Quality Time: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Transcendental Ability of Time in Film

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Quality Time: A Phenomenological Analysis of the

Transcendental Ability of Time in Film

Jesse van der Mark 10348220

vandermark.jesse@gmail.com First Reader: Floris Paalman Second Reader: Marie Baronian University of Amsterdam MA: Media Studies Date: 23/06/2016 Words: 23409

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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

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3 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

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4 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. The model Schrader created is founded upon these three characteristics, which (always) follow up on each other in the same order. When talking about the first stage, “the everyday”, Schrader argues that in the films that have a transcendental style, dramatic conflicts are replaced by every day actions. In these films, the stage of the everyday is merely “the bare threshold of existence, a cold surface reality stripped of nearly everything expressive” (39). “Disparity” is the second stage, and can only be realised if the everyday is established. This stage “casts suspicion on the nonemotional everyday” (42). In other words, the spectator will lose its trust in the -cold- world of the everyday, because there seems to be a human density. Then, only in the final stage that is “stasis”, feelings of transcendence can arise through a final shot of the film. Schrader provides a definition for this stage/shot: “a frozen view of life which does not resolve the disparity but transcends it” (49). In this final image, everything that the spectator experienced throughout the film comes together.

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5 statement that the feeling of transcendence discloses only with the display of a single shot (like his most famous example: the vase in Ozu’s Late Spring (1949)). I think that the feeling of transcendence exceeds the film itself and can be experienced anywhere within the film and even (or especially) after the film has ended. It can leave the spectator with indescribable feelings that can last for a long time, which are not necessarily connected to a particular image, or to a (never-changing) stylized structure. It is connected to the sensual experience of the film as a whole, and to the impact of its rhythm1_{. Of} course there are certain shots/images that seem to have more significance than others, but this is always in relation to time. By this I am not only referring to time as moment in the film, duration and rhythm of the film, but also to time as media history: some images have more significance because they (explicitly or implicitly) reflect upon media history. However, this is solely based on experience (and thus subjective), making these ‘significant shots’ different among spectators.

2. Phenomenology

The basis of my claims is grounded in the work of phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a French philosopher who argued against Cartesian philosophy. According to Merleau-Ponty, we have to go back to our basic instinct, and focus on our senses in order to understand the world around us. More importantly, Merleau-Ponty was one of the first philosophers who talked about phenomenology in relation to art, making him a very important figure in the phenomenological approach to film. Two statements from Merleau-Ponty on film are of major importance for this thesis. The first is the idea that time is one of the most important elements of film. In a radio lecture on his basic ideas he states the importance of cinematographic rhythm and the duration that is given to cinematic elements: “important is the selection of suggested episodes and in each of them the choice of viewpoints that one let appear in the film. A certain general cinematic rhythm is constituted by the length that is given to each element and by the order in which one chooses to present these elements (77)2_{. Secondly, he} argues that the importance of stories, film celebrities, dialogue and fancy montage muddles the potential of film as art:

People idolize film stars. The spectacular possibilities of montage of image and intrigue, of the interference of fancy pictures and of clever dialogue are only temptations for the practice of

1_{I acknowledge that this notion of time as most essential element for the evocation of transcendental feelings} could be problematized by the role of the cinematic apparatus. Transcendence arises in our immanent bodies, and so it is important how and where our bodies are positioned. This does however not influence the statements I’m making here.

2_{Own translation of: “Dat wat van belang is, is de keuze van voorgestelde episodes en in ieder daarvan de keuze} van gezichtspunten die men laat figureren in de film. Een bepaald cinematografisch ritme wordt gevormd door de lengte die men geeft aan alle verschillende elementen, door de volgorde waarin men kiest deze te

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6 film, wherein one risks that film can be successful without using expressive means that are inherent to cinema3_{. (77)}

This is an important statement in relation to my corpus and the auteurs I’m discussing in this thesis, who all somehow ‘reject’ these elements and instead are interested in the art-form only.

Merleau-Ponty’s thinking has been important for film scholar Vivian Sobchack who has also been an influence for this thesis. In her work, Sobchack has drawn a link between transcendentalism in film and the spectator’s embodied experience. In “Embodying Transcendence: On the Literal, the Material, and the Cinematic Sublime” Sobchack argues that transcendence emerges in “our ontic immanence” (197). What she means by this is that feelings of transcendence that seem to release us from our bodies’ restrictions, paradoxically emerge from our sensual embodiment. In other words, we transcend our bodies through our bodies. This becomes even more complicated when looking at this paradox in relation to film. According to Sobchack “both our sense of bodily transcendence and the sensuality of our bodily existence are often amplified at the movies. […] That is, we not only feel but often also feel ourselves feeling- and this even as we are transcendently “elsewhere” (198). What is important here, is that although we might feel as if we’re in another world (that is, the cinematic world that is presented to us), and although we are in a heightened state of transcendence, we consciously

feel that these sensations arise within our bodies.

To better understand the phenomenological relation between our bodies and the film, I would like to introduce another film scholar who was influenced by Merleau-Ponty’s work: Jennifer Barker. In “Musculature” Barker uses the term ‘gestures’ to explain our bodily connection with the cinema. In the phenomenological approach of film there are two types of bodies that are constantly intertwined with one-another: “viewer and film are two differently constructed but equally muscular bodies, acting perhaps in a tandem or perhaps at odds with each other, but always in relation to each other” (Barker 72). Although the latter (film) is an abstract body, we understand it through our own bodies. When a camera pans from left to right, we recognize that ‘gesture’: when we turn our heads from left to right, the same sort of imagery arises. This recognition creates a strong connection between these two bodies. According to Barker this has to do with kinaesthetic memory: “when [a] film ‘ducks’ or ‘swerves’ or ‘races’ or ‘stalks’ its subjects, or ‘crashes’ into something, we can relate, having performed many of these basic gestures ourselves, in our own way” (75)4_{. Through the theory of} gestures, we understand that our bodies are able to strongly connect to film. This connection enables

3_{Own translation of: “Men dweept met filmsterren. De opzienbarende mogelijkheden van montage van beeld en} intrige, van inmenging van fraaie foto’s of van scherpzinnige dialoog vormen voor de film alleen maar

verleidingen waarbij het risico bestaat dat zij daarin blijft vaststeken en zo succesvol kan zijn zonder daarbij gebruik te maken van expressieve middelen die het meest eigen zijn aan cinema.

