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Citation for published version
Ça layan, Orhan Emre (2014) Screening boredom: the history and aesthetics of slow cinema.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent.
DOI
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http://kar.kent.ac.uk/43155/
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SCREENING BOREDOM
THE HISTORY AND AESTHETICS OF SLOW CINEMA
Orhan Emre ‚ağlayan
A Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film Studies
University of Kent
February 2014
ii 
ABSTRACT
This thesis examines Slow Cinema, a stylistic trend within contemporary art cinema,
although one with a longer pre-history. Its distinguishing characteristics pertain
ultimately to narration: the films, minimalistic by design, retard narrative pace and elide
causality. Specifically, its aesthetic features include a mannered use of the long take and
a resolute emphasis on dead time; devices fostering a mode of narration that initially
appears baffling, cryptic and genuinely incomprehensible and offers, above all, an
extended experience of duration on screen. This contemporary current emerges from a
historical genealogy of modernist art films that for decades distended cinematic
temporality and, furthermore, from the critical and institutional debates that attended to
it. This thesis, therefore, investigates Slow Cinema in its two remarkable aspects: firstly,
as an aesthetic practice, focusing on the formal aspects of the films and their function in
attaining a contemplative and ruminative mode of spectatorship; and, secondly, as a
historical critical tradition and the concomitant institutional context of the filmsÕ mode
of exhibition, production and reception. As the first sustained work to treat Slow
Cinema both as an aesthetic mode and as a critical discourse with historical roots and a
Janus-faced disposition in the age of digital technologies, this thesis argues that the
Slow Cinema phenomenon can best be understood via an investigation of an aesthetic
experience based on nostalgia, absurd humour and boredom, key concepts that will be
explored in respective case studies. My original contribution to knowledge is, therefore,
a comprehensive account of a global current of cultural practice that offers a radical and
at times paradoxical reconsideration of our emotional attachment and intellectual
engagement with moving images.
The introduction chapter begins with a discussion of the Slow Cinema debate
and then establishes the aims of the thesis, its theoretical framework and elaborates on
the adopted methodologies, namely formal analysis and aesthetic historiography.
Chapter 2 examines BŽla Tarr in light of the evolution of the long take and attributes
TarrÕs use of this aesthetic device as a nostalgic revision of modernist art cinema.
Chapter 3 explores the films of Tsai Ming-liang, which embrace incongruous aesthetic
features, envision an absurdist view of life, create humour through duration and are
situated within the minimalist trends of the international film festival circuit. Chapter 4
focuses on Nuri Bilge Ceylan, whose films emerge from the aftermath of the collapse of
a domestic film industry and intervene into its historical heritage by adopting
fundamental features of boredom as well as transforming its idleness into an
aesthetically rewarding experience. The conclusion chapter incorporates the case studies
by stressing the role of Slow Cinema within the complex negotiations taking place
between indigenous filmmaking practices and the demands of global art cinema
audiences as well as the circulation of art films through networks of film festivals and
their respective funding bodies.
iii 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As in any other scholarly study, the work carried out within this thesis has largely
benefited from the guidance and support of many friends. A number of institutions and
departments have provided financial support for my doctoral study. The Film Studies
Department at the University of Kent has granted a first year scholarship, while The
International Office at Kent has generously offered me a three-year scholarship, for
which I am particularly grateful to Joanna Ganderton-Smith. Mithat Alam Education
Foundation has generously granted me with maintenance funds for four years, for which
I am sincerely grateful to Yama• Okur, Pelin Uzay and the man himself, Mithat Alam, a
genuine cinephile with an inspiring passion and with whom I had many treasured
conversations regarding the subject matter of this thesis.
Members of the Film Studies Department at the University of Kent have provided me
with valuable feedback. I am particularly grateful to Peter Stanfield, Murray Smith,
Jinhee Choi, Tamar Jeffers-McDonald, Aylish Wood, Frances Guerin, Elizabeth Cowie,
Virginia Pitts and Nigel Mather. In terms of administrative support, I want to thank
Angela Whiffen for her endeavours in responding to my incessant queries. My
supervisor Mattias Frey deserves more credit than I can express in words. I am sincerely
indebted to his intellectual guidance, expertise, inspiration and moral support, all of
which has been instrumental in having my work come this far.
The postgraduate community at Kent has developed and refined my understanding of
the discipline over the past few years and, most importantly, offered an opportunity to
discuss my work in a friendly atmosphere. In no particular order, I am sincerely
thankful to Dominic Topp, Paul Taberham, Ted Nannicelli, Stelios Christodoulou, Matt
Thorpe, Charalambos Charalambous, Peter Sillett, Frances Kamm, Caleb Turner,
Keeley Saunders, Sarah Polley, Geoff Mann, Luis Rocha-Antunes, Lies Lanckman,
Katerina Flint-Nicol and James Newton. I will cherish the heated discussions and
conversations on cinema we had over the past few years.
I am also deeply grateful to my parents, Hande and Ufuk ‚ağlayan, as well as my sister
Kõvõlcõm, whose undemanding devotion and unrestricted support has made my work
unimaginably easier. My final thanks go to Inga Markelyte, whose love, patience and
effort in correcting my manuscript has been crucial and without her I would not have
been able to complete this dissertation.
iv 
CONTENTS
Abstract ii
Acknowledgments iii
Chapter 1 Ð Introduction 1
1.1 Ð Defining Slow Cinema 6
1.2 Ð Understanding Art Cinema 16
1.3 Ð Theorizing Slow Cinema 26
1.4 Ð Methodology 1: Formal Analysis 32
1.5 Ð Methodology 2: Aesthetic History 40
1.6 Ð Outline of Chapters 44
Chapter 2 Ð Nostalgia for Modernism: BŽla Tarr and the Long Take 47
2.1 Ð Introduction 47
2.2 Ð The Long Take: the Dominant and Bazinian Realism 51
2.3 Ð Dedramatization, Dead Time and the Descriptive Pause 64
2.4 Ð Lingering Movement and Fl‰nerie in Werckmeister Harmonies 79
2.5 Ð Framing, Duration and Òthe Cinephiliac MomentÓ 88
2.6 Ð Nostalgia, Modernism and the Retro Art Cinema Style 99
2.7 Ð Conclusion 109
Chapter 3 Ð Less is Absurd: Humour in the Films of Tsai Ming-Liang 111
3.1 Ð Introduction 111
3.2 Ð New Taiwan Cinema and the Rise of the ÒFestival FilmÓ 114
3.3 Ð Tsai Ming-liang: Between Camp and Minimalist Aesthetics 121
3.4 Ð Narrative Form: Episodic Structure and Symbolism 131
3.5 Ð Theatre of the Absurd, Silent Comedy and a Theory of Humour 146
3.6 Ð Nostalgia and Cinephilia in Goodbye, Dragon Inn 159
3.7 Ð Conclusion 167
Chapter 4 Ð Contemplative Boredom: The Films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan 169
4.1 Ð Introduction 170
4.2 Ð Historical Background: Yeşil•am and the New Turkish Cinema 172
4.3 Ð Evolution from an Artisanal Mode of Production 186
4.4 Ð Intervention into Yeşil•am and Turkish Film History 196
4.5 Ð Boredom: A State of Mind and an Aesthetic Virtue 204
4.6 Ð Aesthetics of Boredom in Distant and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia 217
4.7 Ð Conclusion 231
v 
Chapter 5 Ð Conclusion 233
Appendix. Slow Cinema Filmography (1975-2013) 243
Notes 254
Bibliography 281
1 
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
This thesis examines Slow Cinema, a stylistic trend within contemporary art cinema,
although one with a longer pre-history. Its distinguishing characteristics pertain
ultimately to narration: the films, minimalistic by design, retard narrative pace and elide
causality. Specifically, its aesthetic features include a mannered use of the long take and
a resolute emphasis on dead time; devices fostering a mode of narration that initially
appears baffling, cryptic and genuinely incomprehensible and offers, above all, an
extended experience of duration on screen. This contemporary current emerges from a
historical genealogy of modernist art films that for decades distended cinematic
temporality and, furthermore, from the critical and institutional debates that attended to
it. This thesis, therefore, investigates Slow Cinema in its two remarkable aspects: firstly,
as an aesthetic practice, focusing on the formal aspects of the films and their function in
attaining a contemplative and ruminative mode of spectatorship; and, secondly, as a
historical critical tradition and the concomitant institutional context of the filmsÕ mode
of exhibition, production and reception. Before moving to a detailed exposition of my
argument, however, I want to briefly set out the critical debate from which this research
project has emerged and, even if temporarily, situated Slow Cinema at the centre of
scholarly attention through its resonance with the journalistic discourses on art cinema.
In the April 2010 issue of Sight and Sound, the journalÕs editor Nick James
inaugurated what was later called the Slow Cinema debate. In his editorial piece, Nick
James outlined two acts of passive aggression against the Hollywood domination of the
film industry, namely the Slow Criticism and Slow Cinema movements. Slow Criticism,
a term borrowed from the Dutch critic Dana Linssen of Filmkrant, stands for Òone
response to the growing redundancy of so much tipster consumer reviewing of films,Ó
while Slow Cinema, within this context, simply refers to a strand of international art
films renowned for their slow pace and minimalist aesthetics. James argued that both of
these acts, although on the surface an instance of rebellion against the mainstream
media, were nevertheless passive forms of resistance. In other words, James suggested
2 
that the recent changes in filmmaking and its criticism suffered from a certain problem:
the radical nature of the films would gradually become clichŽs in their own right and
eventually Òoffer an easy life for critics and programmersÓ since they Òare easy to
remember and discuss in detail because details are few.Ó Because many of these films
are commissioned by the same festivals that exhibit and distribute them, James
suggested a conspiracy theory in which films opposing the politics of mainstream
capitalism were in fact deliberately ordered by festival professionals, mass produced by
art cinema directors and shallowly reviewed by film critics. Explicitly referring to the
recent Golden Bear winner Honey (2010), James wrote Òthere are times, as you watch
someone trudge up yet another woodland path, when you feel an implicit threat: admit
youÕre bored and youÕre a philistine. Such films are passive-aggressive in that they
demand great swathes of our precious time to achieve quite fleeting and slender
aesthetic and political effects.Ó1
In other words, James was dubious of the minimalist
aesthetics at work in these films and hesitant in ascribing a political value to the films
for their passive functions.
JamesÕs provocative argument was immediately picked up and heavily criticized
by a certain Harry Tuttle, the author of the blog Unspoken Cinema, an Internet haven
for Slow Cinema aficionados.2
Tuttle characterizes JamesÕs editorial as Òanti-intellectual
banterÓ and accuses James of misunderstanding ÒContemporary Contemplative
CinemaÓ Ð the label he uses for Slow Cinema, for various reasons explained later Ð
essentially arguing that the sheer number of details (such as plot, character, etc.) in any
film or artwork does not constitute any bearing over its aesthetic value, as witnessed in
various minimalist films and artworks. Ultimately, Tuttle urges Nick James and other
film critics to deal with the matter Òfrontally,Ó in other words, explain why some slow
films are masterpieces and some are not, rather than complaining whether they are
boring or enjoyable. Although TuttleÕs criticism is a borderline case between a personal
insult to James and a passionate defence of Contemporary Contemplative Cinema, his
reaction reveals an obvious, albeit often overlooked aspect of Slow Cinema. Although
slowness in cinema can accommodate positive and productive aesthetic functions, as I
will argue later in this thesis, it does not automatically entail a higher aesthetic, artistic
or cultural value. In other words, as Harry Tuttle writes, Contemporary Contemplative
Cinema Òis not a formulaic trend that only produces masterpieces. It is an alternative
3 
way to make films, a new narrative mode, a different angle in storytelling, and it gives a
new perspective to the audience. You can't judge it with your subjective mainstream
prejudices.Ó3
Although TuttleÕs argument aims at defending the virtues of Slow Cinema,
it fails on the account for demonstrating any empirical reasoning or engagement with
film theory to support his claims and even further alienates its attackers by refusing
critical evaluation.
Following TuttleÕs blogpost, the controversy regarding the cultural and aesthetic
value of Slow Cinema diffused into various other media channels. For example, Steven
Shaviro wrote a response in his blog and sided with Nick James, essentially arguing that
contemporary Slow Cinema does nothing but recycle the experiments carried out by art
cinema directors of the 1960s, minus their political daringness and provocations.4
Vadim Rizov took a similar stance by arguing that apart from a few odd Òpremiere
practitioners,Ó such as BŽla Tarr and Tsai Ming-liang, much of the films by
contemporary Slow Cinema directors Òsimply stagnate in their own self-righteous
slowness.Ó5
Various film bloggers, including critics such as Danny Leigh, further
referenced the debate by summing up the main positions as well providing other
parameters in defence of Slow Cinema, albeit without pursuing any of the historical,
theoretical and aesthetic problems worth considering.6
Weeks later, James defended his
position by rephrasing his argument, namely suggesting that Òthis loose cultural
tendency [É] is in danger of becoming mannerist, and that the routine reverence
afforded to its weaker films by a largely worshipful critical orthodoxy is part of the
problem.Ó7
The second part of JamesÕs editorial foregrounds the ways in which
boredom, both as an everyday experience and as an aesthetic value, relates to
contemporary cinema and culture and James emphasizes how defenders of art cinema
regard the use of the word with antipathy. While letters from readers sporadically
surfaced in Sight and Sound and Tuttle continued his fierce attacks, a similar debate
focusing on boredom resurfaced in the New York Times in an article penned by Dan
Kois.8
In a series of personal and tongue-in-cheek anecdotes, Kois admits his na•ve
belief in Òview[ing] aridity as a sign of sophisticationÓ and eventually identifies
consuming Òslow-moving filmsÓ with Òeating cultural vegetables.Ó9
The broader point,
which Kois refers to is the odd belief that we watch films that we do not thoroughly
enjoy, but keep doing so because we think that we should Ð or in other words, we feel
4 
that consuming such high-brow products somehow increases our cultural and social
status. New York Times critics Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott responded to Kois by
defending virtues of boredom and Kent Jones wrote a scathing critique of KoisÕs
arguments, while Salon.comÕs Andrew OÕHehir further rounds up the positions.10
In
short, the setting of the Slow Cinema debate evolved from film blogs towards a more
journalistic context, albeit mostly written online, with professional critics as well as a
wider readership involved. The whole debate was revisited in a panel with filmmakers
and critics under the AV Film Festival As Slowly As Possible in Newcastle in March,
2012 and the conceptual questions within and beyond the debate culminated in an
academic symposium ÒFast/SlowÓ at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, which took
place in April 4-5, 2013.11
The theoretical questions arising from the Slow Cinema debate are manifold.
Firstly, the debate itself presents the question whether these films are in fact politically
or aesthetically engrossing, or if they are just self-conscious, complacent artworks
made-to-order for cultural elitists. The pace in which the debate developed and its
effortless reappearance in various Internet sites, social media platforms, blogs, forums
and online discussion boards bear witness to how digital technologies and the new
media meddle so swiftly in our affairs with cultural productions as well as intellectual
matters. Furthermore, the debate demonstrated that many of the films travelled halfway
across the globe, transcending national and cultural boundaries, and yet were able to
speak to different groups of people that share similar sensibilities concerning cinema
and its aesthetic, cultural and political functions. As perhaps the most exciting art
cinema current in the 21st
century, however, the Slow Cinema debate also engaged with
the critical discourse probing what it meant to write about art cinema in the wake of
mainstream blockbuster dominance. It created wide-ranging scholarly attention to
international film festivals as Òcultural gatekeepersÓ and their trend-setting, powerful
agendas within the cinema industry.12
In this respect, Slow Cinema as a critical
discourse operated at an intersection where vital questions into cultural research were
born and accommodated with ease. These concerns ranged from generic inquiries into
the nature of transnational art cinema, film history and aesthetics, matters of taste and
value, film spectatorship and cinephilia, to very specific and complex questions
regarding the negotiations, appropriations and exchanges between global networks of
5 
production, exhibition, distribution and local articulations of native traditions. In short,
Slow Cinema and its debate were, to put it simply, a treasure house charged with an
abundance of potential avenues for cultural research.13
But what exactly was Slow Cinema and under what conditions and
circumstances did it originate? From what film historical genealogy did it emerge? To
what extent was Slow Cinema a new practice and in what sense was it a radical Ð or to
use JamesÕs phrase, a Òpassive aggressiveÓ Ð movement? What aesthetic and stylistic
devices did the filmmakers use and how did audiences make sense of these films? Slow
Cinema has received much journalistic attention in cinephile publications, but has thus
far enjoyed at best piecemeal scholarly regard. This thesis aims to correct this lacuna by
tracing the historical precedents of this contemplative filmmaking, starting with the late
1950s modernist and minimalist wave of films, and exploring its influence on
contemporary Slow Cinema. The historical background in which films associated with
Slow Cinema will be examined through a concentration on their production history and
the ways in which certain local aesthetic traditions are appropriated for international
sensibilities. Through close readings of contemporary films, the main focus of this
thesis is to examine the different aesthetic strategies, across which similar cinematic
devices are used for various reasons in order to attain often very different emotional
effects, such as nostalgia, absurd humour and boredom. This study, then, examines the
Slow Cinema phenomenon in its most salient characteristics: while nostalgia designates
the sentimental overtones through which the films negotiate and mourn the eclipse of
modernist art cinema and explicitly reference the latterÕs aesthetic features, absurd
humour identifies a key artistic influence, namely the Theatre of the Absurd, and
furthermore delineate the type of laughter found in the filmsÕ reception as one based on
the concept of the absurd Ð in other words, a form of comedy that is out of synch, out of
place and, above all, out of time. Boredom, finally, functions as both a descriptor of
Slow CinemaÕs narrative concern and its mode of spectatorship; while the films depict
modernist themes such as alienation, ennui and anxiety over the historical
circumstances of contemporary living, the films mirror this mood to their audiences by
emphasizing idleness and boredom as a productive and receptive state of mind. In this
respect, this thesis argues that Slow Cinema transforms boredom into an insightful,
aesthetically rewarding and elated experience, in which preceding concepts of nostalgia
6 
and absurd humour co-exist in an interrelated fashion. These three moods are not only
crucial in understanding the aesthetic features of these films, but are also pertinent in
their critical and historical reception and are furthermore explored in detail through
consecutive case studies, dedicated to BŽla Tarr, Tsai Ming-liang and Nuri Bilge Ceylan
respectively. In addition, the narrative forms will be fruitful in discussing some of the
issues raised within film theory, especially in terms of defining narrative agency, the
problems of tense in narration and the levels of meaning and meaning production in
film. Finally, as Slow CinemaÕs fundamental aesthetic device, the evolution of the long
take will be discussed in relation to its use in narrative and experimental cinema as well
as its allusion to a Ògolden ageÓ of filmmaking. The shifting role of the long take across
dramatic changes in the technology from analogue to digital will also be noted,
underlining its specificity in the recently digitized motion picture industry. Before
moving into detail, however, I shall now offer an overview of how Slow Cinema has so
far been approached and defined through journalistic discourses.
1.1 Ð Defining Slow Cinema
Even when the debate was at its highest peak, many scholars and those
interested in cinema were puzzled about what Slow Cinema meant. Jonathan Romney
first coined the term in his review of a tendency within art cinema that overtly surfaced
during the 2000s. RomneyÕs article was published as part of Sight and SoundÕs tribute to
the first decade of 21st
century cinema, a list in which out of 30 films, numerous titles
belonged to the Slow Cinema tradition. Romney described Slow Cinema as a Òvaried
strain of austere minimalist cinema that has thrived internationally over the past ten
years.Ó Its primary mission, according to Romney, was Òa certain rarefied intensity in
the artistic gaze, [É] a cinema that downplays event in favour of mood, evocativeness
and an intensified sense of temporality.Ó14
Referring to contemporary auteurs such as
BŽla Tarr, Pedro Costa, Lisandro Alonso, Tsai Ming-liang and Carlos Reygadas,
Romney pinpoints Slow Cinema as a particular branch of art cinema; one that has
almost become synonymous with cinephilia in the wake of the diminishing and ever
self-recycling mainstream industry. Elsewhere, James Quandt summarizes this
Òinternational art-house formulaÓ as follows:
7 
adagio rhythms and oblique narrative; a tone of quietude and reticence, an aura of
unexplained or unearned anguish; attenuated takes, long tracking or panning shots,
often of depopulated landscapes; prolonged hand-held follow shots of solo people
walking; slow dollies to a window or open door framing nature; a materialist sound
design; and a preponderance of Tarkovskian imagery.15
In many ways slowness functions as a significant descriptive factor and refers to
the ways in which these art cinema films oppose, resist or deliberately rebel against the
dominance of fast-paced, industrial productions of mainstream cinema, much like the
dichotomy between the Slow Food movement and the fast food enterprise (of which,
more later). However, Romney and Quandt use a variety of adjectives and moods to
describe the phenomenon: slow, poetic, contemplative, ruminative, muted, austere,
spiritual, oblique, quietude, anguish and reticence, often leading to a conflation (as well
as confusion) of all aspects of Slow Cinema into a single factor that may not sufficiently
describe its entire aesthetic properties and emotional tone.
As a matter of fact Matthew Flanagan first emphasized the emergence of
slowness in contemporary art cinema, although acknowledging the influence of Michael
CimentÕs address to the audience of the San Francisco Film Festival in 2003. Published
in 2008, Flanagan describes the common stylistic tropes of these films as Òthe
employment of (often extremely) long takes, de-centred and understated modes of
storytelling, and a pronounced emphasis on quietude and the everyday.Ó16
However,
attention to slowness was more than an aesthetic flourish, as Flanagan writes: ÒIn light
of the current prevalence of these stylistic tropes, it is perhaps time to consider their
reciprocal employment as pertaining not to an abstract notion of ÒslownessÓ but a
unique formal and structural design: an aesthetic of slow.Ó According to Flanagan, the
very existence of this cinema Òcompels us to retreat from a culture of speed, modify our
expectations of filmic narration and physically attune to a more deliberate rhythm.Ó17
While lacking depth, the article is in many ways the first to illustrate acutely the stylistic
elements and historical trajectory of these films and the ways in which they shift
emphasis from conventional modes of storytelling to a much more refined
dedramatization of narrative events, a project that is expanded and elaborated further in
FlanaganÕs PhD thesis. In what is perhaps the first manuscript-length study of Slow
Cinema, Flanagan reframes this tendency in a much broader context that includes
8 
experimental and avant-garde films since the 1960s, realistic forms of documentaries
that focus on the monotony of everyday life and effects of globalization and
contemporary artistsÕ film and video, hence certain forms of gallery exhibitions and
installations.18
In other words, Flanagan conceives the Òaesthetic of the slowÓ in an
extensive framework, formed of various screen media and diverse modes of
representation and transgressing the boundaries of the contemporary art-house cinema
circuit. Although initially reserving a suspicion for the label Òslow,Ó Flanagan
nevertheless settles for this term for its Òsubtle evocation of temporality and subjective
positioning in relation to the world.Ó I shall now briefly outline why the label slow is,
indeed, Òthe most fitting container.Ó19
In a response of FlanaganÕs essay, Harry Tuttle finds the description of ÒslowÓ
redundant and offers ÒcontemplativeÓ as a much more sufficient term to describe these
films.20
Despite TuttleÕs frequent use of colloquial, blogosphere rhetoric and
unmotivated aggression towards established film critics, some of his arguments relate to
my purposes here. The label contemplative rightly designates the central aspects of
contemporary Slow Cinema, such as its aesthetic experience and mode of address. As I
will argue in the case studies to come, much of Slow Cinema hinges on a negotiation
between the spectator and the film in pursuit of a narrative meaning, motivation and/or
resolution. While the films deliberately avoid and reduce narrative action,
contemplation becomes the meaning-seeking process by which spectators can critically
engage with the films. However, contemplative as a label overlooks the fact that
contemplation in cinema is not wholly specific to Slow Cinema; in other words, many
mainstream films outside the Slow Cinema circle invite their spectators to contemplate
a topic or a subject by way of graphic provocation, witty dialogue or other means. What
separates Slow Cinema from these films is their perpetual stillness and monotony; in
other words, Slow Cinema is generally characterized by a persistent approach to the
reductive manipulation of temporality and pacing, hence the label Òslow.Ó
Judging from the history of the blog, we can readily conclude that Tuttle is wary
of the term ÒslowÓ in the critical reception of these films. The main reason for this is the
ways in which film critics use the word ÒslowÓ as a synonym for Òboring,Ó implying
that the films are often in contradiction to cinemaÕs raison dÕ•tre (i.e. entertainment).
9 
This rhetoric often follows two strategies: either the word ÒslowÓ is paired with other
negative adjectives (Òpainfully slowÓ) or it comes across as a negative state (Òslow but
hauntingÓ).21
Another problem in using the term ÒslowÓ is its apparent vagueness in
terms of its descriptive power: does it refer to a Òslow moving cameraÓ or the lack of
rapid editing that we find in these films? Or does it describe the charactersÕ actual
slowness in terms of their movement and acting in front of the camera? Or, perhaps, it
refers to the general slowness of the film in terms of its pace in which narrative
information is communicated? Clearly, the three options here refer to different aspects
of cinema. In sum, slowness can refer to (1) the filmÕs aesthetization of style (long
takes, slow tracking movements), or (2) the time in which the profilmic action unfolds
(actual bodily movements of the characters, staging), or (3) the speed in which narrative
information is delivered (narrative form, uses of dead time). As discussed throughout
this thesis, Slow Cinema films demonstrate a combination of all three aspects of
slowness, although (1) and (3) are often ubiquitously performed throughout many of the
films mentioned here.
But to what extent is such an unhurried approach to temporality and an
aesthetics of slow specific to contemporary art cinema? The answer is not. Although the
Slow Cinema debate surfaced in 2010, the terms of the debate are as ancient as the
history of art cinema. In other words, the aesthetics of slow emerges from a specific
film-historical genealogy that only recently has intensified due to external factors such
as industrial changes (international film festivals), technological changes (demise of the
analogue and rise of the digital) and cultural/artistic changes (response to dominant
modes, etc.). ÒTime in modern European cinema,Ó writes Mark Betz, Òis frequently held
as the hallmark of its particular formal innovations in narration and storytelling.Ó22
In
other words, the extended duration we normally find in Slow Cinema is in many ways
an exaggerated revision of what modern art cinema routinely performed since the
1960s: Òart cinema works the extremes of the temporal-spatial-narrative continuum,
testing the boundaries among foregrounded aesthetic construction, spectatorial
engagement, and narrative intelligibility.Ó23
Despite the fact that such experimentation
of temporality in art cinema led to rapid editing techniques such as the jump cuts in
Jean-Luc GodardÕs A bout de soufflŽ (Breathless, 1960), according to Mark Betz, Òthe
sum produced by adding the variables ÔtimeÕ and Ôart filmÕ is [more often than not]
10 
ÔslowÕ.Ó More than fifty years ago, the audience at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival found
Michelangelo AntonioniÕs LÕAvventura (1960) outrageously slow and boring and
protested against the filmÕs relaxed tempo by whistling and shouting ÒCut!Ó during
scenes where dead time and stillness presided over causal action. While the public
denied and disowned the film, next day the festival jury felt obliged to make an
announcement proclaiming the film as a modern masterpiece in support of AntonioniÕs
Òcerebral and contemplative (as opposed to instinctual and dynamic) art film.Ó24
In
many ways AntonioniÕs early 1960s works, the so-called great tetralogy including
LÕAvventura, La Notte (1961), LÕEclisse (1962) and Red Desert (1964) represent key
prototypes for Slow Cinema with their reserved pace, persistent use of dead time and
foregrounding of visual composition. Within the history of art cinema, however, there
are many more examples. As early as 1948, James Agee hailed Carl Theodore DreyerÕs
Day of Wrath (1948) as a Òquiet masterpiece,Ó albeit acknowledging his disdain for
films that Òdepend on very slow movement.Ó25
Italian Neorealism often produced works
that displayed a slower tempo, drifting characters and a contemplation of everyday life
against the extraordinary adventures experienced by Hollywood heroes. Furthermore,
Henry Miller notes that the critical reception of certain Scandinavian films, such as The
Phantom Carriage (1921) by Victor Sjšstršm, were in fact considered ÒslowÓ by many
film critics (once again, opposed to the regular Hollywood fare) and as such the terms
of the Slow Cinema debate were already present in the early 1920s.26
From Yasujir™
Ozu to Robert Bresson, from Andrei Tarkovsky to Mikl—s Jancs—, the history of art
cinema is filled with figures who have employed similar aesthetics and are therefore
forerunners of the Slow Cinema tradition.
Additionally, Slow Cinema harbours a variety of influences from sources
outside the art cinema circuit. The aesthetization of film style, foregrounding duration
and temporality and a careful evasion of narrative causality are aspects of avant-garde
and experimental film that many Slow Cinema films display. In this respect, films such
as Andy WarholÕs monumental Empire (1964), an eight-hour still study of the Empire
State Building in New York, or Michael SnowÕs La RŽgion Centrale (1972), a threehour
meditation on a Canadian landscape established by a camera setup rotating around
itself, represent a tradition of films that emphasize observation as a mode of
engagement and aspire to achieve a hypnotic and contemplative effect on their
11 
spectators by equating their filmsÕ screen duration with an uninterrupted, real and actual
duration. Such avant-garde practices and manipulation of temporality were in many
ways the outcome of what Pamela Lee terms as the ÒchronophobiaÓ of late modernity,
in other words a sense of uneasiness and obsession with the concept of time. As the
acceleration of life rendered its meaning obscure and unobtainable, Lee argues that the
artists strived either to Òmaster its passage, still its acceleration, or to give form to its
changing conditions.Ó27
In this respect, a great number of artworks of the 1960s, from
contemporary art to art-house film, literature to avant-garde and experimental film, can
be considered as a prelude to our own cultural anxiety over temporality today. For Mary
Ann Doane, the seeds of this anxiety towards the representability of time germinated
during the early days of modernity, when Òtime became palpable in quite a different
way Ð one specific to modernity and intimately allied with its new technologies of
representation (photography, film, phonography).Ó28
Doane argues that throughout
capitalist industrialization, time was standardized to the extent that its Òincessant
rationalizationÓ was Òmade tolerableÓ within Òa structuring of contingency and
temporality through emerging technologies of representation.Ó29
In this respect,
slowness was fundamental to the perceived need for representing time by focusing on
its fleeting occurrences Ð through the ephemerality of stillness and contingency as well
as a remarkable emphasis on photographic and temporal indexicality. For Laura
Mulvey, too, the developments in technology enabled newer ways of experiencing
films, in which the ability to pause the individual frame reveals a hidden stillness in
between moving images Ð a discovery that, as Mulvey argues, re-evaluates our
relationship to film and its history.30
In addition to such aesthetic and philosophical features, slowness as a label has
its own advantages in describing Slow Cinema as a distinct and discursive
contemporary phenomenon. Firstly, as Flanagan points out, this can be in the form of a
rebellion against a Òculture of speed,Ó and in this respect Slow Cinema has a close
affinity to other movements with a similar agenda, such as Slow Food, Slow Science
and Slow Criticism. Robert Koehler, for example, points out that Ò[j]ust as the intensity
and mass-marketing of fast food produced a slow-food counterculture, [É] the
saturation in pop culture of increasingly faster images [É] has made slow cinema a
kind of counterculture of its own.Ó31
The Slow Food movement began as a direct
12 
response to American fast-food chains in Italy during the late 1980s with the intention
of promoting the rich history of local cuisines and emphasizes the culture of producing
and consuming regional products, which in effect preserves the larger ecosystem.32
By
reducing long-distance trade, hence the time necessary to transport products, the Slow
Food movement emphasizes freshness as a prime quality for nourishment. Secondly,
preparing and cooking slowly preserves the nutritional value of the food, resulting in an
efficient, healthy, ecological and economic way of life. ÒCentral to the movement,Ó
wrote the New York Times editorial that introduced the movement to the American
public, Òis the belief that meals prepared the old-fashioned way Ð with time as a major
seasoning Ð are not only healthier but more pleasurable as well.Ó33
In the Slow Science
Manifesto, on the other hand, a group of scientists demand that Ò[s]cience needs time to
thinkÓ and Òscientists must take their time.Ó34
Although embracing Òthe accelerated
science of the 21st
century,Ó the Slow Science Organization emphasizes the need to slow
down and take time to read and think for achieving a better grasp on reality, all in
favour of practicing better science. Note that both of these movements promote virtues
of patience, sustainability and concentration, not only for sheer pleasure, but also for
achieving sound judgement and a profound perception of reality. In short, despite
differences in focus, the Slow movements share a common underlying attitude: in a
world under rapid transformation and influenced by an increasing pace of consumption,
slowness is a marker for genuine taste, authenticity and wisdom, characteristics which
situate slowness at the top of the hierarchy of cultural production. When applied to the
aesthetics of Slow Cinema, these debates focus in and around notions of cultural value
and active spectatorship.
While notions of slowness and contemplation are often used to emphasize Slow
CinemaÕs active spectatorship, scholars such as Tiago de Luca examine the
phenomenon as a realist tendency in contemporary art cinema in order to better
understand its formal features and ruminative mode of spectatorship. This tendency, as
de Luca explains, Òis steeped in the hyperbolic application of the long take, which
promotes a contemplative viewing experience anchored in materiality and duration.Ó35
Similar to earlier arguments, Ònarrative interaction is dissipated in favour of
contemplation and sensory experience,Ó writes de Luca, while Slow Cinema spectators
Òare invited to adopt the point of view of the camera and protractedly study images as
13 
they appear on the screen in their unexplained literalness.Ó36
De Luca rightly points out
how the majority of these films obsessively portray characters and figures wandering in
vast and desolate landscapes, while the basic function of the camera is reduced to its
incessant recording of whatever reality is unfolding in front of its viewpoint. As such,
de Luca argues that the contemporary realist cinemaÕs aesthetic and political power lies
in its dedication to Bazinian realism, namely the non-interrupted capture of reality and
its transformation into an aesthetically virtuous vision. According to de Luca,
contemporary realist cinema relegates politically sensitive issues into simple, albeit
breathtaking and aesthetically pleasing visuals. As I will argue later in this thesis,
Bazinian realism takes its interest in the objective perception of reality as well as its
accurate representation in cinema, while Slow Cinema shifts this interest into a
different, exaggerated, mannerist and quite often distorted subjective perception of
reality.
Whether Slow Cinema sustains a valuable political agency is the central concern
also for Karl Schoonover, who not only revisits the Slow Cinema debate but also
provides a more rigorous examination of its critical terms. Schoonover argues that the
Slow/Fast dichotomy generally pertains to the amount of time spent in film
spectatorship and its debate begs the question whether or not watching slow art films
can qualify as productive labour, in the sense that the spectator is either actively or
passively engaged. ÒToday,Ó writes Schoonover, Òthese persistent debates get restaged
around the opposition of time wasted versus time labored. If time is the way that the art
film makes the question of labor visible in the image, then exactly what does
nonproductivity look like?Ó Following this line of inquiry, Schoonover locates Slow
Cinema historically within art cinema currents and argues that Ò[w]hen considered
alongside this moment from its prehistory, the slow film is not [É] simply in a pointless
headlock with HollywoodÕs temporal economy,Ó but Òspeaks to a larger system of
tethering value to time, labor to bodies.Ó37
In this respect, Slow Cinema accomplishes
an active political role within contemporary culture by virtue of its capacity to confront
previously endorsed norms of temporal economy, narrative pace and scrutinizes a
reassessment of what is meant by labour and productivity.
14 
In his attempt to establish a theory of nonproductive labor on and off the
cinematic screen, Schoonover turns back to Italian Neorealism, perhaps the beginnings
of what we call art cinema today as well as a significant influence for contemporary
slow film. Furthermore, Schoonover distinguishes between two bodies of slowness: the
body on-screen, the actors and/or actresses, and the body off-screen, namely the
spectator. The interaction between the two remains SchoonoverÕs focus. According to
Schoonover, this discussion reveals an Òimplicit political fault line of an aesthetic
debateÓ that can be Òposed as the question of whether the art film promotes a particular
kind of viewing practice in order to sooth anxieties about the value of our own labor and
that of others, or to aggravate those anxieties to generate a different account of the very
idea of productivity;Ó or rather simply put, Schoonover is pursuing the question of
whether Slow Cinema is Òpolitically decadent or politically subversive.Ó38
The onscreen
bodies are, on the one hand, exemplified by art cinemaÕs many drifting
characters, those who lack clear motivations in the traditional sense, the ÒseersÓ for
Deleuze, or what Schoonover terms the Òwastrels,Ó who not only engage in uneventful
activities and waste valuable time, but are also treated as such. On the other hand, the
on-screen bodies are represented by the unprofessional actors of Neorealism, whose
unique physical characteristics were revered for their direct expression of their real life
experiences, a practice that later became the very defining quality of Neorealism. Such
naturalistic performances are fundamental in the famous neorealist sequences such as
the young maid grinding coffee in Vittorio De SicaÕs Umberto D. (1952), in which Òthe
body functions onscreen to amplify and expand the aesthetic registers of a slower
spectating, demanding a different kind of labor from the offscreen spectating body.Ó
While paraphrasing BazinÕs treatment of this scene, Schoonover refers to the Òcorollary
perceptual acuity on the part of the spectator, a careful look that mirrors the cameraÕs
lingering,Ó or in other words, the moment in which cinematic realism offers a
completely different way of seeing things, one that cannot be relegated to ordinary
looking.39
As such, long duration and inactivity allows the spectator a more profound
ability to observe and discern reality, an aspect of Slow Cinema that I will briefly return
to in Chapters 2 and 4 in this thesis.
This takes us back to the second body: the body off-screen, or the art cinema
spectator, whose boredom is exploited by the art cinema through a transformation of
15 
boredom into Òa kind of special work, one in which empty onscreen time is repurposed,
renovated, rehabilitated.Ó40
Here Schoonover reconstructs the relationship between two
bodies as reverse mirror images: Òa belabored spectator mirrors in reverse the
nonbelabored body of the character onscreen,Ó or in other words, the inactivity of the
aimless character as well as the unprofessional actor elicit an unusual form of labour on
part of the spectator. Schoonover suggests, Òthe history of the moving image might in
this sense be recast as a series of recognitions of divergent types of laboring bodies,Ó as
well as the exchange between the on and off screen bodies.41
As an unusual example, Schoonover refers to Jia Zhang KeÕs 24-City (2008),
which makes visible this exchange across its various diegetic levels. In the film,
Chinese actor Joan Chen plays a woman called Xiao Hu, but within the story world she
is frequently mistaken for her self, the actress. According to Schoonover, this selfreflexivity
goes against Òordinary cinemaÕs instrumentalization of bodies,Ó as well as
being in opposition to a particular tradition of stock characters in art cinema. Referring
back to the on-screen bodies, the Òaimless drifting figures,Ó in art cinema, Schoonover
lists the neorealist bodies as well as Òthe quintessential performers of art house auteurs:
AntonioniÕs Monica Vitti, FassbinderÕs Hanna Schygulla, PasoliniÕs Franco Citti, and
Tsai Ming-liangÕs Kan-sheng Lee.Ó42
This list can be prolonged by listing some of Slow
CinemaÕs auteurs and their protagonists, for instance: BŽla TarrÕs Lars Rudolph, J‡nos
Derzsi and Erika B—k; Nuri Bilge CeylanÕs Mehmet Emin Toprak and Muzaffer
…zdemir; Pedro CostaÕs various Cape Verdians and the amateur protagonists of Carlos
Reygadas. In a remarkable similarity to Italian Neorealism, a large number of these
characters are played by unprofessional actors, who are either selected for their visual
and physical characteristics or their kinship to the relevant director. These drifting
characters will also be my focus in the following chapter, where I examine their
choreographed movements within the film in relation to BŽla TarrÕs baroque
camerawork.
This section has examined the ways in which Slow Cinema has been theorized
by film critics and scholars. Notwithstanding the two PhD theses devoted to it (by
Flanagan and de Luca respectively), the Slow Cinema phenomenon is yet to be
investigated in full detail. While many of its stylistic features are commonly referred to
16 
throughout these examples, I will nevertheless examine their variations through three
distinctive case studies and probe their aesthetic effects through concepts of nostalgia,
absurd humour and boredom. The journalistic discourse addressing Slow Cinema has
largely focused on establishing the terms of the critical debate and called for a deeper
understanding of slowness as well as its cultural and political value. Before ascribing a
particular value to such activities, Schoonover argues, we first need to understand Òwhat
labor looks like and [determine] what counts as productive.Ó43
Although acknowledging
the formal and aesthetic qualities of Slow Cinema, Schoonover advocates a
methodology that re-examines the political and cultural functions of such aesthetic
discourses. Moreover, an important lesson we can extract from SchoonoverÕs argument
is to think historically about Slow Cinema and examine its cultural value after locating
its status within the larger art cinema genealogy. Consequently, in the next section I will
examine the traditional theories of art cinema by referring to the seminal texts by David
Bordwell and Steve Neale. The polarity in their approach necessitates a comprehensive
account of art cinema currents and I will elaborate on this binary methodology further in
this chapter.
1.2 Ð Understanding Art Cinema
To better understand Slow Cinema, we need first to understand its origins and
film historical genealogy. Articles exploring Slow Cinema and its resemblance to
modernist art films of the 1960s abound in contemporary film criticism, although none
of them meticulously examine the historical circumstances, artistic currents, aesthetic
debates and theories regarding the formation of European art cinema. Within this
critical discourse, the use of the word art cinema is often elusive and merely functions
as an incentive to list the giants of modernist art cinema, such Antonioni, Tarkovsky,
Bresson, Ozu and Angelopoulos. As most of the scholarly works attest, there is a
consensus in viewing Slow Cinema as part of an ongoing art cinema framework.
Approaches to art cinema traditionally oscillate between two complementary views.
These can be summarized on the one hand by David BordwellÕs claim that art cinema
functions as Òa mode of film practice,Ó through the dialectics of authorship and realism,
and on the other hand by Steve NealeÕs view that art cinema operates Òas an institutionÓ
17 
in ways that are not much different from the various commercial strategies employed by
the Hollywood industry.44
Although similar in certain aspects, what separates the two
approaches is the formerÕs reliance on formal and textual parameters and the latterÕs
focus on economic and industrial circumstances. Most importantly, however, in both
approaches art cinema modifies itself as a certain category of cinema that inherently,
and historically, opposes the American domination of film consumption as well as
mainstream forms of film narration. This section will briefly illustrate these two
distinctive approaches and conclude by claiming that they are in fact complementary
ones, and in order to understand any contemporary art cinema phenomenon, we need to
adopt a comprehensive approach that takes account of both approaches.
According to David Bordwell, art cinema can be defined as an aesthetic contrast
against the classical narrative cinema paradigm, namely the Hollywood studio system
that chiefly presided over other narrative forms since the end of silent cinema in the late
1920s. Hollywood cinema, in this instance, is motivated by principles that accentuate
the coherence and clarity of its stories, therefore, the classical paradigm includes formal
traits such as a cause-effect link between different events, goal-oriented characters and
most crucially, a standardization of film style that purposefully advances narrative
progression as clearly and as efficiently as possible for the appreciation of film
audiences. Art cinema, on the other hand, opposes such devices and instead is organized
through two distinctive principles: realism and authorial expressivity. For Bordwell, art
cinema on the one hand shows us Òreal locations (Neorealism, the New Wave) and real
problems (contemporary Òalienation,Ó Òlack of communication,Ó etc.),Ó as well as
Òpsychologically-complex-characters.Ó45
The protagonists in art cinema closely
resemble real-life people; they lack motivations, have real problems, aimlessly drift
from one place to another, and are often portrayed by real, unprofessional actors. Other
aspects of cinematic narration often accompany such realistic subjectivity: for example,
conventions of documentary realism, manipulations of temporality (such as temps mort)
and accidental, episodic narratives are frequently employed in films that roughly belong
to the art cinema tradition. ÒIn brief,Ó writes Bordwell, Òa commitment to both objective
and subjective verisimilitude distinguished the art cinema from the classical narrative
mode.Ó46
On the other hand, art cinema displays authorial expressivity as one of its
fundamental principles, in which Òthe author becomes a formal component, the
18 
overriding intelligence organizing the film for our comprehension.Ó In this sense, art
cinema is not only a natural outcome of the auterist film criticism that surfaces at
roughly the same time (mid-1950s), but is furthermore a cultural discourse created
around such a central, unifying concept. The director of the film occupies such a central
role that Òa small industry is devoted to informing viewers of such authorial marks,Ó as
Bordwell writes, Ò[i]nternational film festivals, reviews and essays in the press,
published scripts, film series, career retrospectives, and film education all introduce
viewers to authorial codes.Ó47
The art cinema spectator is expected to make sense of
films depending on its individual director; for example, a certain technical element, a
signature style or a subtheme might gain a specific meaning under one director, while
some films are only made sense when put in context with others, for example the
various trilogies, pairs or serials made by the same director. These complex variables
and formal parameters often make art films difficult to grasp for audiences normally
accustomed to the classical paradigm.
Furthermore, Bordwell notes that realism and authorial expressivity are difficult
to merge with one another in a single text, because Òverisimilitude, objective or
subjective, is inconsistent with an intrusive author.Ó Bordwell then moves on to the third
unifying aspect of art cinema, the device of ambiguity, which effectively resolves the
contradiction between the opposing aesthetics of realism and authorial expression. Since
art cinema avoids the coherent and clear narratives of classical cinema, it lends its
viewer certain Ògaps and problems,Ó or questions that are answered either through
Òrealism (in life things happen this way) or authorial commentary (the ambiguity is
symbolic).Ó In short, when faced with ambiguity in an art film, the art cinema spectator
initially engages in a realistic reading, asking whether such uncertainties are
representative of a subjective depiction or a particular cultural milieu in which the film
takes place. If such a reading is not applicable, then the art cinema spectator moves on
to seek authorial motivation, or in other words attempts to decipher what exactly is
being ÔsaidÕ by the author-director through an analysis of related circumstances. A
typical example of the use of ambiguity in art cinema is the open-ended narrative, in
which Òthe lack of a clear-cut resolutionÓ is illustrative of Òthe filmÕs episodic structure
and the minimization of character goals.Ó48
ÒFurthermore,Ó Bordwell writes, Òthe
pensive ending acknowledges the author as a peculiarly humble intelligence; s/he knows
19 
that life is more complex than art can ever be, and the only way to respect this
complexity is to leave causes dangling, questions unanswered. With the open and
arbitrary ending, the art film reasserts that ambiguity is the dominant principle of
intelligibility, that we are to watch less for the tale than the telling, that life lacks the
neatness of art and this art knows it.Ó49
With BordwellÕs investigation, we can already establish art cinema as a
distinctive mode of cinema with its own set of formal principles, narrative conventions,
audience expectations as well as other generic marks. Referring back to one of art
cinemaÕs greatest purveyors, AndrŽ Bazin, we can say that a great part of art cinema is
often characterized by long takes, deep focus cinematography, temporal manipulations
rendering causality and narrative structures ambiguous, and a rather restrained and
reserved mode of storytelling as well as engaging in a perceptual play on the spectator.50
Slow Cinema revisits many of these characteristics, although in a much more intensive,
exaggerated and embellished manner, to such an extent that narrative features are
eclipsed in favour of stylistic innovation. The concept of ambiguity, then, remains a
fundamental aspect of Slow Cinema. In this respect, while classical cinema deals with
elements of story, Òin the art cinema, the puzzle is one of plot: who is telling this story?
how is this story being told? why is this story being told this way?Ó51
In other words, the
art cinema spectator is often challenged and invited into self-reflexive questions
regarding the nature of cinematic representation and narration.
In addition to art cinemaÕs own self-governing rules and formal aspects,
Bordwell concludes with two additional remarks concerning the art cinema and its
interaction with tangential cinematic modes. Firstly, Bordwell refers to a type of
modernist cinema, which is marked by a Òset of formal properties and viewing protocols
that presents, above all, the radical split of narrative structure from cinematic style, so
that the film constantly strains between the coherence of the fiction and the perceptual
disjunctions of cinematic representation.Ó52
Such an adjacent mode of cinema only
appears marginally in works such as October (1928) and Playtime (1967) and relies on
viewing procedures different to the art cinema, while sharing a defining quality of
ambivalence and ambiguity. The similarities as well as the differences between art
cinema and modernist cinema are recast in detail in BordwellÕs later work, especially in
20 
Narration in the Fiction Film, in which the modernist mode is replaced with the term
parametric narration. The term as well as its contrast to art cinema will be addressed
later in the chapter since it depends on the element of style as well as the Neoformalist
analysis as a valid methodology. BordwellÕs second remark, however, is related to the
interaction between art cinema and the dominant, classical mode. Here Bordwell notes
the ways in which certain Hollywood movies adopt art cinema conventions as well as
the ways in which art cinema cites and refers to classical Hollywood. As we shall see
later, such an interaction later creates huge overlaps between two separate modes and
further blur their boundaries, rendering it difficult to determine whether a film can be
deemed to belong to an art cinema tradition or to the classical tradition.
Written only two years later, Steve NealeÕs essay takes a different route in
defining the art cinema phenomenon. As opposed to BordwellÕs focus in formal traits as
well as aesthetic qualities, Neale explores art cinema as an institution. Although
acknowledging certain aesthetic traits of art cinema, Neale claims Ò[t]here was never
any systematic analysis of its texts, its sources of finance, its modes and circuits of
production, distribution and exhibition, its relationship to the state, the nature of the
discourses used to support and promote it, the institutional basis of these discourses, the
relations within and across each of these elements and the structure of the international
film industry.Ó53
According to Neale art cinema emerges in certain developed European
nations as a means to counter the Hollywood dominance in their respective motion
picture markets, motivated by both economic and cultural aspirations to establish an
indigenous, national film industry. If attaining such a cultural difference to Hollywood
was crucial, Neale suggests, then it was almost certainly inevitable that art films would
be Òshown in different cinemas and be distributed by different distribution networks,Ó as
well as Òmarked by different textual characteristics.Ó Although art cinemaÕs differences
to Hollywood were varied, Neale argues Òthat variety is contained both by the economic
infrastructure of Art Cinema, its basis in commodity-dominated modes of production,
distribution and exhibition, and by the repetitions that tend to mark cultural discourses
in general and the discourses of high art and culture in particular.Ó54
From then on,
Neale proposes three case studies, France, Germany and Italy respectively, and
illustrates the ways in which art cinema takes shape as an institution amongst different
cultural, economic and social contexts. An important argument that binds all case
21 
studies together is the way in which Neale establishes art cinema not only as a means of
expression, but furthermore as a market in which such expressions are commodified and
traded, that is, essentially, relying on an economic structure that is not that different to
the governing principles of Hollywood.
Without going into specific details of such case studies, we can extract several
important conclusions from NealeÕs influential article. Firstly, NealeÕs research
confronts the popular and to some extent the critical assumption that Italian Neorealism
laid the foundations of art cinema in the period immediately following the end of World
War II. From a variety of examples, Neale demonstrates that the defining qualities of
the art cinema discourse were in existence as early as 1910s, during which nation states
were already attempting to establish their own domestic film cultures in opposition to
foreign intrusions. Although art cinema and the Ônew wavesÕ were much more
prominent in the 1960s and 1970s than they were in earlier histories of cinema, certain
modes of production and distribution were already in place in France, Germany as well
as Italy. Evidence of these practices in early cinema testifies to the significance of
revealing art cinemaÕs historicity, in other words, art cinema was not only always
defined in opposition to Hollywood and/or the mainstream, but aspired for a mode of
filmmaking that achieved a higher cultural significance, for example, the adaptations of
canonical literary texts, lavish costume and set designs aiming to resurrect the glorious
past of the empires, and so on. As much as art cinema was seen as a politically
subversive movement during its breakthrough in the 1960s, it was, in its most primitive
form, a rudimentary act of nation-building and cultural revival.
