Proximity and Power: Shakespearean and Cinematic Space

It is the odd fate of cinematic representation to be at once infinitely more fragile than its theatrical counterpart and infinitely more robust. Film occurs in a kind of virtual space. Lacking a dimension lacks a basic presence in the world we live in. Nothing in a film can touch or be touched. It is pure apparition, insubstantial but unchangeable, like the ghost of Hamlet's father. Touching this vision here, / It is an ghost, that let me tell you (I. v. 143-144), says Hamlet, but all he is saying is that the ghost resists reference (touching), since will transpire that honest only means that really is a ghost. Film is pure apparition, but this also implies that nothing from this world can affect what happens in the space of film: it is as the air, invulnerable (I. 1. 150). That space can be destroyed, but cannot be entered.