlate –

the database. Many new media objects do not tell stories; they do not have

a beginning or end; in fact, they do not have any development,

thematically, formally, or otherwise that would organize their elements into a sequence. Instead, they are collections of individual items, with

every item possessing the same significance as any other” (Manovich

2001, 218).

In the quote above it can already be seen that Manovich contrasts

narratives (as organizational forms) with databases (as forms of

information storage). Later, supporting his point with ample examples, he

characterizes the database as an easily distinguishable structure, or “as a

cultural form, the database represents the world as a list of items, and it

refuses to order this list. In contrast, a narrative creates a cause-and-effect

trajectory of seemingly unordered items (events). Therefore, database and

narrative are natural enemies” (Manovich 2001, 225). He proceeds then

with asking the question which of the two cultural forms will win this contemporary rivalry, or, in other words, whether in computerized culture,

narratives and databases have the same status.2 The answer then is as

follows: “database and narrative do not have the same status in computer

culture […] a database can support narrative, but there is nothing in the

2 Manovich (2001, 233–234) remarks that this contrast is not newly discovered since storing knowledge in novels or in encyclopedias meant a clear distinction already in the 18th century.

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logic of the medium itself that would foster its generation. It is not

surprising, then, that databases occupy a significant, if not the largest,

territory of the new media landscape. What is more surprising is why the

other end of the spectrum – narratives – still exist in new media”

(Manovich 2001, 228).

Manovich seems to be taking the side of databases, and if we may say

so, at the expense of narratives: the fact that these latter are still around is

presented as a surprise in the quote above. Manovich argues therefore that

today (as a result of the new medium) the database logic gains control over

more and more areas. These changes however cannot be fully traced back

to such unidirectional mechanisms as first computers came along (with databases and operations) and then database logic started to gain ground.

On the contrary, Manovich describes a dynamic relationship between them

in terms of the process above where (postmodern) social changes play a

role, as influential as the appearance of computers. And, this latter did not

happen out of the blue either, but was brought to life or at least was

necessitated and made possible as a result of philosophical and cultural

processes. In The Language of New Media, Manovich quotes Jean-

François Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition, published in 1979, in

which, according to Manovich, the French philosopher already predicted

the possibility of a “computerized society.” Manovich interprets this

foresightful Lyotardian vision as a prophecy on the new, database logic type of organizational structure of human experience. In the same text, he

also interprets the Lyotardian description of the disappearance of grand

narratives as a possibility for the advancement of database logic because

“if after the death of God (Nietzsche), the end of grand Narratives of

Enlightenment (Lyotard), and the arrival of Web (Tim Berners-Lee), the

world appears to us as an endless and unstructured collection of images,

texts, and other data records, it is only appropriate that we will be moved

to model it as a database” (Manovich 2001, 219).

Having established the contemporary dominance of databases,

Manovich formulates the demand for the development of “a poetics,

aesthetics, and ethics of this database” in case his assessment is

appropriate. This thought leads us back to the domain of cinema and moving pictures since if database logic has aesthetic consequences, then

the question arises whether these influences resulting in poetic and

aesthetic changes can be detected in cinema as well. Or, in simpler terms,

has database cinema appeared and can we expect more of it?

If one takes into consideration and scrutinizes Hollywood movies like

the ones mentioned already (Avatar, Terminator Salvation, etc.) and as

mentioned above, the notion of remediation rather than revolutionary

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change becomes relevant because in these works photorealistic (to largest

possible extent) imagery, linear, cause-and-effect narration, and invisible

editing are still decisive. In a previous text quoted from Manovich, he

himself refers to films as the embodiment of narrative logic. Even though

he modifies this opinion (several times) and he shades it to say that

“cinema already exists right at the intersection between database and

narrative,” we believe Manovich argues that film industry is not yet

impacted and transformed by database logic that would radically modify

the narrative structure of its products. As Manovich alludes, humans want

new media narratives “and we want these narratives to be different from

the narratives we have seen or read before” (2001, 237). Or, more radically put, “we do expect computer narratives to showcase new

aesthetic possibilities that did not exist before digital computers. In short,

we want them to be new media specific” (Manovich 2001, 237).