Secondly, NealeÕs analysis of three distinctive national cinemas displays the
crucial role of state involvement regarding the development of their respective art
cinemas. In these cases the government not only functions as an official source of
funding for the art cinema institution, for instance through tax concessions, cultural
grants and funds, subsidies or interest free loans, but also is an important regulator of
the distribution and exhibition network of such films. For example, import quotas
determine a delicate balance between domestic and foreign films, more often than not
favouring domestic productions, while tax concessions or various other incentives
proliferate the number of art-house theatres dedicated to the exhibition of art films. The
22 
state, however, has not always supported the dissemination of art films, especially those
that were critical of the mainstream conservative ideology, for example the Andreotti
Law of 1949 aimed at suspending, and eventually terminating, the release and
exhibition of neorealist films in and outside of Italy because many of the filmmakers
and critics associated with neorealism were also closely related with leftist political
parties that were in fierce opposition to prime minister AndreottiÕs Christian Democrat
Party.55
Thirdly, unofficial national institutions, such as cine-clubs, film journals and
magazines were instrumental in the development of domestic film markets as well as
the niche art cinema circles. As mentioned earlier, some state incentives encouraged
economically the existence of cine-clubs, who supported the production, exhibition and
reception of art films. Furthermore, as Neale argues, the cine-clubs were Òthe exhibition
basis for the subsequent emergence of Art Cinema as a distinct sector within the
cinematic institution,Ó which Òwas due in large part to censorship restrictions on the
showing of films from the Soviet Union.Ó56
This meant that many radical films, which
were subversive in terms of their use of style, theme or subject matter, were given the
opportunity for exhibition to a select public, even though they would not pass state
restrictions in the mainstream sector. On the other hand, film journals played an
important role, as the critics of the well-known Cahiers du Cinema in France provided
key personnel for into the Nouvelle Vague, while in Italy, those who were associated
with neorealism were previously involved with the countryÕs two major film journals,
namely Bianco e Nero and Cinema, as well as the Centro Sperimentale di
Cinematografia, a film academy founded by the state in 1932.57
Finally, Neale explicates the international dimension of art cinema. He writes,
Ò[a]rt films are produced for international distribution and exhibition as well as for local
consumption. Art Cinema is a niche within the international film market, a sector that is
not yet completely dominated by Hollywood.Ó58
That is, art films are produced locally,
but the end result more often than not caters to an international, cosmopolitan audience.
This audience, Neale argues, has largely changed from a proletarian one in the 1910s
into a roughly bourgeoisie one following World War I.59
The change in audience
profiles also reflects the change from low art to high art; the former usually associated
23 
with Hollywood entertainment and the latter describing the various radical and
subversive works within art cinema. An important marketplace where the exhibition of
high art takes place is the international film festival, where films from various other
national backgrounds compete for a winning prize as well as the international group of
critics that will determine the distribution future of the respective projects. Because the
art cinema spectator is historically perceived as more sophisticated than earlier audience
profiles, art cinema within the film festival context becomes a form of tourism: in many
ways the film festival is transformed into a site in which cultural exchange is facilitated,
and audiences are enabled to observe and engage with other cultures, understand
cultural differences as if looking out from a window. According to Neale, the driving
force of this market, or rather the brand name, is the director, whose name in publicity
materials carries immediate expectations for its potential spectators as well as opening
up future collaborations with other labels, such as the art cinema stars. What is crucial
here is that in this sudden return to the auteur and the individual expression marking the
defining qualities of art cinema, Neale once again emphasizes that art cinema Òhas
always functioned in terms of a conception of film as commodity,Ó in effect, no more
different to the systems in the mainstream industry.60
The two articles by David Bordwell and Steve Neale remain seminal and
influential studies of art cinema as a cinematic category. Since then, the scholarship
surrounding art cinema has ceased to redefine or re-examine its parameters and instead
has concentrated on providing a myriad of new case studies along with the recognition
of recently formed national cinemas. Clearly, however, art cinema as an aesthetic and
industrial category has gone through many changes in parallel to the dramatic shifts in
the modes of production, distribution, exhibition and consumption of cinematic works.
While the rise of digital and increase of globalization have altered recent media
scholarship, their effects on art cinema circulation have been largely neglected. It is
within this atmosphere that a recent anthology of essays was introduced as a way to
address such changes in art cinema Ð the edited collection Global Art Cinema by
Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover aims to fill this gap by re-examining art cinema
through incorporating various methodologies and critical practices. In addition to the
important task of redefinition, Galt and Schoonover also situate art cinema within a
global context insofar as to rectify its former status as a Eurocentric phenomenon.
24 
Rejecting notions of world cinema and international co-productions, the volume aims to
go beyond the Hollywood-Europe binarism and establish an understanding, or at least a
rigorous questioning, of art cinema across nations and cultures.
Galt and Schoonover take up the challenge of defining art cinema in their
illuminating introduction. Going beyond the classic formalist/industrial distinction put
forward by Bordwell and Neale, the authors stipulate that a comprehensive approach
needs to be taken; one that takes questions of form and style as well as historical,
economic and geopolitical contexts into consideration. At this point a rudimentary
definition of art cinema is offered: art cinema Òdescribes feature-length narrative films
at the margins of mainstream cinema, located somewhere between fully experimental
films and overtly commercial products.Ó61
But what are the defining characteristics of
these films, in terms of their formal aesthetics and the cultural and historical contexts
out of which they emerge? A useful starting point here is to indicate the ontology of art
cinema Ð what makes art cinema art cinema?
In an unexpected, but extremely productive turn, the authors resolve the
difficulties of defining art cinema and its unusual ability to conform to different
contexts by stating that art cinema is categorically impure. Galt and Schoonover
Òcontend that the lack of strict parameters for art cinema is not just an ambiguity of its
critical history, but a central part of its specificity, a positive way of delineating its
discursive space.Ó Furthermore, the authors Òpropose as a principle that art cinema can
be defined by its impurity; a difficulty of categorization that is as productive to film
culture as it is frustrating to taxonomy.Ó62
In other words, art cinema has now become
such a broad concept with a wide range of features that it transcends classification.
Moreover, it is now impossible to claim that art cinema attains certain formal aesthetics
that are completely at odds with mainstream cinema. For example, the complex
storytelling structures adopted by some mainstream films draw their influence from the
formal innovations that the modernist art films have introduced since the 1960s,
including experimentation on narrative form as well as film style. Conversely, films that
are not aesthetically unique are today considered to be art films for reasons other than
formal innovation, most likely depending on their country of origin. In a similar vein,
the most cherished aspect of art cinema by the audiences, namely its auteur-based
25 
production system, is prevalent more than ever within the mainstream industry. To sum
up, there are several features of art cinema that are either not specific or which overlap
with other categories. Many of these features seem critical, yet insufficient, to an
explanation of art cinema, thereby justifying its impure nature.
There are, however, a variety of ways in which the categorical impurity of art
cinema can be understood, and here the editors list five important areas for
consideration: impure institutional space, transnational and international nature,
ambivalent relationship to stardom and authorship, troubling notions of genre and
finally peculiarly impure spectatorship. The institutional space refers to art cinemaÕs
capacity to move in between the high and lowbrow as well as the commercial and the
artisanal cinematic spaces. While the art house theatre and the film festival occupy a
unique aspect of art cinema exhibition, recent developments show that some filmmakers
Òmix theatrical space with gallery space in practices that are as close to the avant-garde
as to commercial cinema.Ó Furthermore, the editors emphasize how the tensions
between the national and the international have been critical in understanding art
cinemas. On the one hand, international distribution marks art cinemaÕs crucial facet,
while on the other, Òrepresentations of locality [É] play a major role in the creation of
canonical national cinemas.Ó63
In terms of stardom and authorship, the creation of canonical personalities has
always been a celebrated part of art cinema, and the comparison to Hollywood here
reveals fundamental distinctions. The most important argument here is how the auterist
impulse within art cinema in a global context provokes the option of Òthinking [of] the
potential of art cinema as a platform for political agency.Ó64
While doing so, art cinema
refuses the rubric of genre typologies; its lack of stable iconographies or aesthetic
modalities has clearly stumped scholars trying to fit art cinema into conventional
descriptions of genre. Finally, the mixture of intellectual engagement and emotional
affection sufficiently defines the art cinema spectatorship. The authors argue that art
cinemaÕs Òopenness to aesthetic experience is not unconnected to its openness to
minority communities who have formed a significant part of art cinemaÕs audience as
well as its representational politics.Ó65
For this reason, art cinema has adopted certain
conventional films from minority cultures as its own, once again effacing the boundary
26 
disputes between the mainstream and the artisanal. All of the aforementioned impurities
of art cinema consequently bring forth important questions of categorization into place;
and the editors argue that this model Òholds the potential to open up spaces between and
outside of mainstream/avant-garde, local/cosmopolitan, history/theory and
industrial/formal debates in film scholarship.Ó66
1.3 Ð Theorizing Slow Cinema
But how does Slow Cinema fit into the larger art cinema framework? In this
thesis I pursue this question by situating Slow Cinema within a unique strand of
contemporary art cinema that eschews conventional aspects of narrative action and
instead concentrates on creating mood and atmosphere through deliberate stylization of
the filmic image and temporality. In other words, I argue that Slow Cinema should first,
and foremost, be understood as a particular mode of narration that not only opposes the
more dominant, mainstream modes of storytelling, but also to a certain extent breaks
away from the conventions of art cinema most crucially defined by Bordwell and Neale.
In this particular mode of narration, the role of style retains an elevated status in
comparison to other aspects of film: certain elements of style, such as a tracking camera
that exploits or exaggerates temps mort, a particular way of staging the profilmic action,
or a specific sound effect, obtain saliency and are often structured in patterns, acquiring
specific meanings through repetition and dictating the emotional tone of the film. In
other words, they prevail as organizing and unifying principles that replace the lack of
narrative action and causality. Sometimes other visual or sonic features intercede and
function prominently; for example, the foregrounding of the Russian landscape by
Andrei Zvyagintsev, the use of high contrast stark black and white cinematography by
BŽla Tarr, the expressive qualities of non-diegetic music in the films by Carlos
Reygadas, philosophical dialogue in Lav DiazÕs cinema, or the use of high-definition
video by Pedro Costa. In each and every circumstance, however, these films are marked
by a certain aesthetic of reticence, in the sense that they restrain the flow of meaning
and resist interpretation. This is where the role of narrative becomes crucial: because the
films resist our natural temptation for interpretation and narrativization, we need to
come up with alternative models Ð or schemas, to use a cognitivist term Ð to engage
27 
with as well as to make sense of these films. As such, Slow Cinema as a mode of
narration favours minimalist aesthetics and the films require a different type of
emotional and intellectual engagement from its audiences.
Nevertheless, Slow Cinema is not all style, long take and dead time. Although
formal aspects take prominence over story action, many of the films are shaped around
particular emotions, themes and narrative tropes. Prescribed by the filmsÕ explicit style,
the emotional tone in Slow Cinema is often centred around a pessimistic vision of the
world: feelings of anxiety, depression, desperation, boredom, alienation, spiritual
exhaustion, revelation and monotony frequently surface and account for many of its
characters. Perhaps the most common theme across Slow Cinema is a prolonged interest
in the rituals of daily life, often resulting in either portrayals of the chores of an
individual occupation, such as the woodcutterÕs daily routines in La Libertad (2001), or
a protracted depiction of daily activities such as walking and eating, as evidenced in
Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) and Gerry (2002). Other narrative tropes include those
that explore and meditate on what it means to be human by focusing on improbable
relationships, for example Las Acacias (2011) and Distant (2002); archetypical or
allegorical narratives chronicling national and cultural history, Evolution of a Filipino
Family (2004) and Independencia (2009); films based on local and regional belief
systems and folk rituals, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) and Le
Quattro Volte (2010); self-reflexive films contemplating the current status of cinema,
art and contemporary culture, Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003); spiritual narratives
exploring notions of guilt, redemption or revelation, The Banishment (2007) and Battle
in Heaven (2005); and films that cut across well-known genres and play down their
conventions, MeekÕs Cutoff (2010) and Police, Adjecive (2009).
The current literature treats Slow Cinema as a reaction against contemporary
mainstream culture, particularly against notions of globalization, digitalization, the
culture of speed and the monotony of the everyday. Clearly these films proliferated in
the early 2000s by attracting international festival audiences, culminating in an
unofficial global movement, whose significance film scholarship has so far overlooked.
I argue that although Slow Cinema is often seen as a strictly 21st
century phenomenon,
it is in crucial respects a nostalgic rebirth of the 1960s modernist art cinema and its
28 
formal experimentations, most notably its distinctive uses of camerawork and duration.
Nevertheless, Slow Cinema offers a different experience of spectatorship as opposed to
the earlier movements. I claim that while use of the long take has previously been
attributed as a device to capture an aesthetic of reality, within Slow Cinema it becomes
the very central device to elicit an aesthetic experience based on feelings of nostalgia,
absurd humour and boredom. Clearly these feelings take place in other areas of cinema,
but in completely different circumstances, to a different effect and finally, accompanied
with different stylistic choices. Here, the use of long take cinematography takes
precedence over other elements of style, taking us back to the age-old aesthetic battles
between Eisenstenian montage and Bazinian realism, faithfulness to reality and
faithfulness to image, expressionism and realism, fiction and documentary. In many
ways, long take cinematography functions as the sine qua non of Slow Cinema, its
enunciative mark and its single most important aesthetic contribution.
Secondly, in addition to its unique narrative and stylistic forms, Slow Cinema
can be theorized as a particular form of discursive activity, which, on the one hand,
involves a specific mode of critical practice, and on the other, a unique blend of
production and exhibition circumstances that remarkably echo the roots of art cinema as
Steve Neale has demonstrated. This second aspect is crucial: Slow Cinema is not only a
historical style, but it is also a historical (and critical) set of practices, debates and
ideas. In other words, the economic and institutional context behind the production,
exhibition and reception of these films are a significant part of their nature. Hence, the
thesis adopts a secondary objective: outlining the historical evolution of this style of
filmmaking through a study of its production, exhibition and reception history. In a
remarkable similarity to its formal aspects, the critical reception of Slow Cinema also
revolves around concepts of nostalgia, boredom and humour. These three concepts
become the basis in which these films are evaluated for their political effects, cultural
functions and/or artistic contribution. The debates on whether Slow Cinema is valuable
or subversive clearly resonate with Nick JamesÕs editorial piece, when he coined the
phrase The Slow Cinema debate, and Karl SchonooverÕs article, which calls for a reexamination
of the meaning of value, labour and nonproductivity. In both cases, the
Slow Cinema debate alone has attracted a wide range of attention in various cinephile
circles as well as academic and scholarly institutions. The defenders of Slow Cinema,
29 
on the other hand, are those cinephile critics, who regularly bemoan the death of cinema
in general and the decline of the European art cinema in particular.
An examination of the production history reveals the ways in which various
official and unofficial national institutions such as cine-clubs, film journals, state funds,
cultural magazines, film festivals, intellectual circles and educational institutions were
involved in the various stages of Slow CinemaÕs development. The role of international
film festivals as well as their subsidiary sections and markets are pivotal in the creation
of films associated with Slow Cinema. As is well known, many of these films are
commissioned by particular film festivals, that is, the production of such films are
funded by festival mechanisms on the one hand, and later on are disseminated into their
own controlled exhibition circuits and eventually sold to international distribution
companies within their own distribution and sales markets. As such, every major film
festival now comes with its native funding mechanisms, each promoting a particular
type or brand of art cinema that potentially appeals to its own audience profile. Well
known examples include the Hubert Bals Fund awarded by the International Film
Festival Rotterdam since 1988 and named after its influential director for many years,
the World Cinema Fund initiated by the Berlinale in 2004, and the now discontinued
Monte Cinema Verita run by the Locarno Film Festival.67
In terms of the production
and distribution markets, Cannes Film Festival has an enormous lead with its MarchŽ du
Film enterprise, but on the other side of the spectrum there are smaller co-production
markets in festivals as varying as the Cinemart in Rotterdam Film Festival and the
Crossroads Co-production Forum in Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
Moreover, films that secure funding from these production schemes are often
invited to premiere the same festival in the following years. This brings us to the
secondary, but perhaps the most important function of the international film festival: a
chief site for the exhibition for Slow Cinema. Excluding the dedicated theatres within
the art house-loving cities of Europe and North America, Slow Cinema hardly exists
outside the boundaries of the international film festival. In other words, it would be
absurd for any cinephile to expect the latest Pedro Costa film in a local multiplex. In
this respect, Slow Cinema is an institutional discourse insofar as it almost exclusively
belongs to the international film festival sphere. In many ways the degree to which
30 
slowness is exercised is highly proportional to the extent to how peripheral the
screening takes place in comparison to mainstream productions. In other words, the
slower the film, the more difficult it is to see it on the big screen and the more chances
that it will be in a festival theatre.
Furthermore, film festivals are sites in which younger generations of filmmakers
are offered the opportunity to establish their work within the context of pioneering
national cinemas. Through programming facilities directed towards the discovery of
new talent, certain filmmakers were able to sustain their presence within the complex
funding mechanisms and exhibition matrices of the film festival circuit. In this respect,
the brand value of the director plays an important role in attaining a wider distribution
network. For example, the latest films by BŽla Tarr and Nuri Bilge Ceylan, The Turin
Horse (2011) and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) respectively, received a good
amount of critical attention in the UK as Òcontemporary masters of cinemaÓ and were
distributed on a wider scale than, say, a film by Lisandro Alonso or Lav Diaz would
have. The Turin Horse and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia initially premiered in Berlin
and Cannes the same year and there followed a run in art house cinemas as well as local
cinemas that occasionally show the art house fare. At the other end of the Slow Cinema
spectrum, films by directors such as Diaz and Alonso exclusively remain for the film
festivals, or special screenings for special occasions. Even within the context of film
festivals, Diaz, in the words of Nick James, was only recently able to Ògraduate to the
Cannes festivalÕs Un Certain Regard sectionÓ by his latest feature Norte, The End of
History (2013), despite years of approval by Rotterdam.68
As a matter of fact no film by
either Alonso or Diaz has been theatrically released in the UK to this date, not least due
to the temporal challenges these films pose. For instance, DiazÕs Death in the Land of
Encantos (2007) runs for a total of 9 hours, which renders it impossible for viewing in
an ordinary theatrical environment. An equally striking factor that determines the filmÕs
fate is its textual style and the temporal economy; for example, the actual pacing and the
lack of narrative causality in AlonsoÕs Liverpool (2008) is virtually unacceptable for a
regular film-goer who is used to the linearity and straightforwardness of mainstream
cinema. In addition to these factors, certain films employ a perpetual sense of stillness
and monotony in the visual image, rendering cases in which what we understand as
dead time is even further elongated, exaggerated and overstated, with seemingly no
31 
deliberate purpose other the preference of extending it and resisting to cut. The end
result is films such as A Casa (1997), Colossal Youth (2006) and the 14-hour
documentary Crude Oil (2008), where the spectators are confronted with impenetrable,
baffling compositions of wandering characters, elusive and obscure dialogue, with no
sense of heuristic direction or motivation whatsoever.
Sceptics and critics of Slow Cinema might use these examples to discredit and
underestimate its aesthetic, cultural and political value. They might disagree with the
idea that Slow Cinema plays an important role within contemporary culture, because
these films are often marginalized, difficult to grasp, challenge our perceptual
capabilities, resist meaningful interpretation, are rarely screened and lack broad
availability and visibility. They will often claim that because there is nothing happening
on the screen, there is nothing to look at and because there is nothing to look at, we as
film critics tend to probe deeper for symptomatic readings and interpretations with no
real motivation other than formal and stylistic curiosity. However, a study of the slow
tradition in cinema reveals more than a re-examination of the aesthetic debates between
the slow and the fast, the high and the low. This research is important because
understanding the specific aims and effects of Slow Cinema will enable us to
comprehend the larger aims of international art-house production and engage with the
debates concerning reactions against globalization, digitalization and the exponential
increase in the speed in which we pace our lives. Aspects of Slow Cinema have
appeared throughout film history, but only within the last decade or so has it evolved
from a network of filmmakers into a global phenomenon. Transgressing national
boundaries, Slow Cinema is currently the one of the most exciting, thought-provoking,
daring and evocative currents within the art cinema circuit. The experiences involved in
our engagement with Slow Cinema, namely nostalgia, humour and boredom are central
to my argument in this thesis. Although these experiences initially might carry negative
and undesirable connotations, I argue they that benefit us through various processes of
critical and active engagement, reserving a pleasing and productive condition at the end,
given that we are open and receptive to their unusual qualities. Therefore, I claim that
these experiences offer a radical, and often paradoxical, reconsideration of our
emotional and intellectual attachment to moving images. This tendency can be observed
in the aesthetic features of the films as well as their production histories and critical
32 
reception. As such, this project combines two approaches, namely formal analysis and
aesthetic historiography, in order to better understand the Slow Cinema phenomenon. In
the following two sections, I elaborate further on the methodologies I use for my
investigation, before moving onto the rationale behind the choice of my case studies.
1.4 Ð Methodology 1: Formal Analysis
Throughout this thesis I deliberately refrain from using the phrase textual
analysis and instead choose formal analysis for various reasons. Within Film Studies,
textual analysis implicitly refers to the collective efforts of a range of scholars working
during the 1970s, whose influence and methods were largely drawn from Saussurean
linguistics, Lacanian psychoanalysis and Althusserian Marxism. These treat cinematic
works as text, unified system of codes, which the critic is meant to decrypt in order to
explain the broader cultural, social and ideological discourses that are concealed within
the complex language of cinema. Such post-structuralist projects sought to negotiate the
relationship between the cinematic signifier (the marks in the text as well as the image,
elements of film style, etc.) and the signified (gender relations, political agency, social
structures, etc.).69
In this respect, textual analysis is the outcome of a structuralist and
post-structuralist agenda Ð or what is often termed as the ÒGrand TheoryÓ by David
Bordwell and No‘l Carroll Ð that aims to demistify the codified language of cinema and
relating this language to Òbroader features of society, history, language, and psyche.Ó70
Textual analysis as a methodology is widely associated with the works of
scholars such as Stephen Heath, Thierry Kuntzel, Peter Wollen and Raymond Bellour,
whose concerns remain more ideological than they are aesthetic.71
There were, however,
critics with an increased sensitivity towards the language of cinema; for instance,
Stephen HeathÕs extended analysis of Touch of Evil (1958) and Christian MetzÕs ÒGrand
Syntagmatique,Ó despite their ideological intentions, paved the way for a more nuanced
engagement with and understanding of the cinematic form and its stylistic elements.72
Nevertheless, textual analysis as described above often ignored the ways in which film
style pertained to narrative meaning or aesthetic experience, and instead ascribed
thematic or formal patterns across films to ideological meanings. Moreover, textual
33 
analysis in this period is marked by its tendency to arrive at general assumptions from
very specific examples, for example looking at a specific example of Hollywood cinema
and drawing totalizing conclusions about the entire system, in effect eschewing
contextual parameters in favour of the individual text and its manners of operation.73
According to Judith Mayne, development of textual analysis also encompasses Òthe
transition from structuralist studies of narrative, concerned with the overall modes of
coherence and stability in the text, to post-structuralist studies, concerned more with
what exceeds or puts into question those very modes of coherence and stability.Ó74
Mayne notes that the classical film text generally provides Òpredictable patternsÓ for
structuralist theories of narrative for its Òtransparently realist textÓ and the shift to poststructuralism
in theory Òput[s] into question the totalizing dominance of such
transparency.Ó75
Such a close affinity with post-structuralist thought designates a type of
spectatorship that is often seen passive, as Judith Mayne concludes, so much so that
Òone of the legacies of textual analysis is a notion of the film viewer as held, contained,
or otherwise manipulated by the mechanisms of a cinematic institution which finds its
most succinct expression in the various textual strategies of delay, resolution, and
containment that engage the spectator.Ó76
Such analyses pursue psychoanalytical and
ideological ramifications through exposing what has been repressed or marginalized;
processes that are unveiled by probing structural elements of typical narratives. In this
sense the post-structuralist project concentrates on questions that have ideological and
psychosexual implications, rather than those that pursue aesthetic questions. This
tendency nearly results in viewing the classical narrative cinema as the manifestation of
an unseen and ideological control, loosely defined as a regulation of human activity by
the dominant mode of production, political institutions as well as forces of patriarchal
society.
Conversely, my aim in analysing Slow Cinema films is more than identifying
patterns that permeate these films, but rather to interrogate the ways in which film style
achieves a higher order of importance, particularly against or in relation to other
elements of narrative. By returning to formal analysis, I aim to distinguish this thesis
from the various post-structuralist ideas about artworks functioning as texts as well as
totalizing conclusions about broader relationships, in effect, issues that are normally
associated with the phrase textual analysis. My main concern remains with the formal
34 
aspects of the films, including narrative structure as well as film style. This entails that I
subscribe to the approach that refuses a split between form and content whilst analysing
films. The view that splits artworks into form and content aim to differentiate between
aspects of style, for instance the technical devices and methods used while filming and
editing, and elements of content, for example, information flows regarding character
and narrative structure.77
Instead, I concur with the approach that warrants an integral
relationship between meaning and style, in the sense that the meaning we derive from a
film is more often than not dictated by its conscious formal decisions, namely the
elements of style combined with elements of narrative structure, characterization and so
on. Refusal of such a model, for example, would imply that the spectator could gain
knowledge of a particular character independent of any of the formal aspects listed
above, which would be impossible since any depiction or portrayal is dependent on such
formal features. In Neoformalism, the crucial word form encompasses both aspects of
style and aspects of narrative and, as such, meaning with all of its varieties is taken to be
an integral part of the artwork.
Throughout this thesis, my analysis of Slow Cinema films is informed by the
Neoformalist approach largely set out by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. In the
early 1980s, Bordwell and Thompson developed this approach by exploring the work of
the Russian Formalist critics, a branch of literary criticism that peaked in the 1920s
Soviet Russia, including scholars such as Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynianov, Boris
Eichenbaum and Vladimir Propp.78
These influential thinkers adopted a scientific study
of poetic language and brought linguistics as well as the artworkÕs form to the fore. My
main aim in close analysis is to isolate organizing principles that play an important role
in these films. Informed by the Russian Formalist methods, I analyse these films in
terms of their formal aspects and investigate the ways in which style shapes meanings.
Because the Neoformalist method isolates aspects of style and form separately, it proves
to be a useful tool for comprehending the ways in which style functions within art
cinema.
In many ways the Neoformalist approach challenges the preceding notion that
films should be treated as texts, based on a communications model composed of a
sender, a medium and a receiver. This model, largely arising from narratological
35 
studies, emphasizes a practical function of art, such as the transmission of meanings and
messages, and requires that we treat artworks by evaluating their efficiency as well as
their worthiness, for example, judging the cultural value present in the message sent. At
the heart of Neoformalist analysis, however, resides the claim that artworks in general
are essentially different from other cultural artefacts, because they refer to an aesthetic
realm instead of a practical one. Artworks, according to Russian Formalists, offer an
aesthetic experience, in which the viewerÕs perceptual and mental capabilities are tested
and challenged against ordinary everyday practices. A playful interaction between the
viewer and the artwork thus renders an active participation on the part of the viewer,
whose engagement with the artwork facilitates through emotional, mental and
perceptual processes.79
Central to this engagement is the way in which artworks transform everyday
reality into an unfamiliar, however profoundly fascinating practice, which the Russian
Formalists call defamiliarization. Victor Shklovsky writes, Ò[t]he purpose of art is to
impart the sensation of things as they are perceived, and not as they are known. The
technique of art is to make objects Òunfamiliar,Ó to make forms difficult, to increase the
difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end
in itself and must be prolonged.Ó80
In ThompsonÕs words, art Òdefamiliarizes our
habitual perceptionsÓ by reassembling them into Òa new contextÓ and replacing them
with Òunaccustomed formal patterns.Ó Neoformalism, then, argues that defamiliarization
is Òthe basic purpose of art in our lives,Ó and is an important factor in determining the
ways in which artworks can take different shapes in different historical contexts.
Thompson writes, ÒDefamiliarization is thus an element in all artworks, but its means
and degree will vary considerably, and the defamiliarizing powers of a single work will
change over history.Ó For Thompson, such a degree of defamiliarization also helps the
critic determine the value or originality of the artwork: ÒThe works we single out as
most original and that are taken to be the most valuable tend to be those that either
defamiliarize reality more strongly or defamiliarize the conventions established by
previous art works Ð or a combination of the two.Ó81
In this sense defamiliarization as a creative process is precisely what is at stake
in Slow Cinema. Many of the films discussed throughout this thesis primarily aim to
36 
subvert previously established conventions and representations of everyday life. Slow
CinemaÕs most recognizable formal properties, namely the exaggeration of cinematic
temporality and screen duration are often established in differentiation to older artworks
and constantly require comparisons with earlier films that challenge our perceptions in
similar ways. For example, the scene with the young maid grinding coffee in Umberto
D. posed a temporal challenge for the audiences who saw the film in 1952 insofar as it
prompted AndrŽ Bazin as well as other critics to see such sequences as revolutionary in
terms of their deployment of unabridged real time. This, Italian NeorealismÕs much
admired sequence, might appear quite ordinary to us today, considering it merely runs
for several minutes. As such, its emotional impact to contemporary audiences might be
less forceful, especially compared to the way in which similar scenes are portrayed
throughout film history in an increasingly expanded manner: for example, Delphine
Seyrig cooking and cleaning in Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
(1975), Lars Rudolph walking aimlessly for minutes in BŽla TarrÕs Werckmeister
Harmonies (2000), or perhaps the most hyperbolic of all, John Giorgio sleeping for five
hours in Andy WarholÕs Sleep (1963). Because Slow Cinema makes daily and ordinary
practices appear unfamiliar, defamiliarization is an appropriate concept for describing
its aesthetic virtues. Although defamiliarization has been criticized as applicable only to
artistic, original or avant-garde films, ThompsonÕs analysis of classical Hollywood
narratives in terms of their relationship to stylistic norms, conventions and expectations
testify to its effectiveness as a valid methodology for filmmaking in general.
Analysis and interpretation under the Neoformalist approach also depend on
concepts of function and motivation. Function refers to Òthe purpose served by the
presence of any given device,Ó or in other words, function is the way in which a
particular device (as in any technical, formal or thematic element) has a relationship to
other devices across the artwork.82
Function, in this sense, should not be conflated with
interpretation: interpretation is the critical activity of explaining the meanings found in
artworks, while identifying functions refers to explaining the systematic role that the
artwork assigns to several devices. Motivation, on the other hand, refers to the activity
in which the viewer attempts to make sense of the artwork depending on a certain
conceptual framework. In other words, the artwork motivates the viewer to understand
the function of a particular device, whereas the critic is motivated by the self in order to
37 
interpret the artwork. Thompson outlines four types of motivation in artworks:
compositional, realistic, transtextual and artistic.83
Essentially, all devices across
artworks have an artistic motivation. However, artistic motivation may not be
immediately recognizable for the viewer, because all devices might also contain more
salient motivations, such as realistic, compositional and/or transtextual. In the viewerÕs
perspective, then, Òartistic motivation is present in a really noticeable and significant
way only when the other three types of motivation are withheld.Ó In some narrative
films, such saliency of artistic motivation can be Òsystematically foregrounded,Ó Òand
artistic patterns compete for our attention with the narrative functions of devices,Ó in
which case Thompson writes that Òthe result is parametric form.Ó84
Thompson
continues: ÒIn such films, certain devices, such as colors, camera movements, sonic
motifs, will be repeated and varied across the entire workÕs form; these devices become
parameters. They may contribute to the narrativeÕs meaning Ð for example, by creating
parallelisms or contrasts Ð but their abstract functions exceed their contribution to
meaning and draw our attention more.Ó85
The parametric form is fundamental in
understanding Slow Cinema as a unique mode of narration and will be addressed
shortly.
Before returning to the parametric form as a mode of narration, we need to focus
on an important conceptual dichotomy in Neoformalist analysis, the distinction between
the syuzhet and the fabula. Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell borrow these terms
from the Russian Formalists, who used them to analyze literary narratives. Syuzhet is
chiefly the set of visible and audible events presented in the film in a causal manner.
The film will present the events either directly or by reference through characters, and
the ordering of the events will often be out of its chronological order, especially if there
is a flashback or a flashforward. Typically the viewer should understand the flashback
either through conventions or by retrospective judgement and begin reconstructing the
events chronologically, which the Neoformalists term as the fabula. Fabula, then, is the
set of events rearranged by the viewer in terms of their temporal as well as causal order.
Fundamentally, the syuzhet-fabula distinction reveals the ways in which narratives
defamiliarize the temporal order of events. Virtually every narrative film has a
beginning and an end, and the syuzhet-fabula distinction is useful to consider the way in
which different narrative structures may ascribe different emotional or artistic effects.
38 
Although a useful analytic tool, the syuzhet-fabula distinction has little value
and application when taken literally. According to Bordwell, fabula construction is
Òpsychologically implausibleÓ due to the lack of such a place inside our brain where
such rearrangement could take place. For example, it would be extremely demanding to
ask a viewer to pause a film like 21 Grams (2003) or Pulp Fiction (1994) and then ask
her to list the temporal outline of events. Such complex narratives might give an overall
sense of temporal order, but Bordwell points out that fabula as such is not consciously
accessible whenever we need to.86
Nevertheless, the distinction between the fabula and
the syuzhet is a necessary one, because it crucial in understanding various modes of
narration, distinctions that will eventually help us identify the ways in which Slow
Cinema produces a meaningful experience.
The creation of the fabula through an exchange between the syuzhet and style is
often labelled as narration. Thompson defines narration as Ò[t]he process whereby the
syuzhet presents and withholds fabula information in a certain order.Ó She writes,
Ò[n]arration thus continually cues our hypothesis-forming about fabula events
throughout the course of viewing the film.Ó87
Similarly, David Bordwell defines
narration as Òthe process whereby the filmÕs syuzhet and style interact in the course of
cueing and channelling the spectatorÕs construction of the fabula.Ó88
In other words
narration is the systematic way in which style shapes the syuzhet (or vice-versa) and
enables the construction of the fabula by the spectator, therefore includes aspects of
style as well as aspects of narrative. In his Narration in the Fiction Film, David
Bordwell puts forward four distinctive Òhistorical modes of narration,Ó or in other words
Òhistorically distinct set of norms of narrational construction and comprehension.Ó89
Apart from the classical narration model (for example, Hollywood cinema), which
essentially entails the subordination of style in service of the syuzhet and the historicalmaterialist
narration best exemplified in the Soviet silent cinema of the 1920s, the
remaining two of BordwellÕs modes are of great relevance to my investigation of Slow
Cinema. The art-cinema narration is in many ways an extended version of BordwellÕs
view of art cinema initiated in his article ÒArt Cinema as a Mode of Film PracticeÓ and
distinguished by its opposition to the classical mode by virtue of its realistic motivation,
authorial commentary and flexible syuzhet-style relationship. Parametric narration, on
the other hand, is less historical, Òapplies to isolated filmmakers and fugitive filmsÓ and
39 
is difficult to pin down in relation to Òa national school, period or genre of
filmmaking.Ó90
It is, however, a mode of narration in which Òthe filmÕs stylistic system
creates patterns distinct from the demands of the syuzhet system. Film style may be
organized and emphasized to a degree that makes it at least equal in importance to
syuzhet patterns.Ó91
In other words, parametric narration precisely describes Slow
Cinema as a distinctive mode of narration.92
It involves a systematic application of
Òparameters,Ó or filmic techniques and devices independent of the demands and
motivations of its narrative structure.93
I shall be elaborating on parametric narration
further in the case studies, however, it is important note here that Bordwell is very
specific with the number of filmmakers that exercise the parametric form and limits its
use to several examples, ranging from the consistent practitioners (Robert Bresson,
Yasujiro Ozu) to those who sporadically display its various aspects (Fritz Lang, Carl
Theodor Dreyer, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alain Resnais).
The deliberate lack of the word modernism in BordwellÕs study largely prompts
Mark Betz to pursue the question whether parametric narration is applicable to
contemporary ÒmodernistÓ art cinema. Betz writes:
three of the limitations [Bordwell] claims are inherent to the parametric mode no
longer seem to apply, if indeed they ever did: that such narration is not a
widespread filmmaking strategy; that its principles do not constitute a widespread
viewing norm; and that the development of the Òintrinsic stylistic normÓ of a
parametric film is unlikely to be perceivable in one cognitive sitting. In short, one
cannot dismiss so easily the possibility that parametric narration has in fact settled
in, and cinematic modernism extended over, the past two decades in such a way as
to become not only widespread and perceivable, but also more recognizable,
watchable, and marketable.94
In other words, Betz argues that although parametric narration was in a marginal
existence from the perspective of the 1980s, when considered alongside modernism, the
emergence of Slow Cinema in the 21st
century demonstrates its continuation through
various historical periods and waves of art cinema directors. Throughout his article,
Betz is not only referring to contemporary art cinema directors who Òdisplay modernist
styles and narration,Ó (Haneke, Denis, Dardennes, et al.) but also refers to a group of
minimalist filmmakers, in other words Slow Cinema directors, that exemplify the
40 
Òsparse approachÓ of parametric narration, naming figures such as Mikl—s Jancs—,
Aleksandr Sokurov and Theo Angelopoulos as some of its pioneers. According to Betz,
such a belated re-emergence of modernism and modernist aesthetics Òemphasize[s] the
degree to which historical time is palimpsestic and dispersive in all cultures, how
aesthetic forms may be translated across cultures in multiple circuits of exchange and
appropriation.Ó95
As such, Betz argues that the Òcognitive perceptions of these
operations are not separable from the cultural codes available to the spectator Ð and it is
here that the question of global versus local knowledges and histories come to the
fore.Ó96
BetzÕs plea in accounting for the Òtransnational negotiations,Ó the complex
local, cultural and historical context often found in global art films utilizing parametric
narration largely motivates my secondary methodology. In the following section, I
discuss how an approach that is best labelled as aesthetic history can gauge a better
understanding of Slow Cinema and its modes of production, exhibition and reception.
1.5 Ð Methodology 2: Aesthetic History
This methodology is film historical in focus and is composed of several
components. My main purpose in applying this methodology is not only to balance the
explication of Slow CinemaÕs aesthetic and formal features against a cultural and
historical background, but also to account for the reasons why Slow Cinema has
suddenly developed into a largely incognito critical practice in the 21st
century. Robert
Allen and Douglas Gomery state that the Òaesthetic film history is the predominant form
of film history and has been so since the beginnings of film study in United States and
EuropeÓ in their seminal book Film History: Theory and Practice.97
As opposed to the
social, economic and technological approaches, aesthetic history focuses on the history
of cinema as an art form. As we shall see in a moment, this approach is formed of many
components, several of which I will intensify my efforts throughout this thesis. I largely
identify my approach here with the ways in which Allen and Gomery explicate their
theory against what they call Òthe Masterpiece Approach,Ó hence I want to quickly
establish the theoretical framework and the questions asked in such an approach.
41 
ÒThe Masterpiece Approach,Ó on the whole explores the history of cinema as an
art form, focusing on ÒgreatÓ individual films or filmmakers that deserve attention,
whose Òaesthetic significance transcend that filmÕs historical context,Ó and takes its
principal objective as the Òcritical evaluation of films.Ó98
As such, the Masterpiece
Approach is limited in its scope and represents a problematic methodology. Not only
does it ignore a huge body of work falling outside Ògreat works of art,Ó it also wrongly
assumes that the meaning enveloped by the film is independent of the historical context
or the perspective of its viewer. It disregards the economic and technological factors
leading to the adoption of many aesthetic strategies and stylistic features. It seeks to
evaluate films rather than explain their cultural or social significance and emergence in
certain periods of history. Allen and Gomery stress the explicative aspect of aesthetic
film history and list several questions that such an approach would pose: ÒWhy [É] did
certain aesthetic styles emerge at particular times and not at others? Why did particular
filmmakers make the aesthetic choices they did and how were these choices
circumscribed by the economic, social, and technological context they found themselves
in?Ó and perhaps the most important of which asks ÒWhat have certain cinematic
devices meant to audiences at various points in film history [É] and how was this
meaning created?Ó99
These questions are largely similar to the ways in which I approach
Slow Cinema and my particular case studies throughout this thesis.
In their reformulation of the aesthetic film history approach, Allen and Gomery
propose several components or factors that the historian needs to take into
consideration. Stylistic factors, such as changing norms, use of explicit filmic
techniques across particular periods of history, are largely related to the ways in which I
employ the Neoformalist method and David BordwellÕs taxonomy of the historical
modes of narration. In fact, BordwellÕs Òhistorical poeticsÓ attempts to merge the
Neoformalist method with aesthetic history, chiefly in purpose of understanding the
stylistic choices of filmmakers in historical terms.100
Similarly, Allen and Gomery
propose Òintertextual backgroundÓ as a reference to the codes and conventions that a
group of films (genre, national school, movement, tradition) informally share and
exercise. By considering Slow Cinema within a larger art cinema framework as well as
a historical mode of narration in its own right, I aim to establish a theory of Slow
Cinema that includes its codes, conventions and clichŽs as much as its radical break in
42 
style. The phrase mode of production, on the other hand, essentially refers to the
historical production circumstances of the films in consideration. As Allen and Gomery
write, Òthe overall structure of production organization of a film: the reasons for the
making of the film, division or production tasks, technology employed, and delegation
of responsibility and control, and criteria for evaluating the finished filmÓ are all
important aspects of Slow Cinema as I have outlined in the earlier sections.101
As such,
many of the case studies to follow will include production, distribution and exhibition
information, from the role played by international film festivals and their production
schemes to transnational distribution companies and national sources of funding. The
authorship component in many ways justifies my rationale for carrying out this research
in case studies dedicated to individual directors. Although I will refrain from a romantic
understanding of the auteur, my case studies will largely focus on the works of
individuals and their biographical, cultural and intellectual backgrounds will be
considered. When approached from a production standpoint, I also aim to establish a
sense of the wide range of aesthetic practices at play within Slow Cinema: how certain
national traditions are negotiated with an international art cinema style, the relationship
between the scriptwriting and acquiring international funding, editing to shooting ratios,
are all part of the various parameters that differentiate Slow Cinema directors from each
other.
The final, and perhaps the most important, factor that Allen and Gomery discuss
is the aesthetic discourse on the cinema. ÒA study of the critical discourse on the
cinema,Ó Allen and Gomery write, Òlike advertising discourse [É] tends to establish the
critical vocabulary and frames of reference used not only by reviewers, but by film
audiences as well.Ó102
Thus, my intentions for beginning this thesis by summarizing the
Slow Cinema debate were in part aiming to establish the terms of the debate at a
particular given point in time, namely the 2010s. As such, Òcritical discourse on the
cinema has had an Òagenda-settingÓ function in aesthetic film history; that is, it has not
told audiences what to think so much as it has told them what to think about.Ó103
In
other words, the Slow Cinema debate does not only reflect the agenda of publications
that display serious film criticism, such as Sight and Sound or Film Comment, but was
also present in more popular forms of the film-reviewing industry, from newspapers to
erudite online blogs and discussion boards. Barbara Klinger notes that Òreviews are not
43 
just pieces of failed criticism, but types of social discourse which, like film
advertisements, can aid the researcher in ascertaining the material conditions informing
the relation between film and spectator at given moments.Ó104
Instead of ignoring such
discourses, then, Klinger suggests a methodology to embrace them and incorporate
them into a broader understanding of the social and cultural forces at play. ÒAmong
other things,Ó she writes, Òthe critic distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate art and
proper from improper modes of aesthetic appropriation,Ó and Ò[a]s examples of such
arbitrations of taste, film reviews do more than provide information about how a
particular film was received. They also offer some insight into broader cultural attitudes
toward art and the public during given historical periods.Ó105
In many ways the critical
reception of Slow Cinema reflects a public attitude towards such elusive, baffling and
difficult films.
As evidenced throughout this thesis, some serious and professional film critics
have spent a good amount of attention to Slow Cinema and its many incarnations. It is
by no coincidence that the critical discourse on Slow Cinema is largely created by a
group of cinephile film critics such as Nick James, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Adrian
Martin, Jonathan Romney, Manohla Dargis and Nicole Brenez. As much as evaluating
taste and value in films, these critics adopt an explicative and adventurous approach to
their writing. The main concern of such film criticism is less the latest mainstream
success, but probing a virtually unknown and yet undiscovered piece of film that might,
possibly, activate a critical dialogue and lead to a celebration of contemporary cinema in
its fullest sense. In other words, Slow Cinema provides a springboard for converging
various dialogues and discourses of cinephilia, art cinema, transnational cinema and
film criticism. In this respect, Slow Cinema functions as a testament to contemporary
understandings of cinema, art and criticism and thus might serve as both Òan agentÓ and
Òa sourceÓ of history, as the film historian Marc Ferro would put it.106
As a source, it
demonstrates the ways in which artists respond to the rapid transformation of societies
and negotiate the exchanges between global and local cultures. As an agent, it carries
elements of 21st
century counter-culture currents. This line of enquiry also investigates
the nature of Slow Cinema as a category of cultural production. Is it a historical mode of
narration, an official movement, a cycle or a tradition? Following the case studies I will
return to this question in the conclusion.
44 
1.6 Ð Outline of Chapters
In the remaining chapters of this thesis, I examine Slow Cinema through three
distinctive case studies, respectively devoted to the works of BŽla Tarr, Tsai Ming-liang
and Nuri Bilge Ceylan. As the short outline for my methodologies reflect, all case
studies begin with sections contextualizing the historical background from which these
directors emerge. These directors are chosen on the basis that they are well-known
examples of Slow Cinema, demonstrate its diverse stylistic features and its geographical
spread across the globe. Perhaps the only drawback for this selection is the lack of any
filmmaker representing the Americas; either North or South. However, I aim to balance
this lack by frequently giving examples from various directors working in this
geographical region.
Chapter 2 considers the work of the Hungarian director BŽla Tarr, perhaps one
of the most frequently cited exemplars of Slow Cinema. Although TarrÕs films emerge
from a rich history of Hungarian cinema and regional conventions, I largely explore his
films in relation to the defining aesthetic features of Slow Cinema in order to establish
his work against the historical genealogy of modernist art cinema. In this respect, I
begin by outlining the function and evolution of the long take and its centrality to
Bazinian realism. Dead time as a dedramatization technique also receives a lengthy
treatment in this chapter: firstly through a brief examination of Gilles DeleuzeÕs ÒtimeimageÓ
and secondly via Gerard GenetteÕs taxonomies of narrative tense, most notably
the descriptive pause. TarrÕs combination of the long take and dead time leads to a
unique mode of spectatorship that stresses the structures of looking and I examine this
contemplative aesthetic by drawing its parallel to the fl‰neur figure, a quintessentially
modern subject that strolls and observes reality, much in the same way that TarrÕs
characters and camera do. In addition to the long take, however, TarrÕs films are marked
by an obsession in framing and duration and I examine these stylistic tendencies in
relation to modernist filmmakers such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder. This largely
motivates my next section on nostalgia, in which I discuss Slow CinemaÕs role in
evoking nostalgic feelings about the glorious past of art cinema and the ways in which
slow films ÒciteÓ this aesthetic experience by a protracted application of the long take,
in other words a retro art cinema style that appears at once out of date and ˆ la mode.
45 
Yet, I argue that TarrÕs films are nostalgic in a secondary sense and hence examine the
use of black-and-white cinematography, another central element to TarrÕs uniquely
macabre and dark tone. Such experimentations in monochrome photography situate Tarr
alongside other regional filmmakers, some of which can also be considered part of the
Slow Cinema movement.
Chapter 3 explores the work of the Malaysian-born Taiwanese director Tsai
Ming-liang, whose work is often considered in the context of the Taiwan New Cinema
movement that originated in the early 1980s. Despite this association, Tsai in fact began
working in early 1990s and his work is in many ways stand in contrast to directors such
as Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang. What is common amongst TsaiÕs work is the
ways in which certain aspects of narrative are completely ignored, while rudimentary
causal links are normally present. However, Tsai enacts narrative action at such a speed
that the overall pacing of his films progresses in a glacial manner. Through a
combination of the use of dead time, stillness and ambiguity, Tsai delays conventional
narrative comprehension, often resulting in comic effects. While referring to theories of
humour and its relation to film spectatorship, I associate TsaiÕs sense of humour with
the Theatre of the Absurd as well as figures such as Jacques Tati, whose humorous
staging borrows aspects of silent comedy. In this chapter I offer an extended analysis of
TsaiÕs Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003), a film noted not only for showcasing the Slow
Cinema aesthetic, but also for taking cinema as its subject matter. I discuss the filmÕs
critical reception, which demonstrates an obsession with the death of cinema in 21st
century and an anxiety towards the rise of digital technologies, in other words
arguments very much in line with the debates concerning the demise of cinephilia. I
emphasize the shift in cinephiliac approach from a critical practice towards a nostalgic
practice and conclude with the ways in which such debates are foregrounded within the
realm of Slow Cinema.
In Chapter 4, I turn my focus to the Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
Beginning with a section exploring the historical context, national traditions and
dynamics of Turkish filmmaking and film culture, this chapter ultimately argues that
CeylanÕs work should be seen as a radical intervention within Turkish cinematic
conventions. However, CeylanÕs work rose to prominence not in his home country, but
46 
in Europe, where festival professionals and cinephile critics praised his work for its
freshness and affinity to a certain European art-house sensibility. As such, Ceylan
proves to be an important case study because he signifies the countless art cinema
directors who work on two completely different platforms: negotiating with, on the one
hand, a largely uninterested crowd of local film audiences and national sources of
finance, and on the other, an eager mass of international cinephiles and funding
opportunities. In many ways Ceylan incorporates aspects of the European art film with
certain modes of production and sensibilities of Turkish cinema, resulting in a mixture
popular with international film festivals but not immediately successful in its domestic
market. CeylanÕs main aesthetic strategy, however, is his treatment of boredom in
various levels across his films. I explore boredom as an everyday experience and claim
that Slow Cinema transforms it into an aesthetically rewarding experience. Returning
back to the Slow Cinema debate, I argue that boredom is in many ways an aesthetic
virtue that enables active participation and its idle nature often leads to other Slow
Cinema descriptors such as contemplative, meditative and hypnotic. This aspect of
boredom largely informs the aesthetic pleasure manifested in Slow Cinema films and
hence has inspired the title of this thesis.
Chapter 5 concludes the thesis by examining Slow Cinema in a broader
conceptual framework. I begin this chapter by addressing whether Slow Cinema is an
official, structured or consistent artistic movement and examine it in relation the notion
of optique. Optique in this context refers to the presence and function of various stylistic
devices at a given historical period and enables a rigorous investigation of the
relationship between film style and its targeted audiences. In this respect, I re-emphasize
the complex nature of Slow Cinema, in other words its existence through complex
networks of film production, exhibition and reception and offer alternative and future
avenues of research that concern different aspects of Slow Cinema. Before moving on
to summarizing my case studies, however, I concentrate on the historical evolution of
Slow Cinema within the past four decades. I offer a graphic representation of the
proliferation of Slow Cinema between the years 1975-2013, which is adapted from a
tentative list of films also available in the Appendix. After noting the potential
inaccuracies, flaws and benefits of this filmography, I draw the thesis to a close by
briefly incorporating the conclusions of my case studies.
