Under the risk of virtual reality

an analysis of the documentary Step to the Line

Abstract

This paper proposes a discussion about the effects of the rupture of the monocular frame of traditional cinema by virtual reality in the language of documentary. From the analysis of the film Step to the Line (Ricardo Laganaro, 2017), we seek to show that cinema can reach other levels of experience and, in the case of documentary, raise the risk of the real in the virtual environment through simultaneous multisensory stimuli generated by the computer. We begin the text with a brief review of the concept of virtual reality from the communicational point of view, and then discuss the new possibilities of inscription of documentary cinema provided by the panoptic dimension of this virtual medium. We are also interested in discussing some of the perspectives of Bill Nichols (2005) and Jean-Louis Comolli (2008) on the influence of subjective turns in the most recent transformations in documentary cinema.