The Contemplative Cinema blogathon is coming to its (official) end. It's been an interesting discussion - intriguing enough on its own merits, but for me, particularly well timed, as the month was full of films that qualify. I've discussed the Bela Tarr series - but I got to see a number of other films that fit the general idea of contemplative cinema: Climates played; I saw Lights in the Dusk, Honor de Cavalleria and Colossal Youth as part of a new European series. Other films - the Rivette series, two Hong Sang-soo films, Belle Toujours, heck - Three Women - hover around the edges, sharing some elements with "contemplative" films, though I don't think I can come up with a definition of contemplative cinema that would include them.
I suppose that begs the question of how I would define "contemplative cinema". My first pass holds up pretty well, I think, to what I've seen - though there's probably a lot more to it. (Girish offers a nice list of characteristics: though I find that the discussion has outdone Jurgen's interpreters - definitions don't equal definers in number - they rather exceed us.) And that didn't really address what kind of phenomenon we were talking about - style? genre? movement? Now? I am inclined to think there are three particularly useful way to think about "contemplative cinema" (see what I mean about definitions exceeding definers?) First - it's a good term to talk about films that aim to create contemplation in the viewer - concentration, absorption of a sort. I would take Philippe Garrel is the exemplary filmmaker of this sort - his films draw us into a near trancelike state, timeless and immediate. Of the films I saw this month, Honor de Cavalleria is probably the purest example of this type of filmmaking - existing almost completely outside its story, in a world of pure experience.... The second way of approaching contemplative cinema seems to me through clusters of films with similar characteristics, similar historical roots - like the Dovshenko/Tarkovsky/Tarr/Dumont grouping I mentioned in my earlier posts; or the minimalist strands in Asian films; or various descendents of neo-realism, like 90s Iranian films.
The most important and wide-ranging use of the ideas associated with contemplative cinema seem to me to be as a description of a filmmaking style. A "systematic and significant use of techniques of the medium." (Per Bordwell.) It's a broad term, I suppose, and I'm not sure where it starts and ends - I like my 4 characteristics (I know I originally listed 5, plus, but I think the first four hold up better): emphasis on duration; images of blankness and blank imagery; backgrounding the plot (though these films may remain quite strongly plotted - Tarr's films are more plotted than they appear; the new Kaurismaki film has a fairly conventional crime story plot - but both filmmakers tell stories in an oblique way, concentrating their attention on other things); backgrounding (or obscuring) psychological characterization (through words, acting, even visual style). One could add several other elements: distance (in terms of camera placement, and other things); certain uses of sound (away from speech, certainly away from conventional musical cues); subdued colors, and so on. It's a set of formal devices that appearing together make a film fit this style - though they can appear along with other elements, to modify other types of films. The style itself, though, does not preclude other devices - and leaves a lot of areas - like story type, political or social content, emotional effect - open. I included politics in my first pass through this - I think I was wrong. Several of these films - Satantango, Colossal Youth, Lights in the Dusk have quite prominent political (or social) themes: I don't think a "contemplative" style requires those themes to be subdued.
So coming to the end - let's take Colossal Youth as a test case. I think it demonstrates what I mean. It fits the aesthetic style I've described: it hits my four characteristics - it's long and slow, and more, it makes the passage of time itself take a major formal role. It makes blankness, emptiness a significant aesthetic element - shots with no people, or one or two people, motionless - shots of blank, featureless walls - lots of time with nothing happening. It buried the plot - there is a story, but it is not the moment to moment concern of the film. And the acting is flat, unexpressive - characters are revealed through their actions (usually described or hinted at rather than shown), or through affectless monologues. It hits most of the items on Girish's list as well: long takes; desaturated colors; empty sets (naturalized, though, because of the poverty of the characters); etc.