  47 
CHAPTER 2
Nostalgia for Modernism: BŽla Tarr and the Long Take
This chapter expounds the dominant stylistic principles of Slow Cinema through a
sustained case study that examines the work of the Hungarian director BŽla Tarr.
Because TarrÕs films manifest the distinguishing characteristics of Slow Cinema, much
of this chapter is focused on the aesthetic features of the films and the ways in which
these techniques evoke the works of modernist art cinema directors. In this respect, this
chapter calls for an extensive reconsideration of these stylistic devices, namely the long
take and dead time, and offers theoretical frameworks that manifest a fitting description
of the Slow Cinema aesthetics. On the one hand, this aesthetic rests on cinemaÕs
privileged relationship to reality and capacity to express temporality, ideas that are
briefly explored via references to the works of AndrŽ Bazin and Gilles Deleuze. On the
other hand, however, TarrÕs baroque camera movements and claustrophobic framing
strategies encourage sheer observation and relegate the role of narrative intelligibility,
generating a mode of narration which is at once engaging and self-reflexive for its
historical roots in modernist cinema. In this respect, following an exhaustive explication
of the long take and dead time, I turn my focus to the specificities of this narration,
where the figure of the fl‰neur serves as an apt metaphor, and then concentrate on
discourses of nostalgia, which, as a concept determines the relationship between
modernist techniques and Slow Cinema aesthetics.
2.1 Ð Introduction
Today BŽla Tarr is often celebrated as a major proponent of Slow Cinema as
well as a distinctive and unique voice within European art cinema. Ever since esteemed
critics such as Susan Sontag and Jonathan Rosenbaum lauded his monumental
S‡t‡ntang— (1994), Tarr has embraced an esoteric and elusive auteur persona.1
S‡t‡ntang— similarly obtained a legendary status: up until it was released on DVD in
2006 it remained relatively unseen, acquiring a mythical status akin to Jacques RivetteÕs
  48 
Out 1: noli me tangere (1971), which for identical reasons constituted one of the holy
grails of art cinema. Both films achieved notoriety among cinephiles and functioned as
prized marathons, not least for their colossal runtimes (450 and 760 minutes
respectively), but also for their enormous investment into what initially seemed as
uneventful action (dedramatized sequences, dead time, monotonous activities,
inconsequential plots) and a bleak atmosphere (mysterious conspiracies with
unknowable resolutions, dark and prophetic characters, apocalyptic overtones); all
portrayed through an extremely sparse, reticent and restrained approach to cinematic
storytelling. Both films were similarly praised enthusiastically as enthralling, hypnotic,
mesmerizing, contemplative, ruminative, poetic and transcendental. In short,
S‡t‡ntang— represented a rebirth of modernist cinema Ð always elusive, usually
difficult, highly stylized and self-reflexive, flauntingly ambiguous and politically
conscious.
Despite his successes in the 21st
century, Tarr has made films since the late
1970s, with considerable stylistic and aesthetic differences. Films from his earlier
Òproletarian trilogy,Ó including Family Nest (1979), The Outsider (1981) and Prefab
People (1982), were shot in cinŽma-vŽritŽ style, invoking the films of John Cassavetes
through their improvised performances of mostly non-professional actors. Shot in blackand-white
and taking place in claustrophobic settings, these realist dramas explored the
problems of the underclass in Communist Hungary with an overt emphasis on human
faces, inexpressive and miserable against tragic circumstances. Almanac of Fall (1984)
similarly investigated the relationships between the occupants of a large apartment
building and although shot in colour, the film displayed the beginnings of TarrÕs
signature style, namely the elaborate camera movements that frame the story action
from a diverse range of perspectives. While these early features do signal some of
TarrÕs stylistic trademarks, this chapter will focus on the cycle of films beginning with
Damnation (1988), after which Tarr maintains his collaboration with novelistscreenwriter
L‡szl— Krasznahorkai, composer Mih‡ly V’g and TarrÕs long-time spouse
and editor çgnes Hranitzky.2
In addition to Damnation and S‡t‡ntang—, this
collaboration includes Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), The Man From London (2007)
and Turin Horse (2011), allegedly TarrÕs swan song. All of these films explore the
darker side of human nature and contain a great number of similarities, not only in
  49 
terms of TarrÕs easily recognizable style, but in terms of narrative tropes. The films are
preoccupied with an apocalyptic and bleak vision of humanity; existential crises are
represented through characters (drunkards, wrecks, swindlers and failures of all kind)
unable to escape the limitations of their environment. In terms of visual style, all films
are shot in stark, high-contrast black-and-white, stylized even further with flamboyant
and baroque camera movements. The bizarre atmosphere surrounding the films is
further enhanced with visual details (muddy and dirty streets, never-ending rain, various
incarnations of fog and mist) and sound effects (howling wind, rhythmic drone effects,
melancholic music). Part of this much-admired dark, mysterious and macabre tone
emblematic of TarrÕs later works is sourced from the writings of Hungarian author
L‡szl— Krasznahorkai, whose novels and short stories provide the basis for much of the
filmsÕ minimalist narrative structures.
Whilst praised by cinephiles and film festival audiences, to date BŽla TarrÕs
work has only received journalistic attention. In one of the earliest pieces on TarrÕs
films, Jonathan Rosenbaum admits the Òlack of a comprehensive Hungarian [cultural]
context,Ó but nevertheless claims that this absence does not Òcreate any serious
obstacles to the great deal of pleasure TarrÕs movies provide.Ó3
In this respect, these
initial texts often function as critical introductions to TarrÕs films, which understandably
remain at the margins of art cinema, not least for their difficult narratives, but also
because lack visibility and access for their exclusive existence within film festivals.
However, with the international success of Werckmeister Harmonies, cinephile journals
such as Film Comment and Sight and Sound began to offer in-depth studies of TarrÕs
films and interviews with the director as well as scholarly articles that examine their
cultural context.4
The only exception to these texts is Andr‡s B‡lint Kov‡csÕs recent
book, The Cinema of BŽla Tarr: The Circle Closes.5
In essence an auterist investigation,
Kov‡csÕs book offers a detailed examination of TarrÕs films in terms of the evolution of
his style and themes and, due to the personal connection between the author and the
director, reveals insightful information regarding the latterÕs filmmaking practices.
While I shall similarly pay considerable attention to formal analysis, the primary
objective of this chapter is to present a film-historical understanding of Slow Cinema
through exploring the various developments of long take and dead time. Thus, I begin
  50 
the next section with framing the long take aesthetic across different periods in film
history and outline AndrŽ BazinÕs influential and archetypal view of its inherent
characteristics. I then move on to the dedramatization strategies in art cinema and offer
a theoretical understanding of the concept of dead time, through a brief foray into avantgarde
and experimental cinema to discern their various stylistic similarities to
contemporary Slow Cinema. After demonstrating several examples from TarrÕs
S‡t‡ntang—, I focus on his Werckmeister Harmonies and analyse the function of his
camera movements. I argue that underlying the contemplative mode of spectatorship
often found in TarrÕs films is a triangular relationship between the protagonist, the
camera and the spectator, a relationship that is emulated through the figure of the
fl‰neur, whose constant movement and alienated gaze in many ways resembles TarrÕs
camera.
Such a mode of narration clearly descends from the various formal strategies of
modernist filmmaking, which reflects a significant facet of Slow Cinema: its ability to
evoke nostalgic feelings for art cinemaÕs historicity. The following sections therefore
explore this modernist tendency firstly via TarrÕs framing strategies and draw
comparisons with other modernist directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni and Rainer
Werner Fassbinder. Secondly, the final section explores the concept of nostalgia in
relation to film theory and asserts that Slow CinemaÕs stylistic appropriation of
modernist techniques achieves a self-reflexive nostalgic mode that generates a critical
discourse often confused with pastiche, or sheer imitation of earlier forms of
representational systems. I argue, however, that Slow Cinema and BŽla Tarr
respectively follow the modernist legacy not merely as a blithe form of pastiche
citation, but explicate the urgency of slowness more so through an aesthetic strategy
grounded in what might be more accurately described as a retro-art cinema style, in
other words a deliberate exaggeration of the long take and dead time that is meant to
evoke 1960s modernist art cinema. The ways in which TarrÕs films elicit such reactions
are not merely determined by the long takes, but also through a consistent use of blackand-white
cinematography. In this respect, I argue that black-and-white cinematography
not only refers to modernist films of the 1960s, but also situates TarrÕs films in a larger
geopolitical framework, namely the East Central Europe, where other filmmakers
similarly exercise experimentation in monochrome imagery. I then conclude the chapter
  51 
by referring to the global consumption of these films through international film
festivals, aspects of Slow Cinema that I will examine in detail in Chapters 3 and 4.
2.2 Ð The Long Take: the Dominant and Bazinian Realism
The long take is the primary and immediately visible aesthetic feature in BŽla TarrÕs
films. While TarrÕs cinematography is often praised for its elaborate choreography, the
long take aesthetic itself encompasses a rich genealogy within film history. As such, this
section offers an assessment of the aesthetic history of the long take, beginning with a
reference to Barry SaltÕs statistical analysis of editing across different periods in film
history, which reveals the striking difference between contemporary norms of cutting
rates and Slow CinemaÕs own conventions. Because the long take represents a
constitutive part of Slow Cinema aesthetics, I closely examine some of its functions,
both from the filmmakerÕs and the spectatorÕs perspective, before returning to how film
theory has viewed the long take. For AndrŽ Bazin, the long take functions as a principle
element of an aesthetic of reality due to its uninterrupted portrayal of profilmic action
and in which the spectator is confronted with reality in its actual temporality. However,
Slow Cinema takes BazinÕs aesthetic realism to an extreme by divorcing narrative
motivation away from its representation, attaining expansive moments of dead time and
dedramatizing sequences. Following several examples from TarrÕs S‡t‡ntang—, I
conclude the section by examining the ways in which the Òtime-image,Ó Gilles
DeleuzeÕs novel version of dead time, is appropriate for understanding Slow CinemaÕs
aesthetic effects. The following section then elaborates on the notion of dead time by
exploring the relationship between narrative action and pacing.
Among the major formal and stylistic elements on offer in Slow Cinema, the
long take emerges as perhaps the most fundamental aesthetic feature that pervades many
of the films discussed in this thesis. By the long take, I specifically mean units of
Òunusually lengthy shotsÓ in terms of their duration, as simply put by David Bordwell
and Kristin Thompson, in which the narrative action is portrayed in its actual
temporality without the interruption of editing measures.6
However, as Ed Gallafent
attests, such a definition is Òdeceptively plainÓ as the Òperceived length of a shot
  52 
depends on many considerations,Ó ranging from the Òlength of shots in the rest of the
film, the average shot length in the specific area of cinema and historical period of the
filmÕs productionÓ to Òthe content of the shot, how it draws our attention to its length or
chooses not to do so.Ó7
As such and as I will outline in the rest of the section, the mere
definition and application of the long take is not only determined by various historical
conventions, but also the ways in which it obtains a perceived aesthetic function by way
of its contrast to other formal elements such as editing and mise-en-sc•ne.
In this respect, statistical and historical analysis of films helps us better
understand the nature of the long take. By closely examining conventions of cutting
rates across different periods of history, for instance, we can postulate that a shot can be
defined as a long take only if it significantly surpasses the average shot length within
that historical period. Alternatively, a shot might be recognized as a long take when, for
instance, its relative length compares vastly excessive against much faster cutting rates
within the same film.8
In other words, the perception of the long take is largely
determined at once by a broader, macro-level set of historical conventions and
filmmaking practices as well as on a more micro-level, the general formal structure of
the work in question. Similarly, comparisons between different areas of film genres
(experimental vs. narrative cinema, art-house vs. blockbuster) are significant in terms of
understanding the functions of the long take. In order to understand these fluctuations,
Barry Salt conceptualizes the Average Shot Length (ASL), which systematically and
statistically measures and analyzes the degrees of cutting rates across different periods
of film history. Simply stated, ASL is the whole runtime of the film divided by the
number of shots; it is a mean average of the filmÕs shot lengths expressed in seconds.9
Such statistical studies clearly depend on the ways in which films are sampled from
different historical periods in question as well as various national cinemas. In this
respect, generalized accounts of Hollywood or European ASLs largely differ from each
other and admittedly SaltÕs study concentrates on the oppositions between North
American and European films.10
A brief explication of his study below should reflect
the stark contrast between the cutting rates in mainstream film and Slow Cinema as well
as assist in placing BŽla Tarr in the course of a historical process by which cutting rates
are exponentially increasing.
  53 
According to Salt, ASLs fluctuate across film history chiefly for technological
and aesthetic reasons. The advent of sound, for instance, briefly increased the cutting
rates in Hollywood cinema (1928-1933, 10.8 seconds; 1934-1938, 9.0 seconds), but
following 1939 certain filmmakers (William Wyler, Orson Welles, etc.) began utilizing
the long take, resulting in a brief increase of mean ASL (1940-1945, 9.5 seconds; 1946-
1950, 10.5 seconds). Filmmakers in this period also began to integrate various camera
movements within their staging of the long take scenes, which created an aesthetic
demand by filmmakers for technological developments such as dollies and tracks. In
this vein, films such as Rope (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949) can be seen as Ònot
isolated instances that appeared from nowhere, but the culmination of a trend to which
Hitchcock did not contribute at first.Ó11
Other technological innovations such as the
Cinemascope are also believed to briefly increase mean ASL, mainly because directors
engaged in visual composition as opposed to editing, but Salt argues that statistically
these effects remained marginal.12
From 1950s onwards, however, the ASL levels
regularly decrease in North America, while the sample from European cinema during
the 1964-1969 period demonstrate a visible increase in long take filmmaking, of which
Salt associates Òwith high artistic ambition in feature films.Ó13
Despite fluctuating ASL
levels in the 1970s and 1980s (between 7.0 and 8.4 seconds), the modal (i.e. the most
frequent value) steadily decreases from 9 (1952-1957) to 6 (1970-1981) and eventually
to 5 (1981-1986, last period in SaltÕs study).14
In other words, while there was a vast
spread of ASL values throughout the 1980s that included several long take scenes,
filmmakers most frequently employed rapid cutting techniques. The 1990s and the turn
of the century, however, bear witness to an exponential increase in ASL levels, hence a
much more sustained application of rapid cutting techniques across popular cinema. In
what David Bordwell calls the Òintensification of established techniques,Ó much of
mainstream cinema now displays ASL levels below 5.0 seconds, albeit maintaining the
spatial continuity across dialogue and action scenes.15
Along with other stylistic tactics,
Bordwell argues that the intensified continuity style has now become Òthe baseline style
for both international mass-market cinema and a sizeable fraction of exportable art
cinemaÓ and as such signifies a global trend in dominant forms of cinematic
representation.16
  54 
Slow Cinema in general and BŽla Tarr in particular, however, demonstrate a
stark contrast to intensified continuity filmmaking in terms of cutting rates. For
example, in contrast to an ASL of 3.6 seconds in Bourne Identity (2002), TarrÕs
Werckmeister Harmonies displays an enormous ASL of 219 seconds, far beyond even
the highest of level ASLs found in previous periods.17
While most Slow Cinema films
deploy conventionalized techniques of the long take (i.e. tracking shots or cameras
mounted on dollies and tripods), much of it also depends two particular technological
advancements. Firstly, Steadicam has enabled filmmakers to smoothly follow moving
characters across space without having to lay down tracks (which may be unpractical or
uneconomic) or compromise to jerky hand-held camera movements. Steadicam was
invented by the cinematographer Garrett Brown and introduced in 1976, albeit its most
well-known and iconic use happened in Stanley KubrickÕs The Shining (1980), in which
the camera imitated the movements of a tricycle.18
Secondly and more widely, digital
recording technologies have not only enabled long take scenes more practical and
economically viable, but were also instrumental in achieving even longer durations of
long takes than was possible with analogue filmmaking. Previously only video
technologies were available for filmmakers to attain longer duration and as we will see
in the next section many experimental filmmakers, such as Michael Snow and Bill
Viola, used the analogue tape to attain longer sequences for observational effect. Digital
technology in contrast enables recording times that are virtually limitless by replacing
the finite film cans with digital hardware storing facilities. As such, digital technologies
have finally enabled productions such as Russian Ark (2002), the first-ever feature film
that is composed of a single long take. On the other hand, because digital devices were
relatively inexpensive and lightweight in comparison to film cameras, filmmakers were
able to utilize them practically for their own aesthetic purposes. For example, digital
cameras were extremely suitable for Pedro CostaÕs In VandaÕs Room (2001) and
Colossal Youth (2006), both of which were shot in LisbonÕs Fontainhas neighbourhood
under impoverished conditions (narrow alleyways, tiny bedrooms, and so on).
Similarly, digital technologies are even more pertinent for filmmakers like Lav Diaz,
whose films emerge from a derelict film industry by way of producing guerrilla-style
films, quickly shot with digital cameras and later edited in user-friendly post-production
suites. As such, both filmmakers embrace digital technologies (including shooting as
  55 
well as post-production) in order to create modest films that contradict conventions of
mainstream cinema. Despite several advantages of digital technologies, however, many
Slow Cinema filmmakers, including BŽla Tarr, have in fact shot on celluloid and only
used the technological advancements of the digital in post-production stages. In short,
throughout film history, technological advancements in cinematography have often
influenced cutting rates and altered the use of the long take by supplying filmmakers
with different devices.
In Slow Cinema, however, the long take is far more important than a statistical
value or technological gimmick. It is crucial to the aesthetic experience the films offer
and constitutes an important aspect of their critical reception, in the sense that many
film reviewers began describing Slow Cinema films by noting their use of slow
camerawork. Such an overarching use of the long take corresponds, in Neoformalist
terms, to the dominant, an organizing formal principle that informs other stylistic and
thematic patterns across the whole artwork. In the Neoformalist approach, the dominant
provides a useful starting point for analysing films, as Kristin Thompson writes, Òthe
dominant determines which devices and functions will come forward as important
defamiliarizing traits, and which will be less important.Ó19
Furthermore, Òthe dominant
is a guide to determining saliency, both within the work and in the workÕs relation to
history. By noticing which devices and functions are foregrounded, we gain a means of
deciding which structures are the most important to discuss.Ó20
As I have outlined in the
previous chapter, Slow CinemaÕs main aesthetic elements are drawn from various uses
of the long take. Yet, what is the function of the long take? What aesthetic possibilities
does it offer for the filmmaker? How does it affect the perception of the spectator? In
what ways is the long take broadly related to film history and culture? What are the
subtle differences between the directors studied in this thesis, while all of them in fact
use the long take? These are some of the main questions this thesis aims to answer. I
shall now briefly contemplate some answers before moving to an examination of how
other film theorists have viewed the long take.
From the filmmakerÕs perspective, the long take in itself poses a technical
challenge. How to stage a scene without a cut? How to arrange the choreography in the
scene and achieve a harmony between the actors and the camera? Within the treasured
  56 
economy of continuity editing, such objectives may appear baffling for certain
cinematographers and even more difficult for audiences. Nevertheless, many art cinema
directors as well as classical Hollywood directors across a long historical trajectory have
given thought on how to stage their mise-en-sc•ne, not only in the most effective way,
but also in a way that challenges the basic craftsmanship of filmmaking. As such,
sequences that involve long takes have been viewed as a sign of technical virtuosity, for
example, the opening sequence of Orson WellesÕs Touch of Evil (1958) or the final
sequence in Michelangelo AntonioniÕs The Passenger (1975). While the way in which
they handle plot appears contradictory, both scenes rely on technically complex series
of camera setups that move in between different spaces, encompassing various mobile
framing techniques and involving different characters. Because the long take is faithful
to the filmÕs spatial coordinates and temporal continuity, directors might choose to stage
crucial scenes (opening scenes, finales or scenes with emotional climax) with a single
uninterrupted take. As such, when executed proficiently, the long take in its viewerÕs
perspective might generate a form of admiration for or fascination with the filmÕs
intricate display of aesthetic innovation. Thus, in the eyes of audiences, the long take
often functions to prompt Òartifact emotions,Ó which Carl Plantinga describes as
Òemotional responses that can be solicited directly by the artifactual status of film as
opposed to the content of the fiction,Ó such as the Òexhilaration at a particularly brilliant
camera movement.Ó21
This often leads to particular filmmakers who frequently use the
long take aesthetic in complicated ways (Max OphŸls, Mikl—s Jancs—, Theo
Angelopoulos, Andrei Tarkovsky, and so on) to achieve a higher status in the eyes of
certain groups of audiences. BŽla Tarr belongs to this latter group and the ways in
which his elaborate camera works evoke past modernist filmmakers will be discussed in
the later sections. At this stage, however, I want to briefly focus on how and why the
long take aesthetic has been championed by the French critic AndrŽ Bazin.
The long take as an aesthetic feature is significant in film theory because it is
often attributed a sense of realism for its ability to portray narrative action in an
uninterrupted, hence ÒobjectiveÓ manner. For AndrŽ Bazin, the long take constitutes an
inevitable result of deep-focus cinematography, which for the first time in film history,
as Bazin argues, enables the spectator to choose what he or she wants to see rather than
be dictated by the selection of montage.22
The role of technological innovations
  57 
influencing aesthetic decisions is once again crucial here, as the application of deepfocus
cinematography largely depended on the development of faster lenses that
enabled film cameras to attain sharper focus when shooting in deeply staged mise-en-
sc•nes.23
As such, Bazin argues that against other Hollywood directors who largely
depended on editing techniques, ÒOrson Welles restored to cinematographic illusion a
fundamental quality of its reality Ð its continuity.Ó24
In other words, as opposed to
conventional editing techniques that essentially divide diegetic space into consecutive
shots that appear logically or psychologically connected to narrative motivation, Bazin
argues that the long take attains a special function for its ability to preserve realityÕs
sense of temporal continuity and spatial unity. As a result, Bazin writes: Òit is no longer
the editing that selects what we see, thus giving it an a priori significance, it is the mind
of the spectator that is forced to discern, as in a sort of parallelepiped of reality with the
screen as its cross-section, the dramatic spectrum proper to the scene.Ó25
While the
benefit of editing is to focus the attention of the spectator into psychologically
justifiable details within a scene, the long take renders the spatial and temporal aspects
of the scene continuous and palpable, thus creating a sensation closer to reality.
In this respect, the long take and depth of field blended together constitute two
major elements of what Bazin sees as the ultimate destiny of cinema: an aesthetic of
realism, i.e. an art form that should exploit the cameraÕs mechanical ability to record
objective reality without human interference, an ability drawn from the distinctive and
Òobjective character of photography.Ó26
Whilst BazinÕs understanding of the indexical
relationship between objective reality and the film camera was deemed reductionist and
na•ve by future film theorists, aspects of his ontology have been recently recovered by
several theorists, especially in relation to contemporary cinephilia by Paul Willemen
and Christian Keathley, both of which I will return to in the later sections.27
Nevertheless, BazinÕs teleological pursuit in defining film history by way of its
relationship to capturing reality reveals telling distinctions amongst certain filmmakers
and traditions of cinema.28
As such, Bazin divides film history into two separate
factions; one the one hand, Òthose directors who put their faith in the imageÓ and on the
other Òthose who put their faith in reality.Ó29
The former group, consisting mainly of
German Expressionists and Soviet filmmakers, is characterized by an overt reliance on
the ÒplasticsÓ of the image, in other words the artificial reconstruction of the mise-en-
  58 
sc•ne or the editing techniques that shape it. Bazin, however, championed the latter
group, consisting firstly of silent cinema directors such as F. W. Murnau, Robert
Flaherty and Eric von Stroheim and secondly those that emerge after the advent of
sound, Roberto Rossellini, Orson Welles and above all Jean Renoir, all of whom
refused the imposition of montage and were instead preoccupied with the reflection of
reality in cinema.30
According to Bazin, the silent cinema tradition initiated by Flaherty
and von Stroheim was later dominated by the continuity editing style throughout the
1930s (with the exception of Jean Renoir) and was later re-salvaged by a newer
generation of filmmakers in the early 1940s. On the one hand, American directors such
as Orson Welles and William Wyler challenged the continuity editing system by staging
mise-en-sc•ne through deep-focus long takes and thus freeing the spectators from the
imposition of montage. On the other hand, Italian Neorealist directors such as Roberto
Rosselini and Vittorio de Sica gave Òback to the cinema a sense of the ambiguity of
realityÓ by abandoning Òthe effects of montageÓ and thus Òstripping away of all
expressionismÓ of the ÒplasticsÓ of the visual image.31
In both cases, however, the long
take functions as a trademark stylistic feature inherently associated with an aesthetic of
reality.
Yet, the long take aesthetic in itself is not entirely sufficient to warrant an
aesthetic of reality insofar as its application in various sequences in mainstream escapist
cinema display contradictions to Bazinian realism. While these films often deploy the
long take accompanied by deep-focus cinematography, they hardly constitute the reality
effect that Bazin has thoroughly explicated in his essays. For example, Children of Men
(2006) is constructed by many long take scenes, but through a completely different way
of handling narrative action and temporal economy. While the long takes in these scenes
undoubtedly function as a way to preserve the spatial unity of narrative action, its rapid
rhythm greatly contrasts Slow Cinema as well as earlier forms of realist cinema that
Bazin champions. As such, the film consists of mainly plan-sequences that display the
movement of its characters across space and interact with the environment, but never for
a moment does the film pause narrative progress in favour of revealing the structures of
reality as Bazin has explained earlier. While Children of Men exhibits an example in
which long takes are made possible through the physical combinations of mechanical
technology (for example, mobile framing is rendered possible by mounting the camera
  59 
on a complex set of dollies or Steadicam), Steven SpielbergÕs War of the Worlds (2005)
shows how certain long take scenes can be achieved through digital manipulation. In the
film, the camera follows Tom Cruise driving his car through an urban landscape, while
the mise-en-sc•ne reveals the alien invasion that takes place in the background. In order
to emphasize the magnitude of the catastrophe, the camera frequently revolves around
the car achieving a wider visual perspective of the scene, but its unrealistic movements
through the windscreen of the car clearly underscore the digital efforts inscribed
throughout the sequence. We shall see later, for example, how TarrÕs treatment of a
similar version of catastrophe (albeit not involving aliens) differs from such an actionpacked
sequence. In short, while mainstream films also utilize the long take to preserve
spatial unity and emphasize the various relationships between background and
foreground, the manner in which narrative action is condensed into screen time is in
many ways the opposite of Slow Cinema (and Italian Neorealism, for that matter). As
such, in addition to an exaggerated application of the long take, in Slow Cinema other
aesthetic strategies such as dedramatization and dead time take on an important role.
As I have outlined in the earlier chapter, undermining aspects of narrative
cinema constitute a major aesthetic concern within Slow Cinema films. Similarly,
BazinÕs appraisal of Italian Neorealism was based on the filmsÕ dedramatization of the
narrative. For Bazin, the virtue of Neorealist filmmaking was its sheer observation of
reality as it is and as such Òthe very principle of [a Neorealist film such as] Ladri di
Biciclette [Bicycle Thieves, 1948] is the disappearance of a story.Ó32
A well-known
example of Italian Neorealism, Bicycle Thieves concentrates on a man and his son
looking for their stolen bicycle across Rome, vital for the formerÕs recent employment,
but its narrative focus throughout the film remains elusive, yet charged with emotional
intensity. Much of the coupleÕs pursuit is interrupted with moments that do not advance
its plot, leading to an examination of a string of daily events. As such, referring to the
filmÕs lack of Òspectacle,Ó Bazin characterizes it as Òone of the first examples of pure
cinema. No more actors, no more story, no more sets, which is to say that in the perfect
aesthetic illusion of reality there is no more cinema.Ó33
In other words, for Bazin, an
accurate and faithful representation of reality can by and large be only determined by
the complete elision of dramatic events and in this respect BazinÕs aesthetic of reality
confronts the artificiality of cinema as a medium.
  60 
While the rest of this chapter and indeed the remainder of this dissertation will
demonstrate more concrete examples, I want to briefly illustrate here how Bazinian
realism relates to the aesthetic mission of Slow Cinema. On the one hand, Slow Cinema
takes the Bazinian notion of capturing reality in an uninterrupted manner to its literal
extreme. Sequences become so much elongated that cuts, if there is ever one, appear
unusual. Whilst defining Slow Cinema in its realist attitude and outlining its many
parallels to Bazinian realism, Tiago de Luca nevertheless finds a crucial difference
between Slow Cinema and BazinÕs phenomenology, Òrelating to the way these new
realisms far extrapolate the representational imperatives informing BazinÕs view of
realist cinema.Ó34
Because many films completely abandon narrative motivation and
instead display stylistic excess, de Luca argues that this Òcontradicts Bazinian rules, as
the temporal elongation of the shot surpasses by far the demands of the story, leaving
the spectator unguided as to how to read that particular scene hermeneutically,Ó a point
that I disagree with below by referring to specific examples.35
In other words, Slow
Cinema films defy rudimentary notions of narrative cinema by rendering its stylistic
excess unmotivated, an aspect of modernist films that I shall elaborate further in the
following sections. This is not to say that, however, Slow Cinema films are not narrative
films. Many of these films contain stories, albeit extremely rarefied, with recognizable
characters, notwithstanding their lack of clearly identified goals or traits. The next
chapter, for instance, demonstrates the ways in which Tsai Ming-liang capitalizes on the
basic requirements of narrative cinema while radically avoiding more nuanced features.
Even if ambiguous in nature, TarrÕs films (perhaps excluding Turin Horse) contain
separate plot lines that are intertwined with each other. Yet, many of these plot lines
remain obscure and largely unintelligible through TarrÕs insistence on sustained
temporality.
  61 
Figure 2.1 Ð S‡t‡ntang— (1994)
A simple walking scene from S‡t‡ntang— illustrates this point (see Figure 2.1).
The scene follows from the rumours regarding the arrival of Irimias and Petrina, two
mysterious characters previously thought to be dead by the other characters in a desolate
Hungarian farm collective. The scene involves both characters walking along the length
of a village street, inexplicably overflowing with a motley of debris. The camera
follows the couple from their back, moving along the pathway in which the characters
are trudging through and staring at the barren landscape and the emptiness of the
surrounding environment. The scene as a whole takes nearly two minutes, stripped
away from any action other than the constant movement of two characters Ð in other
words no encounter, no dialogue with anybody else. While the camera records the
profilmic action in the Bazinian sense Ð without interruption or effects of montage Ð its
tenuous relationship to narrative motivation, as de Luca emphasized earlier, undermines
the aesthetic of reality that Bazin celebrated.
As a typical scene from BŽla TarrÕs later features, this sequence precisely
describes Gilles DeleuzeÕs concept of the Òtime-image.Ó Taking his cue from Bazin,
Deleuze considers post-war art cinema, particularly the Neorealist films, as those that
present its viewers with Òpurely optical and sound situations which [take] place of the
  62 
faltering sensory-motor situations.Ó36
In other words, while the films preceding Italian
Neorealism were composed of Òaction-imagesÓ that intertwined events through causal
and physical cues, this new generation of films disregard the sensory-motor schema by
virtue of rendering empty moments as mere descriptions of situations.37
For Deleuze,
the Òaction-imageÓ enables the viewer to perceive the physical developments in a scene,
resulting in an identification with the filmÕs characters. In the Òtime-image,Ó however,
Òthe identification is actually inverted: the character has become a kind of viewer,Ó
leading to the development of Òa new race of characters [that] saw rather than acted,
they were seers,Ó a point that I will return to again briefly in the upcoming sections.38
The implications of the Òtime-imageÓ are the emergence of a plethora of signs and a
variety of images, most of which do not relate to my arguments about Slow Cinema,
albeit the fact that the Deleuzian approach has readily influenced a number of academic
studies of TarrÕs films.39
What is at stake in the Deleuzian Òtime-imageÓ is, however,
modern cinemaÕs obsession with representing temporality in a direct and unfiltered
manner, namely through long takes and dead time, as opposed to the indirect methods
of montage and mise-en-sc•ne.
The scene involving the young maid from Umberto D. (1952) has fuelled much
of this critical debate and has influenced both Deleuze and Bazin in their respective
theories of modern cinema. In his review of the film Bazin writes: ÒThe narrative unit is
not the episode, the event [É]; it is the succession of concrete instants of life, no one of
which can be said to be more important than another, for their ontological equality
destroys drama at its very basis.Ó40
According to Bazin, the maid scene is Òconceived as
the exact opposite of that Òart of ellipsisÓ to which we are much too ready to believe it
devoted.Ó41
(I should note here that BazinÕs characterization of the scene as Òan exact
opposite [É] of ellipsisÓ is crucial for my purposes in the next section, in which I will
argue that Slow Cinema achieves precisely that; the opposite of ellipsis, the descriptive
pause.) Referring to the same scene Karl Schoonover writes Òthe body functions
onscreen to amplify and expand the aesthetic registers of a slower spectating,
demanding a different kind of labor from the offscreen spectating body.Ó In other words
the film summons Òa corollary perceptual acuity on the part of the spectator, a careful
look that mirrors the cameraÕs lingeringÓ Ð a look that furthermore Òoffers the spectator
a different temporal relationship to perception, Òglimpsing the fleeting presenceÓ of
  63 
things and meanings missed by ordinary seeing.Ó42
My analysis of typical Slow Cinema
scenes in the later sections of this thesis will largely resonate with this point; in other
words I shall argue that Slow Cinema, by virtue of its dedication to an intensified
temporality, prompts and motivates its viewers to observe and discern reality. In this
respect, despite de LucaÕs initial reservations, there is a profound relationship between
BazinÕs understanding of an aesthetic of reality and the aesthetic experience typically
present in Slow Cinema. However, I argue that the crucial difference between the two
not only relies on the fact that Slow Cinema films often border non-narrative forms by
hyperbolically applying this vision, but also the aesthetic effects arising from such
stylized instances cannot always be reduced to an engagement with reality or its
aesthetic illusion. Accordingly, my approach to understanding Slow Cinema and its
aesthetic experience is predominantly anchored in the feelings of nostalgia, absurd
humour and boredom, which are elicited through the filmsÕ stylistic elements and
unique institutional backgrounds.
This section has therefore outlined a brief historical overview of the long take
aesthetic and the ways in which film theorists have viewed its application across film
history. While statistical analyses reflect on the changing norms of cutting rates and
technological changes, viewing the long take as a formal dominant can in many ways
enable the analyst to scrutinize a diverse array of functions for its respective audiences.
While I have offered some answers to what long take means for filmmakers and
audiences, many of my claims remain sketchy at best. The long take in itself is a
complicated stylistic device that requires further attention, perhaps in the ways in which
it has developed and been enhanced by various technological innovations. While in the
1940s the long take aesthetic, for AndrŽ Bazin, constituted an aesthetic of reality, in
contemporary mainstream cinema it has generally lost this function, as some
mainstream blockbusters, even if sparingly, employ the long take as a means to flaunt
technical (or often digital) virtuosity. As we shall see throughout this chapter, however,
BŽla TarrÕs portrayal of narrative action is much more restrained and his treatment of
cinematography is elaborate, engaging and self-reflexive. The crucial difference
between long takes in mainstream cinema and Tarr (and ultimately Slow Cinema) is the
persistent interest in digressions from narrative action or broadly dead time. The scene
from S‡t‡ntang— constitutes a prime example of Slow CinemaÕs aesthetic mood and
  64 
such sequences will be my main point of interest in the following sections. The next
section, for instance, will explore the ways in which Tarr and other Slow Cinema
directors utilize dedramatization as a narrative practice and pause plot progression,
albeit against the continuation of the filmsÕ narrative discourse, in effect creating
moments of dead time. The section after that will consider similar walking scenes from
Werckmeister Harmonies and argue that the camera movements often simulate the
movements of a fl‰neur, which, along with the according movements of the protagonists
establish the foundations of a contemplative mode of spectatorship.
2.3 Ð Dedramatization, Dead Time and the Descriptive Pause
This section explores the main function of the long take in Slow Cinema, namely its
capacity to dedramatize narrative action. Dedramatization is often seen as a fundamental
part of art films, but it encompasses diverse variations that have not been exhaustively
theorized. As such, I will briefly outline its basic parameters using specific examples
and concentrate on its most frequently alluded form, dead time. After explicating
instances from art cinema and Slow Cinema, I examine dead time through Gerard
GenetteÕs taxonomy of narrative tenses, which emphasizes the crucial relationship
between dead time and narrative pacing, and focus on the descriptive pause as an
appropriate synonym for dead time. Descriptive pause is, strictly speaking, a theoretical
concept for the use of analyzing literary narratives and its application to film has
previously been a matter of contention. However, I shall provide some important cases
in which descriptive pause is not only applicable to our understanding of Slow Cinema,
but more importantly is a fundamental part of its mode of address. As such, I take a
detour in the avant-garde and experimental cinemas of North America from the 1960s
up to the 1970s and explore some of Slow CinemaÕs stylistic precedents, where notions
of dead time, stillness and monotony are even more intensely prevalent than in
contemporary Slow Cinema. Following an exploration of the work of Andy Warhol, I
conclude this section with several examples from TarrÕs S‡t‡ntang—, before I moving on
to an extended analysis of his Werckmeister Harmonies, in which I elucidate the
experiential effects of dead time via a foregrounding of cinematic space and movement.
  65 
Dedramatization in art cinema occurs in many different shapes and forms, but
within the context of European modernist film it has been largely associated with an
extended use of the long take. David Bordwell, for instance, observes dedramatization
in art cinema in two distinctive forms. On the one hand, Bordwell submits, Òthe
filmmaker could treat [emotionally charged situations] in suppressive or oblique
fashion.Ó43
For Bordwell, a film like Voyage to Italy (1953) Òcould mute its action, even
redefine what could count as action, by keying its tone to the coupleÕs boredom,
enervation, and uneasiness.Ó44
As such, instead of exploiting the dramatic intensity of
scenes with emotional potential, these art films display a restrained attitude to
storytelling. Concealing emotions or expressing them through other cinematic devices is
common across many modernist art films (e.g. in the work of Bresson, Dreyer,
Antonioni) and I explore certain aspects of this aesthetic strategy in Chapter 4, where I
discuss Slow Cinema in relation to boredom. In this respect, one of the most important
historical antecedents of Slow Cinema is Chantal AkermanÕs, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai
du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). The film explores the daily chores of a housewife
(played by Delphine Seyrig), who in addition to the ubiquitous housework also
prostitutes herself in order to look after her son. Across its three-hour runtime, however,
the film rarely depicts an event worthy of interest, or in other words, similar to what
Bordwell writes about Voyage to Italy, the film attempts to redefine what constitutes
narrative action. In Jeanne Dielman, the dramatic potential of the struggling housewife
is superseded by a monotonous depiction of everyday activities: cleaning, cooking,
dusting, eating and napping. Through long takes and extended duration Akerman
observes various daily tasks uninterrupted and in their full entirety from a fixed camera
position. For Ivone Marguiles, such a hyperrealist attitude is on the one hand
paradoxically Òanti-illusionistÓ for its extended duration, which Òclearly departs from
the transparency of classical realism,Ó and on the other hand Òthe alienating force of the
workÕs hyperrealism is enough to place it alongside other progressive currents of realist
cinema.Ó45
As such, the film and its critical reception underscore the ambiguity and
ambivalence of ÒrealismÓ as a concept; AkermanÕs project is at once realistic and
illusionist. Marguiles writes: ÒJeanne Dielman ÔobjectifiesÕ the characterÕs and
spectatorÕs experience through its orchestration of repetition: the patterned cinematic
  66 
structure, JeanneÕs routine behavior, and the spectatorÕs endurance in the face of
boredom all constitute parallel yet distinct registers of sameness.Ó46
Methods of repetition and monotony are central aspects of dedramatization
within the history of art cinema. Cesare Zavattini famously suggested that cinema
should be able to portray an airplane passing twenty times, in response to an American
producerÕs distinctions between American and Italian film.47
For Zavattini, repetition
establishes and elucidates truth Ð it reveals a deeper structure, Òa surplus of reality.Ó48
The repetitive action in Jeanne Dielman, therefore, stands as a complete and accurate
representation of the monotony and boredom, which the character experiences. Yet,
such representations may appear valid without dedicating hours of screen time to their
depiction. However, AkermanÕs decision in portraying these events relentlessly, instead
of condensing them into shorter chunks of screen time, provides an important aesthetic
influence for Slow Cinema. In this respect, many Slow Cinema films follow this
aesthetic strategy, if not as rigorously or programmatically as Jeanne Dielman. For
example, repetition of mundane events is fundamental to establishing a sense of
boredom in Nuri Bilge CeylanÕs Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011), which is
analyzed in detail later in Chapter 4. Throughout the first half of the film, the
procedures of the banal police inquiry are repeated on screen to the extent that they
function as a narrative distraction, while at the same time the film deliberates on a
deeper concern with reality and character background. Similarly, much of TarrÕs Turin
Horse is built on acts of repetition. Almost directly evoking ZavattiniÕs ideal of the
airplane, Tarr depicts the couple eating potatoes five times, in each instance from a
different camera position and angle. As such the film, firstly stresses the miserable
existence of the father and daughter through a repetitive depiction of their dependence
on an extremely basic food supply. Secondly, however, the film not only demonstrates
this monotony creatively, but also exercises a self-reflexive pondering of the infinite
possibilities (camera angles, scale, duration, and so on) in direct representation. Yet,
contrary to earlier art films, these moments of dedramatization appear even more
exaggerated and extended without any indication towards narrative intelligibility.
While traditional art films often deploy dedramatization ultimately in service of
narrative cause and effect, in Slow Cinema dedramatization occurs at the expense of
  67 
narrative intensity and causality. These films take dedramatization to a new extreme in
which causal action is largely dismissed in favour of empty moments Ð temps mort,
literally dead time Ð in which virtually nothing happens on screen, or at least, nothing of
consequence to the plot. For Bordwell, the use of dead time in art cinema constitutes the
second principal form of dedramatization, where story action is paused in favour of
moments of contemplation, revelation or sheer inspection. Dialogue scenes Òwere
broken by prolonged pauses, often underscored by actors frozen in placeÓ or scenes
containing Òsimple act of walking became prime cinematic materialÓ for interrupting the
dramatic process and engaging the audience in ÒtrailingÓ (of which a detailed example
from TarrÕs Werckmeister Harmonies will form the focus of my analysis in later
sections of this chapter).49
Through dead time the filmmaker chooses to foreground
aspects other than narrative, demanding the spectator a closer engagement with the
profilmic space. Yet, while frustrating audiences in its first instance, dead time
developed its own conventions and variations. The notion of dead time in this instance
remains a term that has been frequently used to describe art films. Because dead time
takes various forms and guises, its effect may change not only depending to the ways in
which it is used across a film, but also depending on the context in which the film is
produced (country of origin, date of production, mode of representation, and so on). For
example, dead time used in an experimental film from 1960s North America often
achieves a completely different effect than how dead time functions in a contemporary
mainstream blockbuster film (although, obviously, the latter is very rarely present).
Dead time can display monotonous action (Jeanne Dielman, La Libertad [2001]) or
completely lack human trace and dwell on images of landscapes, whether natural, urban
or industrial (Ruhr [2009], At Sea [2007]). It can involve seemingly random and
unintelligible dialogue (Honour of the Knights (Quixotic) [2006], Turin Horse) or
complete silence where characters remain muted and frozen (many scenes in the films
of Angelopoulos and Dumont). It can appear with rhythmic sounds that sustain the
filmÕs tempo (S‡t‡ntang— and Werckmeister Harmonies, specific examples below) or it
can appear through slow camera movements that explore the profilmic space (final
sequences in Damnation and Elena [2011]). It can emphasize spiritual excess
(Tarkovsky, Dreyer), physical and emotional decay (Costa, Bartas) or simply humour
  68 
(Tsai, Tati). In most of these cases, however, dead time should be understood as a
temporal relationship between the filmÕs screen time and its narrative time.
While such sequences are abundantly present in Slow Cinema films, BŽla Tarr
often takes the undramatic action to the extreme. In many scenes, narrative progression
appears to be paused or stalled with no immediate or visible motivation. Part of this
aesthetic strategy is derived from modernist films, such as those found in many Bresson
features where the camera lingers on the space following the termination of narrative
action (for instance, characters exiting the frame). Such scenes often function as
rhythmic patterns that briefly allow the spectator to contemplate the sequence as well as
a temporal preparation for the following scene. In his detailed analysis of Jeanne
Dielman, Ben Singer characterizes these moments as Òpost-action lag, in which the
camera lingers on inanimate objects for about six seconds before the cut occurs.Ó50
The
repetition and structural patterning of such sequences at once gesture towards the
structural film (as I discuss below) and relate to Slow Cinema aesthetics in its depiction
of dead moments. In TarrÕs films, however, such moments frequently appear in the
middle of scenes and are at times accompanied by camera movements independent of
the narrative action. Either in between dialogues or simply at the beginning or at the end
of the scene, these moments stall plot progression and divest the spectatorÕs attention
from narrative consideration.
One way to account for these sequences in terms of their narrative function
would be to turn to GenetteÕs categorization of tense in literature. Broadly, tense refers
to the temporal relationships (or Òtemporal distortionsÓ) between the narrative text (the
discourse, the act of narrating, or what Genette terms as the discours) and its story
(histoire, in this case the actual chain of events inferred), where this relationship can be
broken down into the components of order, duration and frequency.51
Very briefly,
order refers to the succession of units of events and the way in which these events
connect to each other through spatial or temporal parameters, while frequency is in
many ways a statistical account that deals with the rate of certain reappearing events and
their significance to the overall narrative.52
At this stage I will largely ignore issues of
order and frequency because much of Slow Cinema, and particularly TarrÕs films, often
work in a linear fashion without repeating the exact same event more than once
  69 
(although repeating similar groups of actions or situations such as walking and eating).
However, I shall concentrate on duration, which although in itself is self-explanatory,
can roughly be defined as the time in which something, that is either the act of narrating
or a unit of story action, takes place or continues.53
According to Genette, duration has
four major types: ellipsis, summary, scene and descriptive pause. Table 1 visualizes
these types, including the fifth type slow-down suggested by Mieke Bal, outlining the
temporal relationships between narrative time (in this case the discourse or the runtime
of the film/sequence) and story time (units of action and events in the story).54
Narrative Time (nt) Story Time (st)
Ellipsis Narration Stops (nt=) 0 < n (=st) Action continues
Summary Narration Nt < st Action
Scene Narration Nt = st Action
Slow-down Narration Nt > st Action
Descriptive Pause Narration continues (nt=) n > 0 (=st) Action stops
Table 1 Five typical relationships between narrative time and story time
Ellipsis refers to the story action omitted by the narrative discourse, in other
words the type in which the story action continues, but the narration stops. Ellipsis is
usually retrospectively perceivable in film as the spectator realizes later on that a
significant story element might have been skipped. Although ellipsis is typically
associated with art cinema, strictly speaking it is present in virtually all narratives,
insofar as these narratives are composed of events selected and condensed from a larger
story, as such excluding experiments such as HitchcockÕs Rope in which there is no
selection nor condensation and the full story time equals narrative time. Summary
occurs when a larger number of story events are condensed into a shorter narrative time;
a very typical example in Classical Hollywood cinema would include montage
sequences ÒsummarizingÓ the events between two important plot points. Because art
  70 
cinema largely favours ellipsis, examples of summary are rather scarce and virtually
non-existent in Slow Cinema. A scene is said to be occurring when narrative time and
story time are concurrent, in other words scenes with continuous dialogue or a single
long take that capture a rather realistic interaction or situation belong to this type.
Earlier examples from Jeanne Dielman, for instance, can be considered as scenes.
Furthermore, a large part of Slow Cinema films, occurring through continuous long
takes, thus can be identified as scene. Yet, scene occurs only when there is narrative
action is involved: as such I argue below that in cases where story action is abandoned,
we need to look at descriptive pause as a more distinguishing marker. Mieke Bal
introduces the slow-down as a typical cinematic type of duration, in which the slow
motion creates a longer perception of narrative time than its story time. Bal cites the
famous Odessa steps sequence in EisensteinÕs Battleship Potemkin (1925), which, as
opposed to the condensation function of the summary, expands and enlarges story time
into a longer narrative time.55
Finally, descriptive pause is another extreme point in
which while narration continues, story action stops. In other words, the information and
action flow in the film retain their continuity, whereas plot progression or story events
appear to be paused. As a counter-intuitive type, descriptive pause has its inherent
difficulties, because it suggests that there is meaning through the narration process
despite the lack of actual story action. As such, descriptive pause as an aesthetic strategy
gestures to art cinema in general and Slow Cinema in particular as well as forming
immediate associations with avant-garde and non-narrative artworks. While the
descriptive pause has an extremely wide-ranging use in 19th
century literature,
particularly in the realist novel where the author tirelessly portrays the surrounding
environment through lengthy descriptions and avoiding plot progression, its application
in cinema, so far, has been a matter of contention.
The difficulty lies in the fact that any shot in any film is not only descriptive in
its own right, but also more often than not provides rudimentary elements of plot in
addition to its descriptive power. Brian Henderson, for instance, finds that descriptive
pause is difficult to achieve in film because even Òif no action occurs in this shot or in
this setting, the time devoted to them builds expectations for action to come; they too
are ticks on the dramatic clock.Ó56
In other words, because every shot creates a dramatic
expectation for the spectator, Henderson argues that there is always a continuation in
  71 
plot as much as there is one in the discourse. However, a similar expectation also occurs
in literature; in any lengthy description it would be more than normal for a reader to
expect that the description will lead into a particular action, therefore this does not
entirely render why descriptive pause is inapplicable to film. Moreover, expectation is
something that the viewer infers from the formal signals the artwork communicates,
therefore is not exactly a part of the narrative text itself. Genette specifically mentions
that only the narrative text (the discours) is available for us to analyse, because
categories such as the story and narration are inferences made by the viewers through
perceptual and cognitive processing.57
Descriptive pause is a durational type that is possible to achieve in cinema,
notwithstanding the fact that it confronts the purpose of narrative film. In other words,
since pausing eliminates action and causality from representation, it renders any
narrative sequence unintelligible. However, there can be a number of ways in which
even mainstream cinema can make use of the descriptive pause. For example, it has
been often used for the creation of a particular mood: a depiction of a certain landscape
without any action may speak for feelings and emotions in a way that narrative causality
is unable to. Alternatively, pausing can be used for humorous purposes; for example, if
the absence of action in a particular scene creates a conflict with our narrative
expectations, the result may be self-conscious laughter. More frequently, however, the
descriptive pause is used purely as an aesthetic and observational device in experimental
cinema territory. Part of this discussion will be revisited in Chapter 4, in which the
descriptive pause serves as an integral facet of an aesthetic of boredom that I examine in
relation to Nuri Bilge CeylanÕs films. Before returning to Slow Cinema and specifically
BŽla Tarr, I will now examine the use of descriptive pause in avant-garde and
experimental cinema, which are significant stylistic antecedents in Slow CinemaÕs
historical genealogy.
There is a great number of North American experimental films, and more
specifically structural films, that use fixed long takes to depict scenes of inactivity,
idleness and emptiness, completely disavowing narrative expectations. Here I borrow
the term from Adams Sitney, who finds the Òfixed camera positionÓ as an essential
characteristic of the structural film, typically represented by the work of artists such as
  72 
Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton and Tony Conrad.58
When considered in parallel to the
work of BŽla Tarr, as well as other minimalists such as Tsai Ming-liang, Lisandro
Alonso and Pedro Costa, the recurrent use of fixed camera position is an important
affinity between structural film and Slow Cinema and attempts to achieve a similar
emotional effect on the spectator. Sitney suggests that Òthe structural film approaches
the condition of meditation and evokes states of consciousness without mediation; that
is, with the sole mediation of the camera.Ó59
The recognition or acknowledging the
stasis of the camera, therefore, is an integral part of the structural film aesthetic and
hence parallels my discussion of boredom as an aesthetically rewarding experience.