4_{Notice here that memory is a purely time-related phenomenon. If we wouldn’t memorize those actions we have} experienced in the past, we would not be able to connect to the cinematic body. So, the greater lines of time are hugely relevant for our essential connection with cinema to begin with.

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7 the film’s ability to evoke transcendental feelings: because we are (bodily) connected to the film, we are able to experience intense feelings.

3. Media Archaeology and Auteur Cinema

The three filmmakers I’m focussing on -Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson and Andrei Tarkovsky- are very distinctive for the European Auteur Cinema. In post-war Europe, starting in France with the foundation of Cahiers du Cinéma (with André Bazin as its most central critic), more critics started recognizing the directors as the creative geniuses behind films. In his famous article in ‘Cahiers’, François Truffaut attacked (post-war) French cinema of psychological realism and (especially) its scenario-based methods:

That school [psychological realism] which aspires to realism destroys it at the moment of finally grabbing it, so careful is the school to lock these beings in a closed world, barricaded by formulas, plays on words, maxims, instead of letting us see them for ourselves, with our own eyes. The artist cannot dominate his own work. (7)

It’s exactly this dominance that the critics of Cahiers consider important. The auteur must have full control over his film, and should therefore be “responsible for the scenarios and dialogues they illustrate” (7). The influence of the French critics became apparent when films became more of a director’s medium instead of a screenwriter’s medium, moving away from storytelling towards cinematic artistry. A growing number of filmmakers started experimenting with the medium, in search of their own visual style and signature. In this new approach to film, directors were not only interested in telling a good story, but they questioned the phenomenon of cinema itself. The tendency of these filmmakers to shift focus from plot to medium specific expressiveness created a new perspective on film history. They tried to push the boundaries of the medium by radically breaking with the common ideas of what cinema should be. Provocative techniques, like the jump cut or the freeze frame, were introduced to amplify the visual language.

Of course, I need to be careful in talking about these auteurs as creative geniuses, because the auteur theory definitely has its flaws. One of the dangers is its invitation to romanticize these

filmmakers, interpreting every single element in their work in search for meaning in every small detail. However, I do think that the auteur theory is important when looking at it from a media archaeological standpoint. I propose a perspective on the auteur not as a creative genius (though we should not completely disregard his creativity) but rather as a participant in the debate on film as phenomenon. The auteur is in a way a film scholar who questions the (existential) ontology of the medium.

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8 popular and they were considered as some of the greatest5_{. Their films touched upon existential} themes of alienation, religion and death. More importantly, their films asked ontological questions about cinema. These three filmmakers were aware of their position in the media-landscape, using the context of film history to shape their own work. Looking at these auteurs from this point of view, they could be considered as active media archaeologists. They are constantly rethinking and reviving the knowledge of film history, and that is why I feel it is important to bring the texts they produced back into the media archaeological field.

II. Methodology

1. Corpus

To understand how the three layers of time work in film, I have chosen three films that will be central in this thesis: Bergman’s Persona (1966), Tarkovsky’s Mirror (1976) and Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959). By selecting these films, a strong focus on European art cinema arises. That is not particularly remarkable, as the prestigious European filmmakers from the fifties to the seventies all “pursued distinctive themes and stylistic choices in film after film” (Thompson and Bordwell 382), thereby fuelling the idea of the auteur as an artist. So why these three particular filmmakers and films? First, these three directors are simply considered as some of the greatest auteurs. Secondly, they are all from different countries, each with a different cinematic tradition. Because of this variety in nationality, I can make a broader claim on the auteur (in general) as media archaeologist.

Furthermore, these filmmakers explicitly expressed their affinity with the spiritual, which closely connects to the subject of transcendentalism. Finally, they all explicated their ideologies on the medium of film (both in film and in text). For that reason I can place them in the category of filmmaker as theorist.

Persona is probably Bergman’s most famous and radical film. “Persona’s ambiguity and

reflexivity made it one of the key works in modernist cinema” (Thompson and Bordwell 387). With its famous opening sequence, anarchistic visual effects (the projector breakdown) and focus on the machinery behind the imagery, it’s ultimately a film about film. From that perspective it is possibly the best entry for analysing it regarding my argument on the auteur as media archaeologist.

Mirror is the film that made me think about the relation between the transcendental quality of

film and time. Another main reason to include this film in my analyses is its depiction of time and memory. The film is not structured around a story, but it is structured around memories. In his book

Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky discusses the importance of time for the medium of film, not only in

production but also in ‘consumption’: “I think that what a person normally goes to the cinema for is

time: for time lost or spent or not yet had. He goes there for living experience” (63). In Mirror he most

5_{Other major filmmakers in this era that made European Auteur Cinema distinctive were Antonioni, Buñuel,} Fellini, Godard, Renoir and Truffaut.

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9 explicitly addresses this idea of an altered experience of time, with its fluctuating stream of different timelines. In that sense is Mirror the film that most explicitly expressed his ideas on cinema, as it’s “a philosophically personal and autobiographical film dealing with memory and temporality” (Menard). The final film is Pickpocket, which was Bresson’s fifth feature-length film, but the first in which he fully established his own style. Angels of Sin (1943) and The Ladies of Bois de Boulogne (1945), his first two films, are stylistically very different from his other work. Joseph Cunneen calls these films even “Bresson before Bresson” (25), because they are so offbeat compared to the rest of his oeuvre. Diary of a Country Priest (1951) was then a “major step in the discovery of his own approach to cinema” (Cunneen 44), and in A Man Escaped (1956) he developed this style even further. But it was Pickpocket that made Bresson the distinctive Bresson. According to fellow director Louis Malle “Pickpocket is Bresson’s first film” (Cunneen 71). It is the complete realization of Bresson’s approach to cinema. Hence I chose this film to look at how such a distinct auteur worked with the elements of time.

