Death and Respawning: Interactivity in Cinema and Video Games

Interactivity remains a concept associated primarily with video games. It makes sense on the surface; no other medium provides a player/viewer such direct control over how the text unfolds. The opportunity to control an avatar via some sort of physical interaction renders video games uniquely interactive, but that does not limit interactivity to video games alone. In fact, the overall perception of video games and interactivity as so closely related may be overly simplistic. This idea particularly precludes us from exploring the different orientations and modes of interactivity present in video games, but perhaps even more troubling is that it also fails to acknowledge how other mediums—cinema in particular—maintain their own modes of interactivity.

Of course, the term “interactivity” is a complicated one. The experience of watching film is certainly active in that we generate our own ideas and interpretations of the film’s plot points and themes as it unfolds, but that does not necessarily make it interactive. Film scholar Aaron Smuts explains that, to be interactive, “something must be responsive in a way that is neither completely controllable nor completely random” (54). This definition helps us understand how exactly film can be considered interactive, but it may first be more informative to understand the argument against the medium’s interactivity.

In his text "Simulation versus Narrative" Gonzalo Frasca expresses a confidence in games, or what he specifically refers to as simulations, as a landscape for interactivity that cinema simply cannot match. Frasca refers to filmmakers and writers as "narrauthors" and notes their texts lack the "'feature' of allowing modifications to the stories" (227). While this point is superficially true -- films can only follow one path no matter how formally innovative or experimental they are in their storytelling -- it fails to recognize film as an experience beyond just a narrative.

Ari Aster's Hereditary, released earlier this year, has been discussed as one of the scarier horror films in recent memory. Of course, its narrative is singular and immutable, but the film manages to scare its audience through what I'd describe as interactive moments. There are very few jump scares in the film, but rather scenes that require the viewer to explore the image and find the scares on his or her own. Hereditary therefore fits with Smuts’ definition of interactivity. The film provides viewers with the occasion to interact. Detecting Toni Collette’s Annie in the corner of the frame is not entirely under the viewer’s control, nor would seeing her be completely random. Hereditary thusly emphasizes exhibition over production, prioritizing the viewer's ability to look over that of the camera. We as viewers are not oriented towards interaction with the narrative of the film, nor is our interaction rooted in the specific characters in the film, the way it might be in a video game. Instead, the interactive nature of cinema is in regards to the onscreen image. Of course, many films still prioritize the camera's eye and therefore limit themselves in terms of interactivity. Still, by featuring elements of repetition and puzzle, films like Memento, The Truman Show, and Source Code similarly welcome interactivity. Their narratives may be singular, but they invite audiences to immerse themselves in the gathering of clues and unraveling of inconsistencies. These films are therefore interactive via their crafting of experience, if not narrative.

Source Code is particularly interesting to consider in regards to interactivity, as the film engages with a convention often associated with games: respawning. Colter Stevens is sent through a simulation over and over in an attempt to find and stop a bomber on a Chicago commuter train. Each time the bomb goes off, Stevens has to start over and correct his previous mistakes. We, like Stevens, can work to determine the identity of the bomber, and while the narrative of the film will obviously unfold regardless of our own involvement, there are enough clues to allow the viewer to “play along” and conduct their own investigation. But this remains interaction oriented towards a sort of puzzle element in the film, not towards the characters. In fact, our interaction with Source Code exists almost in spite of Stevens. Stevens may be a vessel for our interaction, but that does not come from an identification with or even an investment in his character. Even Stevens himself must solve his predicament via a total disregard for his simulated life. At one point, Stevens exits the train and confronts a man on a bench. When he realizes that this man is not the bomber, Stevens falls down onto the train tracks and willingly stays there until a train hits him and he can start over. This moment brings Source Code especially close to video games, as Stevens—like a player—accepts death as a means of restarting.This scene acts as a reminder that the film’s narrative is ultimately an authorial decision; perhaps we as the viewer may have made a different decision, but we are limited by the choices of director Duncan Jones. This idea could reveal the illusory nature of interactivity in film, but what is most important is that we do not fall into the trap of recognizing games as any different.

The repetitive respawning in Source Code is similar to Playdead’s Inside. The platformer features several sequences in which the player must advance through an area, and almost certainly face death on their first attempt. These moments are meant to educate the player on what to do the next time around, but what does that say about the interactivity of the game? While it is possible to interact with these sequences in any number of ways, the game orients its players towards a certain line of thinking. Just as the author’s presence is felt during Stevens’ intentional deaths in Source Code, it is felt in Inside as well. These deaths are not inevitably scripted, but they are still authored into the game. While the player may control the nameless protagonist of Inside, these moments remind us of the limited nature of the game’s interactivity. We are interacting with a world authored and designed by a team of developers, and doing so from a perspective constantly chosen and manipulated by those same developers. Interestingly, media scholar Alexander Galloway points out that "Hollywood almost universally removes the apparatus from the image" (114). But what Galloway seems to miss is that games are not removed from this tendency. Even as players are afforded control over an avatar, they are limited to a certain perspective. Frasca concedes this point, noting that the author in games will always "be able to decide the frequency and degree of events that are beyond the player's control" (228). But he still insists that interactivity in games is a unique and transparent tool for discussing social change. This approach acknowledges games as both narrative and experience. I agree with this assessment, even if interactivity and control in video games remains limited, and perhaps even feigned. It seems that video games are able to claim a greater extent of interactivity, partly due to their diegetic fluidity. Stevens’ deaths in Source Code are obviously still part of the diegesis, but is dying in a video game like Inside still diegetic? While it is obviously a function of the game to die and respawn, we are still briefly taken out of the diegesis when our game must restart. Still, Inside is unique in that it features no loading screen after the avatar dies, attempting to keep the player in the game as much as possible. But the deaths in Source Code and the deaths in Inside are all authored, even if one can be disguised under a more complicated idea of a diegesis. An approach to video games that accounts for creators as auteurs -- a lens most scholars, including Frasca, are willing to look at cinema through -- might finally allow us to think more critically about the role authorship plays in games, and how that reveals the limits of their interactivity. Conversely, an approach to cinema that acknowledges its interactive potential as an experience, if not a narrative, might further reveal the medium's potential as a social force.

Frasca, Gonzalo. "Simulation Versus Narrative: Introduction to Ludology." In The Video Game Theory Reader, 243-58: Routledge, 2013.

Galloway, Alexander R. Gaming Essays on Algorithmic Culture. Electronic Mediations 18. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

Smuts, Aaron. 2009. "What Is Interactivity?" Journal of Aesthetic Education 43 (4):53-73. doi: 10.1353/jae.0.0062.