Tarkovsky Example of Plot Movement Becoming Time

If you've read some of my other posts you know that I've been doing some research on the potential for the movement-images described by Deleuze in Cinema 1 to become time-images within respective shots and montages. I believe one example in film that accomplishes this blend is the pool sequence which occurs towards the end of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker. In one shot we get sustained voiceover (which actually begins in a previous shot) while the camera slowly moves from a close-up of the main character to a tracking shot peering straight down over a shallow pool. The voice over eventually fazes out and we hear a symphonic blend of eastern meditative music fade in as the shot eventually ends with the camera making its way back to an inanimate hand half-submerged in the pool. Through this shot we are partially made privy to the true nature of “The Zone”, which is what the characters in the film (and the audience) are eager to uncover.

Here's a clip of the sequence (shot starts at :57):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfowVslQBQk&feature=related

By combining this narrative reveal with the superbly executed long take and flow of visuals, music, sounds, and dialogue, Tarkovsky achieves that ebb and flow of action-oriented plot, pure contemplation and reflection, but also formless movement through the motif of the water. In examples like this it is more of a challenge to connect action and perception with time and sensation because the two extremes naturally remove one from the other. By condensing these opposing forces into small sequences/shots a filmmaker can really induce powerful affects in the viewer.

--Jonathan Masino

Crisis of the Historical-Image

One of the things that struck me in Andrei Tarkovsky's book Sculpting In Time, was his theories on films embedded in specific time periods. He spends a small section of the essay talking about the challenges his crew faced when filming Andrei Rublyov, which takes place in the fifteenth century. He makes the bold claim that by focusing too much on "how everything was" the filmmaker actually does the cinema a disservice [1]. In virtually every big production period piece we see today, the primary emphasis is put on historical accuracy: Do the costumes match the period? Are the actor's speaking in correct accents? Do the props and the scenery evoke the proper time? These obsessions with period and detail only detract from the emotion, the rhythm, and the character of the film. Asking these questions will only kill time, which Tarkovsky tries so hard to sustain. The image becomes completely historical, but for Tarkovsky, history is not time; it is only a consequence of it [2].

Tarkovsky would probably argue that when making a period piece, the filmmaker should be emphasizing the likeness between the film and the viewer instead of the difference. This would be the only way to enable the audience to endure time through the cinema. By magnifying the minute details of the period, the cinema becomes more of a museum hall than a proper theater. The material is instantly frozen in time and made into a relic, inaccessible by the audience. The viewer is distanced from anything the filmmaker might be trying to convey.

In Andrei Rublyov, while the art direction is appropriate for the times, it isn't beaten over the viewer's head. The audience is able to experience the characters more closely and the long takes become more contemplative and visceral as opposed to simply visual. I'm actually trying to achieve the same thing in my graduate film, which takes place in an unspecified time and place circa war torn Europe in the early twentieth century. I was undaunted by the difficulty in shooting a period piece on a low student budget, because of the notion that I could establish a better sense of time without emphasizing the era, but how I believe that time was experienced by the characters. Just because a film is made in a classical period does not mean it must be made classically; one can make full use of the more modern time-image, which Deleuze speaks of. As he also states, the time-image creates a sense of present/pastness. The films that focus on capturing historically accurate details are only considering the past, and are not merging it with the present viewing, which is necessary for the time-image. This historical-image is fully crystallized in that it has already achieved everything it can; there is no more virtual and there is no more connection to the body. The historical-image has become all it can before it is even viewed by an audience. The affect for the viewer would only be one of an academic appreciation at best, but not new though process would be generated. With the time-image, the image is still alive and can continue to become.

(1) Tarkovsky, Andrei Sculpting in Time, p.78
(2) Tarkovsky, Andrei Sculpting in Time, p.57

--Jonathan Masino

Why Do People Go to the Cinema?

Earlier in the semester we discussed Tarkovsky’s writings on the cinema in a chapter from his book, Sculpting in Time. The chapter "Imprinted Time" contained a myriad of intriguing concepts regarding the cinema in general. It was his discussion of the cinema experience that I found to be most interesting. Tarkovsky boldly asks, “Why do people go to the cinema?” He briefly examines the way in which, despite the commercialism and entertainment aspects of cinema, a person goes to the cinema to experience time:

He goes there for living experience; for cinema, like no other art, widens, enhances and concentrates a person’s experience – and not only enhances it but makes it longer, which have to do with the human need to master and know the world. I think that what a significantly longer. That is the power of the cinema: ‘stars,’ story-lines, and entertainment have nothing to do with it [i]

Tarkovsky successfully outlines the reasons why a person looks toward the cinema to experience life. Of course, there are people that depend on the cinema for entertainment too, but there are many more that go to the cinema to learn about life and learn about themselves in the process. I’ve always looked to the cinema as a therapeutic place, an educational place, and sometimes a place to be disturbed or shocked. It is a place to go and figure out yourself a little more through the images presented to you. I feel as though Tarkovsky’s description perfectly explains some of the reasons why I find the cinema to be amazing, interesting, and undoubtedly important to the art world.