Having said that, Manovich also formulates a demand for a new way in

which the database and the narrative should merge and for the shifting of

films towards database logic (cf. 2001, 243). A positive and successful

example of the application of database logic from the 20th century is the

work of Peter Greenaway. In his films linear narratives are moved to the

background in order for the numerical layout to be foregrounded. Or, as

Manovich puts it, Greenaway’s “favorite systems are numbers. The

sequence of numbers acts as a narrative shell »convinces« the viewer that she is watching a narrative. In reality, the scenes that follow one another

are not connected in any logical way. By using numbers, Greenaway

‘wraps’ a minimal narrative around a database” (Manovich 2001, 238).

Besides Greenaway, Manovich considers Man with a Movie Camera

(Chelovek s kino-apparatom, 1929) by Dziga Vertov as the most

prominent database film of the 20th century. He describes it as follows: “In

one of the key shots, repeated a few times throughout the film, we see an

editing room with a number of shelves used to keep and organize the shot

material. The shelves are marked »machines« »club« »the movement of a

city« »physical exercise« »an illusionist«, and so on. This is the database

of the recorded material. The editor, Vertov’s wife, Elizaveta Svilova, is

shown working with this database – retrieving some reels, returning used reel, adding new ones” (2001, 239–240). According to Manovich, the

structure of Man with a Movie Camera is, therefore, characterised by

database logic.

Zoltán Dragon in an article entitled Software and films: the place of

films in digital culture uses more radical terms than Manovich about the

future of databases in films. According to his views, database logic seeped

into the logic of so called classic filmic narration techniques, or, in other

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words, he claims that the effect of computers on cinema is not superficial

(remediating), but a lot deeper than imagined by most theoreticians and

analysts.3 According to Dragon, “several examples could be cited where

the operation and logic of the cinematic narration is modified in such a

way that those particular features are changed that are considered

fundamental and classic. Two films released in the same year, Run Lola

Run (Lola rennt, Tom Tykwer, 1998) and Sliding Doors (Peter Howitt,

1998) both used a certain narration technique that had obviously been

adapted successfully from the narrative structure of computer games to the

screen. This narrative logic breaks away from classic cinematographic

narration and draws on the database logic that generates it” (Dragon 2009). Another definition worth mentioning from the same paper by Dragon is in

which he distinguishes one organizational logic from the other: “the basic

difference between classic narration and database logic lies in the fact that

while the former presents itself as a chain of apparently structurally

discrete events of cause-and-effect, the latter manages events and other

»ingredients« as a non-sequential list or series with no order whatsoever

assigned to them, let alone consequential” (2009). Moreover, as examples

for database logic, Dragon cites computer or internet films like Soft

Cinema or Animoto video expanding this list with online interactive films.

Manovich also mentions similar multimedia projects to exemplify

database logic and specifically points out pioneers of computer graphics for pictures and films like John Witney, Frieder Nake or Manfred Mohr.

At the same time, it is also important to understand that possible

database logic in films like Run Lola Run [Fig. 1.] or Sliding Doors [Fig.

2.] is different from computer films or multimedia projects referred to in

the papers quoted above. The former ones are classified as commercial

films, whereas (the vast majority of) the latter ones as avant-garde or

experimental movies. The distinction is important to emphasize because

the two categories signal two different film making processes and

aesthetics; it is safe to assume, therefore, that the issue at hand will surface

in different ways and forms in the two distinct categories. As far as we

know, Manovich does not refer to films from the first, mainstream

category that embody cutting-edge database logic but settled with avant-garde and experimental films (see his references to Vertov and

Greenaway), Dragon, however, strives to expand the take of this logic to

Hollywood productions as well.

