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A Phenomenological Analysis of the Transcendental Ability of Time in Film

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A Phenomenological Analysis of the Transcendental Ability of Time in Film Quality Time: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Transcendental Ability of Time in Film Jesse van der Mark 10348220 [email protected] First Reader: Floris Paalman Second Reader: Marie Baronian University of Amsterdam MA: Media Studies Date: 23/06/2016 Words: 23409 Table of Contents Introduction 2 i. Theoretical Framework 1. Transcendental Cinema 4 2. Phenomenology 5 3. Media Archaeology and Auteur Cinema 7 ii. Methodology 1. Corpus 8 2. Models for Analysis 9 Chapter 1: Media Historical Time i. The Web That Is Media History 13 ii. Bergman and Persona 14 iii. Tarkovsky and Mirror 16 iv. Bresson and Pickpocket 18 Chapter 2: Rhythmic Segmentations i. Introduction 20 ii. Persona 20 iii. Mirror 29 iv. Pickpocket 40 Chapter 3: Analyses of Time in the long take i. Introduction 49 ii. Persona 50 iii. Mirror 52 iv. Pickpocket 53 Conclusion 57 Bibliography 59 1 Introduction When I first saw the balloon aviator sequence in Tarkovsky’s Mirror (1975), I was overwhelmed by its ability to evoke intense emotions within me. The archive material is introduced around halfway into the film, immediately after images of the Spanish Civil War and the mysterious staring of a young girl into the camera. It starts silently, but after two shots, the music (Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater, No.12: Quando Corpus Morieteur”) starts and accompanies the rest of the sequence. This was one of the first times that a film was able to evoke such strong, almost transcendental, feelings in me. The problem was that I could not understand where those feelings came from. What I witnessed on the screen wasn’t particularly emotional or spiritual on its own, it wasn’t really ‘connected’ to the rest of the film and it was not even shot by the director himself. When the film finished I had to see this particular sequence again, but this time, watching the sequence on its own, it was not that overwhelming anymore. I figured that this sequence shouldn’t be seen in isolation. It is in some way connected to the images shown before and after this sequence and to other films of Tarkovsky, and even to other films and media in general. As I watched more films, had more of these experiences and started reading more about it, I came to realize that it somehow involves time and rhythm. I am not referring to time and rhythm as standalone elements, but always in relation to a bigger framework: in relation to and as part of a bigger framework: the film itself, the filmmaker as an auteur, media history and the spectator and his memory. All elements of the framework are relevant in the confines of time and they are constantly intertwined. In this web of time and history, the filmmaker takes a central place, connecting all the elements when forging a film. In this thesis I intend to delve deeper into this assumption and I will argue that time and rhythm constitute the groundwork of film and that these particular elements can evoke metaphysical, transcendent feelings in a spectator. I’ll argue furthermore, with a clear focus on the filmmaker as auteur, that they can be seen as a media archaeologists, constantly aware of their work’s position within the field of media history and their own oeuvre. With this view I renounce the chronological approach to film in ‘conventional’ Film History, moving towards the ideas suggested by scholars who plead for a “New Film History”: a media-archaeological approach that breaks with oversimplified ideas of linear developments and trends in media history (Elsaesser; Friedberg; Hagener; Parikka; Strauven). These scholars argued that the genealogical view on media history overlooks phenomena that are important in our understanding of the media: “[a] media archaeologist would therefore notice above all what is missing or has been suppressed and left out in our genealogical chart” (Elsaesser 18). In the field of new film history and media archaeology however, scholars have moved away from the media texts to focus on the (economical) contexts. Many of its [new film history] practitioners sought new insights into the specific nature of cinema by introducing extended cultural, social and economic contextualization, based on the 2 consultation of varied firsthand source material, and by emphasizing cinema’s intermedial relationships. In a way Zielinski’s Audiovisions also pointed in this direction […], the context and the technological apparatus were given central stage. (Huhtamo and Parikka, 19) Although this focus on context was a necessary step in our understanding of media history, I believe it is time to bring back the media texts to rediscover them using a media archaeological view, because we, film scholars, cannot discuss film when we ignore the actual texts. Without the film texts themselves there would be no such thing as film scholarship. Furthermore I want to add a phenomenological