I will analyse these three films on three levels of time: media history (the big web of time that encompasses all), the rhythm of the films and, finally, the most primal use of time in the auteur’s use of the long take.

2. Models for Analysis

Firstly, I am approaching my corpus from a media archaeological perspective. In the first chapter, based on the first layer of time, I will focus on the auteur and his reflection on media history. In that chapter, my arguments are built around statements by the directors in relation to media history and in combination with examples from their films. I look at how the filmmaker as media archaeologist guides his audience in their understanding of the phenomenon of film. For my argumentation I use quotes and notes by the auteurs themselves on their ideas of what cinema should be. Furthermore, I look at how their work is positioned in the media-historical web, what their influences were and how they influenced others after their work’s completion. Finally I explain how this layer of media-historicity is important in the films’ abilities to enhance a cinematic experience into a transcendent (cinematic) experience.

In chapter two I move towards a phenomenological approach when I look at the rhythmical structures of the films. For understanding the rhythmical structures I want to introduce Herbert Zettl. In his book, Sight Sound Motion, Zettl wrote about understanding film and video aesthetics. Although this book is not written from a phenomenological viewpoint, it has chapter in which Zettl elaborates on the experience of time. In this chapter he introduces a model for understanding how certain elements can influence our experience of time while watching film (or video). The model Zettl constructed consists of three main characteristics: event’s density, event’s intensity and experience intensity. The first characteristic, an event’s density, is based on “[t]he relevant number of event

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10 details that occur within a brief clock time period […]. For example, if you would attend a three-ring circus, more things are going on at the same time than you can watch. A movie or video sequence with many brief shots and shifts of point of view, location, or angles is also a high-density event” (241-242). This is related to the speed and quantity of the presented event(s).

The second characteristic, an event’s intensity, is based on the “relevant energy and

significance we perceive about an event” (242). The event of two men aggressively fighting has more energy than the event of two men talking with each other. We experience time faster if an event has more energy, and if it’s significant to the story. If the fight between the two men is not significant for the main story, we experience the event not as fast as when it would be significant.

This closely relates to the third, and final characteristic: experience intensity. Experience intensity depends on “the number of relevant experiences we go through either simultaneously or in rapid succession and the relative depth or impact such events have on us” (243). This particular characteristic is the most difficult to ‘measure’, because it’s mainly subjective: “[e]xperience intensity is less dependent on the relative energy or density of the event and more dependent on how much the event means to you” (243). If we watch the death of a character we can relate to, our experience intensity would be much higher than if we watch the death of a character that is barely introduced to the story. And so the subjective aspect of experience intensity is depending on how much the spectator is emotionally involved in the events presented on screen.

The less intense these three characteristics are, the slower a shot feels. A long take of a cow grazing in the field would feel durational longer than a high-speed car chase.

The model I will use as a basis for my long take analyses in chapter three was proposed by Don Ihde in his book Experimental Phenomenology and was later applied by (among others) Vivian Sobchack in her analysis of Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993).

Ihde suggests five steps to get to a phenomenological interpretation. He names these steps “hermeneutic rules” built on existential phenomenological philosophy. Sobchack points out that this model (and phenomenological analysis in general) is very important to demonstrate that lived experience, or “subjective experience” is as important, if not more important, as “received knowledge”. She argues that many film scholars “are highly suspicious of their own “subjective” experience. They ignore, mistrust, and devalue it as trivial, mistaken, or irrelevantly singular — this last, a false, indeed arrogant, humility that unwittingly rejects intersubjectivity, sociality, and culture” (22). When it comes down to the evocation of transcendental feelings, indeed I cannot deny my own subjective experiences in understanding the phenomenon. However, I do think that I need to add an extra step, or degree, to Ihde’s model, because despite how subjective my experience of

transcendence, and my experience of time may be, to understand the function of the film we also need to take in mind the context of the film. Although the first step in the observation of the films’ long takes is from a phenomenological perspective (with the focus on the experience of time and

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11 transcendence), I also need to explore the ideas of the auteur in relation to my claim of the auteur as media archaeologist, working with and within the three layers of time.

The first two rules of Ihde’s model are closely linked and lay down the basis for analysis: “attend to the phenomena of experience as they appear” and “describe, don’t explain” (34). These rules seem superfluous, because both actions seem obvious. However, it’s of major importance for the sake of phenomenological experience to enter the object of analysis without preconceptions. Theories and sets of predefined criteria should be subordinated to direct observation in investigating how one experiences the object.

An accurate phenomenological description emerges next in “cursory and habituated perceptual responses – these then interrogated by a careful looking that precedes classification and

systematization (Sobchack 24). Important here is Ihde’s third rule: “horizontalize or equalize all immediate phenomena. Negatively put, do not assume an initial hierarchy of ‘realities’ that might foreclose the phenomenon’s possibilities” (36). It is very important that I do not make a hierarchical distinction so that every element can be given equal treatmen, based on a first (subjective) observation, without judging them rationally.

When I analyse my corpus, I will not elaborate on both naturalized film terms, genres and categories and on the material, measurable aspect of time at first. I will only describe my objects of analysis in terms of my sensual, embodied experience. Next, I will look at the corpus from a more meta perspective, acknowledging the context of the film. This is where Ihde’s model and my own working methods merge. What follows is the stage of reduction, the fourth rule of Ihde’s model: “seek out structural or invariant features of the phenomena as they appear” (39). This step is crucial to determine which details are of most importance to the object of analysis. In phenomenological

philosophy the ‘essence’ of an object is rather irrelevant. I would like to use Merleau-Ponty’s example of a table to clarify this. When I give a formal description of a table, ignoring its shape and details, I can feel as if I approach the essence of the table. However, that is just a description, not an

observation. When I observe a table, I am interested in the way it fulfils its task of being a table. In that way I am particularly (and solely) observing the uniqueness of the table (its shape and details, its ornaments, height, decorations, etcetera). Each detail is as important as the other for my experience of the table. The meaning ‘table’ is only significant to the extent that she appears with all her own unique details (75). All these details together constitute my experience of that particular table. That is why Ihde’s fourth rule is crucial: find qualitative variations that “possibilize phenomena, bring forward invariants in variants and to determine the limits of a phenomenon” (40). With this, Ihde means that to understand how the phenomenon works, one has to alter the phenomenon’s elements. One of the tools I introduce here, is to change a scene’s music (as a qualitative variation) to find the uniqueness of the (experience of the) long take. Music is a very important cinematic element when it comes to time, because music is the only other medium besides film that can record time (in a non-visible way). Music thus accompanies the image in its depiction of time. Therefore when I change the scene’s

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12 music, I change the way time is depicted. From thereon I can conclude how time is being depicted in the first place.

