The Vatican to Vegas: A History of Special Effects

By Norman M. Klein. New Press, 480 pages, $27.95.

We know "special effects" as the high-tech tricks that make Gollum grimace and send starships into hyperspace, but in The Vatican to Vegas: A History of Special Effects, Norman M. Klein traces their roots back to the baroque period in western Europe. The first special effects were used in the trompe l'oeil paintings of the heavens inside church domes, which were designed not only to inspire wonder but also to reinforce the supplicant's place at the bottom of the divine hierarchy.

From there, Klein shows how special effects continued to serve the powers that be, from raucous masques (an early form of interactive theater) to enchanting garden labyrinths to Marie Antoinette's infamous make-believe peasant village. Their authority eroded by the rise of the mercantile class, the aristocracy co-opted commercial technology to create diverting spectacles that parodied and contained class dissent. Special effects were more than entertainment for the privileged; they were the means by which privilege was maintained and extended.

It's a fascinating story, and Klein continually finds new links between political economics and visual representation. His definition of special effects is incredibly broad, encompassing even history itself: any coherent narrative is necessarily artifice. But he takes his own assertion too much to heart. His history feels like an effects extravaganza, a fast-paced cavalcade of exceedingly casual references to all manner of Western politics, art, and literature.

Thankfully, the name-dropping is balanced by moments of insightful analysis. Analyzing contemporary movies like Independence Day and The Matrix, he describes a popular culture ("Electronic Baroque") that's turning away from the individualism of modernism and back toward more hierarchical modes of representation. Accordingly, the book's afterword is an analysis of the 2000 presidential election as a special effect: it's only by colluding with global news corporations – purveyors of the grandest special effects – that our nouveau monarch Bush preserves his position. (Sharon Mizota)