Realities in Search of an Author

Scott Bukatman works as assistant professor of media studies at Stanford University in California. He is author of e.g. Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-Modern Science Fiction (1994) and Blade Runner (1997). According to Bukatman, completely unrealistic worlds are created in an increasing number of films - think of The Truman Show, Dark City, The Game or What Dreams May Come - in which the characters roam around in isolation like the characters from a theme park, shut up in their controlled environment. Digital effects make the realistic portrayal of such a virtual world possible. Yet references to the `real' world are deliberately included.