3 In the article in question, Dragon (also) argues against remediation theories that ignore fundamental and far-flung changes.

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Even so, it is also important that one of the examples used by

Manovich, Man with a Movie Camera, was produced before the

appearance and prevailing of computers, hence it is probably not the best

choice to illustrate a proposition that seeks to explain the database logic of

films by the appearance of digital mediums. Moreover, it could also be

claimed that film history has offered many film-makers like Fernand

Léger, René Claire or Man Ray, who did not (always) endeavour to create

cause-and-effect narratives but, according to the definition above,

produced database films. Or, more simply put, dadaism should also be

called a database logic-driven artistic movement because there can be no

other classification for a poem made out of words cut from newspapers and then arbitrarily assembled – a poem by Tristan Tzara’s definition –,

but the non-sequential (or, in other words, ordered by a random algorithm)

word-set of data. Can we really talk of a cultural effect of database logic of

digital mediums insofar as there has always been a branch in avant-garde

movements that set as an objective the transformation of unordered (or at

least ordered along non-linear narratives) elements into a work of art?

Shouldn't we rather say that a certain thing got remediated which has

always been present in avant-garde movements since the early 1900s? Or,

in other words, something (database logic) that used to be played down (as

the empty games of avant-gardists) is now foregrounded? Can database

logic, so far observed as an avant-garde cinematographic procedure, really seep into and be transposed to mainstream films? Can the revolution of

digital mediums, parallel with the expansion of computers in the film

industry, instigate such a change as foretold by Dragon?

It seems to me the answer is “no” because this logic would be quite far

from the original logic that produced these pictures, and far from those

aesthetic principles (however shallow they may be) that drive these genre

movies. In an overly simplified way, the logic of the majority of pictures

(ranging from family photos to Playboy-style nude photos of women) can

be described in the following way: images surrounding us create an

alternative universe, a universe in which things can be categorized,

arranged, touched and, not least importantly, owned and appropriated. The

basis of this feature of images is that they are placed before reality and instead of representing the world, they falsify it and eventually people start

living in function of pictures, created by people. According to Susan

Sontag, images arrange the world for us in such a way that we want to see

it. Or, as she puts it, “‘our era’ does not prefer images to real things out of

perversity but partly in response to the ways in which the notion of what is

real has been progressively complicated and weakened” (1999, 84).

Roland Barthes traces back the popularity of twentieth century (popular)

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myths, including mythical stories in films, to similar reasons. Arranging

and ordering the world is presented as possible in these myths and they

also offer the joy of a perfect comprehension of reality “in which signs,

unimpeded, and with no contradiction or loss of meaning can eventually

be in a harmonious relationship with reasons” (1983, 25).

The logic of images, therefore, simplifies, arranges, synthesizes and

provides the possibly complicated looking at things (in the world) with a

reduced narrative. The possibility of exploding these coherent world

explanations into an unordered system of data contradicts this logic. I do

not believe that such a destructive procedure would satisfy mass needs and

if somebody would want to make a fortune with such a data-movie, we doubt that they would succeed as it would be completely the opposite of

the logic of mass culture (which, as explained above, simplifies,

schematizes and appropriates). The apotheosis of this flood of images, the

computer, cannot turn against its own logic that actually brought it into

being.

If one reconsiders the filmic examples cited by Dragon in order to

prove the influence of database logic on narration in Hollywood films, it is

easy to see that in these films there is also a cause-and-effect narration

style, contradicting database logic. Run Lola Run and Sliding Doors both

focus exactly on the fact that different causes result in very different fates,

or, in other words, in different effects. An event that is seemingly accidental (Helen, the protagonist catches the train or not, for example)

will turn out to be a very important cause of the event happening

subsequently. Different causes lead to different effects and consequences

in both films. So, if we accept Dragon's definition above stating that a

classic narrative “presents itself as a chain of apparently structurally

discrete events of cause-and-effect” then we cannot, at the same time,

accept the popular films he cites as examples for database logic because in

those films, possible worlds and fates presented as consequences are very

tightly connected to different causes, so, in this regard, they are epitomes

of classic narratives.

