Justin Remes
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231169639
- eISBN:
- 9780231538909
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231169639.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Conducting a study of films that do not move, this book challenges the primacy of motion in cinema and tests the theoretical limits of film aesthetics and representation. Reading experimental films ...
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Conducting a study of films that do not move, this book challenges the primacy of motion in cinema and tests the theoretical limits of film aesthetics and representation. Reading experimental films such as Andy Warhol's Empire (1964), the Fluxus work Disappearing Music for Face (1965), Michael Snow's So Is This (1982), and Derek Jarman's Blue (1993), it shows how motionless films defiantly showcase the static while collapsing the boundaries between cinema, photography, painting, and literature. Analyzing four categories of static film: furniture films, designed to be viewed partially or distractedly; protracted films, which use extremely slow motion to impress stasis; textual films, which foreground the static display of letters and written words; and monochrome films, which display a field of monochrome color as their image—the book maps the interrelations between movement, stillness, and duration and their complication of cinema's conventional function and effects. Arguing all films unfold in time, it suggests duration is more fundamental to cinema than motion, initiating fresh inquiries into film's manipulation of temporality, from rigidly structured works to those with more ambiguous and open-ended frameworks. The text's discussion integrates the writings of Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze, Tom Gunning, Rudolf Arnheim, Raymond Bellour, and Noel Carroll.Less
Conducting a study of films that do not move, this book challenges the primacy of motion in cinema and tests the theoretical limits of film aesthetics and representation. Reading experimental films such as Andy Warhol's Empire (1964), the Fluxus work Disappearing Music for Face (1965), Michael Snow's So Is This (1982), and Derek Jarman's Blue (1993), it shows how motionless films defiantly showcase the static while collapsing the boundaries between cinema, photography, painting, and literature. Analyzing four categories of static film: furniture films, designed to be viewed partially or distractedly; protracted films, which use extremely slow motion to impress stasis; textual films, which foreground the static display of letters and written words; and monochrome films, which display a field of monochrome color as their image—the book maps the interrelations between movement, stillness, and duration and their complication of cinema's conventional function and effects. Arguing all films unfold in time, it suggests duration is more fundamental to cinema than motion, initiating fresh inquiries into film's manipulation of temporality, from rigidly structured works to those with more ambiguous and open-ended frameworks. The text's discussion integrates the writings of Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze, Tom Gunning, Rudolf Arnheim, Raymond Bellour, and Noel Carroll.
Justin Remes
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231169639
- eISBN:
- 9780231538909
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231169639.003.0003
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines protracted films—works that use extreme slow motion to create the impression of stasis—focusing on George Maciunas's film version of Mieko Shiomi's “action poem” Disappearing ...
More
This chapter examines protracted films—works that use extreme slow motion to create the impression of stasis—focusing on George Maciunas's film version of Mieko Shiomi's “action poem” Disappearing Music for Face (1966). Disappearing Music is best understood as a protracted film, since it finds stasis in flux, taking movement as its starting point and then slowing it down drastically to create a sense of immobility. The technology process used to create Disappearing Music results in an extreme slow motion—a hyperstasis. As such, the film offers a glimpse into microtime, the infinitesimal intervals of duration that form the backdrop of every experience. Thus, the chapter argues that by manufacturing alternate temporalities, protracted films foreground the plasticity and contingency of time itself.Less
This chapter examines protracted films—works that use extreme slow motion to create the impression of stasis—focusing on George Maciunas's film version of Mieko Shiomi's “action poem” Disappearing Music for Face (1966). Disappearing Music is best understood as a protracted film, since it finds stasis in flux, taking movement as its starting point and then slowing it down drastically to create a sense of immobility. The technology process used to create Disappearing Music results in an extreme slow motion—a hyperstasis. As such, the film offers a glimpse into microtime, the infinitesimal intervals of duration that form the backdrop of every experience. Thus, the chapter argues that by manufacturing alternate temporalities, protracted films foreground the plasticity and contingency of time itself.
