Dead Time - Exploring Slow Cinema

[@sierrafrost1222]

I have learned 29493836 things about slow cinema from you! My best takeaways from this one are: -History of the working class birthing this kind of film - that's cool. -"cinematic sleeping pill" - you're funny and so is Seinfeld. -Lately I've been considering how little "downtime" is ever shown on film. I remember being a kid and thinking, "Nobody on TV is doing homework or sitting at the table for 30min waiting for their brother to eat carrots like me..." I've considered how never showing boring things shapes my expectations of relationships and our collective understanding. -I've studied my body's time vs my mind's time the last 2 years. I also do this with my clients. My experience is body time is WAY slower than mind time, and when I am able to go at my body's pace, capitalism hates me. -Love the quote about how we must have enough time for our mind to begin to work. I related to that very much as I've experienced it in mindfulness practice so so often, it is only once I get painfully bored that I grow the most and find the most peace. The "medicine" comes with so much time and we miss so much when we move quickly. Thank you.

[@sierrafrost1222]

Oh yeah and I'm gonna see if this comes up in my post capitalist futures course!

[@asapfilms2519]

Stillness is the finest way of showing motion.

[@redsol3629]

Boring people are easily bored.

[@Syncopator]

I don't find slow cinema boring at all for the most part. There are some ideas that can take some contemplation and reflection to communicate-- the best "slow cinema" scenes give you information that, if you sleep through it, you will miss. One of my favorite examples is in David Lynch's "Eraserhead"-- the first time Henry gets on the elevator, we see him push the button and the camera lingers for what seems an eternity. The camera even changes its position slightly, still holding on the framing of Henry standing in the elevator. Finally, the doors close. What we can realize in this scene, is the fact that Henry knows his apartment building well, communicated to us by the fact he doesn't get impatient with the slowness of the elevator-- Henry knows that would be useless because the elevator is slow so he just has to wait and he does patiently. It communicates the dilapidated and bleak conditions in his world-- communicated far more eloquently using time and the viewer's contemplation (even if somewhat unconscious) rather than some other form of exposition. Those who find such scenes "boring" simply aren't contemplative enough to comprehend what's being communicated. Slow scenes are those that make you think, and those that make you feel-- those things that sometimes take time to process. Kubrick once said that he didn't like to "spell it out" in a film with explicit exposition, but to give the viewer enough information to "figure it out for themselves." That "figuring out" can take time, and when you uncover those moments of epiphany in films, it can be fascinating and rewarding.

[@Redolentleek]

Slow cinema, the one minute elevator scene in evangelion

[@Jazztice4me]

Slow cinema is sometimes called CCC (Contemporary Contemplative Cinema), a more precise way to describe it.

[@asapfilms2519]

I think you forgot to show film clips by Carlos Reygadas, Paweł Pawlikowski, Robert Bresson, Aki Karusmaki, Victor Erice, Chantal Ackerman, …I guess one cannot write all the names…the list just keeps growing….it’s a good essay though….keep it up….Transcendental Cinema by Paul Scrader is a great book on the same….

[@ne0ne0]

A mention of the Emperor of Slow Cinema, Andrei Tarkovsky, would have been nice. But otherwise a fantastic video essay that I enjoyed a lot!

[@AshwaniKumar-xj9bq]

Great essay.

[@PhotonSteve]

Nich, Great Job on this essay. You clearly did a lot of excellent research and have provided us a lot of insight into this genre of cinema, and I want to thank you for that! A lot of people use the work boring when discussing slow cinema and this is not only wrong, it reveals the bias we have developed from Hollywood, a consumer society and more recently, social media. Slow Cinema is boring if life is boring... and in fact the focus on time in slow cinema seems to reveal the complexity and beauty of the way time passes for us in real life. Slow cinema simply asks us to pay attention to that and to follow along with the unfolding of time and place, as we understand our experience of watching, following, thinking, feeling our way through these reflective and vibrant expositions on time and cinema within the confines of some story or other. There is nothing boring about Bela Tar, Tsai Ming-Liang, Antonioni, Ozu, et al if you accept the films on their own terms... they are instead explications of human life, the way we live and the way to exist in the universe. Those things are anything but boring. While I am convinced of slow cinema's critique of the form and content of commercial, consumer, popular films, I am less convinced that this is an implicit critique of capitalism or the Neo-liberal model that you suggest. Its very popular to append philosophical speculation to the political, but I alway sense that this is often a way to justify or to make useful or practical...: ideas, feelings and speculative notions. Appending the political to the philosophical seems, in fact, to be a capitulation to to the Neo-liberal insistence on pragmatism and result orientation... as if ideas on their own are not valuable enough without a social, political or economic framework. Still you have done a great job of weaving Flannigan's excellent essay into your video and I loved watching it! Bravo! Keep it up!!!! You offer an excellent analysis and a boat load of insight in this kinds of films and why we would want to watch them! Thank You. Do More!

[@trumanandnoahproductions1159]

I was waiting for you to show first reformed then you did and I was so happy

[@KnowledgeVariable]

dude, your videos are good, do more dude

[@ericye2207]

Great video essay! I really enjoyed every minute as it was extremely informative

[@Kieslowski1989]

Well, I'm all into slow cinema and I was very happy when I got to see Portrait de la Jeune Fille en feu back in 2019. One of the greatest movies of all time. I feel it's even a contender for best cinematography as it's the only movie which looks as beautiful and aesthetic as Barry Lyndon.

[@anamariapolgar5146]

that was great, thank you!

[@no.love.for.a.nation]

Nice work!

[@vinceepatrick]

Imagine if they filmed Avengers in slow cinema

[@Tyro747]

Nice vid fr fr

[@orfmad459]

yea sure

[@asapfilms2519]

Hi…I made a 3 hour long slow film…but no film festivals are accepting it…because I am a nobody at the moment….but my film is a masterpiece…can you please help…

[@somewordsandstuffiguess]

Link?

[@asapfilms2519]

@@somewordsandstuffiguess please share your email Id…I will share the screening link there…

[@somewordsandstuffiguess]

@@asapfilms2519 ty

[@ladiesman218]

Cant you put it on youtube?