Michael SnowÕs films, for example, portray landscapes or spaces in their entirety with
no (or extremely sparse) human interaction and insist on doing so through the use of
fixed cameras. In Wavelength (1967) as well as La RŽgion Centrale (1971), we are left
alone with empty spaces with very little narrative action (a glimpse in the former and
none whatsoever in the latter). Sitney writes that in Òthe work of Michael Snow and
Ernie Gehr, the camera is fixed in a mystical contemplation of a portion of space.Ó60
As
we have seen so far, Slow Cinema follows this aesthetic, but marries the fixed camera
position (or autonomous camera movement, as argued in the next section), the structure
as an organizing principle and the contemplative stasis with a rudimentary
understanding of narrative causality. The structural film, however, takes different
shapes and forms: the flicker in Tony ConradÕs The Flicker (1965) and the films of
James Benning in 1970s offer different aesthetic experiences with different methods.61
Despite these esoteric works, Sitney argues that the Òmajor precursor of the structural
film [É] was Andy Warhol,Ó by then a famous painter.62
The work of Andy Warhol represents another challenge to the use of descriptive
pause in cinema because many of his films are controversial in terms of their running
time as well as their lack of meaningful action. Sleep (1963), for example, is a six-hour
film of a man sleeping, shot at 24 frames-per-second, but projected in 16 resulting in an
effect of Òan unchanging but barely perceptible slow motion.Ó63
In fact his early films
are structured around banal actions or places with a relatively monumental sense of
duration: Eat (1963), Kiss (1963) and most notoriously the eight-hour Empire (1964)
which depicts an ostensibly unchanging vision of the Empire State Building in New
York through a single shot across a whole evening. For Adams Sitney, the greatest
  73 
provocation of these films is the ways in which they Òchallenged the viewerÕs ability to
endure emptiness or sameness,Ó a challenge that evolved into a question of Òhow to
orchestrate duration; how to permit the wandering attention that triggered ontological
awareness [and] guide that awareness to a goal.Ó64
In this respect WarholÕs films share
an important affinity with Slow Cinema films, particularly those by BŽla Tarr and Lav
Diaz, for both of their films challenge the spectatorÕs resilience to a monotonous
experience of distended temporality. The sheer runtime of films such as S‡t‡ntang—,
Melancholia (2008, both seven-and-a-half hours) and Evolution of a Filipino Family
(2004, nine hours) declares provocations of endurance and to a great extent complicates
their commercial distribution. Consisting of runtimes far beyond the typical mainstream
and art-house films, these films demand to be endured in the cinema and confront the
very act of watching and consumption. Such a daring aesthetic challenge of viewing-asendurance
goes back to WarholÕs Empire and its famed screenings across New York in
the 1960s. In what seems to be an ultimate and extreme version of the descriptive pause
coupled with an immense projection of boredom, WarholÕs films, according to Pamela
Lee, are Òat the same time both representation and experience of duration, both subject
and object,Ó which offer Òa perversely meditative experience, fidgeting continuously
between moments of sheer restlessness, boredom, and pronounced anticipation.Ó65
Warhol infamously enjoyed boredom and boring things, presumably finding its infinite
banality and emptiness paradoxically interesting, meditative and receptive. As such,
WarholÕs use of dead time and the descriptive pause in his early works, along with other
structural films of 1960s and 1970s are in many ways a historical precedent of the main
aesthetic strategy employed in Slow Cinema.66
In contrast to Slow Cinema, however, WarholÕs films were completely divorced
from any aspect of narrative. In other words, works of Warhol and other structural
filmmakers on the whole are predominantly non-narrative; therefore there is no story
action to be paused to begin with. Slow Cinema directors, however, routinely exercise
the use of descriptive pause throughout their works, albeit in a relatively understated
manner in comparison to the structural film. As argued in the introduction, despite the
lack of plot detail, Slow Cinema films are nevertheless narrative films; they contain
series of actions, sometimes bound by cause-effect links, sometimes completely
inconsequential. The next chapter, for instance, will argue that Tsai Ming-liang adopts
  74 
rudimentary notions of narrative structure but delays narrative comprehension by
slowing down action and eliminating cause-effect links, hence creating scenes in which
humour replaces the role of causality in the spectatorÕs engagement with the film. In
addition to pausing plot progression, the descriptive pause functions primarily as an
observational and contemplative aesthetic device. Within Slow Cinema, scenes that
prompt its spectator to slow down, observe and contemplate represent its core aesthetic
allure and play an important role in generating a ruminative mode of spectatorship. As
such, the employment of descriptive pause as a stylistic device by and large enables
Slow Cinema films to be described as hypnotic, mesmerizing and contemplative.
Throughout this thesis I will focus on numerous examples, most of which use the
descriptive pause along with other typical stylistic feature of Slow Cinema. The next
section, for example, considers several walking scenes in Werckmeister Harmonies, in
which the camera tracks along with the principal characters and emulates the movement
of the fl‰neur. The next chapter conversely looks closely at a scene with unbearable
stillness in Tsai Ming-liangÕs Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003), where the director invests
minutes of screen time to portray an empty cinema with very little trace of human
interaction. The former scene demonstrates a continuation of action, but its monotony is
so overemphasized through deliberate long takes that its relevance to plot progression
becomes trivial and negligible. The scene from Goodbye, Dragon Inn, however,
exhibits the slow movement of a limping ticket woman, who exits the scene after
several minutes and the image eventually becomes fully devoid of any action
whatsoever. Despite the lack of narrative meaning in either scene, the narration
continues by pausing plot progression, even if this means a portrayal of an empty
setting. Similarly in Chapter 4, I examine various interludes in Nuri Bilge CeylanÕs
films that stall plot progression, often in purpose of creating atmosphere, but more
frequently for foregrounding an aesthetic of boredom that functions as a contemplative
elation for the spectator.
BŽla TarrÕs films frequently display moments of descriptive pause and examples
from his S‡t‡ntang— should illustrate my point here. Very little happens in terms of
story action across the seven-hour stretch of S‡t‡ntang— and Tarr pauses the action
numerous times while the camera persists in recording the prolonged stillness. The
scene in which Irimias and Petrina arrive at the local pub is provides a good example.
  75 
Both characters enter the pub and order drinks and cigarettes at the bar, while their
dialogue is choked by background sounds and chatter sourced from the local clientele.
Gradually, a faint noise emerges from an unknown source that attracts IrimiasÕs
attention, who, for a moment wonders if it is coming from a machine, but suddenly
shouts towards the pub folk demanding them to stay quiet (See Figures 2.2 and 2.3). At
this point the camera changes its position to the other end of the pub, framing Irimias
and Petrina away from the crowd, all of which remain still and muted, frozen for an
unexplained reason, yet unmistakably alive (Figure 2.4 and 2.5). Meanwhile, the camera
elevates very slowly with hypnotic sounds edited in the soundtrack. When the camera
reaches the top, Irimias moves slightly and performs an aggressive monologue (at this
point the camera switches back to its previous position, see Figure 2.6). Following his
obscure statements, both characters exit the pub and the camera tracks their movement,
eventually focusing on a local drunkard and lingering on his face until the scene cuts
(Figure 2.7). What happens throughout the scene hardly qualifies for a story event and
its action literally pauses. The presence of camera movement and sound effects,
however, mean that narrative time or the cinematic discourse continues without any link
to story action, thus meeting the criteria for the descriptive pause. Perhaps the only
narrative clue is IrimiasÕs apocalyptic monologue that follows from the camera
movement, but the monologue in itself remains elusive and does not directly relate to
the narrative situation.
Figure 2.2 Ð S‡t‡ntang— (1994) Figure 2.3 Ð cont.
  76 
Figure 2.4 Ð cont. Figure 2.5 Ð cont.
Figure 2.6 Ð cont. Figure 2.7 Ð cont.
The implications of this scene for our viewing experience are twofold. Firstly,
this sequence demonstrates how sound design is in many ways crucial to the
exhilarating aesthetic experience that Slow Cinema typically furnishes. Although Slow
Cinema is very frequently praised for its visual flair, the various ways in which
filmmakers use ambient sound, modified noise, drone effects and expressionistic music
largely contribute to their aesthetic design and such a meticulous attention to sonic
motifs is especially prominent in the works of directors explored throughout this thesis.
In the moments where the physical action remains stilled, frozen or monotonous, these
manipulated sonic features intervene into the narration and sustain a temporal rhythm
that captivates audiences. The opening sequence of S‡t‡ntang— illustrates this claim
perfectly. The sequence begins with the depiction of a large farm building and its
adjacent muddy cattle yard; an image that in itself does not invite any specific
interpretation for its inescapable banality. Moments later, however, the cattle come out
to graze and the soundtrack, which previously featured a subtle howling wind, fills in
with an enthralling drone effect Ð possibly made by reverberating church bells tolling Ð
and screeching bellow of the cattle that resonates hypnotically until the scene ends. In
  77 
the remainder of the sequence, the camera follows the cattle through the village, with no
evidence of human action and no motivating connections to its narrative progression. In
what appears to be another example of the descriptive pause, the sequence completely
depends on its varying use of sound effects (the wind, the bells, the bellows) while in
visual terms it simply lacks causally meaningful activity.
The absence of causal links determines the second implication I want to discuss
in regards to these sequences from S‡t‡ntang—. While narrative progress is arrested
through pausing action, the sequence as a whole prioritizes the profilmic space, i.e. the
mise-en-sc•ne, which in turn lends itself for interpretation in the absence of clear-cut
entry points. In cognitivist terms, our narrative schema is unable to warrant an
explanation for the lack of contextual and narrative markers. In other words, because of
our hard-wired predisposition towards narrativizing seemingly unconnected or unrelated
events, such sequences appear, at least in the first instance, baffling, cryptic and
genuinely incomprehensible.67
As David Bordwell has often suggested, one of the ways
to escape this dead-end is to resort to metaphorical or allegorical readings and auteurist
interpretations, which habitually offer rather simplistic, reductive and arbitrary
solutions.68
I shall argue here, however, that sequences similar the ones I have examined
in S‡t‡ntang— constitutes the fundamental characteristic of Slow CinemaÕs aesthetic
allure. If Italian Neorealism celebrated the inherent ambiguity of reality, then Slow
Cinema valorises it through a mode of spectatorship and aesthetic experience that
evidently flaunts the absence of causality and embraces the visually opaque. As such,
Slow Cinema and BŽla Tarr films habitually prompt its spectator the study the visual
image by depicting uniquely atmospheric scenes of stillness through barely perceptible
motion. Because there is no narrative detail, the spectator begins scanning the visual
aspects of the image Ð its framing, composition, scale, colour, etc. Ð and notices barely
visible differences between separate moments. The camera movement in the first scene
I have examined, for example, not only becomes prominent against the complete
stillness of all the actors in the scene, but its precise framing furthermore accentuates its
extremely slow elevating movement. Notice the slight visual differences in Figures 1.4
and 1.5, where the vertical movement of the camera is noticeable in respect to the table
by the lower left edge of the frame. The longer the scene pauses, the longer we engage
in scanning the image for details that we may otherwise miss. The constant
  78 
interrogation of the mise-en-sc•ne and camerawork operates through a dynamic form of
spectatorship and ultimately figures a self-reflexive realization of temporal flow and
rhythm. For Andrei Tarkovsky, the rhythm of the film is Òdetermined not by the length
of the edited pieces, but by the pressure of the time that runs through them,Ó which is
often achieved by Slow Cinema directors through the application of the long take that,
by virtue of its capacity to express continuous temporality, achieves a sense of stillness
and monotony.69
The contemplative absorption into scanning and inspecting the visual image will
be the focus of the next section, in which I closely examine scenes of walking in
Werckmeister Harmonies and its accompanying camera movements through the figure
of the fl‰neur. This section, on the other hand, explored the ways in which Slow Cinema
has appropriated forms of dedramatization largely through borrowing its use from
modernist art cinema and avant-garde film. Historically, many art films have employed
dedramatization devices, yet we find that in Slow Cinema their application often
supersedes narrative motivation, purpose and function. In this respect, Slow Cinema
displays a resemblance to many experimental films of the 1960s and 1970s, notably
from the structural film in North America and the early works of Andy Warhol, a
historical genealogy that I will be revisiting in the later sections. The aesthetic device
that binds together many of these historically disparate movements is the employment
of dead time, a moment in which narrative progression is paused for no immediate or
discernable reason. To better understand the effects of dead time, I have turned to
Gerard GenetteÕs taxonomy of narrative tense, from which the descriptive pause
emerges as a sufficient and comprehensive marker for what Slow Cinema and
ultimately BŽla Tarr use and demonstrated its effects with specific examples. While I
have explored the descriptive pause in its literal sense, I also want to point out that its
effects remain similar when employed figuratively. In other words, in the examples I
have drawn from S‡t‡ntang—, story action is literally paused, but throughout the rest of
the film some of the story action runs equivalently to narrative time. However, even in
scenes where story and narrative time run parallel to each other, the sequences often
remain divorced from narrative concerns. As such, some of the examples I analyse
through the remainder of this chapter (and indeed, the thesis) may not, strictly speaking,
appear to be moments of descriptive pause, but their narrative function will often be
  79 
reduced or obliterated through sheer repetition, ambiguity or lack of causality. Thus, the
aesthetic effect that descriptive pause generates largely prevails throughout many of the
examples I discuss in this thesis, especially those that I address in the next section.
2.4 Ð Lingering Movement and Fl‰nerie in Werckmeister Harmonies
This section focuses on TarrÕs Werckmeister Harmonies and explores the ways in which
camera movement is choreographed in relation to the movement of its actors. The
simple act of walking with no immediate narrative motivation is frequently emphasized
throughout the film and I argue that such an insistent portrayal of walking, with the
addition of TarrÕs signature moments of dead time, produce a mode of narration that
simulates the gaze of the fl‰neur. As such, I begin by outlining how Tarr eliminates
causality in the film by rendering much of the narrative action elusive and
inconsequential and then move on to a brief discussion of the fl‰neur figure. As a
quintessential subject of modernity, the fl‰neur has received much attention in film
theory, either through an examination of its relationship to cinema or in terms of the
drifting art cinema characters that often resemble its alienated movement. I draw a
parallel between such arguments and Werckmeister HarmoniesÕs protagonist Janos, but
also propose the camera and its autonomous movements as a significant facet of its
mode of narration. In the film, the camera often attains a privileged relationship to
Janos, sometimes rendering the events he witnesses, sometimes executing movements
beyond his gaze. More often than not, however, the camera gazes upon actions that
undermine narrative intelligibility and Tarr sustains their temporal elongation through
long takes and an obsessive framing that emphasizes the profilmic space. In the
following section, I examine these formal aspects of the film in relation to the
Òcinephiliac momentÓ and Òpanoramic perception,Ó both of which are influenced by
BazinÕs notion of aesthetic realism and elucidate the spectatorÕs role in engaging with
Slow Cinema films.
In terms of its narrative setting, Werckmeister Harmonies further accentuates the
dark, enigmatic and uncanny atmosphere that Tarr had already established in his earlier
films S‡t‡ntang— and Damnation. The film tells the story of an unidentified Hungarian
  80 
town, whose dwellers increasingly become agitated, eventually descending into
madness following the unexpected arrival of a circus show. The circus includes a giant
stuffed whale carcass that is brought to the middle of the town centre and a freak show
starring ÒThe Prince,Ó a peculiarly mysterious yet unidentified figure. Witnessing these
bizarre events is Janos Valuska (Lars Rudolph), the local newspaperman who, in
addition to his tedious profession, regularly interacts with the town folk at the local pub
and takes care of the eccentric Gyšrgy Eszter (Peter Fitz), an intellectual obsessed with
Andreas Werckmeister and his music theory.70
Meanwhile, in response to the illconceived
circus show, the town folk gather around the town square to voice their
protest and anger. Their unexplained rage slowly goes out of control, developing into a
revolt in which the angry mob storms a hospital. At this point, ÒAuntÓ TŸnde (Hanna
Schygulla) Ð EszterÕs separated spouse Ð visits Janos and blackmails Mr Eszter into
tricking the angry mob and secures support for TŸndeÕs organization, which turns out to
be some sort of military dictatorship. Following the chaotic outbreak, Janos attempts to
escape the town, but is caught and later on finds himself in an asylum-like hospital,
where Mr Eszter visits him and explains the new order at work. In the final scene,
Eszter visits the whale, which quietly sits in the town square, its inscrutable glass eye
bleached by light.
While the film depicts a catastrophe, much of its narrative action remains in the
background and its cause-effect structure is rendered obscure. On the one hand, the film
presents a bleak vision of humanity indicated through post-apocalyptic iconography:
stark black-and-white photography, tanks roaming in the streets, an extreme climate,
unidentified characters and bizarre events. However, contrary to the generic features of
a disaster film, Tarr downplays narrative action into events that lead nowhere. There is
no narrative resolution, nor any causal link between events that take place. Why does
the mob storm the hospital? Why do they stop? What affect does the Prince exactly
radiate? How does the whale fit in this story? What benefit do TŸnde and the military
officers retain out of this situation? As much as we see on-screen, thereÕs a great deal of
information left either unexplained or off-screen. We cannot logically link the causeeffect
chain in many cases simply because Tarr omits valuable and vital information
from the story. We are shown large gaps of silence, a lot of walking, obscure dialogue,
as opposed to motivations behind the events or any form of explanation. In other words,
  81 
Tarr suppresses narrative action by foregrounding scenes woven together with moments
of dead time, all of which help create its macabre mood and unique atmosphere. But
how does the film let us engage with it? What alternative devices fill in for the lack of
narrative complexity?
In this analysis of the film, I shall concentrate on the act of walking performed
by its characters as well as the camera movement that accompanies it. Walking occurs
sporadically throughout; in fact many scenes are dedicated to this simple activity. In an
interview, Tarr was asked whether the film is an allegory of HungaryÕs totalitarian
history or an elaborate depiction of manÕs descent into existential terror, yet his reply
was: ÒI just wanted to make a movie about this guy who is walking up and down the
village and has seen this whale.Ó71
As such, a specific interest in walking and seeing has
been part of the film since its inception. All characters walk incessantly: there are no
cars, except the burned-out one in TŸndeÕs yard and rest of the vehicles turn out to be
moving at walking speed, such as the circus van. The helicopter that appears at the end
of the film initially circles around Janos, but later remains at a still position as if
observing him.
The abundance of walking and observing bring to mind the notion of fl‰nerie,
literally meaning Òto strollÓ or ÒstrollingÓ in French. In the wake of massive urban
developments throughout Paris in the mid-19th
century, the French poet Charles
Baudelaire defined fl‰nerie as a mode of strolling, which was instrumental to
experiencing the 19th
century modern city. For Baudelaire, fl‰nerie is a specific mode of
strolling in which the fl‰neur exercises a spatial practice, observing the interior and
exterior public spaces of a city, reading the population and its social texts. ÒObservation
is the raison dÕ•tre of the fl‰neur,Ó Rob Shields writes, Òand seeing visual lures is the
key to the fl‰neurÕs movement, drawn from sight to sight.Ó72
Baudelaire himself
describes the aims and pleasures of being a fl‰neur as follows: ÒTo be away from home
and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the
world, and yet to remain hidden from the world.Ó73
As such, the fl‰neur is Òa man of
crowds;Ó he exists within society, occupying a central position, yet at the same time he
is invisible from it. In this respect, the fl‰neur personifies an oddly double identity, at
once a native and a foreigner, an insider and an outsider, with his alienated gaze
  82 
studying various social and cultural formations. Through the writings of Walter
Benjamin, the practice of fl‰nerie came to be associated with modernity, an experience
of the present moment as of the early 20th
century context. ÒIf at the beginning, the
fl‰neur as private subject dreamed himself out into the world,Ó writes Susan BuckMorrs,
Òat the end, fl‰nerie was an ideological attempt to reprivatize social space, and to
give assurance that the individualÕs passive observation was adequate for knowledge of
social reality.Ó74
In other words, Buck-Morrs points towards a transformation of the
fl‰neur from an idealistic dreamer to a passive observer, a transformation that will be
important in clarifying a narrational strategy in Werckmeister Harmonies. In short,
fl‰nerie is a means of distancing one from him/herself and is associated with observing
and witnessing, or to put it simply, it is precisely the ways which modern man/woman
contemplates his/her environment and nature.
As an exemplary register of modernity and typifying the quintessential modern
subject, the concept of fl‰nerie offers a fruitful perspective to understand Slow
Cinema.75
On the one hand, the fl‰neurÕs overall lack of purpose and walking with the
sole purpose of walking challenges the accelerating pace and productivity of modernity.
On the other hand, however, it is concerned with the very act of experiencing
modernity, which essentially involves becoming part of its mechanism. As such,
fl‰nerie is at once resistant to and dependent on modernity. ÒWithin the space of urban
perception, a panoramic panoply of views and details transmits itself with dizzying
swiftness,Ó Mark Betz writes, Òthe fl‰neur, who defines and distinguishes himself by his
leisurely pace, contradicts the speed of modern life at the same time as he constitutes its
focal point through his attentive watching.Ó76
As I shall argue, such an attitude towards
wandering and looking is largely identified in an abundant number of characters present
within Slow Cinema (as well as its antecedents within the history of art cinema); more
importantly, the very act of fl‰nerie substantiates the claims for aesthetic slowness. In
this respect, Betz writes, the fl‰neurÕs Òslowness is also what enables him to absorb and
filter, to render meaningful, the myriad shocks that the city in its very newness emitsÓ
and Òto slow the speed of modern life so as to witness it not as a blur but as discrete
developments within history.Ó77
Before returning to my analysis of Werckmeister
Harmonies, I shall briefly consider the ways in which the figure of the fl‰neur is a
stylistic trope within the history of art cinema.
  83 
The history of art cinema is generously stocked with figures that resemble the
fl‰neur. In fact, aimless wandering is by and large a significant narrative trope of the art
film. The roots of this proclivity for drifting originate in Italian Neorealism. AndrŽ
Bazin, for instance, characterizes Bicycle Thieves (1946) as a film about a father and a
son walking through Rome.78
According to Karl Schoonover, the non-professional
actors within Neorealist films possess Òa particular gait, a certain wanderingÓ and as
such their peculiar striding significantly influences their casting.79
Following
Neorealism, drifting characters frequently feature in modernist art films of the 1960s
and beyond. For Mark Betz, the Òfemale characters of modern European cinema
collectively present the image of a fl‰neuse engaged in a quest for meaning as she
wanders the terrain of a changing Europe.Ó80
In this respect, Mark Betz examines the
fl‰neuse as a narrative agent in films such as And God Created Woman (1956), ClŽo
from 5 to 7 (1961), La Notte (1961) and Vivre sa Vie (1962), all of which depict the
fl‰neuseÕs alienation as witnessing not only the demise of European colonial powers,
but also the birth of a newer national identity. Such drifting characters regularly feature
in art films in the following years. Throughout the 1980s, for example, drifting
characters are regularly associated with homelessness, particularly in films such as
VardaÕs Vagabond (1985) and the early films of Leos Carax (Boy Meets Girl [1984],
Mauvais Sang [1986], Lovers on the Bridge [1991]). Following this period, however,
the notion of the fl‰neur and the drifting character becomes an integral part of global art
cinema. From Tsai Ming-liangÕs Lee Kang-shee to Nuri Bilge CeylanÕs Mehmet Emin
Ceylan and up to Lisandro AlonsoÕs meandering characters, the fl‰neur is ubiquitous in
Slow Cinema, in which walking Ð seemingly for the sole purpose of walking Ð remains
one of its essential characteristics.
As the principal character in Werckmeister Harmonies, Janos can be designated
as an archetypical fl‰neur. He exercises strolling throughout the film and he is everpresent
across all scenes, observing and witnessing the bizarre events. We experience
the film through accompanying Janos and his movement. While the camera is travelling
through the desolate spaces in the film, we are following Janos and are guided by his
trajectory. According to Walter Benjamin, Òthe social foundation of fl‰nerie is
journalism,Ó thus JanosÕ profession as a newspaperman furthermore qualifies himself as
the one who spreads the word.81
Similar to the fl‰neur, Janos occupies a dual identity; at
  84 
once familiar to the rest of the characters of the film and yet alienated from them for his
eccentric interests in cosmology Ð which enables him to painstakingly observe them
throughout the film.
Figure 2.8 Ð Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) Figure 2.9 Ð cont.
Figure 2.10 Ð cont. Figure 2.11 Ð cont.
At the same time, however, Janos is characterized as a village idiot, an outsider
figure who parallels a similar social position occupied by classical the fl‰neur. The
conventions of casting and the filmÕs critical reception largely support this claim.
Firstly, the German actor Lars Rudolph previously played similar roles in which he
portrayed characters that are outsiders to the society, often because they are mentally
disturbed.82
Tarr notes in an interview that meeting Rudolph was an inspiration for him
to shoot the novel, he had finally found Òhis Janos.Ó83
As such, RudolphÕs uneasy
appearance and his eccentric wide eyes are salient features, useful in adapting some
essential personal traits of Janos from KrasznahorkaiÕs book to the film. In addition,
Rudolph is particularly skilful in his manner of speech in the sense that his calm and
soft voice amplifies his character and body movement. Even though he is dubbed into
Hungarian in Werckmeister Harmonies, his voice never appears to be unnatural.
Secondly, the filmÕs critical reception ceaselessly emphasized Janos as a village idiot.
  85 
Many critics described Janos as a Òholy idiot,Ó Òa wise foolÓ or Òa Dostoyevskian holy
fool.Ó84
While such characteristics are implicit in the film, the novel holds these
observations true. Krasznahorkai introduces Janos as Òterminally lunaticÓ and
characterizes him as a drifting outcast.85
In this respect, a typical village idiot is also an
outsider to the society and as such often embodies a particular social position, especially
in literature. Because the village idiot is an outsider, he/she embodies a distanced but
critical approach towards society, often questioning its moral foundation. In terms of
this social distance, then, there is a significant parallel between Janos as the village idiot
and Janos as the fl‰neur.
The important aspect of identifying Janos as a fl‰neur relies on his social
position as opposed to his social class. When Baudelaire and Benjamin wrote about the
fl‰neur, they employed the term to associate it with the bourgeoisie, a kind of social
class that normally would not be associated with a character like Janos. Establishing
Janos both as a village idiot and an outsider enables him to scrutinize the foundations of
society, a task that Baudelaire and Benjamin attempted to emphasize throughout their
writings. This aspect of Janos is evident during the scene where he wanders through the
town square for the first time, walks past the groups of people and turns his head to
investigate the facial expressions of the people. His curious gaze, however, is never
returned and Janos remains as the only one looking. Later on in the film, certain
individuals from the angry crowd become very hostile to Janos, who at this stage
becomes an alien to them, perhaps due to his persistent curiosity. In this respect, Janos
is the beholder with the alienated gaze and such characteristics entitle him to be
described as a fl‰neur in the traditional sense.
I suggest, however, that there is another subject that could more aptly be
identified as the fl‰neur, namely the camera. Walter Benjamin, for instance, claimed
that the ÒaudienceÕs identification with the [film] actor is really an identification with
the camera,Ó referring to the ontological difference in our engagement with the stage
actor and the film actor.86
Our engagement with the stage actor is direct, unfiltered,
while the audience in film engages with the film actor through the camera and largely
depends on the ways in which mise-en-sc•ne is constructed. In many ways the camera
influences our perception of the actor through infinite combinations of angles, distance,
  86 
editing (or lackthereof), lighting, framing and movement. While such claims are clearly
evident in many films in which cinematography and mise-en-sc•ne influence our
perception of the film, in TarrÕs films the role of cinematography takes on an additional
function. TarrÕs camera often leads us away from narrative concerns of the film and in
this respect our engagement with it is realized not only through Janos, but also through
the cameraÕs unique state in its own right. The camera is the subject that strolls through
the street, is omnipresent and has an undisputed control over the filmÕs narrative. As
such, the camera emulates the function of the fl‰neur; while its continuous movement
over space imitates strolling, its independence of narrative concerns renders it
autonomous.87
Referring to TarrÕs Almanac of Fall and Damnation, Jonathan
Rosenbaum writes Òthe story and mise en scene are constructed in counterpoint to one
another, like the separate melodic lines in a fugue.Ó88
RosenbaumÕs observation is
crucial, because Tarr repeats this aesthetic strategy across many of his films as his
signature style. As such, the camera is often the sovereign, dominant stylistic device
within the filmÕs narration; it bears autonomous movements, at times focusing away
from the present dialogue, at times circling the characters to provide a more
comprehensive perspective, or at times doing it all through its perpetual staring at
stillness and movement. Yet, in many ways the various camera movements reclaim the
function of the fictional character.
There is a specific relationship between TarrÕs camera and his protagonist.
Dudley Andrew observes a similar tendency in Kenji MizoguchiÕs work: despite the
charactersÕ control of the narrative situations, Òthe audience soon identifies with the
camera via its quasi independence,Ó which is Òattributable to the aestheticized
compositions of many scenes and to the noticeable ellipses between actions.Ó89
Similarly in Werckmeister Harmonies, although the camera often follows the
movements of Janos and is guided by his trajectory, through impossibly long takes and
occasional focus on unrelated issues, it achieves a sense of autonomy. As such, the
cameraÕs ultimate control over the narrative and the causal structure undermines JanosÕs
function and relegates him to the role of a secondary narrative agent. This relationship is
perhaps most evident in the hospital scene, where the camera slowly enters the building
and roams from room to room, depicting the mob storming the hospital and attacking its
patients. In the scene, the cameraÕs movement is paced at a walking speed, enabled by
  87 
Steadicam technology, while its smooth pans and tilts often mimic a person walking and
looking around the room. At the end of the scene, the camera moves away from the
action and returns to Janos and his stare, his mouth agape with terror. In other words,
the camera movements do not simulate the point of view of the protagonist; rather they
appear as independent sections that deliberately compel the spectator to view the
narrative action and at the end return to find the protagonistÕs response. In other words,
Tarr achieves a triangular relationship between his camera, the protagonist and the
spectator, in which the identification of the spectator often switches in between the two
agents.
The dynamic and shifting relationship between the camera, the fl‰neur and the
spectator contributes to a mode of spectatorship that reveals and emphasizes various
structures of looking and contemplating. In other words, our engagement with the film
occurs through an arrangement of doubled fl‰neurs, in which both the camera and Janos
move in accordance to each other. In this respect, there is constant movement in the
film, in contrast to several scenes of stillness in TarrÕs earlier features. In short, the
contemplative experience transpires via a narration that emphasizes both the narrated
and the narrator through constant, but often paradoxically monotonous, motion. The
spectator may align himself/herself with Janos through structures of sympathy and the
film experience is thereby transformed into the gaze of the outsider. We tend to follow
Janos through the mob in the square, vicariously occupying his gaze and contemplating
the world around us/him. On the other hand, it is also the camera that possesses some
sort of autonomy in the narrative through its endless movements, ceaselessly surveying
the landscape. The film achieves this mode of narration through simulating the
movements of the fl‰neur, the prototypical modern subject, which is at once immersed
in and distanced from society. TarrÕs camera functions similar to the fl‰neur by moving
in accordance with the actors, closing in and framing them, but at the same time
reserving a distanced attitude to the filmÕs narrative causality. The camera movements
are central to TarrÕs narration, but we can ascertain other aspects of filmmaking that
corroborate the means of dynamic narration, such as framing and duration. These
aspects of the film will be my focus in the next section.
  88 
2.5 Ð Framing, Duration and Òthe Cinephiliac MomentÓ
In this section, I examine the framing strategies that Tarr implements throughout his
films. I argue that the foregrounding of space and the surrounding environment largely
functions as a way of accentuating a mode of narration that stresses observation, which I
have outlined in the preceding section. On the one hand, TarrÕs obsessive framings
foreground space and invite comparisons with other modernist directors, such as
Michelangelo Antonioni and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, which I briefly set out in terms
of their similarities and differences. On the other hand, through an application of dead
time and idleness, these obscure images invite the spectators to scan and scrutinize the
visual image; a form of spectatorship that I examine through the concepts of
Òcinephiliac momentÓ and Òpanoramic perception.Ó These assumptions are largely
present across Slow Cinema and emphasize its relationship with earlier forms of
modernist art cinema, which becomes my central concern in the following section.
Figure 2.12 Ð Damnation (1988) Figure 2.13 Ð Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
Through an obsessive use of framing and duration, Tarr systematically
transfigures the camera into an independent observer. His insistence on spatio-temporal
continuity, in the words of Erika Balsom, Òengages in a sort of magnification of the
worldÓ up to a point that it becomes an equivalent of looking and Òrendering the
miniature gigantic.Ó90
The recording of the camera is matched with the spectatorÕs gaze
and at times runs parallel to JanosÕs gaze, attaining the triangular relationship suggested
earlier. In the carefully choreographed scenes, there is an attention to the details of the
surroundings where the camera lingers on objects seemingly irrelevant to narrative
causality (See Figures 2.12-2.13). David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson have argued
  89 
that in the films of Yasujir™ Ozu, spaces are foregrounded and are independent of the
narrative in an unusual manner. The presentation of independent spaces and objects
disrupt the spatial continuity and interrupt the cause-effect chain. The stylistic elements
to produce such an effect, Bordwell and Thompson suggest, are cutaways, transitions,
colour and focus.91
In many ways, OzuÕs playful approach to editing is key to his
attempt to subvert cinematic conventions. He largely ignores the 180-degree rule and
deliberately excludes establishing shots to disorient his viewers, destabilize the narrative
flow and reflect on cinematic style; common tendencies found within modernist film
aesthetics.
Tarr, on the other hand, manipulates narrative causality and disorients viewers
by utilizing the long take. Because Tarr shoots films in a plan-sŽquence manner, in the
sense that the whole scene is staged through a single long take, there is often a different
relationship between the spectator and the ways in which the films develop narrative
action. Observing a similar tendency in the Mikl—s Jancs—Õs The Confrontation (1969),
David Bordwell writes: Ò[b]ecause the long take makes a stylistic unit (a shot) also a
syuzhet unit (a scene), there is an unusually tight connection between narrative
comprehension and spatial perception.Ó92
In other words, the spectatorÕs understanding
of the narrative unfolds through cues and other spatial information represented within
the shifting relationship between the setting and the characters, rather than through
temporal manipulations via editing. In this respect, the use of long take in Werckmeister
Harmonies suppresses narrative causality through restricting the viewerÕs orientation to
a sheer perception of spatial dimensions within the film, mainly through the
foregrounding of space, setting and landscape.
At this point I want to draw a brief comparison between BŽla Tarr and
Michelangelo Antonioni. According to Seymour Chatman, Antonioni uses the
landscape and the setting in order to Òrepresent the charactersÕ states of mind.Ó In this
respect, the treatment of landscape, space and the built environment serve as an
objective correlative in the sense that T.S. Eliot proposes: Òa set of objects, a situation, a
chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the
external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is
immediately evoked.Ó93
The objective correlative refers to a narration that bases its
  90 
storytelling on the surface, or the appearance of things through metonyms, rather than
relying on metaphorical interpretations. As such, objects, places, or anything that bears
a physical existence may become a reflection of the character or theme within the film.
Chatman provides a plethora of examples ranging from objects to spatial elements for
the objective correlative stemming from AntonioniÕs filmography. For instance, in
LÕAvventura (1960), Sandro and Claudia come across a deserted town while looking for
their disappeared friend Anna (See Figure 2.14). According to Chatman, the abandoned
town not only documents the Òdisaster of Fascist architecture and planning,Ó but also
proves that Ò[b]ad architecture is simply one visible, concrete manifestation of the
malattia dei sentimenti [malady of emotional life: the existential anxiety that Antonioni
refers to in his interviews and speeches].Ó94
The alienation of the characters is matched
by the townÕs physical state: empty, abandoned and forgotten. The correlation between
the characters and the setting strengthens when Claudia asserts her inability to cope with
the silence of the town and the couple decide to leave, showing their failure to connect
even with a ghost town.
Figure 2.14 Ð LÕAvventura (1960) Figure 2.15 Ð Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
Tarr treats his settings in a similar manner, albeit with a different attitude and
intention. He notes that one of his working methods includes gathering ÒimpressionsÓ
from the settings before starting to shoot, impressions which have an enormous
influence over his stylistic decisions.95
Landscapes, therefore, are more than
backgrounds and constitute a significant aspect of the emotional tone of his films.
Desolate landscapes, rundown buildings and muddy streets frequently feature in films
with varying functions. The depiction of the town square in Werckmeister Harmonies is
a good example to demonstrate the ways in which Tarr uses the objective correlative to
  91 
create a meticulous atmosphere. We see the town square four times and its portrayal
gradually changes between each long take. In the first one, Tarr depicts the square in a
manner to arouse curiosity as the camera follows Janos walking through groups of
people standing on the square. The hazy fog in the background and the eerie silence of
dusk fuels our curiosity until the circus begins its operation. In the second scene,
however, the depiction is slightly different. Andr‡s B‡lint Kov‡cs writes: ÒTarr for the
first time depicts the crowd assembling on the square not with the social empathy
characteristic of him, but as a terrifying, murderous mob.Ó96
The square is now
presented not as a social gathering space, but rather a space of spectacle, protest and
danger. Indistinguishable chatter and background noise replace the silence while the
hazy fog slowly turns into smoke coming from bonfires. The uncertainty surrounding
the square is escalated in the third take, portrayed during the night, as the bonfires
become more visible and the crowds become more and more agitated. In the fourth
depiction, also the final scene of the film, Tarr portrays the square with Mr Eszter
looking at the aftermath of the events as the debris from the revolt covers the square. All
seems to be lost, except for the absurd placement of the giant whale carcass in the centre
of the square, which prepares the spectator and Mr Eszter towards an ambiguous closure
(See Figure 2.15).
Figure 2.16 Ð Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) Figure 2.17 Ðcont.
TarrÕs treatment of profilmic space and the built environment is similar to other
modernist art cinema directors, in a way not only to reflect further on the characters but
more so to establish the camera as an observing agent. This is largely evident in scenes
where Tarr tends to frame the action through doorways or corridors, a stylization that is
reminiscent of Rainer Werner Fassbinder (cf. Figures 2.16-2.19). While Fassbinder uses
  92 
these compositions to emphasize the entrapment of his characters and their isolation
from society at large, TarrÕs self-consciously arranged objects function as obstacles to
the nature of seeing and cues the spectator into a more meticulous inspection and
examination of the cinematic image. The voyeuristic vision attained through framing is
reinforced by the camera movements occurring at strolling speed, as these movements
are not invisible to us. We are fully aware of the camera movement, whether it is a
tracking shot or Steadicam, however this awareness does not alienate us. On the
contrary, movement is one of the ways in which we can engage with the image on
screen as our focus between the camera and Janos changes respectively, through a
shifting relationship that I have termed as triangulation earlier. The effect of the image
on the spectator becomes purely and essentially contemplative when the camera
assumes the position of a fl‰neur.
Figure 2.18 Ð In a Year with 13 Moons (1978) Figure 2.19 Ð Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
An example of the observing nature of TarrÕs camera is apparent in two
subsequent scenes. The first scene takes place in TŸndeÕs flat, where Janos visits her to
show his and Mr EszterÕs support for her cause. We quickly realize that Janos has
interrupted an awkward scene wherein TŸnde is manipulating the drunk police chief.
Tarr conveys the scene through one shot where the camera is placed in the narrow
corridor, in between two rooms, thus being able to frame both sides of the action. The
space that Janos occupies is a well-lit kitchen while the army officer is ranting in the
dim-lit bedroom. The conflict between the two is clear: the scene not only represents the
clash between good and evil but also provides a situation where a private space has been
breached. The army officer appears as an intruder and is separated from the space that
  93 
Janos occupies. After Janos leaves, TŸnde and the officer are shown through the
doorway, which frames them with black borders in each side of the image. The camera
tracks backwards while both keep revolving around each other dancing to a symphonic
military march (See Figure 2.16). The music connects us to the next scene, where Janos
visits the officerÕs children after agreeing to undertake the favour TŸnde has asked of
him. This scene is played in a similar manner, a doorway separates the spaces that the
actors occupy, but the tracking movement is the opposite (See Figure 2.17). The camera
zooms in towards the children while they keep dancing and stomping feverishly against
the same symphonic military march. While both scenes deploy an abstraction of
narrative action into frivolous events, they also gradually intensify the filmÕs macabre
tone. These scenes display our inability to grasp plot details, as we never get the idea of
what is really going on or why these events are shown to us. In both scenes, Janos is
present for a limited time and interacts with the other characters in the film up until the
point where he leaves the scene. Following his exit, the camera continues to capture the
scene through a corridor and a doorway respectively. As such, narrative motivation is
momentarily suppressed and such frustration even exacerbates the filmÕs dark mood.
Figure 2.20 Ð Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
Such a division of filmic space through framing mimics the shot as a look and
the pictorial composition formally embodies the alienated gaze of the fl‰neur. As if
  94 
literally affirming the dynamic relationship between the dual fl‰neurs and the spectator,
Tarr reiterates this motif in diverse forms as his camera lingers on spaces, objects or
situations for an unusual amount of time. At this point I want to focus on another scene
from the film in considerable length to illustrate the arguments presented above as well
as for the purpose of moving my discussion to another facet of Slow Cinema. The scene
involves Mr Eszter and Janos leaving the house, following their surrender to TŸndeÕs
requests. We see their faces in close-up and the camera tracks along their pathway
following their movement. In the first few seconds Janos suggests Mr Eszter to go to the
town square and see the whale, but upon the latterÕs indifference both characters remain
silent and they simply keep walking, while the camera keeps pacing the same distance,
following their footsteps. The silence and the cameraÕs tracking movement are
maintained for an unexpected amount of time Ð about one minute. What takes place in
this minute is not an event, nor anything that is substantially supporting the narrative,
but is a moment of dead time (See Figure 2.20). Although their walking time is depicted
in its entirety, I argue here that this scene can also be considered as a descriptive pause
because the film momentarily abandons its narrative concerns by pausing its action
through a monotonous movement. In effect, the scene plays out as a parody of the walkand-talk
sequence so central to mainstream narrative films and frequently deployed in
television serials. Walk-and-talk sequences involve at least two characters in
conversation, typically moving across a corridor, an office or a street. While its lineage
can be linked back to classical Hollywood, the walk-and-talk sequence finds its
emblematic use in television serials, in which not only the characters find the
opportunity to discuss the subject matter reserved for that specific episode, but also
move through the familiar spaces of its story world, thus reaffirming its spatial
parameters and glancing at its subtle changes.97
As such, the walk-and-talk sequence
keeps the spectator occupied with a constant flow of information, in ways that
contradict the scene from Werckmeister Harmonies. In other words, while television
serials use the walk-and-talk sequence to move the story, in Werckmeister Harmonies
the lack of dialogue and employment of the close-up (which limits our perspective of
the surrounding environment) pauses its narrative current. Instead of a conventional cut
to a scene with another action, Tarr focuses on the inexpressive faces of his muted
characters for an unprecedented amount of time.
  95 
TarrÕs persistent interest in closing in on faces distinguishes his use of dead time
from other art cinema counterparts. In Michelangelo AntonioniÕs films, for example,
dead time is often employed through medium or long shots in order to contemplate
images of empty spaces, architectural figures or shapes, where human existence can
only be traced rather then represented (See Figure 2.14). In contrast, TarrÕs images
linger on human faces in close-ups to impose a similar effect of contemplation, coupled
with an even further exaggerated sense of temporality. Such an interest in human faces
is largely present at the end of several scenes, for instance, the first scene with the
bartender, a kitchen scene with the hotel porter kissing his mistress, the hospital scene
with JanosÕs gaze, two scenes that end with Mr and Mrs HarrerÕs faces respectively, and
so on. All of these images are, however, static representations of human faces, in
contrast to the one with Janos and Eszter with continuous movement. What is
furthermore unusual in this scene is not only the extraordinarily long depiction of a
seemingly irrelevant event, but rather the manner in which it is portrayed. The two
characters walk side by side with only their heads filling up the frame, against a barely
perceptible background of the alternating walls and windows of a large building with no
apparent physical quality. Eszter strangely holds on to his hat, while Janos occasionally
glimpses at him, perhaps in the hope for chatting further about the whale or perhaps
bemused at EszterÕs eccentricity. In short, although the framing and the duration of the
scene emphasize their facial and bodily features, they remain inexpressive, opaque and
enigmatic, leaving the spectator baffled against yet another fascinating scene of
emptiness and monotony.
There are several layers of stylistic devices at play in this scene. Firstly, TarrÕs
camera mimics the walking trajectory and pacing of his characters. By assuming the
position of the fl‰neur it simulates an absorbed, yet distanced spectatorship. Secondly,
the depiction involves a subtle exchange of looks between the characters, in addition to
the spectatorÕs very similar engagement with the image, as we are fixed to images of
facial expressions by an extreme close-up. The structure of looks Ð between the
characters as well as the spectator and the image Ð accentuates my first point: we are at
once immersed in the image through its fluid camera movement and its extreme closeup,
yet at the same time its lingering mode and disregard for story action is estranging
and self-reflexive. Thirdly, as such, the scene nourishes a process of interrogation, in
  96 
which the spectator questions the sceneÕs dramatic importance. Because the film
persists in concealing its narrative motivation, the spectator further engages in this
process, contemplating its style of narration. As the tracking shot continues, however,
we begin registering the sonic variations in its soundtrack; a subtle mix of wind,
footsteps and the rhythmic noise caused by Janos thumping his lunch box. As such, the
sequence substitutes the conventions of a walk-and-talk scene with patterns of
movement and rhythm, image and sound, in short, an aesthetic experience that hardly
requires interpretation, but through a series of subtle stylistic tricks manages a
suspended sense of idleness, perhaps similar to boredom, an aspect of Slow Cinema
which I will discuss in detail in Chapter 4.
The fundamental basis of this contemplative mood is TarrÕs specific use of the
long take as an experiential event, in which duration itself becomes palpable through the
cameraÕs emphasis on monotony as opposed to narrative action. Steven Marchant, for
instance, writes Òthe shot [É] does not evoke, describe, analyze or represent the event Ð
the shot is the event.Ó98
The long take undermines our conventional expectations of
narrative and substitutes itself for an open event, which compels us to question the
passing of time, as well as offering a realisation of the numerous stylistic manipulations
that abound in cinema. This Deleuzian time-image therefore offers its viewer an
opportunity to acknowledge the wholeness of the reality represented in this image. Yet,
Marchant furthermore argues that Werckmeister Harmonies Òmodels the shot not as a
look but as an event and with that implicitly rejects the redemptive possibilities
contained within the neorealist inheritance,Ó mainly because Janos does not qualify as a
seer in the sense that Deleuze has introduced it in relation to Neorealist films.99
In this
respect, MarchantÕs conclusion contradicts the ways in which I have described the
filmÕs mode of narration as a simulation of the fl‰neur. Despite the fact that several
examples Marchant mentions do envision Janos as turning a blind eye to his
surroundings (such as the scene in his kitchen), in many other scenes that I have
described above he accommodates the typical features of a conventional seer. I argue
that Janos is not only witnessing these events through his constant movement and
gazing, but also the camera accompanies his wanderings by adopting an observational
mode. As I have argued earlier, the exemplary scene for this claim is the hospital scene
in which the mob attacks patients. In this scene the camera literally roams from room to
  97 
room, as if impersonating the movements of an invisible bystander. Through these
stylistic devices, Werckmeister Harmonies prompts its spectator to contemplate things
in their wholeness, enticing a mode of spectatorship invested in the fleeting, evanescent
and mystifying detail of its audio-visual image. By pausing narrative action entirely,
these sequences deliver a prolonged aesthetic experience that gives prominence to its
evocative power. Such scenes are clearly abundant across various Slow Cinema films
and as I have argued earlier they are in many ways its brand images, typically
disseminated through cinephilic publications.
Scenes with such evocative and captivating features are frequently revisited in
discourses of cinephilia, largely because their opacity often attracts critical and at times
subjective interpretations. Before concluding this section, therefore, I want to briefly
consider the function of these scenes in relation to film history and cinephilia through
two concepts, namely Paul WillemenÕs Òcinephiliac momentÓ and Christian KeathleyÕs
Òpanoramic perception.Ó Reasons for this brief foray into cinephilia are twofold: first,
because these ideas are largely based on AndrŽ BazinÕs theory of aesthetic realism and
the ontology of the photographic image, both of which I have outlined in the first
section in this chapter. Secondly, both instances involve an examination of the role of
spectator in the face of cinema through the viewerÕs obsession with cinemaÕs
representation of materiality, narrative structure or stylistic aptitude (more on what I
mean by this below). In his 1992 conversation with Australian critic Noel King, Paul
Willemen describes the basis of cinephilic practice and criticism as the explication of
Òthe cinephiliac moment,Ó which the viewer Òperceive[s] to be the privileged, pleasuregiving,
fascinating moment of a relationship to whatÕs happening on a screen.Ó100
For
Willemen, such ÒfetishizingÓ and ÒepiphanicÓ moments, typically composed of
gestures, looks, dialogue or images, Òspark something which then produces the energy
and desire to write, to find formulations to convey something about the intensity of that
spark.Ó101
As such, Willemen postulates that the cinephiliac moment is Òa moment of
revelationÓ and that Òwhat is revealed is subjective, fleeting, variable, depending on a
set of desires and the subjective constitution that is involved in a specific encounter with
a specific film.Ó102
In other words, cinephiliac moments are those exceptional and
cinematic instances detached from the causality of narratives and rather spring from a
delicate engagement to various cinematic devices (gestures in staging, a camera
  98 
movement, a particular shade of colour, a peculiar sound effect, etc.) as well as
grounded in our own subjective and contingent feelings. For Christian Keathley, the
cinephiliac moment is Òa kind of mise-en-abyme wherein each cinephileÕs obsessive
relationship to the cinema is embodied in its most dense, concentrated form.Ó103
In this
respect, the cinephiliac moment offers a revelation to its viewer, which mainstream
narrative cinema does not: it offers a sort of realization of reality very much in line with
BazinÕs aesthetic of realism that I will return to below.
Several scholars have addressed similar instances that exceed the demands of
narrative motivation and are furthermore inexplicable by conventional methods of
interpretation. From Roland BarthesÕs Òobtuse meaningÓ to the Neoformalist Òstylistic
excess,Ó many of these theoretical concepts will, mainly for reasons of space, remain
outside my focus.104
Perhaps the most apt metaphor, however, is KeathleyÕs Òpanoramic
perception,Ó through which Òthe cinephile has a particular perceptual/spectatorial
posture that facilitates the experience of these [cinephiliac] moments.Ó105
This posture,
which Keathley derives from a mode of perception that describes 19th
century railway
travel, resembles the distanced yet immersed position of the fl‰neur that I have outlined
earlier. Keathley writes:
the cinephile is, on the one hand, focused in the way that the filmÕs makers would
want him or her to be; but, as the most ÒliterateÓ of film viewers, the cinephile is
able to ÒreadÓ what is on offer with comparatively little effort and thus has a
certain amount of perceptual energy left over. This energy is then devoted to a
posture that facilitates the panoramic scanning of the image (in the same way that
the fl‰neur employed it for a panoramic scanning of the city).106
In other words, through Òpanoramic perception,Ó the cinephile is able to discern the
fleeting qualities of the image. Underpinning both WillemenÕs Òcinephiliac momentÓ
and KeathleyÕs Òpanoramic perception,Ó is BazinÕs ontology of cinema and his
celebration of the evanescent moment. Willemen, for instance argues that cinephilia and
BazinÕs ontology Òare in solidarity with each other,Ó because BazinÕs polemic
essentially relies on luring the cinephile to appreciate the Òdimension of revelation that
is obtained by pointing [the] camera at something that hasnÕt been staged for the
camera.Ó107
Such a statement immediately contradicts the films of BŽla Tarr, because
  99 
they are densely and deliberately staged and their painstaking choreography is carefully
planned prior to shooting. Because they are based on mainly plan-sequence shots, the
camera movements and framings are often precisely arranged, leaving little room for
improvisation. Yet, their employment of the long take achieves a similar function to
what Willemen and Keathley describe.