Finally after determining the structural invariants of the object of analysis, and thus have a clear view of what a phenomenon does (in a unique way of ‘being’), there’s one more rule left to expand on: explicate the phenomenological interpretation. According to Ihde, “[e]very experiencing has its reference or direction towards what is experienced, and, contrarily, every experienced

phenomenon refers to or reflects a mode of experiencing to which is present” (42-43). So, meaning of the object of analysis (as it is experienced) is stated through the interrelation between observation and ‘description’ (rules one two and three) and reduction (rule four).

While using this methodology I will focus primarily on time, rhythm and space within my corpus. I determine which details affect the experience of time and space, and how they influence our stream of consciousness. Ultimately, I will elaborate on the relation between time and rhythm and the feelings of transcendence in film.

These three different approaches seem unconnected at first, but in fact they are a logical accumulation in relation to the structure of this thesis. The first step, the media archaeological view on my corpus, is necessary in understanding the films in a broader network of time. I could not expand upon the notion of time in the chosen films, if I did not explain first how these films are affected by (historical) time in the first place. Next, to understand how time works in the context of the films as objects, the most obvious step is to analyse their rhythm. In order to do that I have chosen a model that can explicate how certain cinematic features influence a film’s rhythm and the spectator’s experience of time. Finally, with the phenomenological model founded by Ihde, I can explore how time works as a tool in the films. Each layer of time is important in the evocation of transcendental feelings and using these different approaches I am in a position to explain how.

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Chapter 1: Media Historical Time

I. The Web That Is Media History

To understand how time in film works, I look at it from a meta level first. Looking at time in relation to cinema from a macro perspective, it is obvious that we’re dealing with media history. A particular film, scene or even shot cannot be separated from the web, or network, that is media history. The media history that I refer to, is the media-archaeological perspective on media history: “challenging or even severely criticizing the methods of traditional historiography such as chronology, genealogy, and especially teleology” (Strauven 63). From a media-archaeological perspective, it is impossible to define film history as a linear progression from The Arrival of a Train (Lumière 1885) until now. Media history should be seen as a web of media-historic references which is paradoxically both timeless and ephemeral. Media history is timeless in the sense that it more resembles a place, or a map. In the web of media history all elements can be both past and present: cinematic ‘toys’6_, techniques, styles and ideas on film are constantly revived, revisited and rethought in ‘new’ texts, while the new texts immediately become a part of (media) history when they are materialised. However, at the same time media history shows how in different eras different ideas of film were popular (for example the auteur theory). In that sense media history is inevitably bound to time and the events that are linked to a particular time.

Although this seems complicated, it is safe to say that one of media history’s foremost ‘functions’ is that of a collective memory of media and cinema that influences both filmmakers and spectators. A filmmaker is always influenced by the history of the medium he works with, just as a spectator’s expectations and (cinematic) experiences are built upon their knowledge of media history. One cannot say if he/she is watching a film, if one has never watched a film before. That means that in a certain way the ontology7_{of film is closely connected to media history.}

Furthermore, the auteur plays a vital role in the connection of the three layers of time. My claim is that these auteurs should be considered media-archaeologists. When making a film, the auteur is aware of film history and brings that (consciously or unconsciously) along with him in his creative process. An auteur is, one way or another, always involved with film history. Not so much in

traditional film-history however, but more in a fragmented and non-linear remix of different kinds of media-histories. The auteur takes his place in this web of media-historical influences and, aware of his position, is always self-conscious about his work in this field of media history.

In this chapter I evaluate the three films from my corpus to see how they intertwine, react and reflect on media history. I claim that the work of an auteur can be considered a media-archaeological video-essay, through which the auteur engages in a dialogue with his audience asking ontological

6_{Cinematic toys: objects as the phenakistoscope, zoetrope, praxinoscope etc.}

7_{When I use the term ‘ontology’ I do not use it in the Bazinian way of the ontology of the photographic image. I} use it in the more basic philosophical way of a phenomenon’s nature of being (in the world).

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14 questions about the medium. The term video-essay is somewhat embroiled because in the field of media studies, the video-essay seems to gain in popularity as a legitimate way to present an argument. When I say these films are video-essays, I mean that although these films are feature films, they are also debates on what film is, or should be. The filmmakers that made these films should therefore be considered serious participants in the theorization of film as a phenomenon.

II. Bergman and Persona

The opening sequence of Persona is a logical place to start, as it explicitly refers to many different media-practices in a relatively short amount of time. The opening sequence alone almost stands on its own as an encapsulated essay on film, as it refers to slapstick, animation, the mechanics of film and Bergman’s own oeuvre. In this paragraph I want to take a look at a few of these references Bergman makes in relation to media history. In his use of these references, Bergman asks the spectator to think about the medium and explicitly reminds him that he is watching a film, while at the same time he recognizes and acknowledges his own position as filmmaker and auteur in the broader landscape of media history. The idea of this opening sequence came to Bergman during the process of making the film. In his own words: “[w]hile I was working on Persona, I had it in my head to make a poem- not in words but in images- about the situation in which Persona had originated. I reflected upon what was important, and began with the projector and my desire to set it in motion” (Duncan 341). The whole idea of this opening sequence therefore raised in Bergman’s desire to make films, to create with the medium. This focus on the medium was extremely important for Bergman. It was not only important for himself as a filmmaker, but even more so for the audience, whom he wanted to be constantly reminded of the machinery behind the beautiful imagery and emotions they evoked: “[t]o continue this idea of artifice, when the film was released, Bergman insisted that all stills should consist of frame blowups, complete with sprocket holes down the side” (Duncan 341). In short, Persona is as much a visual poem as a visual reflection on its own medium.