I can only mention one recent Hollywood movie, Inception (Christopher

Nolan, 2010), that would partially fit the criteria of database logic. [Fig. 3.] In this movie, causes and effects are frequently in the background,

giving the spotlight to an inexplicable series of dream events (approaching

the database structure as defined above). Having seen the film, however,

several questions remain unanswered based on the internal logic of the

film. For example, if the protagonist had entered limbo earlier, why didn’t

he get older like his Japanese partner did who arrived later? Or, how could

they come back with one jump from limbo, the fourth level of dreams,

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without having to pass through all levels while all the others had to go

through the levels, one by one? Or yet another question: if those people

who participated in a collective dream can recognize each other when

awake, then why doesn't the man in whose subconscious mind they want

to plant a certain idea recognize them after awakening? The list of

questions with no answers is a lot longer of course, proving that the cause-

and-effect system of the film is unfounded. Does this disintegrating cause-

and-effect structure mean that this film has entered the sphere of database

logic as suggested by Dragon’s definition? Or has it entered the sphere of

dream logic? Or has is simply remained in the sphere of Hollywood where

the key perspective is the constant good looks of an actor (Leonardo Di Caprio), rather than the internal logic of the film according to which he is

supposed to get old and ugly, just like his Japanese partner?

Whatever the name of these logical jumps is eventually (dream logic,

database logic, etc.) I don’t think their presence could be increased more in

commercial films than in Inception. The amazing shots can cover for

causal inconsistencies for a limited amount of time, but as far as we are

concerned, they are not likely to overwrite the fundamental linear narrative

logic of films. Or, in other words, more people can be expected to click on

torrent sites to download easily understandable narrative movies than on

sites like Soft Cinema in order to experiment with the questioning of good

old narration techniques for their own amusement.

Database or Interactive Narrative?

As far as I can tell, mainstream films lend themselves more easily to

categorization based on the narrative techniques of video games rather

than based on the logic of databases. Sliding Doors and Run Lola Run, the

two aforementioned films build on the (narrative) logic of alternate universes and imitate the structures created by video games in as much as

they allow for the possibility of taking multiple directions in virtual spaces

(in terms of the gamer’s skills, familiarity with rules, etc.). In Tom

Tykwer’s film, Lola, the protagonist's actions have a considerable

influence on the outcome of events (her deeds and decisions affect the

three narratives), and in video games alike it's the failures and successes of

the “protagonist” characters (controlled by the users) which influence the

outcome of the interactive “story.” In Sliding Doors, Helen, the

protagonist is quite limited in her actions; she is the passive sufferer of

interventions (first a little girl steps in front of her by chance and she is

held up whilst running and can’t catch the train, and the second time, she

eventually makes it to the train) and she cannot influence her own fate,

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unlike an action character in a game, controlled from the outside. At the

same time, however, both films create several alternate universes and the

(diverse) story lines in those pass through the recurring data or base items

(that appear in all story variants), similarly to the workings of an algorithm

linking the items of a database.

It is important to emphasize, however, that the game narrative and

database logic are not each other’s enemies because the intricate

operations of digital databases are the sine qua non of computer games.

Despite all this, I am convinced that when we examine the narration

techniques of contemporary mainstream movies, we can actually only

detect the effects of the narratives of computer games, but cannot perceive those of data-base logic. In order to prove this point, let us examine first

the relationship between database logic and computer games.

