Slow cinema

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Slow cinema is a genre of

minimalist, observational, and with little or no narrative, and which typically emphasizes long takes.[1][2] It is sometimes called "contemplative cinema".[3]

History

Practitioners of the genre include

Aleksandr Sokurov, Béla Tarr, Chantal Akerman, Theo Angelopoulos and Abbas Kiarostami.[4][5]

Greek director

Le Quattro Volte, and Shaun Wilson's 51 Paintings.[2][7][8]

Recent underground film movements such as Remodernist film share the sensibility of slow or contemplative cinema.

G. Aravindan was a filmmaker whose works such as Kanchana Sita, Thampu and Esthappan have been regarded as embodying a uniquely original style of contemplative cinema where the aesthetic sensibility and philosophical insights of Indian culture could find a meditative mode of expression within more universal contexts of humanism and transcendentalism.[9][5][10]

The AV Festival held a Slow Cinema Weekend at the Star and Shadow Cinema in Newcastle in March 2012, including the films of Rivers, Lav Diaz, Lisandro Alonso and Fred Kelemen.[1][7][11][8]

Recent examples include films by

Tsai Ming-Liang, Lav Diaz, Sergei Loznitsa, Carlos Reygadas, Amat Escalante, Lisandro Alonso, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Pedro Costa.[12][13]

Examples of notable slow works

Sources:[5][1][6][12][13][17][18]

Reception

Slow food movement.[3]

Criticism

Slow cinema has been criticized as indifferent or even hostile to audiences.[1] A backlash by Sight & Sound's Nick James, and picked up by online writers, argued that early uses of long takes were "adventurous provocations created by extremists", whereas recent films are "operating within a recognized, default artistic idiom."[19] The Guardian's film blog concluded that "being less overweeningly precious about films that are likely to be impenetrable to even the most well-informed audiences would seem an idea."[20] Dan Fox of Frieze criticized both the dichotomy of the argument into "philistine" vs "pretentious" and the reductiveness of the term "slow cinema".[21]

The American director Paul Schrader wrote about slow cinema in his 1972 book Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, and called it an aesthetic tool. He argues that most viewers find slow cinema boring,[22] but that a "slow film director keeps his viewer on the hook, thinking there's a reward, a payoff just around the corner."[22]

Recently, film scholars Katherine Fusco and Nicole Seymour have written that the slow cinema movement's supporters and detractors have both mischaracterized it. As they argue, much "commentary posits slow cinema as a kind of pastoral for the present moment, a respite from our technologically saturated ... Hollywood-blockbuster-centered era." Such commentary therefore associates the movement with pleasure and relaxation. But in reality, slow cinema films often focus on down-and-out laborers; as Fusco and Seymour argue, "for those on the fringes of society, modernity is actually experienced as slowness, and usually to their great detriment."[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Sukhdev Sandhu. 'Slow cinema' fights back against Bourne's supremacy. The Guardian, 9 March 2012
  2. ^ a b Steven Rose. Two Years At Sea: little happens, nothing is explained. The Guardian, 26 April 2012.
  3. ^ a b Thomas Elsaesser, Stop/Motion in Eivind Rossaak (ed). Between Stillness and Motion: Film, Photography, Algorithms. p117. 2011
  4. ^ a b Nick James. Syndromes of a new century. Sight & Sound, February 2010
  5. ^ a b c Srikanth Srinivasan. Flashback #84. The Seventh Art blog, 10 April 2011
  6. ^ a b David Jenkins. Theo Angelopoulos: the sweep of history Archived 2012-04-23 at the Wayback Machine. Sight & Sound, February 2012
  7. ^ a b c Miller, Henry K. (March 2012). "Doing time: 'slow cinema' at the AV Festival". Sight & Sound. Archived from the original on 2012-04-04.
  8. ^ a b Tom Clift. Experimental Expression Archived 2014-04-16 at the Wayback Machine. 'Filmink Magazine', August, 2012.
  9. ^ Srikanth Srinivasan. "Outtakes: G. Aravindan". The Hindu, 12 October 2013
  10. ^ Sasikumar Vasudevan. Aravindan – A Scriptless Creative Film Director. Sahapedia, 21 August 2018
  11. ^ Slow Cinema Weekend. AV Festival, March 2012.
  12. ^ a b Smith, Nigel M (2017-03-01). "Kelly Reichardt: 'Faster, faster, faster – we all want things faster'". The Guardian.
  13. ^
    ISBN 9780748696048
    .
  14. ^ a b c "10 great slow films". BFI. Retrieved 2022-02-19.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i 20 Slow Films From This Century That Reward Patience — Taste of Cinema
  16. ^ Corn Island, Tarkovsky, & The Legacy of Slow Cinema — Filmatique
  17. ^ Slow cinema: what it is and why it’s on a fast track to the mainstream in a frenetic world - The Conversation
  18. ^ "Hu Bo's An Elephant Sitting Still, Tarkovsky's Stalker, The Godfather, and the concept of slow cinema". Firstpost. 2018-12-20. Retrieved 2022-02-19.
  19. IFC
    , 12 May 2010.
  20. ^ Danny Leigh. The view: Is it OK to be a film philistine? The Guardian Film Blog, 21 May 2010
  21. ^ Dan Fox. Slow, Fast, and Inbetween Archived 2011-09-08 at the Wayback Machine.Frieze blog, 23 May 2010
  22. ^
    ISBN 9780520296817
    .
  23. ^ Fusco and Seymour. Kelly Reichardt: Emergency and the Everyday.December 2017
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