In this light, it is obvious that the opening sequence starts with two projector beams that slowly light up, slowly making contact. It’s the first reminder to the spectator that what he’s about to witness is a film, and, at the same time, it’s a reference to the archaeology of the projector itself. The projector is connected to the magic lantern, a device that could project images onto a wall or a screen. It was used for the creation of phantasmagorias, the “so-called ghost shows of later eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century Europe- illusionistic exhibitions and public entertainments in which “spectres” were produced through the use of the magic lantern” (Castle 27). Important to notice, is the connection with the world of the fantastical, of spectres and phantoms. According to Castle “amid all the technological breakthroughs and the refinements in cinematic technique, the ghost-connection, interestingly enough, never entirely disappeared” (42). In fact, this is apparent in Persona: the haunting quality of the desolated island and the ghostly movements of the characters are reminiscent of that phantasmagorical characteristic, but it’s even more obvious in the imagery presented in the

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15 opening sequence. One of the first images that is shown, is a fragment from a silent film showing a man in pyjama’s being chased by a skeleton and a vampire. With this, Bergman almost made a tribute to the magic lantern, acknowledging the importance of the device in film history. It comes as no surprise then that his autobiography is titled Lanterna Magica. In his autobiography Bergman recalls the moment he discovered his love for film and theatre, here recited by Mervyn Rothstein: “[a]t the age of 9, he traded a set of tin soldiers for a battered magic lantern, a possession that altered the course of his life. Within a year, he had created, by playing with this toy, a private world in which he felt completely at home, he recalled. He fashioned his own scenery, marionettes and lighting effects and gave puppet productions of Strindberg plays in which he spoke all the parts” (NY Times). Bergman learned the phantasmagorical quality of film through the device of the magic lantern, and he went on to show this to his audience8_.

Bergman not only refers to the mechanics of film, but he also refers to media texts and contexts. The first image we see (extremely briefly) is that of an erect penis. It could be seen as a nod to subliminal advertising which was fairly popular among advertisers in that period (Moore 38). Furthermore, it could also be seen as a reference to 1910’s ‘sex hygiene films’. These films, in which nude bodies were explicitly exposed, were produced in the guise of educational films for the

prevention of STD’s (Schaefer 37)9_{. At the same time, this shot is being referenced in David Fincher’s}

Fight Club (1999). In this case, we can see that chronology of media history is not as simple as it

seems. When a reference is made between two objects, they will be always linked to one another. This creates the timeless condition of the web of media history. Although Persona came first, the only thing that really matters (in their relation) is the connection that has been established by Fight Club. The latter makes Persona exist in the same present as itself because the reference influences our experience of the film ‘now’. In that sense, on experiential level, they will always exist within the same timeframe despite the more than thirty years gap between the films.

Finally Bergman also points to his own filmography with the images of the tarantula, crawling over the screen. Using this image he refers to Through A Glass Darkly (1961) in which God is

represented in the form of a spider. By including this image in the opening sequence that is stacked with media-historical references, he positions himself in the field as well. He, quite literally, recognizes his own work in the broader context of media history. With this statement he shows his self-reflexivity and his awareness of his position in the media historic web.

All the ‘quotations’ to media history Bergman uses to build his film around are important in the enabling of transcendental feelings. What is probably critical in this transcendental quality, is its

phantasmagorical intention. When people went to see the illusionistic exhibitions of the

phantasmagoria, they knew that what they saw was not real: “[o]ne knew that ghosts did not exist, yet

8_{He even made a film about this theme with The Magician (1958)}

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16 one saw them anyway, without knowing precisely how (Castle 30). In Persona Bergman explicitly emphasized the fact that although one knows they are watching a film (which is not real), they can experience extraordinary feelings (that are real). With this observation, Persona transforms the phenomenon of film into a mystifying, phantasmagorical phenomenon. By reminiscing this quality of media, Bergman heightens the spectator’s conscious experience of the film.

III. Tarkovsky and Mirror

When Tarkovsky came up with the idea of a personal film about memory, remembrance and time, he did not have any idea of how such a film had to be constructed. He played with different ideas to tell this story. One of them was that of fictional reconstructions of events from his own memory in combination with non-fictional interviews with his mother about these same events (Tarkovsky 129). He eventually abandoned this idea, but he did not abandon the idea of merging fiction and non-fiction. In Mirror, fictional events are interspersed with archival footage of The Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Army crossing Lake Sivash, the political triumph of Mao in China and tests with air balloons by a Kurdish aviator. This is where Tarkovsky takes his place as an active media-archaeologist, asking questions about film, referring to our collective memory not only in terms of historical events, but also in media-historical terms. I want to elaborate in two different ways on Tarkvosky’s use of archive footage. First, I want to highlight the complexity of archive material in relation to time, politics (which is always in relation to history) and the role of the archive in our society through the work of theorists Derrida and Pisters. Second, and more important, I argue how the archive material makes statements on time and cinema, and how it’s important in the evocation of feelings of transcendence in the film. Derrida argues “the archive doesn’t simply record the past. [But] it also, of course, constitutes the past, and in view of a future which retrospectively, or retroactively gives it its so-called final truth” (41-42). He continues his argument on the archive in claiming that it’s “not a living memory. It’s a location” (42). What he means by this, is that the act of archiving consist mainly in leaving a trace in an external location. This is subsequently threatened by the possibility of destruction (for example a library can be burnt down). Partially because of this threat, and partially because of hegemonic power structures, the archive is always political. It is constituted by the dominant power. There’s a “general acceptance of the fact that archiving is never a neutral operation but one that involves ongoing transformations and the operation of different agendas” (Baronian 81). We would have had a completely different collective memory (which is mainly shaped by the archive) if for example Nazi Germany would have won the war. Therefore we can never separate archive material from its political basis. So, although Tarkovsky “had to look through thousands of metres of film before hitting on the sequence of the Soviet Army crossing Lake Sivash” (Tarkovsky 130) we are not just dealing with a (media-)archaeologist who ‘discovered’ this material, we are also dealing with the fact that this material exists in the first place (and was not destroyed). The material therefore is not only an ‘objective’ view on historical events that influenced the protagonist (here, the auto-biographical