In The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich defines a database as a

cultural form which “represents the world as a list of items, and it refuses

to order this list” (2001, 225). In his understanding, “the most obvious

examples [of databases] are popular multimedia encyclopedias, collections

by definition, as well as other commercial CD-ROM (or DVD), that

feature collections of recipes, quotations, photographs, and so on” (2001,

219). Disorder, it seems, is an important criterion for Manovich in the

definition of databases. He does not consider computer games databases,

and, what is more, when he refers to the idea that all new media objects are not databases, he specifically quotes these structures: “Of course not

all new media objects are explicitly databases. Computer games, for

instance, are experienced by their players as narratives. In a game, the

player is given a well-defined task – winning the match, being first in a

race, reaching the last level, or reaching the highest score. It is this task

which makes the player experience the game as a narrative” (Manovich

2001, 221– 222). From the point of view of the user, therefore, the

computer game appears to be a story, where everything is motivated and is

in a causal relationship with her gaming activities. Manovich uses a

technical term from computer science, algorithm, to name this specific

game logic because “while computer games do not follow database logic,

they appear to be ruled by another logic – that of an algorithm. They demand that a player executes an algorithm in order to win. An algorithm

is the key to the game experience in a different sense as well. As the player

proceeds through the game, she gradually discovers the rules which

operate in the universe constructed by this game. She learns its hidden

logic, in short its algorithm” (222). As you can see, Manovich isolates the

database from the algorithm and describes the latter as a structure that

orders unordered sets of data into various forms and relations. Obviously,

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in one database, several algorithms can run, and, consequently, a host of

algorithms can be linked with a particular database. At the same time,

however, the two cannot be separated from each other because (unordered)

databases and algorithms are the two halves of a computer's ontology.

“Data structures and algorithms drive different forms of computer culture.

CD-ROMs, Web sites, and other new media objects organized as

databases correspond to the data structure, whereas narratives, including

computer games, correspond to algorithm” (Manovich 2001, 226).

According to Manovich, a database and an algorithm are thus like the

recto and verso of the same system. He also considers algorithms to be

related to narratives in a certain sense. More specifically, he assumes a narrative to be a special algorithm which realizes one of all possible

algorithms (these latter are also known as a hypernarrative). Or, as he

himself proposes, a “traditional linear narrative is one among many other

possible trajectories, that is, a particular choice made within a

hypernarrative” (Manovich 2001, 227), in this respect, a computer game

offers a plethora of algorithms among which only one is realized in the

given game by the player who creates the current narrative of the game.

Because of the presence of choices, an algorithm, therefore, is much more

than a traditional narrative as the former is one single variation among

many, whereas the latter is the only option that cannot be modified.

Having said that, it is essential to see that the game never presents itself as a database to the user, who has an overview of the connections of

the current algorithm only. The units of the database so ordered are

perceived, therefore, as the units of a narrative and not as unordered items

of a database. Had it been the unordered items of a database, the

experience couldn't be considered a game. Or, in other words, it is

impossible to experience database and algorithm/narrative at the same

time during a game. I am either creating a narrative because I am playing

or I am facing an unordered set of items of a database which has nothing

to do with my notion of a game. Algorithms and data are two sides of a

thing, suggests Manovich, adding that the two cannot exist without each

other. The user, however, cannot experience the two at the same time.

In order to see the crux of the matter, let us see an example from a movie. In one of the scenes in The Matrix (Andy Wachowski and Larry

Wachowski, 1999), on board of a ship called Nebuchadnezzar, Neo and

Cypher are staring at the screens of the control panels and pointing at the

downward flowing characters Cypher says that he has learned to see them

the code as blonds and brunettes. [Fig. 4.] The scene is funny because as

long as you can see the alphanumeric codes of digital data, you cannot see

the world, the matrix, and the attractive women built from them. At best, a

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programmer or a cryptographer can be assumed to know what forms or

changes (lovely women) are generated in the matrix. Neo is the only one

who is given the possibility to see or to experience the digital code and the

world built from it at the same time but in the story of The Matrix, he

becomes a divine creature because he can transcend the dichotomy of

human perception (he is “the Chosen One”).

