Special Effects

Pierson suggests new ways of understanding special effects and the popular science-fiction that features them in an analysis ranging from popular science and magic in the late nineteenth century to Hollywood science fiction cinema in the late twentieth century. She examines the role popular publications—science, genre, and computer magazines—have played in the development of connoisseurship; and critiques how film and cultural studies scholarship on special effects has dealt with theorizing their reception. The book touches on landmark films that have shaped the place of special effects in contemporary cinema, including Star Wars, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Men in Black, and The Matrix.

Designed to trick the eye and stimulate the imagination, special effects have changed the way we look at films and the worlds created in them. Computer-generated imagery (CGI), as seen in Hollywood blockbusters like Star Wars, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Men in Black, and The Matrix, is just the latest advance in the evolution of special effects. Even as special effects have been marveled at by millions, this is the first investigation of their broader cultural reception. Moving from an exploration of nineteenth-century popular science and magic to the Hollywood science fiction cinema of our time, Special Effects examines the history, advancements, and connoisseurship of special effects, asking what makes certain types of cinematic effects special, why this matters, and for whom. Michele Pierson shows how popular science magazines, genre filmzines, and computer lifestyle magazines have articulated an aesthetic criticism of this emerging art form and have helped shape how these hugely popular on-screen technological wonders have been viewed by moviegoers.

Michele Pierson is lecturer in film studies and visual culture at the University of Queensland, Australia.

John McGowan-Hartmann:
[A] ground-breaking book... Pierson's journey through the history of special effects offers us an important new perspective which has previously been left out of cinema-related academia and formal criticism.

Intriguing.... This is not a 'nuts and bolts'history of onscreen magic, but a specific analysis of the 'cultural reception'that visual effects have enjoyed throughout the history of cinema.

Henry Jenkins, Director, Comparative Media Studies Program, MIT:
It is something of a cliché to think of special effects as 'movie magic,' but Pierson helps us to understand the substance behind that cliché, tracing our current fascination with computer-generated imagery back to discourses about magic and popular science in the late nineteenth century. Much as these earlier magicians helped to excite public interest and shape popular perceptions of emerging technologies, Pierson shows how CGI has become one of the most visible aspects of the digital revolution and how effects-laden films have often sought to examine their own precarious position somewhere between simulation and reality.