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17 auteur), it also functions as a catalyst for our own internal memory. The archival footage is a political, pre-selected, hegemonic regulated, ‘objective’ collective memory, while our own memories are phenomenological/experiential. However, the ‘objective’ collective memory becomes part of- and influences our own internal memory when it is presented on screen. Notice that there is a close link between the act of archiving and the work of a media-archaeologist and his/her views on media history. In the archiving of media history, many phenomena are forgotten because they are considered unnecessary or unimportant. The media-archaeologist however, pursues a ‘complete’ historic

framework in which all media-objects are equal. Through this act of archiving, the media

archaeologist (in this case Tarkovsky) makes the events he shows relevant again. Pisters states, in extension of Lipovetsky and Serroy, that “contested and judged history becomes living memory in an open archive” (225). What this means, is that through cinema (which functions as an open archive) we can think past events which then live in our collective and internal memory because of this re-thinking. This completely disrupts the linearity of history, creating a flow of events that is constantly mingling different timelines, altering both collective and internal memory.

What, however, does the archival footage says about time and cinema, and why is it important for the experience of the film itself? Of course, what shocks a spectator at first when archival footage is presented, is its ‘realness’. We are familiar with the aesthetic which we recognize as a

documentation of real events. This disrupts our experience of the film, which, until the introduction of archival footage, was just ‘innocent fiction’. Suddenly it is suggested that we are not watching ‘film’ anymore, but we are watching a newsreel. Our idea of what film, or cinema, is supposed to be, suddenly begins to waver. Furthermore, while we are in doubt about the ontology of film, we are plunged into world history. However, the historicity transcends through its intertwining with fiction and our experience of it. It is not that fixed event in the past anymore, it becomes a comprehensive membrane that influences our present experience of being. The events that are shown are not static points on a timeline that are looked back upon, but ever-moving traces that merge with our experience of ‘now’.

This is in a way also capsulated in its visual presentation. The aesthetic of the footage stands out from the rest of the film, because it is very textured. This makes it tangible like, indeed, a

membrane. As a spectator you can almost (bodily) feel the film grain, it creates a sort of skin through which we can connect to the film better. In her book The Skin of Film, Laura Marks elaborates on this connection, and on what kinds of images are tactile or, in her words, “haptic”.

Marks defines haptic visuality as containing some of the following formal and textual qualities: grainy, unclear images; sensuous imagery that evokes memory of the senses (i.e. water, nature); the depiction of characters in acute states of sensory activity (smelling, sniffing, tasting, etc.); close-to-the-body camera positions and panning across the surface of objects; changes in focus, under- and overexposure, decaying film and video imagery; optical

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18 printing; scratching on the emulsion; densely textured images, effects and formats such as Pixelvision. (Totaro, Off Screen)

It’s clear that the archival footage Tarkovsky uses contains most of these characteristics, making it tangible. The historic events shown in the footage therefore are not conserved and distant, but fluid and close, affecting our experience of being in the world right now. This makes it important in the film’s evocation of transcendent feelings, elevating it to more than ‘just a story’.

IV. Bresson and Pickpocket

I have shown that Bergman and Tarkovsky reflected on media history quite explicitly in terms of referencing and use of the medium. In the case of Bresson and Pickpocket it is done in a much more implicit and subtle way. In his book Notes on Cinematography Bresson presents his vision on cinema through a collection of small notes and statements. He is in fact trying to explicate the ontology of film using really small steps. The most crucial aspects of his vision are actually closely connected with the media archaeological approach of film. He pleads for an approach of the phenomenon as a

phenomenon on its own, not just as a successor of other media: “The truth of cinematography cannot be the truth of theatre, nor the truth of the novel, nor the truth of painting. (What the cinematographer captures with his or her own resources cannot be what the theatre, the novel, painting capture with theirs.)” (5). Surely the medium of film can be influenced by theatre or literature, but these arts are not inherent to it. Film should, in the eyes of Bresson, create and not reproduce. In the book, he

emphasizes the idea that film should always produce new relationships. He states for example that “[t]o create is not to deform or invent persons and things. It is to tie new relationships between persons and things which are, and as they are” (7), and that “[f]rom the clash and sequence of images and sounds, a harmony of relationships must be born” (51). What he means with this, is that it is not the filmmaker’s duty to invent a new world, but to create an environment in which characters and objects react to one another. That is why he also wants his ‘models’ not to act, but just to do. They must not think about their actions, they must do their actions:

Models who have become automatic (everything weighed, measured, timed, repeated ten, twenty times) and are then dropped in the middle of the events of your film – their relations with the objects and persons around them will be right, because they will not be thought. (12) This is apparent in Pickpocket in which Martin LaSalle (who plays protagonist Michel) seems to just

be, instead of acting his part. Pickpocket is in fact almost like an adaptation of Notes on

Cinematography: a realisation of Bresson’s vision on (the use of) the medium. What Bresson presents

in Pickpocket, the first film in which his style was realized completely, is not only a story about a pickpocket, but also a story about the medium of film and how, according to him, it should be used. What stands out watching Pickpocket is the restrained and static use of the camera. There are no spectacular dolly- and crane movements, grotesque angles or sweeping pans and tilts. Every frame

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19 has an extremely formal composition. This meticulously crafted style does not only refer to itself, but, indirectly, to the practice of film as a whole. This formality is a contrast to the films made in

Hollywood at the time. Where Hitchcock and Welles tried to overwhelm their audiences with exhilarating stories, miraculous set pieces and beautiful actors and actresses, Bresson tried to find a form that could show how film could capture the transience of life. He even “deliberately avoided ‘special effects’” (Cunneen 14). With his strict and formal style he distanced himself so explicitly from the popular filmmakers, that he in a way reacted on the course that the medium had taken. According to Bresson there are “two types of film: those that employ the resources of the theatre (actors, direction, etc.) and use the camera in order to reproduce; those that employ the resources of cinematography and use the camera to create” (2). He dismissed the first type as an art form, not only in words, but also in the way he crafted his films. As a spectator of Pickpocket, one is constant in debate about the ontology of film. At first one could complain about the (lack of) talent of the actors, and say the film is bad because of this10_{. However, a film cannot be judged by its actors, because then} only the actors are judged. This also applies for camera movements: they are not spectacular, but a film does not need camera movements to legitimize its status as a film. A film doesn’t even need movement in frame to be called a film (think of Chris Marker’s La Jetee (1962)).

