During a stint taking calls for a distress centre hotline, the author asks herself: Did I help a guy get off or did I save his life?

It's not the first time critics have announced the death of cinema, or harkened nostalgically to past golden ages. But judging the digital revolution in moviemaking is about more than counting critical hits and misses, or lamenting a decline in dramatic realism.

The Great Man theory has serious flaws, as many have pointed out over the years. But it's no less attractive—or useful, perhaps—for its failures.