The Reality Effect: Film Culture and the Graphic Imperative

It used to be only movies were on film; now the whole world is. The most intimate and most banal moments of our lives are constantly recorded for public consumption. InThe Reality Effect,Joel Black argues that the desire to make visible every aspect of our lives is an impulse derived from cinema- one that has made life both more graphic and less "real." He approaches film as a documentary medium that has obscured-if not obliterated- the line between reality and fiction. To illustrate this effect, Black traces the uncanny interplay between movies and real-life events through a series of comparative analyses-fromLolitaand the murder of JonBenet Ramsey toWag the Dogand the Clinton scandal toCrashand Princess Diana's violent death.