What Bresson does with Pickpocket, is arguing with the spectator about what cinema can and/or should do/be. He implicitly asks the spectators if they think that films should entertain them, or that films should make them feel. Although Pickpocket seems so modest and subdued, it is actually very radical and anarchistic, going against the grain of popular filmmaking. He dares his audience to think about the medium as an art form, not as escapist entertainment. By doing this, he

self-consciously positions himself in the field of media-history, almost as a branch on its own with his distinctive (and radical) view on film. Bresson thus uses film history indirectly, shattering the

expectations that film history had established. This shattering of expectations is an important factor in

Pickpocket’s ability to evoke transcendental feelings. A spectator is constantly mislead, while at the

same time the immaculate rhythm builds towards a strong emotional climax which completely surprises the spectator. This sudden destruction of expectations highly elevates the cinematic experience.

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Chapter 2: Rhythmic Segmentations

I. Introduction

To understand how time works on the level of the film itself, that is rhythm, I elaborate in this chapter on my statements of time and rhythm being fundamental for the transcendental experience of film. In order to do so, I analysed the rhythm in the three films from my corpus. To be able to understand how rhythm is connected to time as a bigger entity (in a media historical way) and to the experienced time of a long take, I need to understand how rhythm plays a role in the experience of a film as a self-contained phenomenon. How does the rhythm plays a role in the evocation of transcendental feelings, and why is rhythm important in the phenomenological experience of the film?

To understand how rhythm in film works, I propose rhythmical segmentations of the films. Instead of dividing the films in chapters of narration, I have divided them in terms of rhythm. In doing so I get a clear view on how the film’s time is ‘shaped’ in a particular rhythm that is essential for the experience. I link these rhythmic ‘chapters’ to the aforementioned model of Herbert Zettl, which helps in understanding the experience of time. While I have explained his model in my methodology, I will briefly explain his main points again here and show how I channelled his model into a practicable form. Zettl claims that subjective experience of time in film is depending on three different factors: an event’s density, an event’s intensity and experience intensity. In short: an event’s density has to do with the speed in which an event is presented, the event’s intensity has to do with the energy-level of an event and the experience intensity is the event’s subjective relevance and how much it means to a particular viewer. The more intense these characteristics are, the faster a film/scene/shot feels. In each chapter I analyse how time is being experienced according to the characteristics of Zettl’s model. To get a grip on this analytical process I gave each chapter a title, a rhythmical indication, a time-code, explanation of the events that take place and an image to illustrate the chapter. Finally I also made a timeline for each film to get a better overview of how they are shaped in time. These timelines show the rhythmical chapters and, in doing so, you could see in one glimpse how time is structured within these films. The darker the colour of a chapter is in the timeline, the faster it rhythmically feels.

II. Persona

While in preparation for Persona, Bergman told Sven Nykvist11_{he had not written an ordinary} screenplay, but “something more like a melody” (Duncan 338). In another piece on Persona, titled ‘Internal Rhythms’, Bergman tells that he wanted to create a visual poem, which had to be

established through a rhythm of long shots and close-ups (Duncan 340). This becomes clear when watching the film, in which intensity is not so much driven by story as by the rhythm of powerful

11_{Nykvist was Bergman’s cinematographer of choice, collaborating on nineteen feature films and a} mini-series.

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21 imagery.

Persona tells a story of two women: Elisabet, a famous actress who stopped talking, and Alma, a young nurse who is appointed to help the actress. A doctor sends the two women to her seaside house where Elisabet can slowly ‘recover’ under supervision of Alma. The latter talks constantly to fill up the silence. She reveals her biggest secrets, while Elisabet remains silent. Elisabet is, in fact, analysing Alma the whole time for her own benefit. When Alma discovers that Elisabet used her, the film becomes a surrealistic and haunting descent in the women’s psyche. The two

women’s identities slowly start morphing into each other, leaving the question if there were ever two women at all.

The film could be divided into fourteen different rhythmic chapters. Each chapter obviously differs in pace and rhythm to the chapter before and after.

1. Part one of opening sequence. Extremely fast paced. [00:00-02:14]

The first rhythmic chapter consists of the imagery of the projector and the projected images that flicker on the screen. It is extremely fast and feels very rushed and chaotic.

This feeling of extreme fastness demonstrates what Zettl calls the “event’s density”. The shots are following each other in an insanely high tempo, leaving no space for the spectator to think about the imagery he witnesses. It is like a train on full speed, of which you can only identify its colour and the fact that it’s a train. In Zettl’s words, it feels like a “rapid assault on our senses” (242). The event’s intensity is high as well: we see a comedic act in which the characters are running, the slaughter of a sheep and the hand of a man who is crucified. All these events are high-energy events, speeding up the pace of the sequence. The only characteristic that isn’t as high as the others is the experience intensity. The film doesn’t give the spectator enough time to care about the images, making the events not very relevant (yet).

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22 2. Part two of opening sequence. Slow paced. [02:14-05:35]

The flickering of fast paced imagery gets delayed halfway through the opening sequence. The speed of the images slows down immensely and the images of trees, architecture and corpses stay on the screen evidently longer. The images almost look like photographs because of their stillness. The slowness of these images is followed, in the same rhythm, by the scene of a young boy that wakes up, reads from a book and touches a blurry projected image of a woman’s face. This chapter is highly contrasted by its predecessor and its successor. In this case the event’s density is quite low. There is much time to think about the imagery on the screen, but even more important, there are less images presented, reducing the event’s density. The event’s intensity is also low: the trees, the architecture and the corpses are very static, and the boy’s activities aren’t full of energy either. In the words of Zettl, they are “low-energy events”, which, if we don’t understand the significance of the events, don’t involve us as much as high-energy events do. Finally the experience intensity is very low as well. Although experience intensity always has a personal foundation, there is no relevance of these images at this point for a spectator within the confines of the film.