Consequently, when we want to compare computer games with other

mediums, e.g. with films, we need to determine which aspect of the

computer game will be in focus. We cannot examine the logic of

algorithms and the logic of databases under the same circumstances due to

the radically different experiences of the two. Because at the moment narrative films are under scrutiny, it seems to be practical to foreground

the game-algorithms. Or, in other words, if we want to know how the logic

of computer games affected films, it is advisable to compare films,

creating a narrative with the algorithm-logic and not the database

structures of computer games. Databases and narratives are so very

different from each other that it is very difficult to place them in the same

theoretical framework. Narratology, for example, cannot even be

considered because databases are not narratives and when they become

one, they cease to be databases. In short: they are incompatible categories.4

That is why I have already suggested to replace the unsuitable database

vs. (film) narrative framework with an axis with “traditional” narratives on one end and interactive narratives of computer games on the other end.

This would offer a space between the two extremes for the description of

the changes in the narrative techniques of mainstream movies prompted by

the new media. Ludology (game studies) will provide the theoretical

framework for this as it examines thoroughly the issues of differences and

similarities of algorithms (interactive narratives) of video games and

narratives of traditional films. It is easy to see that it is in the vested

interest of ludology to separate the two as discreetly as possible and to

prune the new approach from those narrative analyses that attempt to

describe video games as traditional stories without taking their special

characteristics into account. There are several papers in ludology which

illustrate very tangibly the interactive (and not static) nature of the stories in video games pointing out several narrative trajectories and algorithms

offered to the player who can only realize one, based on her skills and

4 Obviously, this statement is only valid as long as we include the criteria of no order and no causality in the definition of databases. Manovich himself disregards these criteria, for example when he calls the footage of film production “databases” even though it was shot in terms of a larger system: the overarching narrative of the film, so they are quite ordered materials (cf. 2001, 236).

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activity. Each game creates an algorithm of the hypernarrative, the name

given by Manovich to the sum of all the trajectories intersecting in the

database, realizing one of the theoretically infinite number of possibilities.

As I already pointed out, the alternative universes represented in Run

Lola Run and Sliding Doors can be described as the manifestations of

several different algorithms, a characteristic feature of video games, within

one single film. Even though the different story lines are not identical with

the interactive narratives of video games, they however are manifestations

of parallel universes illustrating how the different choices of the

protagonist result in different ends and can thus imitate the logic of

restarting a game. The narrative technique in Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993) can

also be analyzed in terms of the influence of interactive game narratives.

Phil, the protagonist in the film is obliged to behave like a character who is

doomed to retry again and again a particular level until he succeeds in

completing all the “tasks” necessary for “winning” (learning to play the

piano, becoming cultured, becoming nice, polite, etc.). For Phil, the

“course” to run is February 2 and he cannot leave until he becomes a better

man and wins his colleague's, Rita's love. This is such a closed “course”

that even suicide does not provide Phil with an escape route (even though

he actually tries to commit suicide several times, in all sorts of different

ways in his desperations) as after his death (as if a caption said game over), he goes back to square one: 6 a.m. on Groundhog day, starting

anew, a fresh 24-hour cycle on the same old well-known course. As the

reruns give him not only a familiarity with the course but also a deeper

understanding of who he is, he is evolving which turns out to be the

essential prerequisite to completing the seemingly unbeatable level. By the

end of the film, Phil, of course, becomes a better man (player) and can

leave February 2 behind and move to the next level of the game: “being in

a relationship”.

