THE LONG TAKE IN MODERN EUROPEAN CINEMA by Christopher Stuart Marnoch Royal Holloway University of London Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1 Declaration of Authorship I, Christopher Stuart Marnoch, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: ______________________ Date: ________________________ 2 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the long take, as both a practical technique and a critical concept, in modern European cinema. Starting with the advent of Italian neorealism, modern European cinema rose to prominence in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, in collective movements such as the French New Wave, New German Cinema and the new cinemas of Central and Eastern Europe, and in the innovations of many individual filmmakers across the continent. The stylistic developments of this period sought to challenge classical cinema’s conventional practices, such as analytical editing, and the long take became a particularly popular option for filmmakers at the time. The innovations of the long take in modern European cinema revolve around three critical issues, each elaborated in the work of a particular writer: an increased realism based on the respect for spatial and temporal integrity (André Bazin), an emphasis on duration resulting from a crisis of action (Gilles Deleuze), and the dedramatisation of narrative action (David Bordwell). This thesis rigorously examines the ideas of these writers in relation to concrete examples, and tests the extent to which their theories provide a comprehensive explanation of the long take in modern European cinema. The thesis also considers the practice of the long take in greater depth by exploring how its broadly defined qualities are reflected in different ways and put to different purposes in a number of individual films. This is done through the detailed analysis of key long-take films of the period, by filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrei Tarkovsky, Miklós Jancsó, Jean-Luc Godard and others. By focusing on a specific stylistic feature within this broad area of study, the thesis intends to further understand the critical significance of certain directorial decisions, and to contribute to aesthetic debates surrounding this important period of film history. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE 1 DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP 2 ABSTRACT 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 LIST OF FIGURES 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 6 INTRODUCTION 7 CHAPTER ONE: Wholeness, Ambiguity and Realism 33 CHAPTER TWO: Realism, Psychology and Form in Cronaca di un amore 78 CHAPTER THREE: Continuity, Inaction and Temporality 121 CHAPTER FOUR: Duration, Mysticism and Material Texture in Stalker 165 CHAPTER FIVE: Narrative, Staging and Dedramatisation 207 CHAPTER SIX: Space, Movement and Politics in The Round-Up and The Red And the White 246 CONCLUSION 282 BIBLIOGRAPHY 287 4 LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1.1 Citizen Kane (1941) 42 Fig 1.2 The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) 47 Fig 1.3 Paisà (1946) 66 Fig. 1.4 Breathless (1960) 71 Fig. 1.5 Breathless (1960) 73 Fig. 2.1 Cronaca di un amore (1950) 86 Fig. 2.2 Cronaca di un amore (1950) 89 Fig. 2.3 Cronaca di un amore (1950) 96 Fig. 2.4 Cronaca di un amore (1950) 99 Fig. 2.5 Cronaca di un amore (1950) 104 Fig. 2.6 Cronaca di un amore (1950) 115 Fig. 2.7 Cronaca di un amore (1950) 117 Fig. 3.1 Paisà (1946) 141 Fig. 3.2 Umberto D (1952) 144 Fig. 3.3 Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) 152 Fig. 4.1 Stalker (1979) 170 Fig. 4.2 Stalker (1979) 184 Fig. 4.3 Stalker (1979) 186 Fig. 4.4 Stalker (1979) 191 Fig. 4.5 Stalker (1979) 200 Fig. 4.6 Stalker (1979) 204 Fig. 5.1 The Travelling Players (1975) 235 Fig. 5.2 The Travelling Players (1975) 235 Fig. 6.1 The Round-Up (1965) 254 Fig. 6.2 The Round-Up (1965) 258 Fig. 6.3 The Round-Up (1965) 259 Fig. 6.4 The Round-Up (1965) 263 Fig. 6.5 The Red and the White (1967) 267 Fig. 6.6 The Red and the White (1967) 269 Fig. 6.7 The Red and the White (1967) 271 Fig. 6.8 The Red and the White (1967) 279 Fig. 6.9 The Red and the White (1967) 280 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the Department of Media Arts at Royal Holloway University of London for allowing me to undertake this research project, and for providing much needed funding for most of my study time. I am also grateful for the opportunities to present my work within a supportive and enthusiastic environment. I would also like to thank Chris Townsend for providing additional help when it was required. I am thankful to my examiners, Daniela Berghahn and Matilda Mroz, for providing excellent feedback on the thesis and suggestions for how it could be improved; the thesis is now all the better for their insights. I am grateful to