3. Title Sequence. Extremely fast paced. [05:35-06:25]

In the title sequence title cards and images from the film take turns in a rapid pace, creating a rushed flow of information.

This has, in terms of Zettl’s characteristics, basically the same results as chapter one has. I witness a high event’s density because of its fast cutting. Secondly, there is a high event’s intensity because of the imagery (self-immolation of monks, the comedic act we saw earlier), although some images are very static (trees and faces). Finally there is a low

experience intensity, although it is higher than in the previous scenes because curiosity arises because of the faces that are repeatedly shown.

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23 4. The hospital and stage scene. Natural paced. [06:25-11:08]

After the title sequence the two main characters (Elisabet and Alma) are introduced, as well as the doctor. It’s explained that Elisabet stopped talking on stage. Then the two protagonists meet in one of the hospital rooms. These scenes are in a relatively ‘normal’ rhythm. There is no fast cutting, nor the use of extensively long takes. Movements are in an every-day pace as well.

This natural pace is established because of the balance in events’ density and intensity. The density is not particularly high, nor particularly low. Alma meets with the doctor and with the silent Elisabet who is shown in a flashback where she is on stage and stops talking. There are some events going on, creating a relatively every-day pace which is established even more by the event’s intensity. Alma is walking through the hospital, not running, not sitting down, just walking. She talks to the doctor, she helps Elisabet with her pillow and, later, with the radio. These are not high-energy events, nor very low-energy events. Experience intensity is finally increasing here. These sequences are relevant for the audience to understand what this film is going to be about. It sets up a premise and creates an environment in which the story will unfold.

5. Staring of Elisabet. Extremely low paced. [11:08-12:21]

The every-day pace from the previous chapter is broken in this chapter by the staring of Elisabet. Alma puts on music on the radio and Elisabet is silently listening to the music, staring right past the camera. Time feels immensely stretched and slows down the rhythm of the film.

This is a prime example for understanding how our experiential time differs extremely from material time. In this shot there’s practically zero density and zero intensity fabricating

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24 an experience of time where the passing of time almost feels non-existent. This shot feels excruciating (not in a negative sense) long, making the spectator feel the passing of time fiercely. Paradoxically the experience of time in this chapter enhances experience intensity. The longer the shot goes on, the more intense I experience it. This means that while time is passing, experience intensity increases, which enhances the pace. Its enhancing of experience intensity is not enough however to boost the chapter’s pace. It still feels very slow, while in the material sense of time it only lasts for a little longer than a minute.

6. Alma’s Bedroom monologue. Natural paced. [12:21-13:50]

In this sequence Alma contemplates her life by speaking to herself right before she goes to sleep.

Although the scene is filmed as a long take which in duration is longer than Elisabet’s scene, it feels much faster. This basically has to do with the event’s intensity which is higher than in the previous scene with Elisabet. There’s a clearer sense of continuation, not only because Alma is speaking, but also because she fidgets, rubbing her skin with some kind of cream. These actions enhance the event’s intensity. Furthermore, the experience intensity is enhanced because we, as spectators, get more relevant information making us care more about this scene than the previous.

7. Television sequence. Extremely fast paced. [13:50-15:24]

Elisabet is alone in her room and looks in agony at the conflicts she sees on her television. Here we basically have the same construction as in the fast parts of the openings sequence. Fast cut images are rapidly filling the screen which is strongly enhancing the event’s density, intensity and experience intensity.

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8. Transition from hospital to the summerhouse. Natural paced. [15:24-26:25]

This chapter consists of multiple scenes, which play out in the same, ‘normal’ rhythm. Alma is reading a letter to Elisabet, the doctor sends both of them to her summerhouse on an island, the women are cutting mushrooms and humming in the garden and Alma talks a lot to Elisabet both outside as well as in the house.

The rhythm feels very natural, nothing feels stretched, nor compressed. Density and intensity are balanced, while experience intensity is enhanced a little.

9. Erotic monologue and building tension. Slow paced. [26:25-44:34]

This chapter is another one in which time feels stretched intensely. Alma talks about an erotic experience she had on a beach. The scene is followed by a mystifying night scene in which Elisabet visits Alma in her bedroom. Of importance here is that this sequence is the most transcendental in my experience. Other scenes that rhythmically belong to this chapter are the ones in which Alma reads Elisabet’s letter and where she deliberately doesn’t remove the glass shard. It all feels extremely slow and drawn out.

While the experience intensity of the erotic monologue is quite high (and

phenomenologically immensely thought provoking), the event’s density and intensity are not. The same goes for the scenes following the monologue, where the experience intensity even decreases. We see the women interacting in the house, wander on the rocks and silently sitting in the sun.

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10. Broken projector, boiling water and apology. Fast paced. [44:34-54:25]

The slow sequence in which tension is built suddenly stops when there’s a ‘projection failure’. This is followed by two other ‘fast’ scenes in which Alma respectively threatens Elisabet with a pan of boiling water and tries to apologize for it afterwards.

After the projection error, images that are reminiscent of the opening sequence are flashing on the screen (though they seem to linger a little longer). This speeds up the rhythm, enhancing density and intensity. In the next scene the event’s intensity even increases because of the conflict between the two women and the tension that lingers after the clash.

11. Cross cutting Alma and Elisabet. Slow paced. [54:25-56:39]

In this scene Alma and Elisabet are separately showed. Alma is at the rocks, Elisabet is in the house. The friendly bond between them is now fully broken.

Again, the slow pace here is constituted through the low density and intensity of the events. The women, apart from each other, are silently contemplating the previous events. Nothing much goes on in terms of action. The experience intensity isn’t very high either. The moment of high tension is gone, and their actions are not relevant for the story itself.

Quality Time: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Transcendental Ability of Time in Film