In the penultimate section I have argued that the descriptive pause triggers Slow
CinemaÕs core aesthetic allure by prolonging the filmsÕ temporal continuity. In many
ways these sequences attempt to create the cinephiliac moment by displaying still,
monotonous, yet evocative imagery Ð moments that are largely divorced from narrative,
but nevertheless exhibit stylistic sophistication (through camerawork, temporality,
colour, etc.) Ð or simply put, the descriptive pause in itself is designed to generate such
a spectatorial activity. This section has, therefore, examined several scenes from
Werckmeister Harmonies that similarly prompt looking in a ruminative, contemplative
mode, not least through TarrÕ specific foregrounding of space and landscape, but also
through protracted emphasis on the faces of his characters. Such framing strategies
stress the various structures of looking, scanning and inspecting the image, which
Keathley terms Òpanoramic perceptionÓ and leads to what Willemen calls the
Òcinephiliac moment.Ó These debates, once again, by and large refers back to Bazin and
the Italian Neorealism, in effect a nostalgic reminiscence that I shall be examining in
detail in the next section.
2.6 Ð Nostalgia, Modernism and the Retro Art Cinema Style
In this section I propose nostalgia as a crucial concept in understanding Slow Cinema
and its complex film-historical genealogy. Much of the critical reception of Slow
Cinema films, including those by BŽla Tarr, frequently recall the ways in which the
films recycle and exaggerate previous conventions of art cinema and the word nostalgia
occasionally figures within such critical discourses. However, a detailed theoretical and
film-historical examination of nostalgia in relation to Slow Cinema is yet to be carried
out. In this respect, I begin this section by looking at what nostalgia exactly means,
mainly through its various uses within post-war American culture. Following a brief
  100 
history of nostalgia, I turn towards the Ònostalgia film,Ó an aesthetic mode famously
introduced by Fredric Jameson in reference to various Hollywood films that exhibit the
lavish liberal lifestyles of the 1950s suburban America. The nostalgia film bears little
resemblance to Slow Cinema, however the critical literature that addresses this
phenomenon reveals important aesthetic methods that evoke nostalgic feelings. In this
respect, I conclude the section by referring to Òdeliberate archaism,Ó in essence a formal
principle that helps the artwork evoke and refer to previous artistic styles through
emphasizing their distinctive qualities, appearances and shapes. As such, the long take
emerges as a specific stylistic feature that produces an aesthetic link between Slow
Cinema and previous forms of modernist art film.
Although nostalgia as a term refers to a sentimental longing in everyday
language, within post-war American culture, it became a routine keyword to describe Òa
national obsession with the material, visual and popular culture of bygone times.Ó108
As
such, its specific use within the post-war context delineates sentimental feelings of
longing or yearning for a better and familiar past, chiefly collected through happy,
affectionate or wistful memories. While the nostalgic experience can take on different
objects, within American culture the Fifties has been one of the most dominant
nostalgic periods represented in American audio-visual media and thus has been the one
addressed most proficiently.109
Hollywood was a main component of this mythmaking.
Many films flourished during the 1970s, such as American Graffiti (1973) and The
Wanderers (1979), which depicted the isolated suburban American lifestyle during the
1950s. More importantly, many of these films concentrated on positive aspects of the
period, avoiding the various disturbances of the decadeÕs social, political and economic
climate. For Marxist critics like Fredric Jameson, nostalgia was in many ways a postmodern
aesthetic mode that refused the audience access into a truthful past. Jameson
writes:
Nostalgia films restructure the whole issue of pastiche and project it onto a collective and
social level, where the desperate attempt to appropriate a missing past is now refracted
through the iron law of fashion change and the emergent ideology of the generation. The
inaugural film of this new aesthetic discourse, George Lucas's American Graffiti (1973),
set out to recapture [É] the henceforth mesmerizing lost reality of the Eisenhower era;
[É] the 1950s remain the privileged lost object of desire Ð not merely the stability and
  101 
prosperity of a pax Americana but also the first naive innocence of the countercultural
impulses of early rock and roll and youth gangs.110
According to Jameson, the nostalgia film takes its object the Fifties as a mythical
construct and turns an actual period of history into a commodified past by recycling its
stylistic peculiarities and generating an affect of longing. In other words, The Fifties is
reconstructed through repetition of various visual codes; most vividly identifiable in the
filmsÕ lavish mise-en-sc•ne compromising of inanimate props regularly associated with
post-war American liberalism. For Jameson, the nostalgia film effaces history by
reassembling facts or evading the undesirable elements of the decade. As such, the
typical 1950s nostalgia film portrays the American suburb setting as an idealized,
imagined historical construct by neglecting the grim realities of the period, such as Cold
War politics, the Korean War, McCarthy witch-hunts, fears of nuclear warfare and
racist oriented violence. The nostalgia film, therefore, functions as a selective memory;
it transforms, interprets and most importantly fabricates the historical period in
question. Jameson writes: ÒThis mesmerizing new aesthetic mode itself emerged as an
elaborated symptom of the waning of our historicity, of our lived possibility of
experiencing history in some active way.Ó111
In other words, because nostalgia films
imitate older visual styles through pastiche, Jameson asserts that such an affective use
of nostalgia represents the creative bankruptcy of the post-modern period in history,
following the demise of modernist arts that flourished in the immediate post-war period
that once provided its audiences an access to an authentic past.112
Traditionally, film theory has viewed nostalgia in the context of political
critiques of historical films. In this respect, JamesonÕs conception of the nostalgia film
may not appear to be immediately applicable to Slow Cinema or the films of BŽla Tarr.
In fact, the films discussed throughout this thesis seldom focus on particular periods of
history and as such share little affinity with historical films. Indeed, BŽla TarrÕs films
are perceived as baffling in terms of their historical accuracy; against the background of
derelict and isolated rural settings and the material lack of modern technology (both of
which imply a seemingly Medieval epoch), unexpected interferences by technological
devices (such as the helicopter in Werckmeister Harmonies) and the complete absence
of authoritative, contextual historical markers further confuse the historical period in
  102 
which the film takes place. As such, TarrÕs films rarely invoke feelings of nostalgia for
historical periods, but rather render historical accuracy unobtainable, ambiguous and
obscure. However, an affectionate remembrance of a distant past constitutes only one
dimension of nostalgia. Paul Grainge, for instance, provides a distinction between the
nostalgia mood and the nostalgia mode. While the nostalgia mood Òis a feeling
determined by a concept of longing and loss,Ó Òthe nostalgia mode articulates a concept
of style, a representational effect with implications for our cultural experience of the
past.Ó113
The distinction between mood and mode does not entail a binary opposition,
but according to Grainge Òrepresents the conceptual tendencies of a theoretical
continuumÓ and Òshould not be taken to suggest mutually exclusive categories.Ó114
In
this respect, I argue that BŽla TarrÕs films represent a strong case for Slow Cinema,
which by and large manifests a nostalgic revision, if not recycling, of the modernist art
cinema style. Through what I call a retro-art-cinema style, or in other words through a
combination of the long take and dead time reminiscent of modernist cinema from the
1960s, Slow Cinema evokes feelings of nostalgia for art cinemaÕs Ògolden-ageÓ period.
By adopting stylistic conventions from art cinemaÕs distant past, Slow Cinema films
execute a self-reflexive nostalgia mode that appeals to audiences previously familiar
with and at the same time bemoaning the passage of a glorious past.
Whether Slow Cinema recycles previous representational systems of art cinema
or subtly revises them has largely been the focus of the Slow Cinema debate I have
outlined in the previous chapter. These debates echo the ways in which Fredric Jameson
views the nostalgia film; an aesthetic mode that simulates the artistic spirit, style and
design of older representational systems by way of sheer imitation, through a procedure
that Jameson calls pastiche. The end result, according to Jameson, offers little aesthetic
value, not so different from its preceding counterpart while its lack of accurate
historicity forecloses the possibility of a truthful representation of the past. Not all
cultural critics agree with Jameson, however. In his study of the black-and-white image,
Paul Grainge Òmaintains a sense of nostalgiaÕs relationship with postmodernism,
existing as a retro style, [but] rejects the assumption of amnesia and historicist crisis
common to much post-modern critique.Ó115
As such, Grainge investigates the
monochrome image (which I will return to later in relation to Tarr) as a fertile ground in
which specificities of American visual culture and politics of national memory are
  103 
reconstructed, represented and preserved. Vera Dika, on the other hand, explores films
that utilize nostalgia as an aesthetic mode without its conservative emotional qualities of
yearning and longing, in effect creating a contradiction that benefits critical viewing.116
For Christine Sprengler the act of critical viewing is present in Far From Heaven
(2002), which Sprengler argues, is not a conventional nostalgia film in the way that
American Graffiti, Forrest Gump (1994) or other similar nostalgia films are. Rather,
Far From Heaven is Ònostalgic for what Sirkian cinema accomplished during the 1950s,
how it managed to move audiences, to offer both visual and analytical pleasures at the
same time as it launched a stinging critique of postwar life.Ó As such,Ó Sprengler writes,
Òit manages to rescue not only nostalgia, but Fifties nostalgia as something that can be
divorced from its conservative uses.Ó117
I argue that Slow Cinema functions in a similar way within the realm of
modernist art cinema. In other words, by reclaiming radical stylistic strategies and
audacious narrative forms, Slow Cinema references modernist art cinema and bemoans
its demise, at the same time attempting to resurrect it by way of exaggerating its
aesthetic practices. In this respect, an understanding of Slow Cinema becomes clearer
against the historical and aesthetic genealogy of art cinema. However, I should note
here that this claim is not an attempt to relegate Slow Cinema into a mere pastiche of
modernist film, as several film critics initially thought within the so-called Slow Cinema
debate, but to emphasize Slow CinemaÕs urgency in re-salvaging the modernist
framework against the background of the self-recycling mainstream industry.118
In
many ways these arguments recall Svetlana BoymÕs distinctions between the restorative
and reflective nostalgia. For Boym, restorative nostalgia Òmanifests itself in total
reconstructions of monuments of the past, while reflective nostalgia lingers on ruins, the
patina of time and history, in the dreams of another place and another time.Ó119
Restorative nostalgia stresses the long lost objects of desire and involves a truth quest or
an aggressive attempt in reinstating status quo. Reflective nostalgia, on the other hand,
concentrates on the practices of reminiscence; its focus is Ònot on recovery of what is
perceived to be an absolute truth but on the meditation on history and passage of
time.Ó120
I will be revisiting these distinctions in relation to Tsai Ming-liangÕs Goodbye,
Dragon Inn at the end of the next chapter, largely focusing on reflective nostalgia. In
  104 
the meantime, however, I want to briefly turn to the ways in which TarrÕs films evoke
nostalgia through several stylistic idiosyncrasies.
There are two general aesthetic approaches prevalent across nostalgia films that
elicit nostalgic feelings. According to Marc Le Sueur, the first method is Òsurface
realismÓ and Òperiod detail,Ó or in other words genre iconography (setting, mise-ensc•ne
and costume) that help the films establish a sense of authenticity as well as
thematic verisimilitude in relation to the actual historical period.121
The second aesthetic
stance appropriated by nostalgia films, according to Le Sueur is Òdeliberate archaism,Ó
which Òentails the artistÕs desire to recreate not only the look and feel of the period in
question but to give his artifact the appearance of art from that distant time.Ó122
As such,
deliberate archaism is more a stylistic method of evoking nostalgia in film than it is
thematic and visual. As opposed to pro-filmic elements such as mise-en-sc•ne or nondiegetic
inserts such as music, deliberate archaism shapes the whole structure of the
artwork by drawing its resemblance to that specific past through non-representational
codes. In this respect, deliberate archaism is also self-reflexive, as it demonstrates the
artistsÕ knowledge of artistic conventions from the historical period in focus. Le Sueur
notes that several French New Wave directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and Fran•ois
Truffaut Òincorporated ancient stylisms such as iris shots and fade outs,Ó while ÒLaszlo
Kovacs went to great lengths to achieve a 30Õs look in Paper Moon [1973] by shooting
and developing the film in black and white,Ó which at the time was extremely
unusual.123
Christine Sprengler, on the other hand, reintroduces deliberate archaism as
an aesthetic strategy in light of more contemporary examples: Martin ScorseseÕs digital
imitation of the two-strip Technicolor palette in The Aviator (2004), Steven
SoderberghÕs use of authentic 1940s camera lenses and shooting with a single camera in
The Good German (2006) and finally Todd HaynesÕ use of colour grading in Far From
Heaven (2002) reminiscent of the post-war melodramas of Douglas Sirk.124
A final
example of deliberate archaism can also be observed in Pablo LarrainÕs No (2012),
which depicts the public referendum that took place in Chile in 1988 that would
determine the future of PinochetÕs military dictatorship. The film focuses on an
advertising executive who is consulted by the opposing political party to mount an
effective advertising campaign that would eventually win the public opinion and change
the course of ChileÕs history. While much of the mise-en-sc•ne corresponds to this
  105 
historical period, the film is furthermore visualized by an ÒEightiesÓ appearance through
its full-frame aspect ratio and colour grading reminiscent of Betacam technology.
Deliberate archaism is a useful concept to approach Slow Cinema because it
reveals other non-representational codes that can invoke feelings of nostalgia. While the
study of nostalgic devices in film encompasses many aspects of visual codes including
colour, costume, period casting and props, a stylistic and temporal device such as the
long take has been largely overlooked. As such, I argue that the long take functions as
deliberate archaism in terms of evoking nostalgic reverberations towards art cinemaÕs
historicity. Christine Sprengler, for example, views deliberate archaism Òas a form of
pastiche that involves self-conscious simulations as well as reinterpretations of past
visual styles.Ó125
As such the elaborate long take scenes in TarrÕs films often bear
comparisons to the complex long take sequences by Welles, Antonioni and Jancs—,
some of which I have outlined in the first section of this chapter. In this respect, very
application of the long take in such a hyperbolic and embellished manner within TarrÕs
films, especially today against the exponential increases in cutting rates, appear as a sort
of retro art cinema style, deliberately referring to and recovering past aesthetic
conventions. At this point I should call to mind an earlier argument from the preceding
chapter, in which Mark Betz recovers the Òparametric mode of narration,Ó initiated by
David Bordwell in reference to Òisolated filmmakers and fugitive films.Ó126
You will
recall that Betz pointed towards a belated reappearance of (modernist) parametric films
that emerged somewhere in the late 1980s to the early 1990s, a period in which the
sparse and minimalist strands of global art cinema gradually radicalized their stylistic
experimentations by way of extending their bold temporal economy. I argued that
parametric narration precisely describes the mode of narration often present across Slow
Cinema films, in which stylistic features often overthrow conventions of narrative
causality and instead replace it with an elusive application of long take and dead time,
both of which dominate the filmÕs narrative system.
  106 
Figure 2.21 Ð Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) Figure 2.22 Ð Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971)
Yet, the long take is not the only reason why I consider BŽla TarrÕs films
nostalgic. The previous section, for example, demonstrated TarrÕs adoption of certain
framing strategies often employed by art cinema directors such as Antonioni and
Fassbinder. In this respect, TarrÕs films frequently display visual allusions to various art
cinema directors and specific films, albeit through an exaggeration of temporality and
the long take. Consider the scene in Werckmeister Harmonies where the angry mob is
marching along the street (See Figure 2.21). The scene itself recalls Elio PetriÕs The
Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971), a political film that similarly begins with the
march of workers through a relatively lengthy street (See Figure 2.22). Both scenes are
depicted through a low angle camera position that looks down on the marching workers
and the slight diagonal tilt emphasizes the depth of field, or the extent to which the
queue stretches out to the background. While the frame grabs resemble each other, the
similarity remains as an allusion, not a direct imitation. While Petri cuts together images
of the workersÕ faces and displays their miserable conditions through editing, TarrÕs
camera simply moves around the workers throughout the sequence, at times closing in
on particular faces, at times through an elevated position.
Finally, TarrÕs films evoke discourses of nostalgia because they are persistently
shot through black-and-white cinematography. The stark monochrome image is central
to the uniquely dark atmosphere that Tarr creates in these films and it consistency
recalls other black-and-white art films varying from Italian Neorealism to the modernist
waves of the 1960s. The historical effect of the black-and-white image is not
coincidental, as Paul Grainge suggests the monochrome image Òis first and foremost a
documentary aesthetic,Ó in the sense that it is able to distinguish Ònews from chronicleÓ
  107 
and Òfunction as a visual signature of history and historical meaning.Ó127
Many films
commonly use the black-and-white image to evoke a sense of Òpastness.Ó Yet, as a
complex representational code, the monochrome image bears other functions. ÒWhether
for its graphic quality, its dependence on light and shade, its association with gritty
realism or aesthetic refinement,Ó Grainge writes, Òblack and white has specific
properties that have been taken up in various genre forms and film traditions,Ó for
instance, it has Òa tonal quality that is often used quite deliberately in genres like film
noir.Ó128
In this respect, the documentary aesthetic is merely one effect of monochrome
cinematography. Films such as Pi (1998) and Sin City (2005) use its graphic quality to
create an atmosphere of insecurity, tension and uncertainty. Its use in various drama
films, for example in Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) or more recently in Much Ado
About Nothing (2012), appear as chic and stylish, connotations of the monochrome
image for which decades of photojournalism practices are responsible. While these
functions can be ascribed to TarrÕs use of the black-and-white image, I argue that this
resolute aesthetic also bears a geopolitical explanation.
In this respect, TarrÕs films can be situated alongside dissident filmmakers that
originate from the other side of Europe, namely the Eastern part of the continent.
Beginning their work in the state-controlled film industries of the Soviet Union or its
many satellite countries, these filmmakers deploy a very specific depiction of life
beyond the Iron Curtain. Comprised of directors as varying as Kira Muratova, Aleksei
German, Vitali Kanevsky, Aleksandr Sokurov, Šarūnas Bartas and Gyšrgy FehŽr, this
regional tradition of filmmaking aims to paint a miserable, desolate and bleak
representation of life under Soviet rule. In addition to a mutual interest in narrative
subject, these filmmakers, some of whom embrace Slow Cinema aesthetics, can also be
grouped together in regards to their experimentation in monochrome photography,
either in the form of high-contrast black-and-white or mellow tones of sepia. Dina
Iordanova, for example, draws attention to the Òvision of metaphoric greyness,Ó which
Òpowerfully asserted [life as] colourless, monotonous and dull, murky and ominous.Ó129
As in my examples earlier, TarrÕs films often take this aesthetic feature to the extreme
by eliminating shades of grey and white (see Figures 2.23-2.24; which are actual frame
grabs without black borders). In these scenes, the framing reveals little information to
the spectator and the darker shades literally dominate the image. As such, the pitch-
  108 
black areas of the frame occlude meaning and escape narrative comprehension, while
rendering the films absurd Ð a fundamental condition of humanity divorced from a
meaning of life and a frequently exercised aspect of Slow Cinema, which I will explore
further in the following chapter in relation to Tsai Ming-liang.
Figure 2.23 Ð Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) Figure 2.24 Ð Turin Horse (2011)
This section has therefore explicated the concept of nostalgia as a crucial
element of the aesthetic experience present in Slow Cinema films. While nostalgia in
period films has often been considered conservative for critics writing in ideologicalsymptomatic
mode (e.g. Fredric Jameson), I argue that its relevance to Slow Cinema
reveals a historical genealogy of modernist cinema, characterized best as a tradition of
filmmaking dedicated to formal experimentation and aesthetic innovation. As such,
BŽla TarrÕs use of the long take and dead time often carry a retro-style outlook that
alludes towards previous art films and function as deliberate archaism, a method in
evoking nostalgia that I will briefly revisit in the next chapter. Yet, the long take
represents only one dimension of TarrÕs relationship to Slow Cinema. In this respect,
this section has briefly examined the role of black-and-white cinematography and
situated TarrÕs work in relation to a geopolitical grouping of filmmakers that similarly
portray a pessimistic vision of life under the Soviet Union. This grouping largely rests
on the application of monochrome imagery, but for reasons of space and relevance has
remained sketchy at best. However, similarities between directors as varying as
Sokurov, Tarr, Bartas and German testify to stylistic variations and geographical
differences frequently present in Slow Cinema. While the relationship between local or
regional traditions and Slow Cinema as an international style has not been emphasized
  109 
in this chapter, the next chapters will examine this relationship through Taiwanese and
Turkish cinemas respectively.
2.7 Ð Conclusion
This chapter has presented the various stylistic modalities of Slow Cinema by focusing
on the analysis of its dominant formal principles. I have argued that BŽla TarrÕs use of
the long take and dead time contributes to a mode of narration that emulates the
movements of the fl‰neur and emphasizes sheer observation. Furthermore, TarrÕs
elaborate strategies in framing and duration frequently recall modernist directors that
employed similar practices. In this respect, TarrÕs films exercise nostalgia for modernist
filmmaking through adopting techniques that flaunt ambiguity and aim to overwhelm,
suppress and dissipate narrative action. My investigation of these techniques began with
a reassessment of the evolution of the long take. For AndrŽ Bazin, the long take
constitutes an aesthetic of reality that liberates the spectator from the impositions of
editing, while for Gilles Deleuze long takes confront the spectator with images that
express temporality in its pure state. Yet, I have suggested that the aesthetic experience
felt in Slow Cinema films is based on slightly different effects and offered other
functions of the long take. For example, from the filmmakerÕs perspective, the
application of the long take due to its complicated mechanical procedures presents a
technical challenge, while from the spectatorÕs point of view it manifests emotions of
fascination and admiration in the face of such technical virtuosity. Following this study,
I have examined dead time within the broader conceptual framework of dedramatization
and outlined the relationship between story and narrative action in terms of their
respective pacing. Navigating through Gerard GenetteÕs taxonomy of narrative tense, I
have argued that the descriptive pause manifests a suitable container for quintessential
Slow Cinema moments, some of which I have closely examined here.
For example, I have analyzed scenes from Werckmeister Harmonies and argued
that the slow camera movements simulate the movements of the fl‰neur and encourage
the spectator in engaging with the profilmic space, an engagement that is further
reinforced through TarrÕs specific framing strategies. These stylistic tendencies
  110 
altogether embody the ways in which TarrÕs films elicit nostalgic feelings towards
modernist art cinema and, as such, I have offered a brief explication on the ways in
which nostalgia as a phenomenon has been treated by film theory. Whilst for critics like
Fredric Jameson nostalgia functions as a conservative aesthetic mode, within the
context of Slow Cinema I argue that nostalgia not only laments the modernist project of
the 1960s, but through devices such as deliberate archaism offers newer and fresher
strategies of representation as well as revealing geopolitical links. TarrÕs employment of
black-and-white cinematography, for example, positions his work within the context of
East Central European directors that portray their respective cultures with a variety of
stylistic tendencies, but nevertheless experiment with monochrome imagery to establish
an atmosphere best described as grotesque, absurd, poetic and brutally realistic. The
complex matrix of filmmakers adopting similar strategies emphasizes Slow CinemaÕs
role within negotiations taking place between local practices and global demands. The
next chapters will endeavour in detailing these discourses by interrogating the ways in
which filmmakers re-appropriate, recycle and subvert local traditions of filmmaking and
tailor them for an international aesthetic largely disseminated through international film
festivals. Tsai Ming-liang, for instance, largely builds his work from the New Taiwan
Cinema, an inward looking cultural movement that gained success at international film
festivals in the wake of the diminishing European art cinema scene. Yet, the manner in
which Tsai adopts conventions of absurd humour places him alongside a distinctive
artistic trajectory.
111 
CHAPTER 3
Less is Absurd: Humour in the Films of Tsai Ming-liang
This chapter explores the films of Tsai Ming-liang who entered the global art cinema
scene in the early 1990s, quickly achieving respect at international film festivals. I argue
that TsaiÕs presence on the international film festival circuit can be attributed to a
complex interaction between the historical legacy of the New Taiwan Cinema
movement and his films, which incongruously display aspects of contrasting genre
conventions, minimalist and camp aesthetics and a sense of humour best described as
absurd. If the principal constituent to BŽla TarrÕs long take aesthetic is movement, then
for Tsai it is stillness. In fact, the narrative pacing in TsaiÕs films often pushes the limits
of Slow Cinema through a staunch interest in the retardation of narrative structure.
While acknowledging the difficulties of approaching TsaiÕs work from a Western
ÒmodernistÓ perspective, this chapter nevertheless examines TsaiÕs films part of a
broader Slow Cinema framework in which elements of narrative are offset against other
aspects of visual storytelling, most of which are directly inherited from the Theatre of
the Absurd movement as well as other art films of the 1960s. As such, following a brief
exposition of the historical New Taiwan Cinema movement, this chapter investigates
the ways in which Tsai appropriates Slow Cinema aesthetics to fashion an absurdist
view of contemporary culture.
3.1 Ð Introduction
Emerging to international attention with films in the early 1990s, Tsai Ming-liang has
received a great deal of critical and scholarly attention, in contrast to other Slow Cinema
directors. Part of the reason for this interest is the numerous ways in which his films
received institutional support. On the one hand, Tsai entered onto the international film
festival stage at a time when films from East Asian cultures displayed newer waves of
national cinemas and his films thus enjoyed critical attention in journalistic
publications. On the other hand, TsaiÕs work coincides with an emerging scholarly
112 
interest in transnational Chinese cinemas, a complex conceptual framework that is at
once both an area of cinema and a field of study.1
While providing an exhaustive survey
of this critical literature is beyond the scope of this chapter, the initial scholarly work on
Tsai can be broadly divided into two major tendencies that moderately overlap in their
methodology. Firstly, a number of critical texts regard TsaiÕs films in relation to the
discourses of modernity, in essence arguing the ways in which TsaiÕs films are
representations of global post-modern malaise and reflect the Taiwanese experience of
negotiating the dialectics of tradition and modernity.2
Secondly, critics have examined
TsaiÕs films by investigating the voyeuristic portrayal of gender and sexuality,
discussing the ways in which the politics of these representations are representative of
the emerging social and political discourses in Taiwan.3
Both of these critical
tendencies, however, adopt formal analysis to investigate the ways in which the films
relate to political or cultural discourses. Furthermore, TsaiÕs work presents a compelling
case study for auterist interpretations, because the films are built on recurrent elements
of visual imagery, thematic obsessions, symbols and a narrative arc that virtually
connects all individual stories.
Despite an abundant number of journal articles and book chapters, there is still
no book length study of this unique director, whose films regularly invite comparative
analyses to other major modernist art cinema directors (Antonioni, Fassbinder, Tati, and
so on) often based on hollow and perfunctory thematic or stylistic readings. In this
respect, Emilie Yueh-yu and Darrell William Davis argue that the present literature is
unable to identify why Tsai is Òspecial, funny and entertaining,Ó chiefly because the
modernist framework alone is not sufficient to offer a comprehensive account for the
filmsÕ varying degrees of incongruity Ð in other words, the marriage of minimalist and
camp aesthetics, evocations of genre conventions within an art cinema context and
simultaneous references to Fran•ois Truffaut, King Hu and Mandarin pop music.4
As
such, in what is perhaps a singular example across the critical literature on Tsai, Jean
Ma takes the films as a vehicle for critical inspection that takes as Òits starting point a
rethinking of the concatenated categories of modernism, art cinema, and national
cinema in view of the transformations these categories have undergone between the
post-war period and the present moment.Ó5
In other words, while TsaiÕs work functions
both as a mirror that reflects the contemporary ills of Taiwanese society and a capitalist
113 
commodity exchanged between festival organizations and their audiences, at the same
time these films challenge the legitimacy of the very conceptual frameworks that ought
to define them in the first place. The incongruity that is doubly present across the films
and their critical and scholarly reception is, therefore, a fundamental element of my
approach to understanding TsaiÕs films.
In this respect, the main objective of this chapter is to contextualize Tsai within
the broader Slow Cinema tradition. While many articles emphasize TsaiÕs use of the
long take aesthetic, very few explicitly investigate his films in relation to Slow Cinema.6
Generally, however, TsaiÕs films are often considered in relation to the ways in which
the international film festivals exhibit works from Asia that adopt minimalist aesthetics,
a tendency that originates in the New Taiwan Cinema movement in the early 1980s and
intensifies throughout the 1990s. Therefore, in the first section of this chapter, I argue
that the emergence of New Taiwan Cinema and its popularity with international film
festivals have largely functioned as a springboard for TsaiÕs entry into a global
exchange between the local and the international. The second section closely examines
TsaiÕs films in terms of their production history, which demonstrates an evolution from
locally funded films into transnational art films determined and designed to be festival
hits. Meanwhile, textually TsaiÕs films display a negotiation between genre subversion,
minimalism and camp aesthetics that all the more sustain his presence within this
international circuit for its provocative, ambiguous and elusive qualities.
A sense of obscurity largely defines the narrative form of TsaiÕs films. In my
examination, I argue that the films are composed of an episodic structure interrupted
with recurrent images of symbols, visual motifs and/or situations that defy ordinary
forms of engagement through a persistent use of long take and dead time. Such
sequences ultimately delay narrative comprehension and amount to absurd moments
that frustrate audience expectations as well as challenge conceptions of temporal
economy. As such, while these aesthetic features characterize TsaiÕs main body of
work, a deadpan sense of humour pervades the majority of these representations. I
examine these moments of black humour through the lens of the Theatre of the Absurd
and discern its influences on Slow Cinema, namely the rejection of the spoken word and
reliance on visual storytelling methods. As such, the Absurd offers a newer perspective
114 
on TsaiÕs work, mainly because its logic depends on the existence of incongruity
initiated by the aesthetic properties of the films. Following a brief foray into the theory
of humour, I also outline the ways in which TsaiÕs films reference the cinema of
Jacques Tati and examine the logic as well as the formal structure upon which absurd
humour operates. The final section in this chapter aims at elaborating on the exchange
between TsaiÕs nostalgic overtones in his films and critical practices of cinephilia, both
of which are anxiously concerned with the future of cinema.
3.2 Ð New Taiwan Cinema and the Rise of the ÒFestival FilmÓ
This section aims to provide a historical background to the local cinematic traditions
from which Tsai Ming-liang emerged. As Tsai is often regarded within part of a belated
second wave of art cinema directors emerging from Taiwan, I want to establish the
aesthetic, stylistic and thematic norms and features of the New Taiwan Cinema
movement. Preceding the movement, cinema in Taiwan was dominated by escapist
genre pictures produced under the control of the military dictatorship that ruled the
nation between 1949 and 1987. In the 1970s, the state film production company
commissioned a series of films that aspired for a realistic portrayal of Taiwanese
society, but the films themselves remained ideological vessels of the military
dictatorship. New Taiwan Cinema, however, took on this role by recasting realist
aesthetics and for a decade stormed international film festivals by its originality and
ability to engage with local cultural specificities. By the end of the 1980s, however, the
movement lost its popularity with Taiwanese audiences and only a handful of directors
continued their work by mainly catering to international film festivals. In many ways
Tsai Ming-liang entered the global circuit at this point and as we shall see in the next
section, his films became a crucial part of this exchange between Taiwan and
international film festivals. As such, the New Taiwan Cinema movement not only
provided an aesthetic influence for Tsai, but also provided an institutional background
that helped secure his global presence.
State authorities largely governed TaiwanÕs cinema industry since it was a
nation ruled by military dictatorship for decades. Upon JapanÕs defeat in World War II,
115 
the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) relocated to Taiwan and reclaimed the island as
part of Chinese sovereignty. Military rule was established in 1947 and remained in
power until late 1980s, in which state exercised complete control over the exhibition
aspects of the motion picture industry. Initially, KMT produced and funded projects that
supported the Nationalist campaign by exhibiting works depicting antiCommunist/Japanese
sentiment and heroic narratives, but over time the party focused
on developing the economy and rebuild a national identity.7
The state film production
company Central Motion Picture Corporation (CMPC) was founded by mergers
between state companies and remained the major and most influential film company in
TaiwanÕs film industry.8
As such, the CMPC not only initiated the New Taiwan Cinema
in the early-1980s through omnibus features (films composed of several episodes, each
directed by a different filmmaker), but was also responsible for producing TsaiÕs first
films in the early-1990s. Before the New Taiwan Cinema movement broke and during a
long period between 1954 and 1969, however, TaiwanÕs film industry was dominated
by escapist genre productions severely controlled by censorship regulations, but
nevertheless secured a large amount of export to other East Asian film markets
(Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia etc.).9
Talent from Hong Kong was
imported to increase quality of production, which included the renowned martial-arts
filmmaker King Hu, who directed a series of influential films. As we shall see later,
HuÕs work produced a lasting impression on TsaiÕs cinema and Tsai himself
consistently referred back to this Ògolden-ageÓ of filmmaking throughout his work in
nostalgic overtones.
While the late 1960s saw a Ògolden-ageÓ of cinema, a series of political and
diplomatic crises deeply affected Taiwan in the early 1970s. In 1971 the United Nations
recognized the PeopleÕs Republic of China as a legitimate representative of all China,
thus invalidating the KMT governmentÕs member status as well as territorial claims on
the mainland, resulting in the loss of diplomatic relations with numerous states. ÒAmidst
political setbacks and public anxieties,Ó writes Yingjin Zhang, Òstate studios sought
legitimacy and recognition in the fictional world by staging anti-Japanese war films and
historical dramas.Ó10
The Healthy Realism genre, which was introduced in 1963 but
intensified later in the 1970s, was an alternative solution to these anxieties. Pursuing a
realistic depiction of Taiwanese family structures and a focus on the traditions present
116 
within rural lifestyles, Healthy Realism, according to Zhang, resembled the Soviet
socialist realism, emphasizing a certain state-controlled and tailored idealism that
perpetrated all manners of representation.11
As such, despite the similarities to Italian
Neorealism in its use of on-location cinematography and non-professional acting, its
didactic idealism in narrative focus and the lack of ability in probing social questions
largely contradicted its realistic project. Guo-Juin Hong, for example, argues that the
rigid styles and conventions of Healthy Realism in pre-1980 Taiwan cinema
paradoxically disassociates itself from the social realities of Taiwan, hence leaving a
gap in audience engagement as well as a creative and aesthetic opportunity for Taiwan
New Cinema filmmakers to emerge and reconnect with certain national and cultural
realities. Hong writes: ÒNew Taiwan Cinema since the early 1980s re-politicizes realist
aesthetics by a progressive reinvention of film aesthetics inherited from Healthy
RealismÓ and as such these filmmakers were largely Òconcerned with cinematic time
and space related to nation and modernity.Ó12
In this respect connecting with the roots of
Taiwanese culture through a realistic portrayal of its spatial and temporal structures was
the first and foremost objective of the New Taiwan Cinema.
The New Taiwan Cinema movement officially began with consecutive releases
of two omnibus films by CMPC: In Our Time (1982) and Sandwich Man (1983), both
of which contained films directed by a younger generation of filmmakers, including the
now well-known Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien. Both films were critically and
financially successful for their departure from Òthe heroic and melodramatic narratives
characteristic of their predecessorsÓ and according to Zhang Òrepresent two focal areas
of New Taiwan Cinema,Ó namely the realistic portrayals of village and city life.13
While
the rural lifestyle was depicted as an innocent site where Òindigenous cultural practices
are increasingly threatened by modernization and urbanization,Ó Zhang writes, urban
centres were Òdepicted as an alienating place where individuals have gradually drifted
away from their childhood dreams and are now desperately searching for their lost
identity and a meaning to their life.Ó14
Hou Hsiao-hsienÕs early films, for example,
examined the ways in which modernity as a cultural discourse permeated the rural
landscape and altered centuries of traditions.15
Therefore, New Taiwan Cinema was a
collective attempt in exploring Taiwanese history, culture and identity by way of
examining contemporary social problems in a manner that was not possible in earlier
117 
cinematic traditions. In terms of film aesthetics, New Taiwan Cinema was in many
ways a combination of social realist and modernist tendencies.16
On the one hand, there
was a deliberate attempt in depicting society in its authentic state through careful
attention to class, gender, setting and dialect and creation of socially accurate characters
with realistic, contemporary problems was paramount for rendering these
representations. On the other hand, these portrayals were shaped by modernist devices
such as fragmented narratives with various temporal manipulations and open-ended
conclusions, a self-reflexive use of film style and attention to the juxtaposition between
image and sound. In the next section we will see how Tsai Ming-liang appropriates
some of the basic presumptions of New Taiwan Cinema into his own, idiosyncratic
style.
Despite critical attention and initial popularity with audiences, the number of
New Taiwan Cinema productions decreased and by 1987 the movement had halted
mainly because distribution companies did not accept or fund these films. New Taiwan
Cinema had become intellectually demanding and alienated the audiences, resulting in a
steep decline in box office revenues that pushed some directors to switch careers by
working in television and advertising.17
Nevertheless, New Taiwan Cinema left behind
an important legacy. Guo-Juin Hong suggests that New Taiwan Cinema served four
important functions: the films helped Òdevelop and re-examine TaiwanÕs culture,Ó
Òbroke diplomatic barriers and [promoted] TaiwanÕs image,Ó Òre-established confidence
in its local audiences,Ó and finally found a Ònew critic systemÓ that helped create Òa
distinct cultural identity.Ó18
At this stage, Peggy Chiao Hsiung-ping was an instrumental
film critic, who created a critical discourse in Taiwan by introducing key terms and
concepts such as national cinema, new wave and auterism and henceforth established
New Taiwan Cinema and its directors as a legitimate movement in the eyes of local
Taiwanese audiences. Moreover, her liaison with other exponents of Chinese-language
cinema (such as Chris Berry and Tony Rayns) as well as festival professionals enabled
the international distribution of Taiwan New Cinema films.19
In short, while New
Taiwan Cinema began to attract ever fewer cinemagoers, some of its directors slowly
gained acknowledgement from international audiences through the establishment of
various global networks. Part of this process depended on the lifting of martial law in
1987, which eased censorship regulations and enabled Taiwanese directors to portray
118 
infamous incidents that, over the course of history, obtained taboo status. Hou Hsiaohsien
responded to these policy changes by quickly filming City of Sadness (1989),
which portrayed the notorious events of February 28, 1947 (also known as the 228
Incident).20
The film was praised in the Venice Film Festival of that year, earned the
Golden Lion award Ð the first ever for a Taiwanese film Ð and consolidated HouÕs status
as a significant contemporary director as well as raising awareness of other Taiwanese
productions for the future.21
Prior to Venice, Hou was already recognized as an
important filmmaker with films widely circulated in European film festivals, but the
prestigious win in Venice elevated his status within the pantheon of art cinema
directors.
International film festivals played a crucial role in the rise of New Taiwan
Cinema and in this respect it shares common ground with Slow Cinema. Many of the
initial New Taiwan Cinema films were circulated in various film festivals and helped
establish Taiwanese cinemaÕs long-lasting reputation. As Chia-chi Wu argues the
success of New Taiwan Films in international film festivals led to a type of national
legitimization in the global stage: while TaiwanÕs status as a nation-state was previously
hampered in the United Nations, the dissemination of New Taiwan Cinema films
through festival programming recuperated its status as Ònational.Ó22
Furthermore, the
various successes of Taiwanese filmmakers on the international level were Òin tune with
the economic boom of East Asia in the 1980s, when festivals started to turn to East
Asian films as their staple to distinguish their offerings from other festivalsÓ and as
such, these mechanisms were largely Òresponsible for the emergence of Taiwan as a
ÒnationalÓ in international film culture.Ó23
Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang became
major figures in this process and, as we shall see in later sections, the 1990s gave birth
to a younger generation of filmmakers, who were Òexclusively oriented to international
festival competition and art cinema distribution,Ó due to the lack of opportunity and
Hollywood dominance at the domestic market.24
As such, by the 1990s, New Taiwan
Cinema ceased to be a local or national event, but its legacy was apparent in certain
films circulated around the globe.
The success of New Taiwan Cinema at international film festivals coincided
with a steady decline in European art cinema throughout the 1980s and in some respects
119 
East Asian films replaced the lack of quality European art films. The years 1983 and
1984 were in particular the turning point for this transformation. During this period and
up to the end of the 1980s, European cinema experienced significant losses: the deaths
of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Fran•ois Truffaut and Andrei Tarkovsky; filmmakers who
retired for health and other reasons, such as Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni
and Robert Bresson; and those who briefly change course in their careers or lose touch
with their earlier work, such as Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, Federico Fellini, Mikl—s
Jancs— and Bernardo Bertolucci.25
In other words, the impact of modernist European
cinema was slowly fading away and beginning to be marginalized against newer,
fresher and popular genres of European cinema. In this transition period, European and
international film festivals turned to other exotic geographical areas for groundbreaking
art films, most prominently Taiwan, China and later Iran.26
New Taiwan Cinema took
advantage of this situation and HouÕs win at Venice was, perhaps, the culmination of
the process. Edward Yang was another important figure, whose The Terrorizers (1986)
and A Brighter Summer Day (1991) stormed Locarno and Tokyo International Film
Festivals respectively by taking major awards.27
The Fifth Generation Chinese
filmmakers (such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang) also rose to
prominence throughout the 1980s.28
The second leg of this ÒAsian waveÓ occurred in
the mid-to-late 1990s as younger generation of filmmakers from China, Taiwan, Japan,
South Korea and Iran followed respectively and closely interacted with Slow Cinema, in
which Tsai Ming-liang took an important role (I shall elaborate on this second wave at
the end of the next section). In the meantime, however, Chinese Sixth Generation
filmmakers such as Jia Zhangke and Wang Xiaoshuai showcased their dissident films in
film festivals and their struggles with Chinese censorship regulations popularized their
work even further.29
As such, international film festivals took a major role in the
distribution of art cinema and they became the sites in which exchanges between
regional traditions and global audiences took place and cultivated newer forms of
cinephilia. As this thesis aims to demonstrate, the culmination of this process was the
dissemination of the Slow Cinema discourse at the turn of the 21st
century.
New Taiwan Cinema films were easily accepted by European and international
cinephiles as they often resembled European modernist films in terms of their use of
film style and narrative form. Guo-Juin Hong argues that Ònarrative ellipses and stylistic
120 
ambiguityÓ are conventions of New Taiwan Cinema during this period and while HouÕs
use of the long take functioned as an Òintensified cinematic configuration of the
temporal-spatial relationship between the characters and their environment,Ó YangÕs
incorporation of a similar aesthetic into the modern urban environment, enhanced by the
use of open-ended narrative structure, was often dubbed ÒEuropean, Western and/or
bourgeoisÓ style by several critics.30
Some of these aesthetic features, most prominently
the use of episodic structures in narratives, will be detailed in the later sections and
compared to the ways in which Tsai used them. Furthermore, YangÕs films displayed a
critical view of consumer society and modernity, or in other words the films often
suggested that adoption of Westernized value systems resulted in the loss of traditional
cultural values of its characters and led critics to dub Yang as a modernist filmmaker
who uses cinema as political critique.31
As such, in terms of film style and narrative
form, New Taiwan Cinema functions as a bridge between 1960s modernist art cinema
and contemporary Slow Cinema.
This section aimed at providing a brief historical outlook of New Taiwan
Cinema as well as explicating its prominent aesthetic features. New Taiwan Cinema
emerged as a strong contrast to the escapist national film industry of Taiwan and
acquired significant success within international film festivals throughout the 1980s.
Re-appropriating the ÒHealthy RealistÓ style inherited from the state-controlled film
industry with modernist aesthetics, Taiwanese filmmakers left a cinematic legacy that
probed questions of Taiwanese society, culture and history. Paradoxically, such local
concerns attracted the attention of Western audiences and enabled the circulation of
Taiwanese films on a global scale at a time when the European art cinema was in
decline. As such, the New Taiwan Cinema movement provided an aesthetic as well as
an institutional background for the rise of Slow Cinema in the 21st
century. The next
section focuses on the ways in which Tsai Ming-liang entered the international film
festival circuit and maintained a strong presence in the global art cinema stage by
adopting and to a certain extent exploiting provocative aesthetic strategies.
121 
3.3 Ð Tsai Ming-liang: Between Camp and Minimalist Aesthetics
After this brief exposition of New Taiwan Cinema, the current section concentrates on
the work of Tsai Ming-liang. Tsai is often considered to be a part of the second wave of
art cinema directors that emerged following the decline of New Taiwan Cinema in the
late 1980s. Born in Malaysia in 1957, Tsai came to Taiwan when he was twenty to
study drama at the Chinese Cultural University of Taiwan. Upon his graduation, he
spent the 1980s directing and scriptwriting in the television industry as well as
producing stage plays.32
As an artist he was an outsider to Taiwanese culture, but this
enabled him to discern certain cultural specificities of the island nation. In this respect, a
significant parallel can be drawn between Tsai and Hou Hsiao-hsien, who was born in
the mainland China and came to Taiwan at an early age, as well as Edward Yang, who
spent years in the United States working as a software engineer.33
Similar to the New
Taiwan Cinema movement, TsaiÕs cinema, especially his early work, consisted of an
inward look at the islandÕs contemporary society. However, with considerable success
at international film festivals, TsaiÕs films took on a different role in global art cinema
movements as opposed to other Taiwanese filmmakers. By the end of the 20th
century,
Tsai primarily catered to international film festival audiences through films that
provocatively depicted sexual themes and chiefly relied on ambiguous imagery through
an exaggerated application of the long take. As such, this section explores TsaiÕs
filmography through three distinctive phases by focusing on the filmsÕ production
history, subversion of genre conventions and camp aesthetics.
TsaiÕs whole filmography is, in essence, a continuous narrative depicting the
life, struggles and relationships of a character named Hsiao-kang, who is in effect, a
screen alter ego played by Lee Kang-sheng. While cast searching for one of his
television films, Tsai coincidentally met Lee in front of a video arcade and convinced
him to play the Hsiao-kang role, a collaboration that lasted to this day across several
television films, nine features and two shorts. This complicated, albeit continuous
filmography can be divided into three broad phases. The first phase consists of the socalled
Taipei Trilogy, namely Rebels of the Neon God (Qing shao nian nuo zha, 1993),
Vive LÕAmour (Ai qing wan sui, 1994) and The River (He liu, 1997), in which Tsai sets
the main story arch revolving around Hsiao-kang, a lonely adolescent alienated from
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society who wanders often aimlessly across Taipei. The films focus on Hsiao-kangÕs
ambivalent relationship to his family and his accidental affairs with other working class
characters scattered around various parts of the city. Rebels of the Neon God, for
instance, portrays Hsiao-kang as an expelled student, who in his wanderings in the city
develops a troubled and bizarre relationship to his family as well as to a rival/idol street
thug. Furthermore, Vive LÕAmour depicts Hsiao-kang finding shelter in an empty
apartment, which turns out to be the very place which its real estate agent uses as a
sexual retreat with her accidental lover. As such, an absurd menage-a-trois of alienated
characters unknowingly share the same apartment building, which results in dead-pan
irony: while longing for social contact, all characters are unaware of their proximity to
each other. The River, on the other hand, portrays Hsiao-kangÕs dysfunctional family in
the midst of their sexual, social and physical depression. The film begins by Hsiao-kang
contracting a mysterious disease from a river, which disables his ability to move his
neck, while his father is obsessed with rain ruining his apartment. In a visit to a gay
sauna in the hope of healing his pain, Hsiao-kang performs fellatio on his father, who
secretly frequents the baths. In the meantime, the mother has an incestuous desire
towards her son and tries to repress her desires to no avail. As I will discuss later, such
sexually provocative plot lines led many critics to claim that TsaiÕs films were aiming to
capture international festival attention.
The Taipei Trilogy films were largely produced by grants from local and
national initiatives, but their success at the international film festival stage later enabled
Tsai to draw upon alternative resources. For his first features, however, Tsai relied
heavily on The Domestic Film Guidance Fund, which was established by Taiwanese
authorities in 1989 to revitalize the film industry.34
TsaiÕs first four films received NT
$28 million from the fund, but the domestic revenues of these features rarely broke even
with their production costs.35
Vive LÕAmour, for instance made only NT $11 million in
its Taiwanese release, but after winning the Golden Lion in Venice later that year its
exhibition rights were sold to Italy for US $150,000.36
Vive LÕAmourÕs success at
Venice was critical for TsaiÕs career and, as we shall see in later sections, all of his
future films were screened at major festivals, receiving major awards and were in large
part co-produced or co-financed by mainly European production and distribution
companies. The River, for instance, earned a Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film
123 
Festival and was widely exhibited at other international film festivals. However, there
was another Taiwanese resource that Tsai collaborated with. The film critic Peggy
Chiao created the production company Arc Light along with the director Xu Xiaoming,
which aimed at producing Òartful films with both popular appeal and international sales
potential.Ó37
The company had financial backing from France and included a number of
talented technicians scouted from Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China. One of
their earliest projects was TsaiÕs fourth feature The Hole (Dong, 1998), which was part
of a series of one-hour films commemorating the 21st
century commissioned by the
French-German television channel ARTE.38
This collaboration commenced TsaiÕs
second phase in which his interaction with French production companies and
international film festivals intensified.
By the turn of the 21st
century, Tsai was making films exclusively for
international film festival audiences backed by French production companies. In other
words, his methods of filmmaking were significantly altered, but he became one of the
major figures of Taiwanese art cinema along with Hou Hsiao-hsien, who at this stage
had also began co-productions with France and Edward Yang, who after his enormously
successful Yi Yi (2000) passed away. TsaiÕs second phase of films nevertheless carried
on a similar sense of narrative trajectory with its stock characters and thematic
obsessions. In fact, all of these films dealt with generic issues such as urban alienation
and dysfunctional families at one level of their narrative structures, but on a larger
framework, each film was formed of a selection of various themes from a pool of
subjects, including homosexuality, death, boredom, depression, everyday rituals,
suicide, banal activities, adolescence or environmental catastrophes. Similarly, TsaiÕs
casting is composed of a limited group of actors and actresses, who continuously play a
more or less predefined character, in turn developing specific screen personas
throughout the films. As noted earlier, Lee Kang-sheng portrayed the ubiquitous Hsiaokang
across all films, an imaginative screen alter ego as well as a muse to the director.
Other recurring characters included Tien Miao, almost exclusively playing a father
figure; Lu Hsiao-ling, a mother figure; Yang Kuei-mei, an attractive but lonely woman
figure; Chen Shiang-chyi, another female love interest figure; and finally Chen Chaojung,
an alternative male figure. Such a repetition of themes and casting choices
strongly supported TsaiÕs status as an art cinema director and strengthened the
124 
circulation of his films in international film festivals. For Mark Betz, much of TsaiÕs
aesthetic strategies (Òformalist rigor and visual styleÓ) as well as the approach to casting
and characterization have their roots in European modernist art cinema.39
As such, at
this point Tsai was already associated with Slow Cinema and its critical discourses. As I
will elaborate later in this section as well as the next, much of TsaiÕs visual style,
imagery and narrative form became a benchmark amongst festival audiences.