Jacob Leigh for providing supervision over the years, and for the many long discussions we have had about my work. Thanks are also due to Steven Marchant for his expert advice and also for providing the initial inspiration that made me want to write about modern European cinema and the long take. Writing this doctoral thesis has often been an isolated and challenging experience, and I am very thankful for the support and relief offered by friends and family. In particular, I want to thank Elizabeth and Peter Commins for their continuous support in various ways, especially at the toughest times, when it was most needed. I am also eternally grateful to my parents, Tina and Russell Marnoch, who have always encouraged and supported me in everything I have done; their help during this long period of study has been especially important to me. Thanks are also due to my younger brother Ryan for making me laugh so often and showing such interest in my academic pursuits. Most importantly of all, I wish to thank my wife Siobhán Marnoch. Without her tireless love and support every day I would never have been able to complete the project. This work is for her. 6 INTRODUCTION This thesis examines the long take, as both a practical technique and a critical concept, in modern European cinema. Starting with the advent of Italian neorealism in the immediate aftermath of World War II, modern European cinema rose to prominence in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. It was represented by collective national movements such as the French New Wave, New German Cinema and the new cinemas of Central and Eastern Europe, and, more specifically, in the innovations of many individual filmmakers across the continent during this period. The stylistic experimentation of European filmmakers in these decades sought to challenge the conventional practices of classical cinema, the most prominent of these being analytical editing: the process whereby scenes are broken down into a series of shots that focus on the details that are deemed to be most significant in relation to the drama and the narrative, while maintaining a sense of continuity in space and time, as though the events presented on the screen continue to exist beyond the limits of the frame. Some filmmakers working in post-war Europe upset this harmonious film form by purposely revealing, and even accentuating, the discontinuities of editing through jump cuts that fragmented the space and time of the events. But there was also another form that rose to prominence during this period, one which posed an equally radical challenge to classical film style. For a certain group of filmmakers, rather than pursuing a highly discontinuous aesthetic, they would utilise the ability of the long take to render events in their complete unity, maintaining the continuity of physical space and action, as well as the duration of these features. By adopting the long take, directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrei Tarkovsky and Miklós Jancsó could depict not only the details of a scene but 7 the relations between these details; they built their films out of the connections and the tensions that arose between characters and their surrounding environment, between the human form and the landscapes of the city or countryside, between the movements of one individual or group and another. It is this practice, and its theoretical implications, that are of interest in the chapters that follow. By focusing on a specific stylistic feature within this broad area of study, the thesis intends to further understand the critical significance of certain directorial decisions, and to contribute to aesthetic debates surrounding this important period of film history. I shall pursue this aim by drawing especially on the critical method of detailed scene analysis, believing that through close description and interpretation of particular examples we can greater appreciate how style works to shape our understanding and experience of the films in question. However, this will also be augmented with careful reflection on existing ideas and observations about individual films and wider trends, confirming those that I believe to offer particular insight into the questions raised by my title, and strengthening these notions with reference to concrete examples. In this introduction I shall begin, however, by first outlining the existing literature on the period of modern European cinema, identifying the broad themes and issues that will guide my own research in the following chapters, and placing my work within the matrix of critical thought on the topic. We shall also consider how the long take has been defined as a filmmaking technique, and the problems surrounding its definition, before I offer my own working explanation that will guide my approach to the technique in the analyses that follow.