perspective to this approach, believing that we cannot deny the role of our embodied awareness in relation to time and history. Memorizing or thinking about history and time (which are both some sort of existential acts) is always connected to a bodily experience of time. One cannot think or talk about time without understanding its relation one’s own existence. These ideas are founded in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, which will be the theoretical base of this thesis. Merleau-Ponty was the first to make a connection between phenomenological philosophy and (the experience of) art in our contemporary, media-filled world. Besides using his work as a perspective on New Film History, I will also use it to propose a new model to understand how transcendence through film is evoked. Relatively little is written on the subject of transcendentalism in film. The scholars that are dealing with this subject (Nichols; Efird; Lopate) could be considered descendants of Paul Schrader’s theory of the transcendental style. In his book Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer Schrader argues that there is a certain style that may evoke transcendental feelings in the spectator. He created a model to analyse film (style) which uses three features/characteristics: the everyday, disparity and stasis. For him these are the necessary stylistic elements for a film to be able to evoke transcendental feelings. The problem with Schrader’s argument is that it’s only about a certain style. Following his argument, a film cannot evoke transcendental feelings if it lacks this particular style. Thus, according to Schrader, many films that do not have such a specific style are not able to create feelings of transcendence. In the model that I propose style is replaced by elements that are essential to all films: time and rhythm. I agree with Schrader that there are films that can have a transcendental/spiritual meaning, films that can conjure transcendental feelings, but in my opinion these are fuelled by time and not by style. Time plays a major role in this thesis, not only as its subject, but also as its structure. The auteur as media-archaeologist is constantly aware of, and working with three layers of time: the huge stack of time called history (media-history in particular), the rhythm and duration of a film, and time as a tool (paraphrasing Tarkovsky: that magical moment between ‘action’ and ‘cut’). These three layers of time will shape this thesis’ structure. In the first chapter I will elaborate on time as history, wherein I argue that we should move away from conventional film history to new film history in order to understand how the auteur can be seen as a media-archaeologist. In the second chapter I shall delve into time as a film’s rhythm. I will present rhythmical segmentations of the three films from my 3 corpus, trying to understand how rhythm works in relation to the evocation of transcendental feelings. In the third, and final chapter, I examine the phenomenon of time closer, by means of an analysis of a long take from each of the three films from my corpus, researching how time is presented by the auteur. Concluding each chapter I revert to my thoughts on how time is the main element for feelings of transcendence in film, and how that particular layer of time plays a role in the argument. I. Theoretical Framework 1. Transcendental Cinema Firstly I want to delve into Schrader’s statements on transcendental cinema. Transcendence is such an abstract anomaly that it can hardly be described. Schrader tried to give a definition: “the transcendent is beyond normal sense experience, and that which it transcends is, by definition, the immanent” (5). His statement is justifiable: it is true indeed that transcendence is a (spiritual) elevation of the palpable. Oddly enough though, Schrader does not elaborate on the palpable (in this case our body) in relation to the feelings of transcendence. In his search for the elements that can evoke transcendent feelings, Schrader focusses on style. I believe that by doing this, Schrader stays too close to the text, ignoring the experience of the spectator (who is eventually the one that experiences this state of transcendence). When one writes about transcendentalism, one cannot ignore the fact that transcendentalism is something that is experienced bodily. In doing so, the phenomenon of transcendence becomes a phenomenon on its own, cut off from our (bodily) understanding of it. To explain his ideas, Schrader came up with a model to understand how style evokes feelings of transcendence, and this is where I disagree with him. His model consists of three characteristics: the everyday, disparity and stasis. According to Schrader, these characteristics are structured always in the same way (in transcendental films). First of all I think that his particular hierarchical structure/order of ‘the everyday -> disparity -> stasis’ contributes to making his model rather simplistic, ignoring more complex ideas on structure of time and rhythm and spectatorship.
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