The Autumn of the Heresiarch

In cinematic special effects we are treated to the interior void of the surface, opened to the spectacle of the spectacular, introduced to a pseudo-zen metaphysics built on the emptiness of the commodity, a spatialisation bootstrapped out of its ephemerality. The transcendence of the Hollywood baroque belongs to a social theory of power, and in the end to a social theory of colonial and imperial expansion, an achievement without  triumph, a victory without exaltation, a closure without fullness.