However, is this experience negatively effected when the movie theater is taken out of the equation? Although Tarkovsky obviously wrote about cinema before the advent of certain new media and technology, which brought new formats to the film viewing experience, it is relevant to cinema today. Going to an actual movie theater is no longer necessary to view a film. It begs the question, are we losing an important aspect of the cinema by losing the movie theater experience? Personally, a movie theater will always be the optimum choice for viewing a movie. The theater separates the audience from outside distractions, thus allowing for a complete encounter with the piece. At home, the viewing experience is riddled with distractions and interruptions. A viewer can stop and start the movie at any point, work on other things while watching, or even skip through parts completely. Seeing a film in a theater creates a vastly different experience for the viewers than when it is seen in the privacy of their own homes.

Hollywood and capitalism have always been linked to one another. It is difficult not to look at that decline of the movie theater experience as a result of capitalistic ventures. However, one also must not completely put blame on capitalism for these issues. A movie ticket generally costs around $12.50 today. As much as I would always prefer to go to a theater, it isn’t always the most financially sound decision to makes. I can rent movies On-Demand for 24 or 48 hours for $4.99 or less. I can see more movies for the price I would be paying to go to a theater. Also, there are the online renting options, such as Netflix, which allow us to pay a monthly fee that is often times cheaper than one single movie ticket. Overall, the theaters aren’t giving the casual viewer much motivation to go to their venues.

It will be interesting to see how the new media outlets influence the production of film overall. Amateur filmmakers can easily have their work seen thanks to digital technology, which is certainly a positive aspect of the expansion of the cinema. However, many major filmmakers now must take into consideration how their film will be perceived on smaller formats (computers, home television screens, I-pods, etc.). A movie no longer must be viewed on a projected screen, thus possibly changing many of the aesthetic elements of the work.

Overall, the content remains the same no matter where a film is viewed. It is the audience’s response that can be influenced according to venue. The theater allows us to be completely immersed in the images and stories being projected for us. At home, we can allow our own lives to take precedence over the viewing experience. The actual film has not change, but our reading of it has altered according to the attention we give to it.

- Stephanie Class

[i] Tarkovsky, Andrei. Sculpting in Time. (Austin: University of Texas Press. 1989), 63.

From Tarkovsky to My Grandmother and Vice Versa

Last semester I was walking around Sheepshead Bay and a rare house caught my attention, a house full of ornaments in its front yard. Questions and assumptions came to my mind. Who lives here? It is a hermit? It is an artist? The image of that house in front of the Shore Boulevard took me back in time to my grandmother’s house, it made me recall the memories of my childhood and adulthood observing my grandmother’s unique decoration style. I want to tell the story of this house and of the lady that lives there as a way of bringing back the memories of my grandmother and her house. Furthermore I want to tell this story as a way of telling my own story. In a way it will be a portrait piece with elements of auto-ethnography. (I don´t know if this tag striates the project!)

The fundamental things that resonate about my grandmother and my connections with this house and this lady are the memories of the objects of my granny´s house. I was always fascinated with the shelves full of saints, her glass dresser with little bottles of old perfumes, the plaster dogs and cranes at the entrance. Just like the lady in Sheepshead Bay the fact that my grandmother transformed her modern 50´s house into a pastiche has been always a shame for my family. Mildred family doesn´t like her decoration neither. The objects, the shame and that stubborn character of both ladies the one alive here in New York, and the other already death, but so much alive inside my mind, are the elements that I will like to approach in my video piece.

Is not easy to make the connections and that’s where Tarkoski and Godard inspire me. Only in the uncertain in the interval is where these memories will emerge to a new life. I believe that the only way of actually achieving the goal of this project is following Deleuze description of time image, combining shots in new ways, rejecting continuity editing, playing with time (the factual time and the subjective time - both mine and the viewers).

The other interest that I have with this project is repetition and the invisible links that our living experience is building. In this search I find associations with Bergson's Matter and Memory: each image exists in relation with all other images, the universe is always shifting it center, the perpetual movement of life.

I will use HD video footage from the lady and the house in Sheepshead, from NYC buildings, and found footage from NYC. The sound will include also the house, the lady and some of my thoughts and conversations with my sisters and my mother.

Susana