TsaiÕs second phase also demonstrated the ways in which he manipulated genre
conventions, mixing together unusual genres and notions such as the musical, the
apocalyptic film, melodrama, science fiction and pornography. The Hole, for example,
presents a world on the brink of an environmental disaster due to the spread of an
unexplained disease, a narrative trope that recurs in various ways in other films. While
authorities order Taipei to be evacuated, Hsiao-kang decides to stay home and begins an
awkward relationship with his downstairs neighbour through a small hole accidentally
drilled on his floor by a plumber. In the meanwhile, the plot is interrupted by musical
interludes that humourously represent the charactersÕ developing relationship. The
Wayward Cloud (Tian bian yi duo yun, 2005) also uses musical numbers against a city
suffering from water shortage. In the film, Hsiao-kang works as a pornographic actor
and suddenly suffers from impotency, until he finds his long lost love Shiang-chyi.
Mixing together pornography and the musical, The Wayward Cloud emphasizes the
union of love between Hsiao-kang and Shiang-chyi, a broken relationship that was
introduced earlier in What Time is it There? (Ni na bian ji dian, 2001), a co-production
between the French Arena films and TsaiÕs own Homegreen Films and shot in both
Taipei and Paris. The film portrays Hsiao-kang as a street vendor, who is going through
a rough period following the death of his father. While his mother enacts various
superstitious activities at home, Hsiao-kang falls in love with Shiang-chyi, who at the
time is merely a client buying a watch from him and leaves Taipei for Paris to study.
Unable to recover, Hsiao-kang changes all of his clocks to Parisian mean time.40
As
such, the film stands as a parody of melodramatic conventions and some of its
humorous strategies will be detailed in later sections.
At this point I want to take a detour from TsaiÕs filmography and consider some
thematic aspects of TsaiÕs films as well as elaborate on the ways in which he plays with
125 
genre conventions. What is noticeable in this phase of TsaiÕs filmography is the
evolution from a political activism of the Taipei trilogy into aesthetic provocativeness.
The rigorous social critique of Vive LÕAmour, for instance, is repositioned as ambiguous
and provocative representations of sexuality in The River and The Wayward Cloud,
which led certain Taiwanese writers to criticize Tsai for portraying taboo subjects to
deliberately acquire international fame and attention.41
At the centre of this
transformation, however, is TsaiÕs self-conscious attempt at genre mixing. The
Wayward Cloud, for example, uses conventions of musicals and pornography, whereas
the mixture emphasizes the protagonistÕs sexual ambivalence. Typically, the plot in the
musical genre is driven by a heterosexual desire aiming towards a mythological reunion
between the protagonist and his/her partner. The musical numbers in between either
show the obstacles the characters overcome or the situations they encounter. In The
Wayward Cloud, however, Hsiao-kangÕs reluctant relationship with Shiang-chyi
undermines the whole concept of the heterosexual desire as well as forming an absurd
relationship between cinematic genres of the musical and pornography. Vivian Lee
argues that the filmÕs Òcamp sensibility,Ó reinforced by the use of irony and parody,
works towards a Òqueering of space,Ó in which the moral boundaries between
homosexual and heterosexual love, as well as high and low art are blurred. In many
ways, Tsai provokes and dismantles traditional notions of sexuality within this film by
what Lee terms as Òthe structuring of looks and visual parallelsÓ (referring to sequences
in which Tsai employs graphic matches between several scenes at the beginning of the
film).42
Towards the end, the film becomes a string of obscure metaphorical situations
stripped away from any direct explanation by way of conventional narrational devices
such as dialogue.
As such, The Wayward Cloud challenges traditional notions of the musical genre
by incorporating aspects of pornography. Hsiao-kangÕs ambivalence towards sexuality
is one that has received much attention. Vivian Lee writes that ÒHsiao-kangÕs queerness
and his enactment of a heterosexual phallic fantasy as farce goes beyond a mockery of
the heterosexual regime toward self-assertion of sexual identity,Ó whereas the sexual
ambivalence performed by Hsiao-kang not only blurs the boundaries between being
homosexual or heterosexual, but also Òredirects our attention to the question of
boundary, and of how the very idea of boundary is intricately connected with ingrained
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practices of mass mediated culture and cultural performance.Ó43
While the film mixes
musical melodrama with less appreciated popular forms of entertainment (pornography
and camp, more later on the latter), the outcome is one of subversion; a subversion not
only of the boundaries of sexuality, but also the subversion of our understanding of
genre hybridization. The extreme and provoking conflict between the two genres creates
incongruity, which Tsai exploits for reasons of irony and parody. The last scene, for
instance, in which Hsiao-kang finally breaks away from his impotency by jumping
away from the porn actress and aiming towards Shiang-chyi at the moment of his
orgasm, is one scene that the absurdity of the situation undermines the emotional
intensity, so much so that it almost becomes a scene of self-parody.
Parodies of emotional and sentimental moments appear throughout TsaiÕs films,
especially in sequences in which he subverts the conventions of the Confucian family
melodrama either by mocking traditional customs or replacing the lack of its existence
with the presence of homosexual communities. By Confucian family melodrama, I
mean the type of Chinese family drama that Òfocuses less on the individual in conflict
with the family and more on the family as a collectivity in crisisÓ and whose stories are
often influenced by the centuries old Confucian code of ethics that delineates the
Òreciprocal ethical obligationsÓ between different subjects (such as the obligations of a
son toward his father or a brother to a brother, etc.).44
Tsai not only debunks these
traditional Confucian doctrines and ethical values through the use of black humour, but
also resolves its conflicts in unusual and completely non-mainstream ways. Referring to
Ang LeeÕs The Wedding Banquet (1993), Yeh and Davis argue that the basic conflicts
of the family ethical drama are resolved in much more acceptable ways than in TsaiÕs
works. In The Wedding Banquet, the homosexual relationship of the son is Òtacitly
acceptedÓ by the father, who compromises the ethics of the family in favour of having a
grandchild, while in TsaiÕs The River, the conflict within the family is resolved by
homosexual incest between the father and the son.45
Fran Martin, on the other hand,
associates the absence of family and home in Vive LÕAmour with the rise of TaiwanÕs
contemporaneous local gay and lesbian communities, called tongzhi (or tongxinglian)
and argues that Òthe filmÕs paralleling of the homosexual theme with its obsessive focus
on graphic, architectural, aural and metaphysical emptiness rehearses the familiar
cultural logic that makes tongxinglian merely the cipher of heterosexual plenitude.Ó46
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As such, themes normally associated with the traditional Confucian family melodrama
are subverted through provocative depictions of sexuality that oppose other mainstream
productions.
The result of subverting genre conventions in such provocative efforts raises the
question whether TsaiÕs films relate to the concept of genre hybridity. Mark Betz, for
example, writes Òthe generic themes of family duty and tradition and the modern
conditions of alienation [É] are combined with [É] a modernist visual style so rigorous
and ascetic as to hybridize the family melodrama into a new form Ð the art
melodrama.Ó47
Yet, what exactly does hybridity mean and what are its criteria? On this
subject, Janet Staiger advocates an approach that goes back to Mikhail Bakhtin, whose
conception of hybridization Òstresses the meeting of two different ÔstylesÕ or
ÔlanguagesÕ derived from different cultures,Ó a process that Òpermits dialogue between
the two languages.Ó48
BetzÕs initial suggestion, for instance, already establishes the
seeds of such a dialogue between the cultural traditions of Taiwanese family drama and
modernist visual styles (with the addition of Western genre conventions such as the
musical, pornography and the disaster film), all of which take place within a global
network of distribution. The Hole and The Wayward Cloud, however, achieve a comic
aspect through mixing these contrasting genres. In this respect, Staiger points out that
the hybridized text often presents itself as a parody Ð most clearly visible in films such
as Back to the Future III (1990) Ð and the term itself Òought be reserved for truly crosscultural
encounters.Ó49
Perhaps this last point provides another reason why TsaiÕs films
are circulated exhaustively in international film festivals, in which such exchanges
across cultures take place and are accessible to Western audiences more than to other
Taiwanese counterparts.
Yet, TsaiÕs overall genre-bending strategies, his engagement with completely
opposing genres and reformulating their conventions does not qualify him as a genre
director in the traditional sense. As such, TsaiÕs representation of contemporary
Taiwanese society through irony and parody has led scholars to indicate his close
relationship to camp aesthetics, notwithstanding the visible influence of modernist
filmmaking. According to Yeh and Davis, Tsai was often present in the screenings of
his early films and routinely protested against local distributors and the industry that
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blocked the exhibition and promotion of his films by a sentimental and Òperformative
act,Ó which the authors delineate as camp sensibility.50
TsaiÕs films, however, are not
camp in the traditional sense, exemplified in cinema by Waters and Kuchar brothers by
way of Òexaggeration, theatricality, parody and bitching.Ó It is rather a humorous (or
absurd, as I will argue later in this chapter) way of depicting the Taiwanese working
class behaviour in an urban context and transforming it into queer activity. This camp
quality, the authors argue, emerges from TsaiÕs Òwily gay aestheticÓ that manipulates
the traditional and typical notions of ordinary peasant lives into Òsomething queer.Ó
Camp sensibility invites a new perspective on TsaiÕs cinema, but it also entails
problems in terms of redefining the camp aesthetics. Although I will address the
humorous aspect of TsaiÕs cinema in later sections, I want to briefly explicate the notion
of camp in relation to the films of Tsai and Slow Cinema, revisit the conclusions of Yeh
and Davis and reconnect these ideas to the circulation of Slow Cinema films within the
global festival circuit.
The notion of camp is generally seen as a form of counter-taste that questions
the validity of mainstream culture and instead honours those artworks that
ostentatiously exhibit vulgarity. According to Susan Sontag, camp is Òa mode of
aestheticismÓ that displays a love for artifice, exaggeration, stylization and extravagance
and ultimately challenges the preconceptions of serious high art.51
As such, camp
aesthetics self-consciously questions mainstream taste for its approved seriousness and
instead celebrates a kitsch sensibility through adopting elements of what initially seems
to be Òbad art.Ó ÒCamp taste,Ó Sontag writes, Òis by its nature possible only in affluent
societies, in societies or circles capable of experiencing the psychopathology of
affluence.Ó52
In other words, camp aesthetics is an acquired taste in the sense that it is
fully determined by those esoteric critics who possess the ability and knowledge to
recognize its value. Barbara Klinger, for instance, argues that critics such as Susan
Sontag and Andrew Ross identify camp as a specialized form of activity in the wake of
the mass democratization of culture, as she writes only those Òwho understand the
conventions of good taste well enough to enjoy deposing them, and who have the time
to reconstitute themselves and/or objects in extravagant new ways, are liable to pursue
the highly self-conscious and omnivorous art of camp.Ó53
Klinger furthermore claims
that camp enabled a new intellectual class of Òminority eliteÓ to emerge, which stood in
129 
between mass culture and high culture, adopting Òa dissident set of aestheticsÓ as
marker for their cultural taste.54
In this respect, camp is related to TsaiÕs works in two aspects. On the one hand,
camp is a common aesthetic strategy to provoke and challenge assumptions of gender
and sexuality and is as such recurrently employed by gay artists. Klinger writes, for
instance, Ò[g]ays have often used the disaffected qualities of camp to provoke
reconsideration of the social distinctions between masculine and feminine.Ó55
As I have
outlined in the introduction section, much of the scholarly attention to TsaiÕs work
concentrates on the ways in which he appropriates camp aesthetics in order to reveal
localized questions of gender and sexuality. Yeh and Davis, on the other hand, find an
odd incongruity in TsaiÕs filmmaking practice mainly for its rendering of Taiwanese
working class behaviour through an ascetic visual style borrowed from European
modernists. As such, while Tsai depicts the lives of ordinary Taiwanese people, his
films chiefly address more sophisticated audiences on an international level. In other
words, as Yeh and Davis write, TsaiÕs films are Òat once a cultural transformation [É]
and transposition from a sociocultural onto an aesthetic platform,Ó which I argue is
precisely the global exchange located within international film festivals.56
Camp aesthetics and TsaiÕs presence in international film festivals are even more
present in TsaiÕs third phase, which is less a historical phase than it is a group of films.
First, although all of the films in the third phase portray Hsiao-kang, they are not as
connected to each other in terms of narrative progress as in earlier features. Secondly,
these films are mostly formed of self-reflexive intentions and as such their beginning is
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Bu San, 2003), a film-within-a-film of sorts lamenting the
dramatic changes in film going culture, represented through a story that takes place at a
traditional, grand cinema theatre prior to its closure. Hsiao-kang only briefly appears as
the projectionist towards the end of the film, emphasizing the shift from an interest in an
alter-ego character towards an interest in the film theatre. Later sections will analyse
Goodbye, Dragon Inn in detail, not only in terms of its use of episodic narrative form,
but also through its use of humour and relationship to critical practices such as nostalgia
and cinephilia. The third aspect of this phase is TsaiÕs increasing and provocative use of
ambiguity. I DonÕt Want to Sleep Alone (Hei yan quan, 2006), for example, portrays a
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paralyzed Hsiao-kang with Shiang-chyi looking after him and a parallel universe, which
possibly is Hsiao-kangÕs dream world, with obscure encounters that are never made
clear. Even less clear is the plot of TsaiÕs next feature, Face (Visage, 2009), which was
funded by French Ministry of Culture. There is no explicit link between the film and
TsaiÕs earliest works and the film works mostly as a free form meditation and reflection
on images and image making as well as a sentimental letter to Fran•ois Truffaut. The
latest film by Tsai distributed in international film festivals as well as online networks is
the short Walker (2012), also distributed part of a portmanteau film Beautiful 2012
(2012). Walker is, in many ways, the ultimate Slow Cinema film. In its span of 27
minutes, the film depicts Lee Kang-sheng in Buddhist clothing, walking extremely,
tenaciously and slowly across the Taipei cityscapes, while rest of the urban centre keeps
at its usual pace.
TsaiÕs increasing use of minimalism and Slow Cinema aesthetics has led
scholars such as James Udden to locate his work within what he calls Òa trendy pan-East
Asian minimalism;Ó a wave of East Asian directors principally composed of Hong
Sang-soo, Hirokazu Koreeda and Xu Xiaoming.57
According to Udden, these
filmmakers emerged following Hou Hsiao-hsienÕs success at Venice in 1989 and largely
ÒimitatedÓ HouÕs long take aesthetic coupled with the stationary camera to gain
recognition in international film festivals. While there is no doubt that these filmmakers
employed an aesthetics of meandering pace, lack of dialogue, static mise-en-sc•ne as
well as a thematic focus on the effects of belated modernization and globalization in
Asian societies, UddenÕs insinuating judgement in calling them ÒHou imitatorsÓ seems
slightly derogative for such a view simply overlooks the subtle differences between
these directors.58
Elsewhere, David Bordwell also refers to Òan indigenous realist
movementÓ arising throughout Asia in the late 1990s, in which the list of directors
expands to include Kim Ki Duk, Lee Chang-dong, Nobuhiro Suwa, Shinji Aoyama, Jia
Zhangke and Tian Zhuangzhuang.59
Clearly the international film festivals play an
incredible role in the ways in which these films are distributed across global networks.
As such, TsaiÕs films became part of the Òfestival filmÓ discourse that adopted
minimalist aesthetics accompanied by an extreme use of the long take. Nevertheless,
Jean Ma argues the minimalist aesthetics often found in TsaiÕs films were Òcontradicted
by a sort of maximalism, instantiated in the intertextual proliferation that characterizesÓ
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What Time is it There? and Goodbye, Dragon Inn. ÒThe positioning of his films
simultaneously within these multiple genealogies,Ó writes Ma, Òsets Tsai apart from the
filmmakers of the Taiwan New Cinema, who were at pains to distinguish their work
from the formulas of popular genre cinema, and reveals the mutations undergone by art
cinema in the contemporary era.Ó60
This section provided an overview of TsaiÕs films in relation to their production
history, thematic structures and visual aesthetics. TsaiÕs initial films were largely
supported by Taiwanese financial mechanisms, but with early success in European film
festivals Tsai was able to draw external funding from transnational production
companies. With the Taiwanese domestic film industry in decline, TsaiÕs films regularly
premiered in international film festivals and the intense circulation of his films resulted
in the association of his work to a global wave of minimalism and strategies of genre
mixing. Such an incongruity provoked questions of camp aesthetics in which certain
critics blamed Tsai for deliberately displaying taboo subjects and sexual ambivalence in
order to attain international festival presence.61
This was in large part connected to the
rise of a Òpan-East Asian minimalismÓ that stormed the international film festivals
during the 1990s. The next section, consequently, aims to distinguish TsaiÕs work
further in terms of their narrative structure and use of ambiguous symbols.
3.4 Ð Narrative Form: Episodic Structure and Symbolism
In this section I turn my focus towards analysing TsaiÕs films in terms of their narrative
form. Beginning with the idea of an episodic structure, I argue that TsaiÕs films are
often made up of separate episodes that rarely have a causal connection between each
other. While thematically connected, these episodes in themselves feature the basic
requirements of narratives, albeit executed through a temporal economy that often
defies and consistently delays comprehension. In addition to its stock characters, these
films also consistently portray objects, symbols or visual motifs and are in many ways
symptomatic of TsaiÕs status as an auteur-director and sustain his presence in film
festivals. These motifs, however, not only invite auterist interpretations throughout their
deliberate recurrence, but their nature of dualness in fact creates a sense of incongruity
132 
that is best described as absurd humour, which I elaborate in detail in the following
section.
One of the narrational devices that Tsai inherits from the New Taiwan Cinema is
the use of episodes within the general plot structure. Hou Hsiao-hsien, for example, uses
the episodic structure to divide the film into a past and a present, usually resulting in an
isolation of historical events and linking their effects to life in contemporary Taiwan. In
The Puppetmaster (1993), for example, Hou intercuts the fictional recreations of the life
and struggles of Li Tianlu, a master puppeteer whose work was banned under Japanese
colonization, with contemporary interviews with Li Tianlu himself, who in these
instances reminisces about his past experiences. Representing separate episodes through
extreme long takes and static camera angles, Hou melds together historical past with
contemporary commentary.62
Edward Yang, on the other hand, uses the episode
structure to interrupt the plot progression with instances of flashbacks, which reveals
more information and insight about the characters. YangÕs first film That Day, on the
Beach (1983), for example, portrays the meeting of two friends who were apart for
years but decided to see each other to recount old memories. Their conversation
develops into a complex series of flashbacks and at times flashbacks within flashbacks,
some of which are not marked or motivated as such and hence interrupt the plot
progression. Nevertheless, the flashback sequences recur as separate episodes that not
only re-enact previous events, but also function as a means to investigate the Taiwanese
cultural past. Such a historical interest in the Taiwanese past is even more explicitly
visible in A Brighter Summer Day, which uses the episode structure to chronicle the
historical events that a Taiwanese family endures throughout the 1960s.
Tsai, however, uses the episodic narrative structure for different purposes.
Despite containing three to four characters in each film, Tsai rarely shows these
characters together on screen at the same time. Instead, Tsai tends to portray his
characters in their solitude, fulfilling their daily, banal and mundane activities
commonly represented through a single long take from a fixed camera position.63
The
episodes in this instance turn into the study of certain characters in their privacy and
against public sphere that they occupy, rather than explore the ways in which they
interrelate to other characters within a social sphere. Such an aesthetic strategy results in
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Òthe melding of the public and the private,Ó in the words of Kent Jones, who writes that
TsaiÕs Òcamera seems to gaze at every scene from a distance that is by turns [É]
discreet, respectful, empathetic and voyeuristic.Ó64
In other words, there is at once both
an aesthetic distance between the spectator and TsaiÕs characters for the manner the
action is portrayed, but there is also closeness from the solitary and almost naivety of
the ways in which actions unfold within these scenes. Jones suggests that this even
applies to Hsiao-kang: despite playing Òroughly the same autobiographical characterÓ
across these films, Hsiao-kang is at Òeven distance, [which] Tsai maintains from each of
his characters.Ó This distance between the spectator and the subject operates on two
premises. Firstly, by isolating events from context, it reduces narrative intelligibility or
delays cause-effect relationships. Secondly, the internal incongruity of such events leads
to humorous situations, which I will address in the next section. The opening sequence
of What Time Is It There?, however, should briefly demonstrate these two points. The
father (Tien Miao) prepares lunch, lights up a cigarette and calls for Hsiao-kang to join
him, but after minutes of waiting decides to finish his cigarette in a terrace located at the
opposite end of the room (See Figure 3.1). The next shot depicts Hsiao-kang sitting at
the back of a car carrying an object wrapped in a cloth (Figure 3.2) and utters the words
ÒDad, weÕre going through the tunnel, you have to follow us, OK?Ó In the next scene a
funeral procession takes place (Figure 3.3), implying that the father has passed away
and Hsiao-kang was in fact addressing his spirit Ð at which point we retrospectively
realize that the object Hsiao-kang carried in the earlier shot was as an urn. In other
words, an ambiguous scene becomes suddenly intelligible through retrospective
evaluation, which becomes one of the main strategies in which Tsai constructs his
narrative structures.
Figure 3.1 Ð What Time is it There? (2001) Figure 3.2 Ð cont.
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Figure 3.3 Ð cont. Figure 3.4 Ð cont.
The sequence that follows demonstrates how Tsai uses these instances to turn
them into humorous situations. Hsiao-kang wakes up in the middle of the night and tries
to walk across the lounge, but after traversing it halfway through he runs back to his
bedroom. In the next shot, Hsiao-kang gets up from his bed, finds a plastic bag and
urinates in it (Figure 3.4). In other words, his fear of running into his fatherÕs spirit in
the other room results in finding an alternative solution for his sanitary needs, whose
comedic effect will be detailed in the later section. In short, the opening sequence of
What Time Is It There?, consisting of four shots and roughly ten minutes, rests on a
temporal economy that challenges the straightforwardness of a mainstream narrative
structure. The seemingly detached events do not introduce the main plot strand in the
film, nor do they establish any character goals or motivations. They merely present a
chain of events that later function as trivial moments of laughter: for example, the fear
of running into the spirit is humorously revisited several times later in the film and at
the very end we realize the father had in fact moved to Paris. In other words, the causal
links between the events are not presented directly to the spectator, but are inferred
retrospectively, whereas the inherent slowness and trivialization in each scene makes it
all the more difficult to comprehend exactly how that causal relationship unfolds.
The slowing down of narrative action is clearly a common aesthetic strategy
amongst Slow Cinema films, but Tsai takes this even further by not only showing
monotonous action slowly, but also cutting together many of these sequences
throughout the film. Many of TsaiÕs films are essentially strings of episodes portraying
individual actions by characters with little interaction among them. These sequences
initially appear as separate vignettes and are commonly shot in a single long take,
without dialogue or close-ups to direct our attention to narrative detail. As such, the
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films unfold meaning completely through their mise-en-sc•ne and rely on the spectator
to comprehend the causal links between each sequence. What I want to point out here is
the fact that even though these films are principally considered as narrative films, their
stylistic peculiarities are so much in the forefront that they pressure us towards different
forms of engagement as well as produce novel versions of absurd comedy. More
important, however, are the ways in which these films exploit several fundamental
aspects of narrative systems while radically avoiding others, therefore attaining an
unusual balance in terms of a full-fledged narrative. What follows, then, is a
comprehensive narrative analysis of Goodbye, Dragon Inn, which demonstrates the
ways in which the film blends together extremely simple events by intercutting
seemingly unrelated events that undermine cause-effect relationships.
My approach to narrative analysis in this instance is largely informed by the
methods Edward Branigan sets out in his Narrative Comprehension and Film. For
Branigan, narrative is first and foremost Òa strategy for making our world of
experiences and desires intelligibleÓ and as such Òis a fundamental way of organizing
data.Ó65
In other words, narrative is an organizational system that consists of various
units of information, which are arranged in a meaningful order through cause-effect
fashion. Narrative schema, on the other hand, refers to the set of preconceptions,
knowledge and patterns, which the spectator already holds prior to engaging with
narratives Ð in other words, our expectations and other assumptions.66
As such,
Branigan suggests a system to account for the ways in which such data can be collected
in order to inform and better understand narrative schema.67
Introducing this vocabulary
that Branigan proposes will help identify several aspects of the narrative form that Tsai
constructs as well as show how certain units of data collection are absent from it.
According to this system, Òa simple narrative is a series of episodes collected as a
focused chain. Not only are the parts themselves in each episode linked by cause and
effect, but the continuing centre is allowed to develop, progress and interact from
episode to episode.Ó Episodes in this sense are Òconsequences of a central situation: for
example, collecting everything that happens to a particular character in a particular
setting.Ó Therefore, insofar as the spatial and temporal parameters remain linear,
segments that follow a certain character in the film constitute episodes. Branigan points
out that unlike more rudimentary forms of collecting data (such as heap or catalogue,
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which are randomly associated units of data), an episode shows progression. As such,
an episode will have its own internal dynamics and show relationships between other
units of data. A focused chain, on the other hand, Òis a series of cause and effects with a
continuing centre; for example [É] the events surrounding an object or place.Ó
Conversely an unfocused chain is Òa series of cause and effects but with no continuing
center.Ó In this case episodes seem to appear randomly without developing a central
theme or idea, albeit maintaining the cause-effect relationship.68
In BraniganÕs system, cause-effect relationships are central to the development
of narratives. Slow Cinema in general and Tsai Ming-liang in particular, however,
undermine these relationships in various ways. While avoiding schematic expectations
such as cause and effect, motivation and goals these films establish almost independent
episodes through a temporal economy that eludes meaningful narratives. An extended
analysis of TsaiÕs Goodbye, Dragon Inn will demonstrate the ways in which the film
undermines some of the necessary aspects of ordinary data collection. Goodbye, Dragon
Inn is perhaps an extreme example of TsaiÕs minimalist narratives. It takes place in a
single setting, the Fu-Ho Grand Theatre in Taipei prior to its final screening of the
martial arts epic Dragon Inn. Meanwhile, the film is intercut into three distinct character
groups; whose goals and motivations are not conveniently established at the outset, but
rather are revealed later on as the film progresses. The groups consist of (1) a limping
female ticket clerk, who painfully walks around the theatre trying to seek an absent
projectionistÕs attention; (2) a Japanese tourist, who takes refuge inside the theatre and
becomes involved with the audience in the theatre in mostly humorous ways; and (3)
two old men, who are present at the theatre during the whole screening, and come
together and converse about their past just before the film ends. These groups remain
separate throughout the film, or in other words, we never see them together in the same
setting (with the exception of a short exchange of looks between the tourist and one of
the old men). As such, the filmÕs plot consists of developing three separate strands and
appears to be an unfocused chain.
What follows is a plot segmentation of the film, showing how Tsai cuts between
different characters groups and episodes within the same setting. The differentiation
between each segment is carried out according to changes in micro-settings (cut from a
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bathroom scene to the projection room, for example) or changes in between the focus on
characters, where the changes between the ticket clerk and the tourist seem to be most
prominent. Notice how several segments are formed of only a single long take, varying
from a few seconds to minutes. For the sake of simplicity, I have formed some segments
together, mostly scenes in which Tsai intercuts the characters in a relatively rapid
manner. This plot segmentation is useful not only in terms of recognizing how Tsai
subverts narrative structures, but will also be central to my argument in the next section
regarding his use of absurd humour.
A. Credits: soundtrack of the original Dragon Inn in the background, sound bridge
to series of shots depicting the auditorium and the screen with audience
watching the film.
B. External establishing shot of Fu-Ho Grand Theatre. The tourist arrives and looks
around the foyer, cut to a corridor shot in which the tourist enters the
auditorium, while the ticket clerk emerges from the corner, walking back the
same path
C. Series of single shots:
i. Tourist finding a seat and watching the film
ii. Ticket clerk eating a snack in her office
iii. After watching the film briefly, tourist leaves the auditorium
D. Series of shots of the ticket clerk preparing half of her bun-snack into a bag,
walking with it and climbing a couple flights of stairs to arrive at the empty
projector room, leaving the bun inside
E. Tourist back in the auditorium, showing the first old man in the front seat as
well as other members of the audience distracting the tourist. Deep focus shot of
the second old man entering the auditorium. Series of shots of the screen and the
tourist trying to seek attention from the first old man
F. Ticket clerk is cleaning the bathroom
G. Single shot of another bathroom with the tourist and other members of the
audience
H. Ticket clerk walking behind the screen, juxtaposed images between herself and
the female character on the screen. Followed by the clerk walking towards the
projection room again and spying inside the room through a door opening
I. A sub-segment intercutting:
i. Multiple shots of tourist wandering inside the building and looking at other
people
ii. Ticket clerk inside the projector room, discovers bun is not eaten
iii. Tourist meeting with other men cruising somewhere around the building
iv. Ticket clerk takes the bun away
v. Tourist converses with a man, first dialogue in the film
J. Series of shots inside the auditorium, between the woman eating peanuts and the
tourist
K. Ticket clerk looking down the corridor
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L. Back to the now empty auditorium. Multiple shots of the two old men
exchanging looks
M. Screening ends, ticket clerk walks inside the auditorium in a painfully slow pace
and exits while we watch the empty theatre, all in a single shot
N. Series of shots of the two old men meeting in the foyer and conversing about
their past, revealing that they were the actors in the original Dragon Inn
O. Series of single shots;
i. The projectionistÕs first appearance, smoking and preparing the film rolls
ii. Ticket clerk finishes the cleaning in the bathroom
iii. Projectionist setting up new buckets for drainage
iv. Ticket clerk in her office, dresses up and leaves the building
P. Series of shots: Projectionist closing the gates, plays a little video game,
discovers the half eaten bun and leaves the building with his motorcycle, while
the ticket clerk watches him from behind
Q. Ticket clerk walks through the heavy rain, a nostalgic 1960s song concludes the
film bridging the last scene with the end credits
Perhaps the first point to make of this plot segmentation is that there is no direct
causal relationship amongst any of the character groups. The touristÕs wanderings inside
the theatre building have absolutely no effect on any of the actions that the ticket clerk
undertakes and they conveniently never encounter each other throughout their mini
journeys inside the building. On several occasions, the tourist tries to establish a
relationship with other members of the audience, including the unresponsive old man,
but to no avail. The filmÕs first line of dialogue (ÒDo you know this theatre is haunted?
Ghosts.Ó), occurring between the tourist and an audience member, gives us no
immediate information, only when the two old men meet do we realize that the ghost
reference was implied at them as they were the actors from the original Dragon Inn.
Similarly, we cannot grasp why the ticket clerk is painfully walking all around the
building just to drop a bun in the projection room. It all comes together in one of the last
moments of the film, when we see the projectionist, following his discovery of the halfeaten
bun, decides to leave on his motorbike while the ticket clerk watches him from
behind. Only at this point we realize that the ticket woman is seeking attention, very
much similar to the manner in which the tourist was seeking attention. There are no
explicit indications of the homosexuality of the tourist, despite the fact that the Fu-Ho
Theatre was renowned as a site where men went to cruise for gay sex. We may,
however, derive this information through the touristÕs encounters with other men: in
segment E, for example, the tourist reaches another audience member closely as if to
kiss him, but upon receiving no attention from the man gets back to his seat. Once
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again, the fragmented episodes, lack of exposition and concealing character goals and
motivations do not allow to make this connection.
Despite the absence of cause and effect links, the film can still be considered as
a focused chain in terms of two unifying elements. Firstly, the physical existence of the
theatre functions as a unifying setting as well as a significant clue in identifying the
filmÕs overall object of study: the lamentation on the decline of film theatres and days of
cinema going. Aspects of this lamentation will be discussed in relation to cinephilia in
the later sections. Secondly, there is a thematic pattern that roughly links all of these
character groups as all of them engage in actions with a similar goal, albeit one that is
not explicitly disclosed. Whether it is a romantic union for the ticket clerk, or a
homosexual affair for the tourist, or a slightly metaphorical longing for memorial by the
two old men, all characters display desperate acts of fulfilling their desires that were
hitherto unsatisfied. Yeh and Davis write, ÒTsaiÕs films stage a critique, or at least a
mockery, of Òbourgeois assimilationismÓ and middle-class fantasies of belonging.Ó69
In
Goodbye, Dragon Inn, all characters display a desperate attempt to establish some sort
of dialogue with the outside world, to move beyond their solitary comfort zones in
achieving a kind of tranquillity that will satisfy their desires. Because the film does not
properly establish these goals in its initial stages, these motivations become clearer in
retrospect as the film progresses. In fact, many of these goals are made clear right at the
end of the film, which at the same time poignantly does not resolve any of the inferred
conflicts as all characters leave the theatre after failing to connect with each other or
fulfilling their desires.
Throughout the film, Tsai concentrates on the charactersÕ actions rather than on
describing or emphasizing their goals and motivations. The repetition of mundane
actions creates some sort of internal rhythm between the episodes; at least in the sense
that there is a kind of audible interest in the way characters move about within the
setting. For example, in segment D, we are shown the limping ticket clerkÕs painfully
long journey carrying the warm bun from her office to the projection room, in the hope
that it will somehow impress the projectionist. At the start of the sequence we see the
woman preparing the bun, assuming sheÕs carrying it for a reason, but the
extraordinarily slow depiction of her movement downplays the significance of such a
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prop, and after a while the whole sequence simply becomes a rhythmic representation of
her uneven footsteps. As such, the visual image becomes trivial and in service of the
sonic qualities of the film, echoing the scene from BŽla TarrÕs Werckmeister Harmonies
in which Janos and Mr Eszter walk. At the end of the sequence in Goodbye, Dragon
Inn, the prop ceases to be of importance to us and we only recognize its significance in
retrospect, which happens in segment I-ii when the ticket clerk realizes that the
projectionist did not eat it. Similarly in segment M, depicted through a fixed extreme
long shot, Tsai invests a stunning five-minute screen time into showing how the ticket
clerk walks up and down the empty theatre, cleaning the leftovers of the audience,
dwelling on the actual emptiness of the theatre during the last two minutes of the same
shot. Stripped away from any sonic or visual rhythmic patterning, this shot refuses to
deliver any narrative information, but rather creates a long stretch of time inviting the
audience to question and negotiate its own possible meanings.
The extreme use of duration influences our aesthetic experience in three ways.
Firstly, because it establishes incongruity with our expectations as well as within the
film, it leads to situations that produce laughter, which will be addressed in the next
section. Secondly, duration delays narrative comprehension. In other words, the
foregrounding of dead time or other trivial moments in the film delay our understanding
of several events. Such delays in narrative comprehension are not entirely specific to
TsaiÕs films. James Udden, for instance finds a similar structure in Hou Hsiao-hsienÕs
films, in which Òdelayed expositionÓ functions as a surprise element.70
In mainstream
cinema, and particularly in classical Hollywood, delay of information is crucial for
creating a variety of emotional effects, such as suspense or horror. However,
mainstream films deploy a temporal economy that sustains the suspense in the
foreground or as a major concern for the way in which plot develops. In other words, in
classical cinema delaying determines a large part of its plot, whereas in Tsai, as well as
Hou, delaying occurs on a rather trivial level. Although we realize that the limping
ticket clerk was taking a bun to the projectionist, the realization of this fact does no
explain why or what happened earlier in the film. In other words, such a realization
remains trivial compared to the ways in which intricate plot strands are illuminated
through delayed exposition in mainstream cinema. Thirdly, duration foregrounds miseen-sc•ne
while the lack of action involves the spectator in scanning its features such as
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props and settings. By eliminating causality and foregrounding actual duration, Tsai
eradicates character psychology and instead dwells on certain objects or visual
compositions for an unusual extent of time. According to Mark Betz, this Òforthright
examination of the workings of narrative [and exposing] the rhetoric of narrative
causationÓ enables symbols like water to intervene the narrative structure by Òassuming
the role of narrative agent either left vacant or unable to be taken up by characters.Ó71
Tsai repeatedly employs several obvious symbols that often drive his narratives whilst
conventional devices are withdrawn from the narrative form. In other words, while
narrative causality is thwarted and certain actions are left unexplained, the use of
symbolism becomes a way in which to tie seemingly unrelated events or make sense of
the actual narrative, altogether inviting thematic interpretation and critical viewing. Tsai
himself acknowledges these symbols recur in his films: ÒMy films really are about
symbols or metaphors, theyÕre not about reality at all, even though I do film a lot of
realistic details, everyday activities.Ó72
For the remaining part of this section I want to
address the ways in which these symbols function within TsaiÕs overall narrative
structures.
The various symbols laid out across TsaiÕs films not only invite critical, thematic
and metaphorical interpretation, but also problematize the whole notion of interpretation
as a critical methodology. Rey Chow, for instance, suggests ÒTsaiÕs films are highly
metaphorical and, as a result, offer multiple possible points of entry into them, leading
to an irresolvable network of connotations.Ó73
The second part of this idea is
problematic, firstly, because it assumes that any film constructed with matrix of
metaphors will inevitably become difficult to comprehend due to its very deliberate
fabrication. Secondly, there are many other ways to access and interpret TsaiÕs films
without resorting to any kind of symbolic analysis, as the films do not require a close
examination of these components. In other words, despite the overuse of symbols, these
films strictly remain in the domain of narrative cinema, in the sense that they offer
stories with recognizable characters and problems. What does it mean, then, for a film
to have Òmultiple points of entry?Ó If this simply means that TsaiÕs films allow for
multiple interpretations, how does it differ from any other artwork whose meaning can
be altered through different approaches and perspectives? As I have argued earlier, it is
the narrative form and stylistic decisions that influence our freedom in interpreting
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TsaiÕs films, in terms of the ambiguities surrounding the plot events as well as the use of
duration in allowing us to re-evaluate our conclusions. Furthermore, however,
metaphors and symbols laid out in TsaiÕs work are so generic in their own nature and so
varied across different films (and at times between different sequences within the same
film) that they defy traditional methods of interpretation.
My aim here is not to interpret these various symbols in relation to social,
political or cultural discourses in Taiwan, as various other critics and scholars have
attempted to do so, although I will briefly visit two popular analyses.74
Rather, I seek to
outline the basic functions of these symbols and situate them against a narrative
structure that exploits their duality as well as openness to interpretation. In fact Rey
Chow advocates a methodology that treats TsaiÕs films more than Òjust a collection of
ÒmeaningsÓ to be interpreted.Ó As such, Chow writes: Òwhat Tsai has undertaken is a
production of discursivity, one that [É] operates in the manner of an archaeological
excavation.Ó According the Chow, what is excavated is Òremnants of conventional
social and kinship relations,Ó which are Òdisplayed as part of a visual assemblage, a
repertoire that constitutes a (cinematic) discursivity in productionÓ Ð in effect, I argue, a
methodology that is little different to various modes of critical interpretation carried out
by other scholars.75
For my purposes here, TsaiÕs rendering of these familiar objects and
situations into different, unusual, strange and odd things is more important. To sum up
in the words of Yeh and Davis, ÒTsai defamiliarizes Ð or better, deforms Ð the familiar
and the everyday.Ó76
In other words, the symbols that Tsai picks complicate the notion
of a symbol in itself Ð they are not symbols in the traditional sense, in that they do not
represent a one-and-only idea, but are rather open to interpretation due to their dualities
in terms of their possible meanings and appearances. Moreover, the context in which the
object is depicted provides a more fruitful background for interpreting these symbols
and not solely the characteristic qualities of the symbol itself.
According to Yeh and Davis, the ubiquitous rice cooker is one of the recurring
objects throughout TsaiÕs films. Its representation reiterated to such an extent that it
eventually becomes unfamiliar. The authors trace the depiction of this ordinary
household object, noting that it represents the warmth and familiarity of home as well as
stands for a transformation of something simple into something extraordinary. The
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Taiwanese equivalent of the microwave sits in the background during TsaiÕs earlier
films, providing the backdrop for TsaiÕs representations of the family life and its
modern discontents. The immediate meanings of the object are warmth, homeliness and
familiarity emphasizing how simple it is for a family to gather and eat together; but
never in a Tsai film do we see the family eating together. Much later, the object
signifies a rather opposite feeling, as in Goodbye, Dragon Inn, it represents the way in
which the ticket clerkÕs fails to attract the projectionistÕs attention. In these films the
rice cooker is individuated, as opposed to signifying a collective experience. At the end
of Goodbye, Dragon Inn, the projectionist finally discovers the bun by recognizing the
rice cooker through the window Ð at which point it is too late. The ticket clerk has
already left the building and the possibility of eating together is gone. While connoting
a homely feeling the object also epitomizes the kind of loneliness and unfamiliarity that
is present in TsaiÕs films.77
Another function of recurrent symbols is the ways in which they signal auteurist
impulses in their creation and reinforce such readings in their reception. What I mean by
this is the way in which repetitions of objects, themes, characters, ideas or visual motifs
lend themselves to auterist interpretation by audiences on the basis that they are
deliberately, intentionally and knowingly used by the director for their own indulgent
interpretative tendencies. Considering TsaiÕs successes with film festivals, these
recurring symbols take on a humourous as well as cinephiliac function: festival-goers
regularly watch Tsai films knowing what to expect as well as taking pleasure (often in
the form of laughter) from encountering and satisfying such expectations. Tiago de
Luca, for instance, writes the Òarbitrary repetition [of symbols, themes and visual
motifs] from film to film authoritatively reinforce the directorÕs signature [É]
producing a pervasive and permanent sense of dŽjˆ vu.Ó The ways in which such
recurrences influence humour and cinephilia will be the subject of the upcoming
chapters, but let us now briefly consider the way such symbols and themes
accommodate a range of interpretations and meanings. Considering how narrative forms
are constructed out of rudimentary blocks of action without particular cause-effect links,
these symbols acquire important roles in our engagement and understanding of TsaiÕs
films. TsaiÕs use of water is exemplary in this case and a reference to this recurring
visual motif appears exhaustively across various cinephile publications and reviews.
144 
In general, everyday objects, familiar situations and things that are present in our
daily lives have a dual nature in TsaiÕs films. Water is an obvious metaphor in this
aspect, showing us how Tsai exploits the dual nature of such a figure. Water is present
more than plenty: in most films it occupies the background in the form of a heavy
rainfall, or is abundantly consumed through plastic bottles by the young Hsiao-kang. In
The River, the dirty fresh water is arguably the cause of Hsiao-kangÕs mysterious neck
illness and in The Wayward Cloud it is contaminated due to an environmental
catastrophe as well as being the source of a deadly virus in The Hole. Naturally we
understand water as a fundamental necessity for life, but Tsai delivers how it can be
dangerous and unwelcome when it is in abundance. In many films, a common incident
is water dripping from a broken pipe, or a leaking ceiling, decorated with plastic
buckets on the floor by the characters to stop its flow. At the beginning of Face, Tsai
makes a joke out of this common representation in his films by showing Hsiao-kang
attempting to fix a water leak in a kitchen. After numerous strategies involving various
pans, buckets and other material, he slips and falls, while the scene turns into some sort
of absurd comedy. Furthermore, water is also consumed in abundance by TsaiÕs
characters. In Vive LÕAmour, Hsiao-kang enters the empty apartment bedroom and
drinks a whole bottle of water in one go. As such, water as an everyday object is
recurrently displayed in all manners of existence throughout TsaiÕs films.
The intricate blending of opposing and contrasting meanings is a general
tendency in TsaiÕs cinema. Yeh and Davis for example suggest that TsaiÕs films are
Òfractured by duality: between reality and fantasy, social norms and psychosexual
fancy; between hetero- and homosexuality; between camp and the classics.Ó78
This
cinema of duality displays a careful mixture of opposite meanings represented one
against another, creating layers of tensions in the audience. The earlier section, for
example, demonstrated the ways in which Tsai mixes contrasting genres such as
musical and pornography as well as conflicting aesthetics such as camp and
minimalism. Furthermore, Tsai creates a novel version of absurd comedy by meshing
together tragedy and comedy as well as blending a deep sense of alienation with
bittersweet optimism. Moreover, the tension between stillness and movement is ever
present in TsaiÕs cinema. These films clearly depart from artificial means of portraying
action and depict events in their actual duration by adopting realistic techniques such as
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long take and deep focus cinematography. Chris Berry, for instance, finds TsaiÕs
Òhyperbolic realistÓ style paradoxical in terms of its representation of loneliness. Tsai
shows his characters in their private moments, executing their private activities, but they
are not really alone, as Berry points out that we, the spectators, are watching them and
gradually become aware of our presence of watching them, creating a sense of
paradoxical realism. These paradoxes, however, do not alienate the spectator, but rather
produce Òa consoling effect of indulgence in the audienceÕs relationship to [the
characters].Ó79
In other words, Yeh, Davis and Berry argue that there is some sort of
duality and tension coming from TsaiÕs peculiar style as well as the kinds of things he
represents. The duality and tension, however, do not resolve into a synthesis but are
rather suspended on a Òdelicate coexistence.Ó Tsai exploits the duality in life and
transforms it into absurd and incongruous situations, reminiscent of a ÒSisyphean
equilibrium constantly resumed in a kind of perpetual loop,Ó marked by a sense of black
humour.80
TsaiÕs use of the episodic structure plays a significant role in achieving these
situations. This section has demonstrated the ways in which episodic structure
undermines certain aspects of narrative construction, such as causality and
characterization. Most importantly, the episodic structure and single long takes in TsaiÕs
films delay narrative comprehension by slowing down narrative progress. As such,
because the narrative action is enacted in an extremely slow and monotonous manner,
the spectators become less interested in forming causal connections. At the same time,
however, the lack of causality in these films is recuperated by the foregrounding of
various symbols and visual motifs that function as an important way for the spectators
to engage with the film. Recurring symbols, in this respect, enable the viewers to
immediately recognize an authorial presence and contextualize its use within an auterist
framework. While extremely trivial and monotonous in their nature, the recognition of
these symbols function as instances of humour and pleasure for festival audiences for
they are repeated across an entire oeuvre already enjoyed by many cinephiles. The next
section specifically aims to explore the humorous aspect of TsaiÕs cinema by revisiting
the absurd as a conceptual and comical category.
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3.5 Ð Theatre of the Absurd, Silent Comedy and a Theory of Humour
In this section, I propose to contextualize TsaiÕs films as descendents of the Theatre of
the Absurd movement. Scholars routinely refer to the influence of dramatists such as
Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco while analysing TsaiÕs films; however, none has
fully investigated this complex relationship as most comments remain in passing. Rey
Chow, for instance, proposes that in the works of Beckett, Pinter and Ionesco, Òthe
breakdown of human communication is often signified by the banality and nonsense of
speech and by the absence of any intricately plotted turn of events or absorbing
storytellingÓ and briefly finds these notions present in TsaiÕs films.81
This section aims
to explore this parallelism through an exposition of what absurd meant for the Theatre
of the Absurd and an explication of its aesthetic mission. In addition to similar thematic
concerns in both the Theatre of the Absurd and Slow Cinema, the formerÕs distrust of
spoken language and thus visual approach to storytelling through imagery and staging
largely verifies their artistic relationship. After providing several examples from Slow
Cinema, I move on to other forms of cinematic absurdity that aesthetically inform
TsaiÕs work, namely the silent comedy and films of Jacques Tati. I conclude this section
by examining the nature of humour present across all these films by referring to the
incongruity theory and Òthe logic of the absurd,Ó which I argue, are in many ways the
secondary function of the long take in Slow Cinema.
One of the ways in which Tsai creates tragicomic and absurd situations is
isolating certain actions in their entirety by showing them in their full, actual length. By
repeating similarly mundane actions, Tsai is able to defamiliarize them while creating
strong incongruities between the characters and their environment. Especially when
confronted with a minor problem, which at times may be obstacles of folk religious
rituals, TsaiÕs characters find unusual ways to overcome various situations. These
scenes are Òdarkly comicÓ in the sense that they are excessively exaggerated, contorted
to such a degree that they Òare reminiscent of a Chaplinesque parody of
mechanization.Ó82
Through an exaggerated use of duration and performance, Tsai
transforms these vignettes into gags that are parallel to silent film as well as theatre in
their manner.
147 
The word absurd plays a key role in the type of humour Tsai employs
throughout his films and as such there are significant parallels between TsaiÕs sense of
black humour and other works of absurd art, such as the Theatre of the Absurd. Within
the context of modern day parlance, however, absurd commonly means Òridiculous and
silly,Ó whereas its dictionary definitions range from Òout of harmonyÓ to Òincongruous,
unreasonable, illogical.Ó83
We find things absurd when they are out of place and they
surprise us, because we cannot rationally explain, although we suspect that they are
plausible to some extent. For Albert Camus, however, the absurd in the sense of
Òillogical incongruityÓ largely informs his philosophical argument in his seminal text
The Myth of Sisyphus. According to Camus, the absurd defines a fundamental condition
of modernity, in which the search for truth is pointless because there is no such truth;
hence there is no inherent purpose in life.84
Preceding CamusÕs theory of the absurd in
the late 1940s, the absurd as a mode of existence is largely present in modernist
literature, ranging from the works of Franz Kafka to Flann OÕBrien.85
The depiction of
modern life as an absurd situation is, however, even more prevalent in 20th
century
drama.
The major theme in the Theatre of the Absurd (a term Martin Esslin borrowed
from existentialist terminology and applied to early 20th
century theatre) is the despair
stemming from the absurdity of human condition, but the Theatre of the Absurd may as
well be defined by its irrational approach towards depicting such absurdity and
suffering.86
The Theatre of the Absurd is part of the broader anti-literary modernist
movements, where words become irrelevant as several events or actions may transcend
or contradict what has been spoken.87
As such, the legitimacy of spoken language and
dialogue is severely threatened by other modes of representation. Through a Òradical
devaluation of language,Ó the Theatre of the Absurd is less concerned with conveying
information or narrating the fate of its characters and instead is preoccupied with a stark
representation of various situations through other theatrical means, such as imagery,
staging and performance.88
The Theatre of the Absurd is less a theoretical or
philosophical framework for the absurd, as witnessed in the works of Camus and JeanPaul
Sartre, but more an artistic approach in which visual methods of representation are
exercised to Òpresent [the absurdity of the human condition] in terms of concrete stage
images.Ó89
148 
There is an immediate parallel between the aesthetic concerns of the Theatre of
the Absurd and Tsai Ming-liang as well as other directors of Slow Cinema. As
established in Chapter 1, the lack of dialogue and distrust in the spoken word are some
of the defining features of Slow Cinema. Although the use of dialogue across Slow
Cinema films displays considerable variety, generally it does not carry the same
function as it does within mainstream cinema, in the sense that it is rarely used as a
means to convey contextual information or character traits. On one side of the spectrum,
there are films that are completely devoid of dialogue or any other form of spoken word
(such as films of Lisandro Alonso, James Benning and Peter Hutton). At the other end
of the spectrum, the spoken word used either in short and obscure exchanges of
dialogue (Carlos Reygadas, Andrei Zvyagintsev and Tsai Ming-liang, which I will
elaborate on later) or with rarer interludes of longer exchanges (for example, the lengthy
philosophical discussions in Lav DiazÕs Death in the Land of Encantos [2007] that
appear several times across the nine-hour film). In the case of BŽla Tarr, for example,
the dialogue often carries three functions. In his early features, dialogue is largely an
important device to raise social issues and is a major device for the spectator to
understand the diegetic situation. Following Damnation (1988), however, there is a
significant decrease in TarrÕs use of dialogue. The use of the spoken word is at times
deeply emotional and philosophically intriguing (for example, JanosÕs opening
monologue in Werckmeister Harmonies [2000]) or completely unintelligible (the
monologue in The Turin Horse [2011]). In other instances, for example, dialogue defies
communication between characters (for example, the varying dialects in Jia ZhangkeÕs
Still Life [2004]) or carries a sense of humour in the form of verbal jokes (CeylanÕs
films, see next chapter).