At the same time, though - the use of the "contemplative" style does not preclude other stylistic elements - in Costa's films, the severe "contemplative" style of blank walls and motionless actors coexists with a fairly powerful "expressionist" look, full of mysterious passages and doorways, arranged in depth; carefully composed shots of men in dark suits posing against white walls, windows and bits of sky pouring in light; significant objects, splashes of color in a gray background and so on. It also has a fairly complex narrative framework - flashbacks, possibly hallucinations, ghosts, coincide with the endless present of the film. In fact, alongside the obvious comparisons to neo-realism, to Bresson, Ozu, etc., the film contains some rather surprising similarities to David Lynch - it reminded me more strongly than one would suspect of Inland Empire. Some of that is due to the similar use of DV photography - but there is more: the use of mysterious, deceptively complex spaces - doors, hallways, stairs leading into domestic spaces; the use of light and shadow to sculpt space; the emphasis on objects - lamps, flowers, etc. - that have significance, without, quite, meaning. (A characteristic shared with Ozu as well.) Even the structure - Costa, like Lynch, moves back and forth between present and past, between real and (possibly) imaginary events; Ventura, in Colossal Youth, moves like Laura Dern in Inland Empire through a kind of dreamscape, of real and unreal places and things.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This is a very helpful recapitulation weepingsam. Afterall 3 weeks was a bit short to tackle this nebulous and confusing concept. I need to digest all the discussions, think about it some more and come back to it with clear ideas.
Your 3 families (russian trend, asian trend, neo-realist trend) sound pretty good. The notion of "contemplation" was obviously too big, and we need smaller groups to make sense of their inter-relations.
I agree with you about Honor De Cavalleria too. This kind of film really embodies the archetype of this new uncompromising trend, strictly visual and anti-dramatic.
Your stylistic comparison of Colossal Youth to Lynch is interesting indeed. Although I would say the former is a "realist" and the latter is oneiric. I've put them at the polar ends of the narrative spectrum on my genealogical map.
http://unspokencinema.blogspot.com/2007/01/tentative-genealogy.html
I prefer the option of a style (aesthetically defined), rather than a genre (which is narratively defined), though I don't think this trend is limited by a mere formal ressemblance... there is more to it. I think we can find a certain vision of the world defining their characters and their depiction of reality as well (non-comformism, alienation, disconnectedness, aimlessness, melancholy, distance, fatalism). We need to dig deeper the political/social aspect, otherwise they are hardly distinct from a Transcendental Style, and I believe the new generation brings something more.
Your 4 characteristics are a solid base to identify them at least. Now, why do these auteurs developped this style today? How should we understand this?
Your stylistic comparison of Colossal Youth to Lynch is interesting indeed. Although I would say the former is a "realist" and the latter is oneiric.
I did that partly to think about what is covered by what I'd call the "contemplative" style and what isn't. I tend to think it is mostly a set of middle level devices - not so much specific technical devices (long takes, long shots, motionless camera work) as certain uses or combinations of such devices... and not more structural devices, like plot or naration (as such). It seems to me there are significant structural similarities between Inland Empire and Colossal Youth (undifferentiated flashbacks or ontological shifts), as well as technical similarities (video, some of the lighting effects), and some overlap in imagery and composition - but they are very different stylistically. There's a shot, repeated a couple times actually, of Ventura in Vanda's apartment, where he's just to screen right - behind him, there's a door and the space disappears in shadow; on screen left, there's a room - dead center, lit and photographed more prominantly than Ventura, there's a vase and flowers - this kind of shot is very reminiscent of Lynch, who uses them routinely - Costa, though, uses it only sparingly, with barer, simpler spaces being more common. For Lynch, shots like that are central to his style - for Costa, they are supplemental, I think....
And - Honor de Cavellaria is very interesting for its approach to adaptation, as well - the way it seems to take as a given that we've all read the book, and plays off that, rather than tries to reproduce the book. It's almost like listening to a soundtrack from a film separately from the film - it's like the old joke about dancing about architecture. It feels a bit like a dance about architecture would feel.... a fascinating film.
Post a Comment