Computer games are characterized by loops and as a result of the

influence of digital mediums on films, this loop logic can actually be

found in films. Lev Manovich explains in his work cited above that

grouping chains of data in short, repeated loops was a popular device applied by digital media programmers in the 90s in order to use the limited

memory of computers as economically as possible. Computer games also

draw heavily on loops. “Since it was not possible to animate every

character in real time, the designers stored short loops of character’s

motion – for instance, an enemy soldier or a monster walking back and

forth – which would be recalled at the appropriate times in the game”

(2001, 265). A filmic example for a game loop could be found in eXistenZ

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(David Cronenberg, 1999) because there are halted and frozen characters

in it, repeating the same movements; or similar loops can be seen in The

Matrix, where glitches in the virtual world result in loops, warning the

characters: Neo and his comrades are warned by a black cat passing by

them twice, repeating the loop (program), signalling to them the imminent

arrival of the agents.

The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998) is a good example of films

where we can detect a loop-form: the universe of the protagonist, Truman

is a studio full of loops, so, like in computer games, the infinite

possibilities of reality cannot be reproduced within the limits of a game

show, as it would require an infinite amount of energy and an infinite number of people. Therefore, Truman’s immediate world and the

movements of his acquaintances are grouped into short loops. A nice and

funny example for a filmic loop structure is the scene where Truman,

starting to become suspicious, uncovers a story loop. He makes his

girlfriend watch how a lady on a bicycle, a man with flowers and a VW

Beetle pass them (again) in the (usual) order set by the director. And when

it all happens, the loop finishes a full cycle, and he is delighted to declare

to his girlfriend his ability to foretell what is going to happen. [Fig. 6.] He

understood the operations of the loop, and so his suspicion grows about

the world he lives in, that it might be as well-designed and well-calculated

as a soap-opera. To summarize, I believe that even though databases and computer

games (algorithms) are as inseparable as two sides of the same coin, it is

only valid to compare (filmic) narratives with the latter, interactive

narratives. I stand by this choice even if in the majority of recent films

database logic does play a very significant role, making the existence and

eventually the generation of digital images possible. Database logic is not

a narrative category. As Zoltán Dragon puts it, “if we speak of a computer

game, one of its fundamental building blocks is database, its organization

and logical structure, however, does not necessarily have to be database-

like” (2011). The ontological inseparability of the two, nevertheless, does

not motivate the adoption of the same theoretical framework, narratology,

for their examination. When such comparisons do appear, I tend to liken these comparative (intermedial) investigations to the efforts of trying to

understand the aesthetic “message” of a bronze figurine through the

inventory of the physical properties of bronze: its melting point, its

ultimate strength, its electrical and heat conductivity, and other

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aesthetically irrelevant properties.5 I am not claiming that these properties

cannot become important at one point or other in the process of the

interpretation of a statue, but I am not sure they would necessarily lead to

a more profound understanding of the figure, event, or rather the whole

work of art. 6

References

Balkin, J. M. 1998. Cultural Software. A Theory of Ideology. New Haven

and London: Yale University Press.

Barthes, Roland. 1983. Mitológiák. [Mythologies], Budapest: Európa

Kiadó.

Bolter, Jay David and Grusin, Richard. 1999. Remediation. Understanding

Media. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.

Dragon Zoltán. 2009. A szoftver és a film: a film helye a digitális

kultúrában. [Software and films: the place of films in digital culture].

Apertúra 2009/winter. http://apertura.hu/2009/tel/dragon

Dragon Zoltán. 2011. A film a digitalizáció korában [Films in the Digital Age]. Apertúra 2011/Spring. http://apertura.hu/2011/tavasz/dragon

Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA and

London: MIT Press.

Sontag, Susan. 1999 [1977]. The Image-World. In Visual Culture, eds.

Jessica Evans and Stuart Hall, 80–94. New Delhi: SAGE Publications.

5 Of course, those works of art that focus on their own materiality reflexively are excluded from this comparison. 6 The research for the article was supported by the János Bolyai Research Fund in Hungary.

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Figures Figure 1. Run Lola Run, (Tom Tykwer, 1998)

Figure 2. Sliding Doors (Peter Howitt, 1998)

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Figure 3. Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

Figure 4. The Matrix (Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski, 1999)

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Figure 5. Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)

Figure 6. The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998)