There are even further ways in which the Theatre of the Absurd serves as an
important artistic resource for contemporary Slow Cinema, in terms of staging images
of desperation, lack of communication and alienation in humorous ways. Despite their
links to serious modernist films of the 1960s, some Slow Cinema films are, in fact,
serious comedies and use slow pace, stillness and long takes to elicit an absurd sense of
humour. Before returning to Tsai, I want to briefly demonstrate these claims with
several examples from other Slow Cinema films. A scene from Albert SerraÕs Birdsong
(2008), for instance, illustrates this point. The film essentially retells the biblical story
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of the Three Magi via Slow Cinema aesthetics; in other words, through long takes of the
Magi walking in a desolate landscape accompanied by obscured dialogue and blackand-white
photography. In one particular scene, the Magi traverse a sand hill and walk
over the top, disappearing into the horizon. Moments later, however, the Magi reappear
trudging back the same pathway, while the camera captures the action without a cut.
This scene is in fact what Jonathan Romney describes as the defining moment of Òslow,
ruminative cinemaÓ in the very article where he coins the term Slow Cinema.90
ÒThe
filmÕs humour,Ó Romney writes, Òis arguably all the more tart because itÕs so
exceptionally muted Ð to the point of enervation ÐÓ and as such the film constitutes Òa
comedy, albeit in a somewhat nebulous vein.Ó Forms of absurd humour are also present
in the work of Roy Andersson, whose Songs From the Second Floor (2000) and You,
The Living (2007), for example, display a range of unconnected characters yearning for
a meaning in life. AnderssonÕs films similarly feature a lack of intelligible dialogue and
focus on depicting action through careful staging and visual imagery (See Figure 3.5).
The Portuguese director Jo‹o CŽsar Monteiro, on the other hand, not only relies on
mise-en-sc•ne, but also employs the long take to create scenes of absurdity. In GodÕs
Comedy (1995), for instance, the main character played by Monteiro himself conducts
an obscure choreography of a young woman lying on top of a table and moving as if
swimming through the air, with Richard WagnerÕs operatic music playing in the
background (Figure 3.8). Whether this scene can be considered as humorous as others,
however, is arguable since it takes roughly six minutes and completely lacks dialogue as
well as narrative motivation. In fact, moments of absurdity often appear across Slow
Cinema minus its humorous aspect: the ways in which mere presence of the stuffed
whale leads Janos to question the meaning of life in TarrÕs Werckmeister Harmonies
and Doctor CemalÕs philosophical ruminations of life and death in CeylanÕs Once Upon
a Time in Anatolia (2011) all emphasize the absurd as an existential condition (See
Figures 3.6 and 3.7).
150 
Figure 3.5 Ð Songs from the Second Floor
(2000)
Figure 3.6 Ð Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
(2011)
Figure 3.7 Ð Werckmeister Harmonies
(2000)
Figure 3.8 Ð GodÕs Comedy (1995)
Tsai Ming-liangÕs films, on the other hand, are absurd in the ways in which they
do not rely on dialogue or the spoken word altogether. Admittedly this is largely
because two characters rarely appear in the same scene at the same time, as exemplified
in the earlier section for TsaiÕs use of episodic narration. However, in many cases the
use of dialogue is completely abandoned and much of the spoken words in these films
consist of monologues or short sentences. Furthermore, some of the contextual narrative
information is delivered through off-screen sounds, usually sourced from TV or radio
news broadcast. In The Hole and The Wayward Cloud, for example, the off-screen news
anchormen give us information about the environmental catastrophes the city is facing,
while the characters continue their everyday actions without speaking to each other. The
remaining dialogue, however rarely used, is obscure and discontinuous. In Goodbye,
Dragon Inn, there are only two scenes with dialogue. The first one is the
aforementioned dialogue between the tourist and another man in the theatre, whereas
the second one is a short conversation between the two old men (of which more later).
Both scenes refer to the fact that the theatre has become a forgotten place and is very
151 
much the central idea in the film, but the amount of information derived from the
dialogue scenes is still marginal compared to a conventional art film.
The silence and lack of dialogues in TsaiÕs films represent his characters
meaningless and purposeless existence. Jean-Pierre Rehm, for instance, argues that
while some other directors have used silence as the means to express their charactersÕ
emotions indicating ÒplenitudeÓ through images, ÒTsai Ming-liang [on the other hand]
pays no homage to the beauty of silence, no words are ever sacrificed on the altar of the
meticulously prepared ÔshotsÕ, because the painful succession of his shots is only
organized by dreary triviality.Ó91
In other words, the silence in TsaiÕs films is not only a
compositional decision to portray a daily triviality, but also the lack of dialogue
conceals the charactersÕ emotional depth. Esslin similarly writes, Ò[l]anguage in
BeckettÕs plays serves to express the breakdown, the disintegration of language. Where
there is no certainty, there can be no definite meanings Ð and the impossibility of ever
attaining certainty is one of the main themes of BeckettÕs plays.Ó92
In other words,
TsaiÕs characters are silent because rarely there is anything for them to say to each other
and much of this strategy was evident in TsaiÕs background in theatre. TsaiÕs familiarity
with experimental theatre was apparent in the first three plays he directed after he had
graduated from the dramatic arts college: Instant Bean Sauce Noodles (Sushi zajiang
mian, 1982), A Sealed Door in the Dark (Heian li dabukai de yi shan meng, 1983) and
The Closet in the Room (Fangjian li de yigui, 1984). In these early works, Tsai Òalready
embraced a vanguard, minimalist style along with a wry undertone,Ó exploring Òissues
of gay love, sadomasochistic power relations, spatial confinement, affection for the
closet, passing, double identity, the loneliness of writing and the writerÕs block, and
queer identity.Ó93
Clearly the minimalist style adopted in these theatrical plays is
apparent in TsaiÕs cinema, with its downplay of language and a foregrounding of the
visual aspects of the medium.
Esslin writes that the visual aspects of theatre represent the Theatre of the
AbsurdÕs Òanti-literary attitudeÓ and throughout many of the plays there is an attempt to
Òreturn to earlier non-verbal forms of theatre.Ó94
In many ways, the subordination of the
spoken word against stage performance in the Theatre of the Absurd is a direct
influence from the early forms of theatre; such as the clowns in the Middle Ages and
152 
commedia dellÕarte, as well as their 19th
century equivalents of the music halls and
vaudevilles.95
Likewise, in TsaiÕs films the characters are portrayed in committing to
their everyday rituals: how they eat, walk, sit and watch and most importantly how they
carry out time-filling activities with no immediate purpose. At times, Hsiao-kang
performs acrobatic tasks that emphasize his bodily movement, such as climbing walls in
The Wayward Cloud or his various actions in the empty flat in Vive LÕAmour. In the
former film, following a failed sexual encounter, Hsiao-kang and Shiang-chyi walk on
top of the skywalk hugging each other, while Hsiao-kang carries the girl on his feet, as
if the two bodies have become one. The unusual staging and performance during this
single shot portrays the ambivalent relationship between the two. Furthermore, there are
many scenes in these films where Hsiao-kang plays or watches people playing video
games in arcades, whereas Tsai depicts the stillness of the world and his characters
while things are rapidly changing.96
Staging scenes that are based on the versatile body of the actor are largely drawn
from silent comedies. While tracing the Theatre of the AbsurdÕs genealogy, Esslin
stresses that the most significant 20th
century influence on the Theatre of the Absurd is
the silent film comedy, represented by Buster Keaton, Charles Chaplin, artists who
provided the missing link between vaudeville and the Theatre of the Absurd.97
The
silent film comedy created scenes where comedy was attained through wordless means,
depicting constant and purposeless movement against a highly mechanized world. Even
after the invention of sound, the comedy of W. C. Fields and Marx Brothers proved to
be a decisive influence on the works of Ionesco and others. The Òwild Surrealism of
their dialogue,Ó as well as the use of frenzied performance, repetition and proliferation
of objects created a world very much similar to the Theatre of the Absurd.98
If silent
comedies provide a link between the 19th
century theatre and the Theatre of the Absurd,
then the work of Jacques Tati provides a link between the Theatre of the Absurd and
Tsai Ming-liang as well as contemporary Slow Cinema that features similar notions of
humour. In many ways Tati appropriated silent comedy aesthetics into his own,
although according to Esslin Tati Òlacks some of the glorious naivetŽ and vulgarity of
his predecessors.Ó However, the character Monsieur Hulot is a figure caught up in the
deeply industrialized and mechanized world of our time, whereas his struggle to
communicate meaning with others (including us, the audience) is reflected in his
153 
Òdeflation of language,Ó most typically in his use of dialogue almost as if it is
background noise.99
As such, TsaiÕs films and his sense of humour have been routinely
attributed influence from Jacques Tati.100
Although Tati did not make many films, his
creation of the fictitious character Monsieur Hulot has been one of the most iconic
comedy characters in cinema, which he establishes concretely in Les Vacances de
Monsieur Hulot (1953). Visibly influenced by the similar non-verbal and performancebased
forms of the 19th
and early 20th
century theatre, Tati nevertheless delivers a
profoundly cinematic display of The Absurd and its relationship to modern life.
Although the signature behaviour of Monsieur Hulot is his strange clumsiness, Tati
stresses the characterÕs incongruous relationship to the surrounding environment
established through elaborate set designs as well as a post-synchronised soundtrack.
TatiÕs comedy is a comedy of the strangeness of our daily lives. Most of his gags
are juxtaposed against trivial aspects of routine activities. Kristin Thompson, for
instance, claims that while most comedians try to eradicate Òtraces of automized
everyday reality from their films,Ó Tati conversely incorporates such moments within
his scenes. ÒIn the process,Ó writes Thompson, Òhe paradoxically manages to focus our
attention on everyday, trivial events to the extent that he succeeds in defamiliarizing
them, primarily through his parallel defamiliarization of traditional gag structures.Ó101
There is already a parallel between Tati and Tsai in their manner of deforming everyday
triviality into an unfamiliar, odd and strange entity, thus creating an absurd situation.
According to Thompson, TatiÕs main formal principle is an overlap accompanied by the
use of deep staging and deep focus cinematography. All scenes are Òdependent on an
interaction between two initially separate actions and spaces,Ó at least one of which
Òinvolves a trivial event or even a ÒdeadÓ moment with nothing going on. Thus,Ó writes
Thompson, Òa residue of boredom affects the style of the humour; Tati often uses
incomplete, subtle, or downright weird jokes.Ó102
As such, staging and editing appear to
be key in TatiÕs aesthetic strategy. Composed mostly of medium to long shots, Tati
prepares every scene with meticulous inspection, in which each new shot introduces a
new background from a different angle within the scene and in each new case the new
background reveals a trivial action that forms the next gag. Editing forms an important
aspect of the construction of these gags as Tati consistently employs 90 or 180 degree
cuts to establish new camera positions Ð these cuts are at times disorienting but usually
154 
there is some sort of figure movement or spatial cue that helps the viewer to realise the
spatial arrangement of the events. These cuts necessarily Òshift attention to different
areas of action around the main area, emphasizing the overlap among these actions.Ó103
In other words, Tati weaves the spatial action in a scene by intercutting between several
medium shots, whereas the deep focus cinematography helps us identify areas of the
frame that will be emphasised in the next or earlier cut. The overlapping action in
between the cuts creates an organic gag structure that modifies the traditional silent
comedy into a more comprehensive form.
In contrast, while Tsai also employs deep focus and staging frequently, the
formal principle that dominantly elicits humour is shot duration. A major reason for this
is the way in which scenes involving comedy develop as opposed to the ones in Tati.
The source of TatiÕs humour is the incongruous interaction between his characters and
the spatial environment, while in Tsai the stillness of the characters or the situation
engages the audience in laughter. Moreover, Tati prepares the audience for his gags
through editing, while Tsai radically eliminates editing from his films and accentuates
the duration of the long take. Therefore most of the jokes present in TsaiÕs films are
driven by their temporality and stasis; we as the audience expect progression and
change in several scenes, but our expectation is in conflict with our recognition of the
deliberate inactivity on the screen, a tension that is eventually resolved by laughter. Two
examples should help illustrate this point. In The River, Tien Miao, once again playing
the father character, is depicted with an odd personality. Tsai shows us his daily
activities; obsessed with the leaking water from the ceiling, the character consistently
rearranges the plastic buckets to keep his place dry. In one scene, we see the father with
his back turned against us, depicted through a long shot framed by the toilet door
opening. The character urinates for an extraordinary one minute, the soundtrack
reaffirming this with subtle volume changes. This is funny because our expectations
from such a character creates an incongruity with the representation of this particular
action in such an unusual extent of time. We do not expect anyone to urinate for a full
minute (at least on the cinema screen), but we do not find this unrealistic, disgusting or
alienating because Tsai already establishes the character with his weird and eccentric
behaviour. As such, the logic behind such humorous scenes relies on a clash of our
expectations, upon which I will elaborate further below.
155 
The second example, also a bathroom scene, is one from Goodbye, Dragon Inn.
It demonstrates even more clearly how shot duration achieves a humorous effect. Here
the sound design is stripped away from any particular effect and the humour of the
scene completely relies on its shot duration as well as its unique staging. The scene
takes place at the male bathroom in the Fu-Ho Grand Theatre, shot from a corner end.
The use of wide-angle lens exaggerates the depth cues of the scene with the empty line
of urinals forming a long diagonal at the right hand side, also highlighting a cigarette
pack and a yellow lighter sitting on the shelf. The Japanese tourist and male #1 are
urinating, side-by-side, at the near corner of the room (Figure 3.9). After about fifteen
seconds, male #2 enters the room and continues the action right next to the tourist,
sandwiching him between two strangers (Figure 3.10). A third man leaves the cubicles
behind them and walks towards to sink to wash his hands never endingly, while male #1
takes a deep breath from his cigarette, at this point suggesting that he owns the cigarette
pack (Figure 3.11). We realize that there is a fourth man, who pulls the same cubicle
door in and locks it, distracting the tourist. Just as we might assume that the scene
would not get even more bizarre, a fifth man enters the room, walks towards the tourist
and stretches his arm to reach the cigarette pack and then exits the scene with his
property (Figure 3.12). The scene continues for another thirty seconds, without any
movement or change other than the familiar background noise of any public bathroom.
How does such a trivial, uneventful and seemingly mundane portrayal of
stillness achieve humour? Firstly, there is an overt strangeness that dominates the scene
from beginning to end, because normally nobody acts so slowly in a public bathroom,
unless motivated for narrative purposes. However, the film in fact provides this
narrative context by staging the scene in a space (the menÕs room) and a place (this
particular theatre) that are both famous for gay cruising, perhaps giving reason to the
deliberate, unhurried pace in which the characters are behaving. Although the film
envisions this familiar location as a zone ripe with homosexual desire, there is
nevertheless a sense of uneasiness arising from our conventional perception of public
bathrooms.104
Because we tend to view public bathrooms as spaces to rush through, the
film creates a disorienting incongruity between our conventional expectations and its
elaborate audio-visual representation. Furthermore, the film exaggerates these notions
of familiarity and strangeness while meshing them side-by-side within the same shot, at
156 
the same time challenging our conventional expectations of shot durations attaining a
further level of incongruity. The sense of humour in this scene is perhaps analogous to
TatiÕs in terms of its transformation of the familiar into the strange. Although Tsai also
utilizes deep focus, the soundtrack as well as staging and performance, the dominant
factors in achieving humour are the length and slowness of his long takes.
Figure 3.9 Ð Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) Figure 3.10 Ð cont.
Figure 3.11 Ð cont. Figure 3.12 Ð cont.
I have suggested earlier that the nature of absurd humour as witnessed in the
above examples arises from a deflation of our expectations and assumptions regarding
the narrative situation. Therefore, these analyses adopt the incongruity theory in
understanding the nature of humour, whether it is in the form of visual (such as gags) or
verbal humour (such as jokes). Detailing the nature of humour and its subsequent
theories is clearly beyond the scope of this thesis, but let us briefly examine why the
incongruity theory in itself informs what I mean by the absurd humour inherent to
TsaiÕs work (and ultimately to Slow Cinema). In extremely simple terms, incongruity
theory proposes that our amusement with humour arises from the incongruity between
what we typically expect and what we actually perceive.105
As such, an element of
surprise is fundamental to humour, or in other words, we find things funny when we
157 
least expect them.106
Torben Grodal writes, Òthe comic reaction is connected to a basic
narrative feature, for instance the existence of a sudden change or reversal (often called
ÔperipeteiaÕ), as in the punch line.Ó107
The classical notion of peripeteia is central to
Jerry PalmerÕs novel version of the incongruity theory because it demonstrates the ways
in which the humorous text constructs a surprise or shock element in the story.108
As
such, Palmer offers an elaborate reworking of the incongruity theory by analysing
humour as a formal structure in what he calls Òthe logic of the absurd,Ó in which the
peripeteia in gags or jokes creates Òa pair of syllogisms [that cause] contradictory
conclusions,Ó namely a plausible and an implausible explanation of a particular
situation.109
Palmer argues that the likelihood of the plausible explanation is commonly
less than its implausibility, therefore attains an incongruous, illogical conclusion that
sparks laughter and humour. ÒThe logic of the absurd,Ó then is in essence a careful
balance between the implausibility and plausibility of an event where the later is ever so
slightly dominated by the former.110
In other words, while we perceive the end result of
the comic situation as implausible, we nonetheless suspect the tiny possibility of
plausibility in its likelihood, which in turn prevents the likelihood of negative mental
reactions such as anxiety or fear.
The incongruity theory and the Òlogic of the absurdÓ are useful and valid
paradigms for understanding the type of humour I addressed earlier in this section.
Torben Grodal, for instance, reaffirms PalmerÕs suggestion in a cognitive framework:
ÒIf the brain is confronted with a problem which has two or more equally probably but
different solutions, [É] Laughter may function as an escape-button in relation to
paradoxes, ambiguities, equally probable alternatives.Ó111
Martin Esslin, on the other
hand, claims that laughter induced in the Theatre of the Absurd occurs through
proliferation and repetition. In the plays of Ionesco, the accumulation and repetition of
nonsense dialogues, objects and situations create a psychological tension in the
audience, which at once function as a metaphor for a kind of ridiculous existence while
the tension is relieved by laughter.112
Notice how a large portion of the examples I have
set out earlier are gags and as such their humour is based on visual aspects of their
medium, such as staging and mise-en-sc•ne. No‘l Carroll calls this phenomenon Òsight
gag,Ó which is essentially Òa form of visual humor in which amusement is generated by
the play of alternative interpretations projected by the image.Ó113
In other words,
158 
CarrollÕs notion of the sight gag completely relies on the incongruity theory as a broader
conceptual framework. Building on the Òsight gag,Ó Marijke de Valck proposes the
Òsound gagÓ to characterize the type of sonic comedy inherent in the films of Jacques
Tati. For de Valck, Òthe lack of fidelityÓ in the sound source and the sound perceived
Òcreate comic effect[s],Ó and as such the incongruity theory is also applicable to forms
of humour attained through the manipulation of sound.114
None of these approaches, however, take into consideration the fact that humour
takes place within a temporal domain. Needless to say the issue of timing is a
significant and crucial element of humour. The specific timing a joke or gag can
exaggerate its effect and increase its impact. As such, the peripeteia, or the formal
element that induces incongruity in Slow Cinema humour is the exaggerated shot
duration that establishes a glacial tempo. In other words, the long take functions in a
similar way to the punch line in a verbal joke. In the examples illustrated above,
incongruity arises from a clash of our expectations regarding shot duration with our
perception of extreme and minimalist long takes. We think it is implausible that these
situations occur in such a long stretch of time and believe that the slowness of the action
in general is illogical, ridiculous or simply absurd. In many ways the humour elicited in
TsaiÕs films as well as other Slow Cinema films is not only characterized by its
bleakness and/or absurdity, but it is more of a humour that moves at a snailÕs pace.
However, TsaiÕs realistic depiction of these situations and our familiarity with the
settings provide a sense of plausibility that alters our perception of these scenes into
incongruous circumstances. We laugh because we find this incompatible mixture of
familiarity and strangeness amusing, but most importantly we laugh because the
incongruity within the action is sustained even further through stasis.
In the earlier chapter I have argued that the long take (and hence the exaggerated
shot duration) is the main aesthetic device, or the ÒdominantÓ formal principle in Slow
Cinema. In TsaiÕs films this carries two functions and the first one, delaying narrative
comprehension, was addressed in the earlier section. This section explores the ways in
which the long take achieves an absurd sense of humour by challenging the spectatorÕs
expectations of shot duration. I have argued that this aesthetic strategy operates within
the Òlogic of the absurd,Ó in which expectations and perceptions contradict. Moreover,
159 
such a sense of humour is rooted in the conventions of the Theatre of the Absurd, which
aim to portray the modern condition as absurd through visual means. There are strong
parallels between the Theatre of the Absurd and Slow Cinema, mainly in terms of their
distrust in spoken language and emphasis on visual storytelling. Much of TsaiÕs films
demonstrate these parallels in novel ways, but there are other intertextual moments
throughout Tsai films and I shall elaborate on these in the next section.
3.6 Ð Nostalgia and Cinephilia in Goodbye, Dragon Inn
This section will focus solely on TsaiÕs Goodbye, Dragon Inn and explore the ways in
which discourses of nostalgia are related to the filmÕs narrative and stylistic concerns. I
have previously addressed the concept of nostalgia in the earlier chapter (Section 2.6)
and argued that Slow Cinema represents a nostalgic rebirth of modernist cinema. This
section revisits the concept of deliberate archaism as well as Svetlana BoymÕs
distinctions between restorative and reflective nostalgia. On the one hand, Goodbye,
Dragon Inn reveals aspects of restorative nostalgia, not least through an emulation of
modernist techniques but also through TsaiÕs future gallery work that attempts at a
physical reconstruction of a bygone cinema theatre. However, I argue they do not
constitute an aggressive attempt in restoration, but merely anxious acts of reflection in
order to precipitate discourses of cinephilia against the rise of digital technologies and
the demise of film theatres. I also argue that Slow Cinema in general is composed of a
reflective attitude by virtue of its contemplative and ruminative mode of spectatorship,
which I shall be elaborating further in the next chapter by closely examining the concept
of boredom.
The earlier chapter detailed the concept of nostalgia and argued that Slow
Cinema films represent a nostalgic revisioning of modernist art films. Likewise, TsaiÕs
films are nostalgic for several reasons. Firstly, his earlier features display nostalgia for a
lost, mythical family. As I have argued in earlier sections, Tsai subverts notions of
Confucian Family Melodrama in a provocative manner, but in many ways his characters
remain yearning for a traditional form of family. Secondly, however, TsaiÕs films
display nostalgia for a bygone era in cinema culture. Goodbye, Dragon Inn, for
160 
example, takes its nostalgic object as cinema itself. As I have argued earlier, while the
film undoubtedly contains three episodes that constitute its plot, its narrative structure
and temporal style severely undermine its causal connections. Conversely, much of the
film insists on exploring cinema as an institution, as a place for social gathering, as an
individual experience and as a form of art. The film depicts the last day of a run-down
film theatre during its very last screening of the Taiwanese martial arts classic The
Dragon Inn (King Hu, 1967), while lamenting on the decline of cinema going. During
the film, all characters seek social contact in various ways, but ironically fail within a
setting that is supposed to be embracing in the first place. While the film on the screen
slowly comes to an end, Tsai directs our attention away from conventional narrative
structure and highlights the phenomenal experience of spectatorship by a series of shots
depicting various spaces within the theatre: velvet curtains, the giant screen, smoky
foyers, half-lit toilets, the empty theatre seats accompanied by audience members loudly
snacking on watermelon seeds. As such, the film presents itself through a nostalgic tone
and years for the bygone days of cinema going, which occupied a significant part of
daily life, fulfilling multiple social and individual needs such as entertainment, social
gathering and intellectual engagement. As the characters fail to connect, the film also
becomes the very lamentation for the death of the medium, perhaps of an art form on
the verge of failing to impress us any longer. The charactersÕ social failure on the
narrative level is exacerbated by the loss of cinema.
But Goodbye, Dragon Inn is no ordinary nostalgia film. It begins with the
screening of Dragon Inn that characteristically belongs to the historical period in
question. As a traditional wuxia film (Chinese martial arts action/drama), Dragon Inn
was one of the biggest hits in Taiwanese film history and its director King Hu was
renowned for his perfectionist attitude towards film production. Originally hailing from
Hong Kong, King Hu moved to Taiwan in pursuit of artistic freedom and quality in
production following his successful Come Drink With Me (1966). His following films
were relatively expensive in budget and displayed elaborate set designs with accurate
historical focus as well as complex choreographies of sword fighting.115
As such, upon
initial inspection it appears odd and confusing for a Slow Cinema film to intertextually
refer back to a martial arts action film as a Ògolden age,Ó since their conventions seem
contradictory. However, despite belonging to the action genre, Dragon Inn greatly
161 
favours minimalist aesthetics and does not entirely rely on rapid cutting as
contemporary action films do as well as exhibiting spectacular staging of choreography
and camera movements.116
What is more important is the ways in which Tsai references
Dragon Inn through a complex structure of mise-en-abyme, especially at the beginning
where the credits cross over the films and blur their distinctions.117
Following the
credits, the film then depicts the audience watching Dragon Inn, doubling this viewing
activity (See Figure 3.13). Later on in the film, however, the focus slightly changes
towards the cinema theatre itself, achieving a nostalgic tone eulogizing its future
destruction.
Figure 3.13 Ð Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)
Goodbye, Dragon Inn achieves a sense of nostalgia partly through its use of
surface realism, especially in terms of setting, music and period casting. The
iconography typically evokes the golden age of Taiwanese melodramas in the 1960s
through its expressive use of colour grading and costume. In terms of setting, the Fu Ho
TheatreÕs grandness in its own right is a reference to old times, in which, preceding the
proliferation of small to medium scale theatres in the form of multiplexes, cinemas used
to be huge enough to attract audiences by the thousands. Although the film does not
feature any non-diegetic music, towards the end, Tsai inserts a popular Grace Chang
song and achieves yet another powerful nostalgic reference to the 1960s. Furthermore,
162 
the aforementioned two old men in the film, played by Tien Miao and Chun Shih
respectively, were in fact stars in the original Dragon Inn. As such, their conversation
towards the end of the film explicitly refers to cinema going as a forgotten tradition as
well as their own situation as fading icons, so much so that the director suggests that
they are ghosts wandering within the theatre by showing them dissolving into the foyer.
In addition to aspects of surface realism, the filmÕs laconic style is itself
nostalgic. Even for TsaiÕs standards, Goodbye, Dragon Inn appears to be an exaggerated
version of the directorÕs stylistic trademarks. Shot in fixed, long takes capturing the
slow movement of figures within confined spaces the film is also particular in its lack of
dialogue with only two scenes containing dialogue between characters. Totally at odds
against mainstream editing patterns, the film allows large gaps of silence and dead time
in between the events, which at times leads to humorous situations. The combination of
the long take and dead time as stylistic strategies has its origins in the modernist and
minimalist filmmaking during the 1960s, movements which Tsai openly acknowledges
their influence on his understanding of cinema. In this respect, the increasing use of
long take and dead time can be determined as Òdeliberate archaismÓ as I have explored
in the earlier chapter. Both formal strategies perform a deliberate resemblance towards
the look and shape of modernist art films of the 1960s, resulting in ceaseless
comparisons of Tsai to directors as varying as Fassbinder, Ozu, Antonioni and Tati, all
of which have engaged in utilizing the long take and dead time one way or another
throughout their careers. However, I have argued throughout this chapter that TsaiÕs use
of the long take, deep focus cinematography and dead time is aimed at creating a
completely different effect on the spectator; or in other words, as opposed to an
aesthetic of reality, Tsai achieves nostalgia and absurd humour.118
163 
Figure 3.14 Ð Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)
Two examples best illustrate these claims in which the suspension of temporal
duration achieves a nostalgic effect. First example is the concluding shot in segment J of
Goodbye, Dragon Inn, in which the Japanese tourist is disturbed the a woman, played
by Yang Kuei-mei, loudly eating peanuts. The volume level of the cracking peanuts is
exaggerated to such an extent that they constitute a good example of what I referrer
earlier as the Òsound gag.Ó The end of this segment is shot from the top of the
auditorium, looking towards the woman with her back turned against us, down on the
rest of the space with the distant screen barely visible (Figure 3.14). While soundtrack is
designed with off-screen sounds of the film-within-the-film, at this moment the only
audible sound comes from the peanut eating womanÕs cracking noise, which continues
despite the termination of the film screening. We also cannot recognize any motion on
the distant screen, contrary to the directorÕs previous emphases. As such, the scene
depicts a suspended moment in which diegetic time is stalled and plot progression, or
what is left of it, is deliberately paused.
164 
Figure 3.15 Ð Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003)
The second example I want to address is even more radical in the ways in which
descriptive pause is exerted. It is formed of a single long take and constitutes segment
M, which shows the empty auditorium after the end of the screening by a long shot from
its frontal position, outlining its rows of empty seats (See Figure 3.15). After the
fluorescent lights turn on, the ticket clerk enters the scenes and walks across limping,
collecting items of trash left behind by the audience. She begins climbing the stairs and
repeats the action from another row of seats while her limping sound becomes a kind of
sonic rhythm Ð once again, another instance of the Òsound gag,Ó this time frustratingly
echoing earlier rhythmic patterns. The ticket woman exits the scene, but her off-screen
limping sounds continue for a while until they disappear, but Tsai persists in showing us
the empty theatre for a stunning five-minute sequence in which, literally, nothing
happens.
Both scenes testify to the long takeÕs ability to evoke a nostalgic feeling.
Especially the second scene, the extreme long shot of the movie theatre is prolonged to
such an extent that it becomes a provoking patience test on the spectator. More so,
however, the shotÕs emptiness in all aspects allows the spectator to negotiate its possible
meanings or feelings that it is supposed to evoke and engages the spectator in a quietly
critical, albeit subjective, dynamic and active contemplation. While silently delivering a
165 
eulogy for cinema culture and its glorious past through its calm and still emptiness, the
shot also appropriates the very formal device that stands for its archaism. But what form
of nostalgia does Tsai deliberate in these sequences, in others words, is Tsai reflecting
on cinemaÕs glorious past through intertextual references and an aesthetic style that
evokes such a past, or does Tsai simply attempt at recreating, rebuilding, recycling and
thus aggressively restoring this past? On the one hand, both of the scenes allow for
reflective nostalgia as their emptiness and stillness simultaneously allow them to
contemplate through what seems to be a productive instance of boredom (an aspect of
the long take that I will address in the next chapter). On the other hand, however, TsaiÕs
nostalgia film is at the same time attempting to restore the memory of the Grand Fu Ho
Theatre. Following the theatreÕs destruction, Tsai bought thirty of its seats and
conceived a short film about another film theatre that was soon to be demolished in
Malaysia. The outcome was ItÕs a Dream (2007), a gallery installation, which involved
watching the short film from those seats and the installation toured various international
film festivals before resting at the Taipei Fine Arts MuseumÕs permanent collection.119
As such, TsaiÕs filmmaking practices strictly involved restorative functions of nostalgia
as well. For Kenneth Chan, however, debating whether TsaiÕs nostalgia is reflective or
restorative overlooks its political functions. In light of the emerging popular interest in
the Chinese martial arts films (as witnessed in the global successes of Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon [2002] and Hero [2002]), Chan argues ÒTsai engages a localized
politics of place to disrupt the seamless co-optation of nostalgia into the transnational
capitalist structures and networks of cultural consumption,Ó through what he calls Òa
cinematic aesthetic of lingering.Ó120
As such, Chan refrains from idolizing Tsai as an art
cinema filmmaker who opposes capitalist systems by evoking nostalgia and on the
contrary, as I have demonstrated in earlier sections, locates him at the centre of such
exchanges. What Tsai does poignantly, however, is his manner of triggering the critical
assumptions of cinephilia by deliberately forcing his audiences to fixate on an empty
theatre and evoke nostalgic feelings about cinema.
There are fundamental parallels between cinephilia and nostalgia. Cinephilia is
more than a love of cinema and in this case it is also a way of making cinema.
According to the French writer Antoine de Baecque, it is an attitude to life, and Òa way
of watching films, speaking about them and then diffusing this discourse.Ó121
With the
166 
advent of newer technologies of exhibition and distribution as well as the changes in
consumption patterns, critics now turn back towards the history of film culture and
lament what has been lost, an attitude towards cinephilia perhaps best exemplified in
Susan SontagÕs much cited ÒDecay of CinemaÓ article.122
This resurgent interest in
cinephilia as a field of study focus on its own changing face, while constantly looking
back on its past to examine how changes in digital technology have shaped the
consumption and distribution of films. As such, these studies inevitably execute a form
of nostalgia. Changes in technologies have, without a doubt, significantly altered our
engagement with the artistic medium, but the very same changes have also brought
forward new dynamics of film consumption as well as forms of cinephilia.
Slow Cinema emerges at a critical point in which discourses of cinephilia
evolved from a lamentation of the past into a celebration of what future offered. As
digital technologies flourished, traditional structures of distribution and exhibition gave
way to alternative avenues to access independent art cinema. The main venues that
comprised the celebration of cinephilia, namely the repertory cinema, for instance,
slowly gives way to online communities, as Ben Slater writes Òrepertory cinema has
relocated into cyberspace.Ó123
As such, the plethora of online communities, ranging
from blogs, mailing lists, reviews sites, forums and discussion boards to open-access
archives, elitist torrent sites, private or public hosting databases and paid streaming
services create opportunities for active debates as well as an alternative space for
exhibition and distribution, all of which convene the essential purposes of cinephilia.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, for example, is one of the first film critics to embrace these
aspects of digital technologies against those that bemoan the death of cinema.124
The
works of Slow Cinema directors are often positioned within debates of cinephilia: due
to their difficult and uncompromising aesthetics, Slow Cinema films fail to attract
ordinary audiences accustomed to mainstream cinema practices. As such, Slow Cinema
is often designated as a tradition of art cinema catered for stereotypical personalities that
are at best characterized as an adventurous cinephile, or at worst, as a cultural snob. As I
have hinted towards in section 3.3, this tendency is also evident in camp aesthetics
where matters of taste become involved in questions of legitimacy in evaluation and
socio-cultural hierarchy. In this respect the criticism against Slow Cinema often takes a
167 
mode of Òaspirational viewing,Ó which, in the words of Dan Kois, is an opinionated
form of viewing art films simply because one ought for they are culturally enriching.125
Tsai Ming-liangÕs films intervene into this debate by re-salvaging what seems to
be a forgotten piece of cinematic work and as such constitute a practice of cinephilia.
Despite his attempt in preserving the aura of the Grand Fu Ho Theatre through a gallery
installation, I believe TsaiÕs intentions as well as Slow CinemaÕs aesthetic mission,
remain on the reflective tendency of nostalgia as opposed to restorative. While Slow
Cinema models its aesthetic structures by emulating modernist art films, it nevertheless
produces a unique aesthetic experience that mourns the demise of its predecessors.
ÒReflective nostalgia has elements of both mourning and melancholia,Ó writes Svetlana
Boym, therefore it Òis a form of deep mourning that performs a labor of grief both
through pondering pain and through play that points to the future.Ó126
In other words,
while some of these self-reflexive films function as cinephiliac exercises that eulogize
the long lost art cinema of the 1960s, they also turn towards the future of cinema by
triggering the imagination of its spectators.
This section has outlined the ways in which nostalgia is related to TsaiÕs
Goodbye, Dragon Inn. I have argued that while the film laments the bygone days of
cinema, it nevertheless constitutes a reflective tendency of nostalgia. Nostalgia in itself
bears resemblance to contemporary studies of cinephilia, in which the glorious past of
art cinema is often mourned and bemoaned against the current dominance of
mainstream film. However, I have suggested that developments in distribution and
exhibition technology have generated newer avenues for Òcinephiliac moments,Ó where
discussion and dissemination of films are regularly practiced. On the other hand, the
intense circulation of Slow Cinema films throughout international film festivals reaffirm
that cinephilia and art cinema are indeed ÒaliveÓ and kicking.
3.7 Ð Conclusion
This chapter has explored the ways in which films of Tsai Ming-liang displayed
exemplary features of the contemporary festival film. As I have emphasized throughout
this chapter, TsaiÕs films regularly feature in international film festivals and as such
168 
signify a Western demand for films that explore exotic East Asian cultures through
familiar art cinema aesthetics. This process began with the rise of New Taiwan Cinema,
a movement that attempted to unveil historical and cultural specificities of Taiwan,
while incorporating a modernist European film style. TsaiÕs films, on the other hand,
recapitulated this aesthetic by subverting genre conventions and positioned his work
oscillating between minimalist and camp aesthetics. While the modernist framework in
itself is not entirely sufficient to account for the subtle interactions between style and
narrative form, I have nevertheless tried to describe the incongruities found in TsaiÕs
style of filmmaking through Western conceptions of narrative and style. As such, I have
argued that the narrative form in TsaiÕs films challenges our basic presumptions of
narrative cinema and instead focus on symbols and situations that create incongruity.
Such formal strategies display an understated sense of black humour, whose artistic
ambitions closely resemble the Theatre of the Absurd. The Absurd constitutes a
thematic resource for Slow Cinema in general, but its distrust of the spoken word and
language also largely identifies a visual aesthetic that favours imagery and staging over
dialogue, perhaps best exemplified in TsaiÕs films. I return to the concept of
incongruity, which by and large informs the form of humour frequently present across
Slow Cinema, Tsai Ming-liang and Jacques Tati and have analyzed several examples.
The relationship between local cinematic traditions and a global demand for art
cinema aesthetics will become an important part of my argument in the next chapter,
where I turn my focus to the films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan. CeylanÕs films, I argue,
similarly re-appropriate the local and the global, but do so in much more complex ways
by adopting an aesthetic element crucial to understanding Slow Cinema: boredom.
  169 
CHAPTER 4
Contemplative Boredom: The Films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan
In this chapter I turn my focus to Nuri Bilge Ceylan, a prominent Turkish director
whose films in the 21st
century garnered much international critical attention, often in
relation to the rise of Slow Cinema. I argue that Ceylan performs a unique intervention
into Turkish film history by adapting certain European aesthetic sensibilities into a
Turkish context, along which certain local filmmaking practices are combined with
stylistic features of Slow Cinema. Thus, the films of Ceylan represent a compelling case
study for Slow Cinema directors who work on two fronts: on the one hand, cultivating
local traditions and conventions by investigating a national culture and on the other,
disseminating this discourse to an international audience through global networks of
exhibition. In this respect, my investigation of CeylanÕs films is a logical continuation
of Chapter 3, in which I examined the ways in which Tsai Ming-liang negotiated
between traditions of Taiwanese cinema and institutional forces of the film festivals.
Likewise, I examine this complex interaction in the domain of Turkish cinema in two
parts: firstly, I provide a brief account of popular Turkish cinema history, its
institutional parameters and aesthetic features and discuss the ways in which Ceylan
negotiates these traditions throughout his filmography, especially in relation to the
emergence of New Turkish Cinema in the mid-1990s. I argue that CeylanÕs chief
aesthetic contribution to this discourse is his creative use of boredom, at once a polar
opposite of Turkish cinematic conventions and a state of mind often attributed to the
Slow Cinema discourse, but not examined in detail in relation to cinematic
spectatorship. As such, in the second part of this chapter, following a concise history
and theory of boredom, I discern this elusive feeling as an aesthetic virtue that produces
insightful, participatory spectatorship and consider its functions in various
reincarnations of Slow Cinema. I then conclude the chapter by offering an in-depth
analysis of CeylanÕs latest feature, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011).
  170 
4.1 Ð Introduction
Of all the directors associated with Slow Cinema, Nuri Bilge Ceylan remains one of the
most cited and well known, but also one of the least investigated in Anglophone film
criticism. Perhaps part of the reason for this is the cultural context in which CeylanÕs
films are produced and marketed. Turkey does not seem to be as familiar a terrain to
Western cultures as, for instance, TarrÕs Hungary, nor as exotic as TsaiÕs Taiwan. In this
respect, Turkish cinema represents a unique cultural mixture in the eyes of Western
audiences, which, on the one hand, embodies an intriguing portrayal of its distinctive
cultural characteristics, and on the other, offers very little context and a faint difficulty
in approaching its underlying historical circumstances. In fact, such Òin-betweennessÓ
has always been a significant part of the cultural discourses surrounding Turkey in the
twentieth century: it is a country that is not only geographically, but also culturally,
socially, politically and economically torn between Europe and Asia, West and East,
modernity and tradition. Given this complicated socio-cultural background, it is no
wonder how perplexing it must be to see any of CeylanÕs films, which arguably display
the most honest, powerful, poignant and accurate portrayal of contemporary Turkish
society on screen for decades. While holding a mirror to Turkish society, CeylanÕs films
are often seen as a significant part of contemporary European art cinema and regularly
feature in international film festivals and prestigious competitions. As such, what
initially seems to be an investigation of local cultures suddenly becomes a major part of
global networks of distribution, exhibition and reception Ð a fundamental attribute of
Slow Cinema. In this respect, CeylanÕs films constitute a negotiation between, on the
one hand, a complex relationship with national culture and filmmaking traditions and,
on the other, a cultural interaction with European aesthetic and stylistic sensibilities.
Just as in the cases of both BŽla Tarr and Tsai Ming-liang, CeylanÕs films represent a
complicated history of film and culture, in which complex debates between the local
and the global are deeply and intricately rooted.
Therefore, I begin this chapter by providing a brief account of the history of
Turkish cinema, focusing mainly on the conventions of Yeşil•am, its so-called golden
age roughly between the years 1950 and 1980, during which domestic film production
and consumption rocketed and dominated the countryÕs film market. Yeşil•am cinema
  171 
was essentially seen as a primitive version of classical Hollywood: it was composed of
mainly escapist films with recognizable stars and extraordinary plots, attracting
working-class audiences. Noticeable characteristics of the films were their heavyhanded
use of oral storytelling techniques, most notably the relentless postsynchronized
dubbing; the practice of recycling other Western films, either in the form
of cinematic plagiarism (the so-called Turkish rip-offs) or re-adapting well-known
narratives into a completely Turkish context and finally its apparent promotion of lower
cultural and aesthetic values through relatively cheap production quality and
rudimentary narratives. CeylanÕs films, however, represent a complete reversal of these
Yeşil•am values and conventions. Ordinary lives of ordinary people, who are played by
non-professional actors, are the focus of his films and are often depicted in stillness
through a contemplation of their everyday situations and empty moments. In short,
CeylanÕs films display a great lack of narrative action and an abundance of dead time.
Profoundly influenced by modernist art cinema, CeylanÕs films nevertheless manifest an
exhilarating visual imagery, sustained through prolonged sequences of slowness. As
such, while I explore the evolution of Yeşil•am cinema into the emerging New Turkish
Cinema movement during the 1990s, of which Ceylan is considered a forerunner, I also
offer an account of the filmmaking career of the director himself, along with providing
the production and exhibition history of his films. In addition to various stylistic
features, CeylanÕs use of autobiography as a method of production characterizes his
initial intervention into this film history. The national critical reception at the time
demonstrates the ways in which Ceylan is diverging away from his native cinematic
conventions, while the international reception praises Ceylan as an original discovery,
in essence creating a cultural dialogue between Turkey and the West.
In the second part of this chapter, I argue that CeylanÕs principal aesthetic
strategy is his productive use of boredom. Although historically regarded as a negative
emotion, especially within the escapist structures of Yeşil•am cinema, boredom
frequently surfaces in criticisms both for and against Slow Cinema. Boredom was so
unwelcome in Turkish film criticism and culture that at one point Ceylan playfully and
ironically admitted that he would keep making boring films.1
As such, by citing
interviews with Ceylan, this chapter will reconfigure boredom and slowness as a
receptive state of mind, rather than one that simply reflects emptiness devoid of
  172 
meaning. In this respect, I argue that Slow Cinema transforms boredom into an
aesthetically rewarding experience and to establish this argument provide a brief history
and theory of boredom through works of literary scholars, philosophers and
psychologists. I conclude that boredom can be considered as an aesthetic virtue, or in
other words, in certain contexts boredom creates an opportunity for the human mind to
exercise creative inspiration, artistic insight and effective problem solving. Creating
such a state of mind in cinema depends on the various aesthetic strategies that the
filmmakers employ, namely stylistic and formal devices emphasizing stillness, idleness
and inactivity. I refer back to the concept of descriptive pause, which was previously
explored in Chapter 2 in relation to modernist and avant-garde cinema, and claim that it
provides the basis for such an aesthetic strategy. I apply this theoretical framework to
CeylanÕs Distant (2002) and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, both of which represent
different aspects of the descriptive pause. The analysis considers the ways in which
pausing story progression throughout the film not only obscures our understanding of its
plot details, but through a specific use of mise-en-sc•ne and camerawork reveals deeper
insights about Turkish society and culture. In this respect, boredom achieves a
revelatory function and encourages contemplation on part of the spectator,
characterizing the foundation of Slow CinemaÕs mode of spectatorship.
4.2 Ð Historical Background: Yeşil•am and the New Turkish Cinema
Providing a detailed historical outline of Turkish cinema is certainly beyond the scope
of this dissertation. However, in this section I want to set up the historical circumstances
in which Turkish filmmakers worked, describe the types of films they produced and
then conclude with the contrasting New Turkish Cinema movement that found its voice
in the mid-to-late 1990s as well as outline the development of national film culture. As
we will see, the traditional Turkish cinema was fundamentally escapist in nature and a
dead contrast to Slow Cinema aesthetics. Mainly composed of conventional genre
productions, it lacked a sense of artistic ambition that was to be recuperated by
emerging contemporary directors that followed art cinema aesthetics. Ceylan was an
important forerunner of this group of filmmakers, loosely termed as the New Turkish
Cinema, which flourished in the 1990s and opposed traditional conventions in a number
  173 
of ways, although the focus remained aesthetic and political. While certain practical
features and production methods of traditional Turkish cinema overlapped with
CeylanÕs work, it was largely the ways in which his films were marketed and distributed
that set them apart from its mainstream counterparts. Similar to other Slow Cinema
directors, Ceylan developed a filmmaking style that was first and foremost an
opposition to the native and national cultural context.
Although enjoying a recent and brief interest, the study of Turkish cinema
history has only been addressed in piecemeal fashion. Much of the work published in
English centres around matters of identity, gender and national culture without a
detailed interest in the historical evolution of cinema in Turkey.2
Three major figures,
however, are today considered to be indispensable resources, albeit mostly written in
Turkish: Nijat …zon, the first film critic and theorist to actually undertake research into
the history of Turkish cinema, also published the first serious film journal as well as a
critical dictionary; Giovanni Scognamillo, a Levantine-Turkish film historian and
author of Italian descent, whose two volume history of Turkish cinema revisits and to a
certain extent revises …zšnÕs research; and finally Rekin Teksoy, a renowned translator
and cultural programmer, whose recently translated book is the first historical study of
Turkish cinema published in English.3
A much more accessible and recent book is
Savaş ArslanÕs Cinema in Turkey, which not only collates important research from all
preceding sources, but also offers a fresh perspective in each and every period of
Turkish cinema history and currently stands as a unique resource for Anglophone
scholars.4
In the rest of this section I will navigate through important developments of
Turkish cinema industry and illuminate the ways in which customs and conventions of
national cinemas can cause auteur-directors to align their films with foreign traditions.
Although CeylanÕs work is largely consumed on an international level, his films
nevertheless intervene into a particular cultural history: on the one hand opposing
certain aesthetic traditions and on the other hand embracing some practical aspects of
filmmaking. As in other Slow Cinema directors, Ceylan continues to hold a dialectic
relationship to his national culture: while his films barely attract audiences in the local
cinemas, abroad his films are revered for their honest and sweeping portrayal of
contemporary Turkish life. Furthermore, the discourses and problems that are
commonly seen in Turkish cinema are still part of CeylanÕs cinema today and as such a
  174 
brief historical account can only help us better understand the cultural and historical
significance of his films.
Cinema entered Turkey during the last days of the Ottoman Empire, at a time
when the clashes between the modern and the traditional were at their highest peak.5
Films were mainly exhibited in theatres, beer halls and coffee shops located in
cosmopolitan districts, much of them owned by foreigners living in İstanbul. Although
exhibition continued, film production did not commence until the mid-1910s.6
The First
World War and the subsequent Turkish War of Independence hindered any possibility
of development of the cinema industry. Following 1923, the newly found Turkish
Republic sought to modernize the traditional art forms such as literature, music and
theatre, but was disinterested in reforming the cinema industry, and hence there was no
state intervention in film production apart from usual regulations such as censorship. As
a result, individual and private investment stimulated some, but in fact very little
development in cinema. Artists such as Muhsin Ertuğrul, who was then an established
theatre director, dominated the film industry for decades. Many of these productions
established basic genres and audience patterns, seldom aiming for artistic innovation.7
The end of the Second World War, however, brought an influx of foreign imports Ð
mainly popular Egyptian films or classical Hollywood movies Ð that established an
enormous popularity amongst the inexperienced Turkish audiences.8
As a result, along
with the economic expansion and the relatively liberal politics of the 1950s, there was,
suddenly, an exponential increase in domestic film production.
In the early 1950s, Turkish cinema boomed and developed its own domestic
production outlet, commonly referred to as Yeşil•am (literally, green pine). Named after
a street in which most production companies were located, Yeşil•am roughly refers to
the historical period between the years 1950-1980, which in its so-called golden-age
domestic film production created an output of approximately two hundred films in 1966
and around three hundred in 1971, Òwhile remaining around two hundred until the 1980
military intervention prevented the continuation of almost all independent cultural
activity.Ó9
Naturally, such a high production volume brought forward its own internal
dynamics. For instance, Savaş Arslan notes that the technical incompetence and chronic
low-budgets were very much the defining characteristics of Yeşil•am films, as well as
  175 
their extremely simple narratives that ubiquitously depict the clash between good and
evil.10
As such, Yeşil•am continually produced escapist productions for an uneducated,
middle-to-lower class film audience, refusing to renew itself for decades, neither
improving technical quality nor aesthetic value (although with honourable exceptions).
Furthermore, Arslan views Yeşil•am as not a term given to identify a particular national
film industry, but an umbrella term to identify itself as a Òhub of cinema having a
specific set of distinctive characteristics in terms of production, distribution, and
exhibition network, and a specific filmic discourse and language developed by bringing
together different films under one umbrella.Ó11
This last comment is crucial, as it
differentiates Yeşil•am from connotations to a large industrial institution such as
Hollywood, as well as national and cultural movements such as the French New Wave.
Instead, Yeşil•am in its everyday use delineates a nostalgic term that refers to a type of
cinema no longer exists, but is conventionally based on certain cultural sensibilities,
such as trite and banal dialogue or absurd chance encounters, and lowbrow aesthetic
values.12
Despite these associations, Yeşil•am cinema maintained its popularity with
working class audiences and accordingly its scope consisted of a wide range of genre
films. These included family melodramas, action-adventures, comedies, ÒkebabÓ
Westerns and soft-core sex films, or in other words, Yeşil•am catered to any
demographical appetite. The variety of films, however, was offset by a perceived
technical and aesthetic ineptitude, resulting in extremely low production values.
However, according to Arslan, Òthe poor quality of shooting and editing did not present
a problem on the part of spectators.Ó In fact, these features led to a unique form of
narration that was inherently Turkish, drawing certain elements from traditional
performing arts in which an extra-diegetic narrator would explain the situation and give
away plot details at the outset of the play. ÒSimilarly,Ó writes Arslan, ÒYeşil•amÕs
presentation of its stories was based on oral cues rather than visual narration. It was the
story that was of interest and therefore the deficiencies of visual narration were
eliminated through oral narration.Ó13
In other words, Yeşil•am cinema greatly favoured
an extensive use of dialogue and plot, both of which became the primary way in which
audiences engaged with movies. Therefore, the Yeşil•am aesthetic represents the
complete opposite of Slow Cinema. There was little use of the long take or deep focus
  176 
cinematography while atmospheric sound design was almost non-existent and
filmmakers were not interested in creating a distinctively visual mood. Ceylan retains an
ambivalent relationship to this aesthetic history, which often resulted in the director
attempting to please different audiences or work in two different markets. As we shall
see later, because CeylanÕs films are closer to a foreign (i.e. European) aesthetic, they
were initially unsuccessful (at least in the financial sense) with Turkish audiences, who
did not relate to CeylanÕs use of dead time, boredom and slow pace.
This is not to say, however, that Yeşil•am did not produce any films with
aesthetic ambitions, or, in other words, art films. As early as 1961, several individual
directors were slowly gaining recognition by international film festivals, although such
works remained extremely marginalized due to their box office failures in the domestic
market as well as political issues that prevented these auteur-directors from working
freely. The first Turkish film to achieve considerable success and receive proper
recognition in Europe was Dry Summer (Susuz Yaz, Metin Erksan, 1964), which won
the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in the same year.14
The film
depicted the plight of Turkish peasants in the under-developed rural areas of Anatolia,
inaugurating the much discussed Turkish village films, which I will elaborate further
later on in this chapter in relation to CeylanÕs and other auteursÕ films. Dry Summer was
a breaking point in which the cultural exchange between Turkey and Western Europe
intensified and with the introduction of actor and self-trained director Yõlmaz GŸney
this relationship became much more visible. Notable directors followed this course in
the 1970s and well into the 1980s with films shown at festivals; nevertheless Turkish
cinema in this period failed to achieve enough sales and distribution to make any
impact. Once again Yõlmaz GŸney was an exceptional figure in this period, whose
political allegiance, individual charisma and artistic direction deeply attracted Western
audiences.15
As we shall see later, the next generation of filmmakers in the 1990s
changed this course, as there was a visible increase in quality art-house filmmaking as
seen in the works of Ceylan and others.
Although composed of many genres, Yeşil•am can still be considered as a
coherent and unified discourse with its own particularities, and as such its overarching
features are closely related to contemporary Turkish cinema, including CeylanÕs films.
  177 
Savaş Arslan theorizes the cinema in Turkey through four distinctive notions: hayal
(literally imagination or spectre), melodramatic modality, Turkification, and šzenti
(literally imitation or pretension), the latter two of which are significantly related to the
ways in which Ceylan emerged as a unique filmmaker through the post-Yeşil•am
environment. According to Arslan, Turkification refers to the nation-building objectives
of the film industry: post-synchronized dubbing, the modification and remakes (or ripoffs)
of Western films within a Turkish context. Turkification also significantly defines
the concept of šzenti: a desire to be like the other (the West, or Hollywood), through
various practices of transformation. ÒIn this movement from self to other,Ó Arslan notes,
Òa return to the original self is impossible,Ó and ÒYeşil•am maintained a double
existence, not being one nor being the other but in continual movement between the
two.Ó16
More specifically, I see Turkification and šzenti as two important, often
complementary concepts, that not only illuminate the discourses in Yeşil•am cinema but
furthermore reflect the broader political, social and cultural movements that take place
within modern Turkey. While šzenti represents the aspirations of a cultural elite that
wants to become Westernized, Turkification, or in other words the republican project of
reforming, adapting and integrating Western values into a traditional Turkish context,
indicates one particular method for achieving this dialectic between the traditional and
the modern (or Western). We shall see later how Ceylan appropriates this dialectic, on
the one hand by working in two completely different markets (the local and the global
or literally the Turkish and the Western) and on the other hand the ways in which his
films attest to these notions. The contradictions between the traditional and the modern
are ever-present in Turkey, not least for its geographical location literally in-between
Europe and Asia, but largely in part for its socio-political history in the 20th
century. As
in Europe, the formation of film culture in Turkey largely testifies to these
developments.
A genuine film culture did not flourish in Turkey until the late-1960s, due to the
lack of investment either from state or private initiatives. Arslan writes: ÒThe state was
not interested in opening film schools, film libraries, or cinematheques. The only
existing places that might have served such functions were the screening theaters
established by the RPP [Republican PeopleÕs Party] at the PeopleÕs Houses, which were
closed under the DP [Democratic Party] government [throughout the 1950s]. This
  178 
situation continued until the mid-1960s, when the first cinematheque and film archive
were established. The first film school opened in the mid-1970s.Ó17
The Turkish
Cinematheque (originally, TŸrk Sinematek Derneği, and literally The Turkish
Cinematheque Association) was found in August 25, 1965 by Onat Kutlar, at the time
an author and cinephile who studied philosophy in Paris during the early 1960s and was
a regular visitor of the CinŽmath•que Fran•aise. The cinematheque was by no means an
organized institution such as the CinŽmath•que Fran•aise that paid attention to the
preservation of cinematic works, but functioned as a social club and a network for
intellectuals, scholars and artists who were interested in the history of cinema and
wanted to engage with contemporary art cinema. The screenings were usually held in
the cosmopolitan Beyoğlu district of İstanbul and the events were completely funded by
its members based in İstanbul and Ankara. The journal Yeni Sinema [New Cinema] was
published by the association between 1966 and 1970, and some minor (and irregular)
publications continued in the following years. After 1975, however, the association lost
its impact, but continued screenings until its closure in 1980.18
The members in İstanbul
and Ankara were divided into two different branches in the aftermath of 1980, which
resulted in local initiatives that eventually evolved into respective film festivals and
other clubs.19
Although the cinematheque itself did not support Ceylan directly, we will
see later how its future legacy, in other words the urban film festivals, become an
important site of exhibition and recognition for Ceylan as well as the New Turkish
Cinema group.
The cinematheque was instrumental in developing an awareness of Western
cinematic movements, especially the European art-house waves, and instigated a unique
turn within national film culture and film criticism. Left-wing film critics began to see
Yeşil•am as backward and proposed its termination to make way for a cinematic
movement modelled on Italian Neorealism and other New Waves, without any
consideration for Third World cinemas Ð a view completely endorsed by republican
models of Westernization from above.20
In response, the Yeşil•am industry and
filmmakers voiced two solutions: milli cinema, an Islamic outlook that promoted the
Ottoman identity and culture through a bonding with a non-secular imperial past,
represented by directors YŸcel ‚akmaklõ and Mesut U•akan; and ulusal cinema, a
nationalist outlook combining elements of Republicanism and Turkishness, commonly
  179 
associated with the works of Metin Erksan, Halit Refiğ and partly LŸtfi Akad.21
As
such, the dialectics of modernity and tradition continued to dominate the cultural
discourses surrounding Turkey and the clash between the ulusal and milli cinemas was
simply another manifestation of this anxiety that defined the period of late-1970s.22
The year 1980 is in many ways a turning point for Turkey, not only for the
cinema industry, but more intensely so for the socio-cultural and political future of the
general public. The coalition governmentÕs failure to resolve the violent clashes
between armed political groups and its inability to eradicate anarchy in urban centres
culminated in a military coup dÕŽtat, which in turn brought social and cultural life to a
three year halt. The military junta gathered intellectuals in prisons and banned all
political activity, eventually creating a completely new constitution in 1982, which,
although brought a new government into action, did not deliver a democratic climate.
The ban on political parties was finally lifted in 1987, after years of interrogation and
persecution of leftist writers, critics, scholars and intellectuals. With leftist political
parties out of the way, conservative parties regained control over the parliament and
introduced economic policies strongly in favour of the free market neo-liberal policies
and integrated the Turkish economic market with the global network, at times with
severe consequences. In short, over 1980s and early 1990s, Turkish social life
underwent rapid and drastic changes: devaluation of currency, massive immigration to
urban centres and unemployment, economic instability, asymmetric distribution of
wealth, internal political threats (for example, the rise Islamic fundamentalism and the
armed Kurdish rebellions) became part of everyday life.23
The cultural outlook of the
country changed so rapidly that the naivety and blind optimism of Yeşil•am failed to
capture the imagination of Turkish audiences.
The 1980s, therefore, saw a steady decline of Yeşil•am cinema. Although the
number of productions maintained a decent value, cinema attendance, ticket sales and
number of theatres plummeted to all-time low figures.24
Those theatres that remained
open in urban centres insisted on showing foreign imports, namely Hollywood
blockbusters, which posed serious competition to Yeşil•am films and reduced revenues.
Increasing costs of film production due to inflation, the video boom of the 1980s and
finally the privatisation of the broadcasting industry in Turkey, and hence television
  180 
replacing the cinema theatre, also contributed significantly to Yeşil•amÕs demise.25
As a
result, while the popular cinema came to an end, the 1980s also saw a number of
socially conscious films with ambivalent political messages, many of which were later
criticized in the national scene for being too difficult. For example, Yõlmaz GŸneyÕs The
Road (Yol, 1982), perhaps the most well-known Turkish film until recently, follows the
stories of five prisoners travelling to a distinctive part of Anatolia upon their leave from
prison. In many ways, GŸney constructed the story in a way to evoke an allegory of the
military intervention in Turkey in 1980 as the prisoners slowly realize that their lives
outside of the prison is no less different or oppressive than the one in prison. As
Asuman Suner writes, Òusing prison as a metaphor for the state of Turkish society under
military rule, the film raises a radical critique not only of the oppressive Turkish state,
but also of feudal traditions prevailing in rural Turkey.Ó26
Other notable auteurdirectors,
such as Atõf Yõlmaz, Ali …zgentŸrk, Erden Kõral and …mer Kavur, continued
to work throughout 1980s, producing politically and socially conscious films, but
remained unable to attain neither a wider audience nor a significant impact and were
similarly frequently confronted by state censorship.27
While the Hollywood dominance of the Turkish market lasted until mid-2000s,
the mid-1990s saw a renewal of Turkish cinema. Many critics concur in the association
of this resurrection to the release of Yavuz TurgulÕs The Bandit (Eşkiya, 1996), which
became one of the biggest box-office successes in Turkey. The Bandit directly inherited
aspects of narrative, characterization and themes from Yeşil•am, although part of its
success in fact relied on its technical competence. It was the first Turkish film to use
synchronous sound recording as well as utilizing sophisticated editing techniques, both
of which were unseen in Turkish cinema apart from foreign imports.28
Such an increase
in production values was largely caused by the expansion of the commercial advertising
and television sectors, both of which increased the quality of filmmaking by offering
professional technicians, studios and equipment for use.29
Furthermore, the economic
success of the film demonstrated optimism for other directors and in many ways
triggered a wave of films. Suddenly, the so-called New Turkish Cinema discourse arose,
indicating a resurgence and/or renewal of Turkish national cinema.30
Although not
overtly, Asuman Suner demonstrates that the phrase New Turkish Cinema should be
understood in two distinctive fronts, at least within the context of the 1990s.31
On the
  181 
one hand, The Bandit epitomized a more popular form of cinema, represented by
directors such as Yavuz Turgul, Mustafa Altõoklar, Sinan ‚etin and Yõlmaz Erdoğan,
whose financial resources were not only composed of the derelict film industry, but also
drew from related industries such as television, advertising and entertainment. These
films gradually replaced the Hollywood dominance of the domestic market by
successfully revising Yeşil•am values and themes, often in an ironic, humorous or
nostalgic manner and establishing a firm audience base in Turkey as well as abroad by
aiming at the Turkish diasporas in Western countries. On the other hand, the same year
brought Derviş ZaimÕs Somersault in a Coffin (Tabutta Ršvaşata, 1996), which
inaugurated the Ònew wave art cinemaÓ in Turkey along with Nuri Bilge CeylanÕs The
Small Town (Kasaba, 1997) and Zeki DemirkubuzÕs Innocence (Masumiyet, 1997).
Despite their critical acclaim, these films only attracted a niche audience at the
beginning and never found their way into the mainstream media well into the 2000s.
The phrase New Turkish Cinema was assigned to a group of films because of
their break away from aesthetic features closely associated with Yeşil•am. Many of
these films were shot with synchronized sound and hence relied on naturalistic use of
dialogue that included different accents from various parts of Turkey; for instance the
use of swear words in Serdar AkarÕs On Board (Gemide, 1998) accompanied by a
particularly accurate working-class accent was previously unseen, or at least not
common, in Turkish cinema. Furthermore, many directors based their films on
particular themes and established themselves as auteur-directors: Derviş Zaim and
Yeşim Ustaoğlu revealed the changing forces in Turkish society by implicitly referring
to recent events in the political history of Turkey, while Nuri Bilge Ceylan studied the
alienation of the individual artist by drawing from his personal memories. On the other
hand, Western literary and philosophical influences were made explicit in much of these
films, for instance Demirkubuz adapting works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Waiting Room,
2004) and Albert Camus (Fate, 2001), and Ceylan dedicating his films to Anton
Chekhov. More generally, however, these films collectively share a common trait,
which Fõrat YŸcel describes as Òthe pursuit of vocalizing and visualizing the unspoken,
especially those feelings that the commotion or monotony of everyday life make
difficult or impossible to articulate.Ó32
While absence of speech in many of these films
reflects the inability of their charactersÕ expression, in some works Òthe unspoken
  182 
referred more to sociopolitical issues like cultural amnesia, hidden violence,
discrimination, prejudice, and crises of identity.Ó33
Such a downplay of the spoken word
and importance of language opposes the ways in which Yeşil•am cinema communicated
with its audiences and demonstrates a clear cut transition from an oral and audial based
narration system to one that fosters visual representation. In other words, the legacy of
European art cinema was finally beginning to take place in Turkey with filmmakers
such as Ceylan consciously experimenting with the formal and visual aspects of the
medium. While slowly becoming culturally and politically conscious, Turkish art
cinema adapted well-known aesthetic features of Slow Cinema.
In addition to these aesthetic differences, New Turkish Cinema differentiates
itself from its predecessors in its modes of production, sources of funding, distribution
and sites of exhibition. As discussed earlier, developments in tangential sectors enabled
filmmakers to increase the production quality of their films. However, many of these art
films were still individually funded and the directors worked with extremely low
budgets, a practice that was dubbed as Òguerrilla filmmakingÓ by Derviş Zaim. Working
with low budgets was common in Yeşil•am and although certain popular films of the
1990s tended to be relatively expensive, New Turkish Cinema directors took the low
budget notion to an austere level. Austerity and minimalism were other ways of
resisting and confronting mainstream culture as well as the traditions of Yeşil•am
cinema. For example, drawing from CeylanÕs early interviews, Asuman Suner writes,
Ò[w]orking on a low budget is not only a matter of necessity, but a preference for
Ceylan, who perceives ÔminimalismÕ as his resistance to the culture of excess and the
consumption craze characterizing the contemporary world.Ó34
As such, minimalism and
the low budget production carried an aesthetic as well as an ideological function for
New Turkish Cinema directors, as much as it did for the Slow Cinema directors across
the globe. CeylanÕs reference to Òthe culture of excess and the consumption crazeÓ was
in many ways the outcome of the period following the 1980s, which saw a radical
liberalization of TurkeyÕs economy and rapidly changed its socio-cultural milieu.
Although the economy was highly unstable, modernization, industrialization and liberal
politics intensified well into the 1990s, especially noticeable in the urban centres where
the New Turkish Cinema directors emerged. With no funds available from the state or
the private sector, these filmmakers mostly relied on personal savings to finance their
  183 
work and Ceylan was no exception. Details of CeylanÕs sparse approach to production
as well as his minimalist aesthetics will be elaborated further in the following sections.
Upon the critical success of their early works New Turkish Cinema directors
were able to attain alternative sources of funding, many of which parallel the emerging
Slow Cinema directors of the 2000s. Derviş Zaim, for instance, argues that the main
sources of funding for both independent and mainstream Turkish cinema are composed
of Eurimages and television channels (both domestic and international).35
Zaim
continues: ÒAlthough the state provided increasingly more support to filmmakers during
this time, this support never transformed into a continuous, systematic and multidimensional
cultural policy.Ó36
A notable exception is the Committee for Supporting
Cinema, a funding body setup by the Ministry of Culture in 2005, which has since
supported a large amount of debut features of young directors with sums ranging from
€100,000 to €125,000.37
According to Zaim, a final source of funding for these
filmmakers are the independent funds closely associated with international film festivals
(such as Hubert Bals in Rotterdam and the World Cinema Fund in Berlin), which Òdue
to their prestige and their ability to carry chosen projects to other platforms, festivals
and networks of contact [have] the potential to produce extremely valuable and effective
outcomes.Ó38
Films that receive funding from these organizations Òautomatically earn
the right, even before the filming begins, to be screened at an important festival.Ó For
example Yeşim UstaoğluÕs Waiting for the Clouds (Bulutlarõ Beklerken, 2003) received
scriptwriting support from Germany and received much critical attention in BerlinaleÕs
Panorama.39
As such, competing at international film festivals as well as pursuing third
party funding were vital for New Turkish Cinema directors and CeylanÕs successful
track record in Cannes was a clear demonstration of this strategy. In this respect,
international film festivals were significant for enabling the New Turkish Cinema
directors to acquire funding as well as improve their distribution networks.
National film festivals, on the other hand, also played an important role for the
development of New Turkish Cinema. Firstly, they generated thriving local film
cultures, especially in the urban centres and were instrumental in the distribution of
international art films. Secondly, the New Turkish Cinema directors were able to
premiere their works nationally and were recognized by the film critics, other
  184 
professionals as well as their targeted niche audience. The first film festival in Turkey
began its competition in 1964 in Antalya, a coastal city based along the Mediterranean
shore.40
Since its inception, The Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival was dedicated to
the celebration and promotion of Turkish cinema. Throughout the 1960s and early
1970s, the festival was in many ways a platform for all Turkish filmmakers and was,
until recently, associated with the nostalgic past of Yeşil•am, although the festival jury
did recognize many of the New Turkish Cinema films. Furthermore, GšnŸl DšnmezColin
notes that the festival regularly featured a range of scandals, Òfrom jury
irregularities to fame- and fortune-hunting starlets,Ó but most importantly those that
regarded political censorship. Many important Turkish films from late 1970s and early
1980s were initially refused entry at the competition in Antalya because the censorship
committees found them inappropriate for various reasons.41
Other notable film festivals,
most importantly the International İstanbul Film Festival and International Ankara Film
Festival began programming in 1982 and 1988 respectively, with the help of excinematheque
members. Both of these festivals were modest in their beginnings, which
included series of screenings of certain European films of the year. However, with the
support of public funds and individual initiatives, they managed to become important
cultural events in both urban centres and soon began their own competition sections.
The International İstanbul Film FestivalÕs goal, for instance, was to Òintroduce quality
films of the world to İstanbul audiences and to showcase quality Turkish films,Ó in the
hope for a dialogue between Turkish art films and audiences.42
Therefore the festival
attained a triple focus: retrospectives (to date, including figures such as Robert Bresson,
Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci.), contemporary art films and competition
films.43
The International İstanbul Film Festival was single-handedly responsible for
screening a great number of Slow Cinema films especially throughout the 1990s and
early 2000s, introducing directors such as BŽla Tarr, Tsai Ming-liang and Darezhan
Omirbayev to cinephile circles in İstanbul. The festival also promoted minimalist
cinema by awarding its Golden Tulip to films such as Goodbye Dragon Inn (2003),
CafŽ Lumi•re (2003) and Egg (2007), well-known films of the Slow Cinema cycle.
Furthermore, both festivals pay an increasing attention to the promotion and production
of contemporary Turkish films, not least through national awards and competitions, but
also through setting up international co-production markets, networks and production
  185 
funds. Meetings on the Bridge, a tangential platform part of the International İstanbul
Film Festival, for instance, was begun in 2006 and consists of a series of workshops and
competitions that reward applications either in the scriptwriting, production or postproduction
stages.44
In many ways, New Turkish Cinema was an early collective sign of these
cultural developments. Along with these institutional establishments, the critical success
of the first wave of filmmakers in late-1990s eventually paved the way for a younger
generation of filmmakers, most of which saw figures like Ceylan as their influences.
Apart from several individual figures, Yeşil•amÕs influence was disregarded and its
failure to adjust its conventions to a more demanding, mature and complex audience
resulted in its aesthetic termination.45
Against this backdrop of cultural transformation,
Ceylan began his filmmaking career by breaking away from traditions and incorporating
autobiographical aspects into his oeuvre. As we shall see later in the next sections,
adopting art cinema conventions such as minimalism, long takes and dead time Ð in
other words aesthetic features specifically associated with Slow Cinema Ð were also
part of CeylanÕs intervention into Turkish cinema culture. Although Ceylan is often
noted as a forerunner in Turkish art cinema, other New Turkish Cinema directors such
as Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Zeki Demirkubuz, Semih Kaplanoğlu and Reha Erdem also adopted
aspects of Slow Cinema aesthetics. In other words, New Turkish Cinema as a
movement was in many ways a localised version of the Slow Cinema movement within
a national context.
In sum, Yeşil•am cinema consisted of aesthetic features in total opposition to
Slow Cinema, but its historical development is exemplary in the ways in which national
art cinema movements emerge and differentiate themselves from a traditional past.
While Yeşil•am aspired to be like Hollywood, it developed its own cultural, aesthetic
and political conventions before completely disbanding in the late 1980s. There is a
remarkable similarity to the ways in which Taiwan cinema developed, as outlined in the
second section of Chapter 3. While both domestic markets flourished and developed
their native traditions in the face of economic, social or political crises, film production
and consumption suddenly plummeted. The revival of certain art cinema movements,
however, relied not only on domestic incentives, but also happened through negotiating
  186 
either aesthetic or political issues with transnational or global networks. Thus, these
films elevated to the international scene by catering to international audiences.46
As
such, the emergence of New Turkish Cinema and CeylanÕs role in it represent a typical,
albeit often neglected, historical trajectory of art cinema. Following this historical
background, the next section examines CeylanÕs filmography and the ways in which his
films are situated against Yeşil•am conventions, particularly in terms of their production
and exhibition histories.
4.3 ÐEvolution from an Artisanal Mode of Production
This section examines the production and exhibition history of CeylanÕs films in
chronological order. CeylanÕs filmography represents a strong case study for Slow
Cinema, because it embodies the very typical avenues that art cinema directors go
through. Beginning with modest productions with a practical approach to filmmaking
influenced by Yeşil•am conventions, Ceylan gradually took part in the international art
cinema circuit by securing film festival funding. Despite adopting certain local
practices, CeylanÕs cinema was nevertheless an unusual one for Turkish audiences. His
films were largely seen as influenced by European art cinema giants and his
idiosyncratic style gradually became a staple in contemporary art cinema. Following his
third feature, CeylanÕs films regularly premiered at the Cannes Film Festival; in other
words, by adopting aesthetic features of minimalist art cinema, his portrayal of Turkish
society and culture suddenly attracted international cinephile circles. The main purpose
of this section is, however, to demonstrate CeylanÕs evolution from an artisanal mode of
production into an organized and international one, weaving together the clashes
between the local and global, national and international traditions. The ways in which
Ceylan negotiates these aesthetic and cultural debates will be the focus of the following
section.
As a director belonging to the Slow Cinema tradition, Ceylan challenged the
major preconceptions of Yeşil•am cinema. No other Turkish filmmaker before, perhaps
with the exception of Yõlmaz GŸney, treated autobiography as a significant element
within various methods of artistic creation. Auteurs in the traditional sense existed in
  187 
Yeşil•am cinema, but Ceylan was in many ways the first to honestly represent and refer
to his own life, memories, environment and ideas on screen. Although born in İstanbul
in 1959 to an educated, civil servant middle-class family, Ceylan soon moved to
Yenice, a peripheral town of ‚anakkale, which is a Thracian city bordering Anatolia
and Europe.47
Much of CeylanÕs childhood was spent in this rural setting, but he
eventually moved back to İstanbul along with his mother and older sister, visiting
Yenice mostly during the summer vacations. CeylanÕs early films were in fact set and
shot within this environment, based on his recollections as well as short stories written
by his older sister. Before pursuing a career in filmmaking, Ceylan studied electrical
engineering at Boğazi•i University in İstanbul and completed his degree in 1985.
During this period Ceylan deeply engaged with Western culture, especially through the
resources the university provided in the form of classical music, photography and
cinema.48
Young intellectuals forcing themselves to withdraw from political ambitions
and instead engaging with the arts, more specifically Western Art, due to the political
ambivalence during the violent confrontations between right wing and left-wing groups
and especially following the coup dÕŽtat of 1980 was a common tendency found
amongst some of the most successful artists emerging in Turkey in the 1990s.49
Boğazi•i University was an ideal place for this development at this time, due to its
historical connections with the American cultural and educational institutions and its
rich variety of student clubs that deeply interested Ceylan.50
During his studies, Ceylan
took an interest in photography and was already taking passport style photos to earn
pocket money. On the other hand, although lacking a film or moving image related
department, Boğazi•i University reportedly offered its students elective courses in
cinema, which enabled Ceylan to engage with the modern masters of European arthouse
cinema, more specifically auteurs such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar
Bergman, Robert Bresson and most importantly, Andrei Tarkovsky.51
In this respect, Europe and Western culture formed an intellectual and creative
inspiration for Ceylan, but at the same time he also showed a sentimental interest in
Eastern culture as well as certain national traditions. This duality was already present in
the period immediately preceding his filmmaking career. Upon graduating, Ceylan
worked as a commercial photographer and travelled across Europe and Asia, in his own
words Òsearching for the meaning of life.Ó However, he finally decided to come back to
  188 
Turkey to complete his compulsory military service and within the 18 months he spent
in Ankara for his national duty, he faced Òa rich mosaic of Turkish culture,Ó represented
by a variety of people belonging to Turkish society, which he isolated himself during
most of the 1980s. After such a revelation, Ceylan decided to become a filmmaker.52
He
spent some time in London looking for film schools and visiting its cinematheques,
such as The Scala in Kings Cross and the National Film Theatre in Southbank.53
During
the late 1980s, he enrolled in Mimar Sinan University, known for its fine art faculty as
well as its extensive archive of Turkish cinema.54
While achieving a good reputation in
commercial photography, by early 1990s he abandoned both the profession and the
filmmaking course after two years and started working on his film career.
CeylanÕs first film was an experimental short titled Cocoon (Koza, 1995). It was
shot over a year with a single assistant, and film stock past its expiry date acquired from
the Turkish state broadcasting company, or in other words with an almost zero budget.55
The film explores the cycles of rural life through images of CeylanÕs parents placed
against visual patterns in nature and borders the non-narrative form for its frequent use
of associational montage as well as its lack of characterization and causality. It begins
by juxtaposing photographs of CeylanÕs parents and their current situation; the father
carries out his duties within the rural setting while the mother seems to be travelling
through an urban area. The first indication of a rudimentary plot comes when we see
CeylanÕs mother reuniting with the father, following a presumably lengthy trip to the
city. However, after this encounter the film thwarts narrative causality in favour of an
impeccable mood and atmosphere. While the obscure imagery captures moments of
natural life, the sound design contains a mixture of classical music, ambient noises and
the howling wind. Shot on 16mm, Koza was the first Turkish short film ever to compete
for a Golden Palm in the Cannes Short Film Competition and in many ways created a
pathway for Ceylan in the international film festival market. Although much more
experimental than his features, the film nevertheless shares many aspects of his future
films.
CeylanÕs debut feature was The Small Town (Kasaba, 1997), which was partly
funded by the Turkish Ministry of Culture. Commonly seen as the beginnings of the
burgeoning New Turkish Cinema, the film was produced with a crew of two: Ceylan
  189 
himself and his assistant Sadõk İncesu, who handled various production responsibilities.
According to Ceylan the budget of the film was only US $50,000 most of which was
spent on the post-production facilities in Hungary. The film was based on a short story
by CeylanÕs older sister Emine Ceylan and included various quotes from and allusions
to Chekhov.56
Returning to the familiar setting from his childhood, Ceylan once again
captures the rhythms and cycles in a provincial town, this time with the aid of several
characters, played by his family members and siblings, most of whom will feature
similar roles in CeylanÕs next feature. While irreducible to a plot summary, the film
takes on three generations of a large family and establishes a series of tensions,
disagreements and irregularities between them. Adapting the Chekhovian short story
form, the film received, as we will see later, positive critical reception, but virtually
failed at its box office. However, it received a decent exposure in many international
film festivals, including notable national and international awards such as the Jury Prize
in Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival (1997), Yõlmaz GŸney Special Prize in Adana
Golden Boll Film Festival (1997), Calgary Prize in Berlin Film Festival (1998), Special
Jury Prize in Nantes Film Festival (1998) and a FIPRESCI Prize in İstanbul Film
Festival (1998), for which Ceylan was awarded US $30,000.57
His next feature was Clouds of May (Mayõs Sõkõntõsõ, 1999), a thematic
continuation of his earlier feature. The film depicts the emerging independent
filmmaker Muzaffer, played by CeylanÕs friend Muzaffer …zdemir, visiting his family
in his provincial hometown near ‚anakkale in pursuit of location scouting and casting
research. During his visit, Muzaffer persuades his cousin Saffet, played by CeylanÕs
real-life cousin Mehmet Emin Toprak, into joining the film crew, following the latterÕs
failure in the university entrance exams and his subsequent ill-fated job at the local
factory. In the meanwhile, MuzafferÕs father, Emin (Emin Ceylan), is preoccupied with
the forest he has been cultivating in the last two decades and ignores MuzafferÕs plea
into acting for his film. The filmÕs title literally translates as ÒThe Boredom of May,Ó
and along with The Small Town, both films were considered as an examination of a
unique sense of temporality within the Turkish provincial setting. I will be addressing
this aspect of his filmography later on, especially in relation to boredom as an aesthetic
strategy in his films. Both thematically and stylistically, however, Clouds of May
initiated a set of films Ceylan made one after another that strongly displayed various
  190 
aspects of the Slow Cinema aesthetics: its deliberate use of slow pacing through long
takes, employment of dead time, dedramatized narrative structures, fixed-position
cameras, attentiveness to landscape, still images lacking movement and expressive
colour photography.
In many ways, Clouds of May is the film that introduced Ceylan to a larger
number of Turkish cinephiles, who started to recognize CeylanÕs potential as an
important filmmaker. This was largely due to CeylanÕs overwhelming success at three
major Turkish film festivals as the film received the Best Film Award in Ankara,
İstanbul and Antalya. Therefore, Clouds of May enjoyed some journalistic attention in
popular film and cultural magazines as well as newspaper coverage.58
However, the
attendance figures for such independent films were still too low to produce any kind of
cultural or economic impact. On the international level, the film competed for the
Golden Bear in Berlin Film Festival and received a total of sixteen awards from
international film festivals, which include Angers European First Film Festival, Buenos
Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema and Singapore International Film
Festival. As such, Clouds of May became one of the most awarded Turkish films, at
least until CeylanÕs next feature was released.
Although Clouds of May received a decent distribution and number of awards,
CeylanÕs international breakthrough was Distant (Uzak, 2002), which thematically
picked up where his previous films left off. SaffetÕs dreams of leaving the town for a
more sophisticated and prosperous life in the city are represented in Distant in guise of a
new character Yusuf, played by the same enigmatic and naturally gifted Mehmet Emin
Toprak. On the other hand, Muzaffer …zdemir reprised his earlier role in Clouds of
MayÕs Muzaffer as Mahmut, a commercial photographer who had left the provincial
lifestyle behind and had already set up a life for himself (and himself only) in İstanbul.
The film portrays this strange relationship of two men, who are in many ways
diametrically opposite to each other in terms of their social and cultural status. They are
unable to communicate with each other, let alone with the opposite sex and fail to
resolve their predicaments while wandering aimlessly against the background of a
snow-covered and visually stunning İstanbul. As such, the film provides a miniature
portrait of contemporary Turkey and holds a mirror to its age-old cultural problems,
  191 
such as the conflicts between urban-rural, intellectual-uneducated and modern-
traditional.
Distant was produced in different circumstances than CeylanÕs earlier features.
The production crew included five people, including Ceylan who also acted as
cinematographer. The rest of the team took on specific responsibilities, such as
production design, sound, lighting and camera assistant, however many aspects of the
production were reportedly handled through a communal spirit: including little or no
pre-production or rehearsing and filming in CeylanÕs own flat, which in the film
appeared as MahmutÕs house.59
The film marked the first time in which Ceylan received
substantial funding from an independent, third party institution, which was the Hubert
Bals Fund scheme managed by the International Film Festival Rotterdam.60
In effect,
this marked a long-lasting relationship between Ceylan and the various art cinema
institutions based in Europe, a relationship that very quickly culminated in the filmÕs
premiere at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. As the favourite of the majority of press
members at the festival, Distant went on to win the Grand Jury Prize and was
subsequently an immense international art-house hit. The festival jury also shared the
Best Actor Prize between Muzaffer …zdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak, the latter of
who tragically died in a road accident upon his return from the filmÕs release at the
Ankara Film Festival. Although I will address its national and international critical
reception later on, it should be noted here that the film not only went on to tour various
film festivals and entered commercial distribution networks, but it also continued to
receive numerous awards at other prestigious film festivals.61
With the international success of Distant, CeylanÕs career entered a new phase in
which his collaboration and interaction with European cinematic institutions intensified.
Although his future productions were shot in Turkey and were concerned with Turkish
themes, all of them premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, receiving major awards and
gaining popularity amongst international art cinema circles. Likewise, the films
maintained their critical success within Turkish publications, but their box office
numbers were still modest. In other words, Ceylan became a typical global art cinema
director; although critically praised at home, the main audience for his films were
international cinephiles, critics and festival viewers. His next film Climates (İklimler,
  192 
2006) inaugurated this complex relationship, which received the FIPRESCI prize at
Cannes, where it premiered, and involved several other developments in CeylanÕs
filmmaking career. For example, Ceylan began working with the producer Zeynep
…zbatur, whose previous work included Turkish art films such as Lola + Bilidikid
(Kutluğ Ataman, 1999) and Hi•biryerde (Tayfun Pirselimoğlu, 2002).62
Secondly,
Climates received €200,000 from Eurimages towards its production as well as financial
support from the Turkish Ministry of Culture, and was co-produced with the Frenchbased
Pyramide Productions in association with the Turkish company İmaj.63
Much of
the funding was once again spent on the post-production stage, namely the editing and
sound design processes, and took place in France, where Ceylan admittedly wanted to
benefit from the production companyÕs technical know-how. Moreover, Gškhan
Tiryaki, by then a director of photography at İmaj Film with previous experience in the
state broadcast company, was recruited for the cinematographer role, increasing the
shooting crew to fourteen. Switching to high-definition video for practical reasons, the
Ceylan-Tiryaki collaboration still persists today as a fruitful relationship.64
In other
words, Ceylan consolidated his individual role as a director by acquiring professional
and technical assistance for his film productions. His mode of production slowly
evolved from a handful of assistants into a regular-sized, albeit minimalist crew.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the film was, however, CeylanÕs role in
front of the camera. Ceylan decided to try out his acting skills in the film, which depicts
the disintegrating relationship between İsa (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) and Bahar (Ebru
Ceylan). Following their unsuccessful trip to a Turkish coastal town in the Southwest,
the couple decide to break up. Having secondary thoughts, İsa purposelessly drifts
around İstanbul and is sneering at by his colleagues for his inability to complete his
work on architecture. One evening, he accidentally bumps into his ex-girlfriend Serap
and stalks her to her apartment, culminating in an erotic meet-up later in the night. İsa
finds out that Bahar relocated to the city of Ağrõ in Eastern Turkey for a TV shoot.
Weary of his solitude in İstanbul, İsa then takes off to Ağrõ to find Bahar in the hope of
reunification. However, Bahar rejects him and even though they get together for a brief
moment, İsa departs the city, leaving Bahar in tears. Themes of alienation, disquietude,
disconnection and a hopeless incapability of communication as well as ethically vague
or outright immoral characters also find their way in CeylanÕs fifth feature, Three
  193 
Monkeys (†• Maymun, 2008). In this crime drama with neo-noir overtones, Ceylan
depicts the lives and ethical struggles of a working-class family in what seems to be
gloomier than ordinary İstanbul. The plot follows a father EyŸp (Yavuz Bingšl), who
decides to take the fall for his petty politician boss Servet (Ercan Kesal) following the
latterÕs accidental murder in a car crash. Servet promises EyŸp a large sum in
compensation for taking the blame and while EyŸp is in prison, his son İsmail (Ahmet
Rõfat Sungar) convinces his mother Hacer (Hatice Aslan) to request this money in
advance from Servet to establish a business. An obsessive sexual relationship develops
between Hacer and Servet, but ends once EyŸp is out of prison. Suspicious of his wife,
EyŸp becomes endlessly haunted by mysterious incidents in his past, while İsmail
decides to kill Servet for interrupting family matters. To avoid his sonÕs prison sentence,
EyŸp convinces a homeless man just the same way he had previously done for his now
deceased boss.
Three Monkeys was an even larger co-production with several companies
involved. Basically, the film was an outcome of a co-production between two domestic
companies, CeylanÕs own NBC Film and producer Zeynep …zbaturÕs Zeyno Film, and
two European production companies, Pyramide Productions from France as well as Bim
Distribuzione from Italy, with the participation of İmaj, a Turkish post-production
company. Both European companies also distributed the film in their respective
countries. Likewise, Eurimages, Turkish Ministry of Culture and French National
Cinema Centre made financial contributions to the production of the film. It was widely
distributed, and Ceylan received the Best Director Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in
2009 Ð a first ever for any Turkish director. Similarly, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
(Bir Zamanlar AnadoluÕda, 2011) was an outcome of a European co-production,
although in this instance one between Turkey and Bosnia Herzegovina. In addition to
many smaller, national production and post-production companies, Eurimages partly
funded the film. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and shared the Grand Prize of
the Jury with the DardennesÕ The Kid with a Bike (2011). Although released in 2011,
the film went on to travel to various film festivals and acquire theatrical releases across
North America and Europe, achieving CeylanÕs largest box-office success as well as
unanimous critical acclaim.65
The worldwide success of the film accelerated the
  194 
production of CeylanÕs latest film, tentatively titled Winter Sleep, whose shooting began
in early February 2013 securing a record financial support from Eurimages.66
In many ways Once Upon a Time in Anatolia marks a new high point for
CeylanÕs career. Whilst popular with some mainstream audiences, the film also
powerfully displays fundamental aesthetic features of Slow Cinema, often with
precision and virtuosity. Contrary to other Slow Cinema films, however, its dramatic
and thematic complexity was frequently praised. The film follows a group of
government officials searching for a body buried somewhere on the Anatolian steppes.
The police inquiry, which takes place across a whole night, is composed of a company
of three cars that includes police officers (the chief, his assistants and his driver),
provincial civil servants (the doctor, the prosecutor and his assistants), two suspects and
military personal assisting with the investigation. As such, the film represents a
miniature portrait of the Turkish bureaucratic and political networks, specifically
exploring its way of existence across a provincial terrain. While the mundane police
inquiry proceeds monotonously by traversing along settings seemingly identical to each
other, its recurrent dialogue, both witty and banal at the same time, reveals the cruel and
bitter relationship between different groups of provincial identities and social classes.
Balancing dramatic ambiguity with deadpan humour, the film also exhibits gorgeous
nocturnal photography of the Anatolian landscape, which delivers a number of
memorable moments: an apple falling down a hill followed by an uninterrupted tracking
camera movement, long shots of the landscape illuminated with car lights and shaped
by strong winds, a dinner break at a village moments before concluding the
investigation. Towards the end of the film, the doctor emerges as the dominant character
and performs an autopsy on the victimÕs body, but our expectations for clear-cut
answers remain thwarted. In this respect, the film represents a careful mixture of Slow
Cinema aesthetics and certain conventions of crime drama accompanied with authentic
characters, brilliantly acted by actors familiar to the Turkish public. Most importantly,
for my purposes at least, the film engages with boredom as an experience in creative
ways and a lengthy analysis of the filmÕs mode of address will be detailed in the
sections to come.
  195 
This section examined the ways in which CeylanÕs film career followed a typical
and traditional trajectory of a Slow Cinema director. Beginning with early features with
modest ambitions, Ceylan portrayed local peculiarities and initiated national recognition
along with additional sources of funding. As soon as foreign investment became
available (the Hubert Bals fund for Distant), Ceylan achieved international success and
preserved a global presence with the support of film festivals and crucial financial
support from Eurimages. In other words, his career took on a movement from the local
and the national towards one that is global and international; and although his films still
deal with local and national issues and are produced domestically, its main audience lies
in various global networks of exhibition, which makes CeylanÕs films all the more
accessible and powerful. This situation is clearly parallel to other Slow Cinema
directors, not least other case studies such as BŽla Tarr and Tsai Ming-liang, but even
more so for other directors who are even lesser known amongst their local audiences
and/or international art cinema audiences. Furthermore, CeylanÕs filmmaking
procedures demonstrate a specific evolution from an artisanal mode of production to a
much more organized, strictly professional activity, one in which Ceylan diversifies
many of his responsibilities in the set onto others (including cinematography,
production, editing, etc.) and one that includes co-productions with other companies and
nations as well as post-production facilities. This movement from the artisanal to the
industrial is also significantly reflected in the ways in which CeylanÕs narrative themes
develop. His early works, for example, are largely dramatized out of autobiographical
memories and situations, while later works (which, incidentally, are co-scripted by
CeylanÕs wife Ebru Ceylan and his long-time friend Ercan Kesal) are concerned with
universal emotions and themes, nevertheless preserving a sense of authenticity due to
the fact that they are based on real life impressions. This change, in other words
becoming international, largely defines the changes within the national and international
reception of his films. The next section further elaborates the ways in which Ceylan
intervenes into and challenges certain aspects of Turkish cinema conventions.
  196 
4.4 Ð Intervention into Yeşil•am and Turkish Film History
This section aims to briefly illustrate the ways in which Ceylan performs an intervention
into Turkish film history and criticism. The main area of research in this section consists
of a symptomatic reading of the national and international critical reception of CeylanÕs
films. In the first instance, we find that CeylanÕs films are considered part of a growing
movement loosely labelled New Turkish Cinema and its national reception is mainly
based on establishing what is new and what is old. I briefly discuss the use of postsynchronised
dubbing in Yeşil•am cinema and how that relates to CeylanÕs work, also
noting issues of realism and the village film that are inherently related to CeylanÕs
connection with the Yeşil•am past. By the release of Distant, however, the critical
attention briefly switches to a lament of art films being unsuccessful in the domestic
market, while enjoying extremely positive critical appraisal in international film
festivals. As such, the release of Distant represents an immediate change in CeylanÕs
reception, as much as it did a change in his mode of production. Suddenly, CeylanÕs
minimalist aesthetics is beginning to be compared to other European auteurs and
international currents, such as Slow Cinema. I then conclude by arguing that the most
significant change that Ceylan brought to Turkish cinema was his adaptation of
European art cinema aesthetics, namely long takes, deep focus cinematography, nonprofessional
acting and use of dead time, in one word, foregrounding film style over
plot. The main opposition between CeylanÕs cinema and Yeşil•am is, therefore, the
notion of boredom, both as an experience of the spectator and as an aesthetic strategy
defining the stylistic conventions in his films, which I elaborate further in the following
section.
The reception of The Small Town was very much in line with the raising
awareness of New Turkish Cinema, a critical discourse that originated around this time
with the subsequent releases of films such as Somersault in the Coffin and Innocence.
As such, two Turkish newspaper critics introduced Ceylan as a new and unique director
and placed him in opposition to the mainstream popular cinema, while foregrounding
the filmÕs original style, photographic qualities as well as its incorporation of
autobiographical features.67
Furthermore, the majority of the reviews stressed the filmÕs
ability to render an authentic portrayal of rural life in a barely unknown Turkish village
  197 
community. There was, however, one negative criticism against the film and CeylanÕs
stylistic choices. Tuna Erdem wrote an almost scathing newspaper review of The Small
Town, arguing that its aesthetic features were at complete odds with those found in
Italian neorealist films. Erdem suggested that although The Small Town carries elements
of the neorealist aesthetic, such as location shooting and the use of non-professional
actors, much of these elements remain on the surface because the film does not achieve
a sense of visual narration or aesthetic normally present in neorealist films. Therefore,
Erdem argues, the filmÕs pursuit of realism in the form of episodic narration, location
shooting and natural acting is fundamentally inconsistent with its frequent and lengthy
use of heavy-handed monologues that neither advance the plot nor reveal any deeper
insight regarding the rural lifestyle that it strives to explore. Especially referring to the
second part of the film where all family members reminisce their individual
experiences, Erdem notes that the post-synchronised dubbing creates an overt
artificiality, which further devalues the filmÕs realist ambitions.68
Two lines of inquiries
emerge from ErdemÕs short, albeit extremely valuable criticism: on the one hand,
CeylanÕs cinema, consciously belonging to a Ònew wave,Ó claims to have certain
realistic ambitions and/or regards cinematic realism as a basis for its aesthetic integrity.
On the other hand, a critical refusal of the ubiquitous practice of sound dubbing, overtly
used in previous forms of Turkish cinema, emphasizes its changing status across
Turkish filmmaking practices.
As mentioned in the earlier sections, Yeşil•am cinema was an escapist industry
that frequently used post-synchronised dubbing, mainly because it was practical and
economically viable in turning around a rapid output of film production. Many of its
revered actors and actresses never spoke their own lines; instead, experienced theatre
actors with correct diction and tone recorded spoken lines in dubbing studios. As such,
additional sounds such as sound effects and ambient sounds were also often overlooked
or hastily reproduced from stock sounds in studios.69
This meant that all films were shot
silent and there was no sound recording on the stage, with a prompter uttering the lines
of dialogue for the actors, a practice employed in the production of CeylanÕs The Small
Town and fictionally re-created within the world of Clouds of May. The result, coupled
with incompetent, low-budget productions outlined in the earlier sections, was a mode
of narration highly artificial and non-illusionistic, yet it was remarkably welcome by
  198 
spectators for its cultural links to ancient Turkish dramatic conventions. Arslan, for
example, argues that the lack of authenticity in dubbing did not create a problem for
spectators and as such did not threaten the star image. ÒTurkish spectators watch films
with their ears,Ó said scriptwriter BŸlent Oran, emphasizing the ways in which the
discontinuities and deficiencies in the visual image were largely resolved by the
descriptive use of verbal language and dialogue.70
As such, concepts such as
Òcredibility, naturalness and sincerityÓ were largely ignored in Yeşil•am cinema, but
according to Nezih Erdoğan they became defining characteristics of the newly emerging
New Turkish Cinema. In pursuit of creating Ògenuine characters,Ó the New Turkish
Cinema Òyielded an altogether different mode of representation,Ó in which the shift
from post-dubbing to shooting with sound specified its pioneering technical
transformation.71
The release of CeylanÕs first features were directly involved with this phase, in
which filmmakers were slowly adopting contemporary technologies in film production
as well as spending considerable amount of resources in creating a newer art cinema
movement. In this respect, The Small Town represented both the old and the new in
Turkish cinema: on the one hand, aspects of its mode of production, such as low-budget
production, lack of detailed mise-en-sc•ne and use of dubbing, were in large part
influenced by methods originated from the Yeşil•am tradition. On the other hand,
however, the film demonstrated an unusual aesthetic vision and better yet seeds of a
newer cinematic experience for Turkish audiences and critics. Its lack of plot and
reliance on dedramatized sequences were closely indebted to European art cinema
traditions, minimalism and the growing Slow Cinema movement of the mid-to-late
1990s. In other words, The Small Town in its own was a mixture of localised
filmmaking practices and global aesthetic sensibilities. However, CeylanÕs other films
carried this relationship in complex ways. The legacy of post-synchronised dubbing and
use of dialogue were minutely evident in CeylanÕs future works; for instance, the lack of
lip-synching in Distant and the banal macho monologue by İsa towards the end of
Climates. The ways in which dialogue exchange between characters were carried out in
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia further demonstrated that although films were shot with
sound, certain modifications still took place through dubbing in the studio. Despite
these examples Ceylan was, without a doubt, a master of sound design. The use of
  199 
classical music in Clouds of May was at once alienating and deeply expressive; while
the musical pieces of Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel and Franz
Schubert did not entirely belong to Turkish provincial culture (and never before used in
Yeşil•am), they functioned brilliantly in conveying the melancholy of his characters.
Following Distant, Ceylan took an incredible attention to sound design, largely
modifying sounds for disorienting effects, such as the blurring between diegetic and
non-diegetic sound at the beginning of Climates and the drone music in the prologue of
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Experimenting with sound in such a way was one of the
defining characteristics of Slow Cinema, but was unimaginable within the context of
Yeşil•am. Yet, narrative themes such as guilt, vengeance and family ethics in Three
Monkeys and its focus on traditional Turkish working class lifestyles were largely
drawn from Yeşil•am films, albeit narrated in completely different stylistic conventions.
As we will see in detail in the last section of this chapter, a philosophical investigation
of Turkish provincial life was in many ways the dominant narrative strand in Once
Upon a Time in Anatolia. As such, Ceylan broke away from Yeşil•am stylistic traditions
fairly quickly, but there was still a sense of continuation in terms of themes and settings.
The Small Town and Clouds of May were often considered part of the village
film tradition in Turkish cinema, mainly due to their portrayal of provincial life. The
period of high Yeşil•am also included village films that depicted the traditional rural
life, usually emphasizing the ever-present feudal structures either in an ironic or in a
socially realistic way. The most realistic of these were usually cut by censors, to which
the film critic and historian Nijat …zšn responded as labelling them as Òpink realism.Ó
On the other hand, films such as Revenge of the Snakes (Yõlanlarõn …cŸ, 1962) and
Hope (Umut, 1970) were considered by …zšn as departures away from the pink realism
of the period towards a more objective documentation of rural life, echoing the Italian
Neorealist aesthetic.72
Yõlmaz GŸneyÕs Hope was in many ways a turning point for the
village films, although not entirely in stylistic or aesthetic terms. For example, aspects
of the Neorealist aesthetic, such as on-location shooting and use of non-professional
actors were already present in Yeşil•am for economic and practical purposes; hence
GŸneyÕs use of such devices did not constitute any form of artistic innovation. ÒWhat
makes the Turkification of Neorealism in Umut or Neorealist films different,Ó writes
Savaş Arslan, Òwas its filmic narrative: it represents social life through the medium of
  200 
cinema in a particular way and replaces the tough guy GŸney with a poor and helpless
carriage-driver.Ó73
This meant that Hope and other realist village films, were realist
because of their narrative focus, or in ArslanÕs words, because they framed certain
Òsocial ills as products of the capitalist system.Ó In this respect, Arslan argues,
ÒYeşil•amÕs realism was of a different mold, one that is of the natural more than the real
and one that is direct.Ó74
In other words, there was no aesthetic ambition in creating a
visual style reminiscent of European modernist waves, but there was an implicit purpose
in creating narratives in the form of stories, myths and folktales. Many of these films
later evolved into the popular nostalgia films in the 1990s, which Asuman Suner
characterizes by their Òemphasis not so much on the past, but on the remembrance of the
past from todayÕs perspective.Ó75
Although addressing certain historical and political
incidents in the recent Turkish past, these films also never achieved a major social
impact, nor received any international attention. According to Suner, the Òpopular
nostalgia filmsÓ portrayed the provincial life through a utopian and sentimental
perspective, mainly through Òaestheticized images of the rural landscape,Ó but also
through attributing Òa sense of innocence to traditional community relations,Ó which at
the end is Òirrecoverably lost de to the intervention of an external force,Ó such the
government or any other political entity.76
In this respect, Suner also notes the ways in
which CeylanÕs films differ to these popular nostalgia films, as she writes: ÒRather than
being an imaginary site of innocence and purity, the province in CeylanÕs cinema is an
ambivalent space where we can observe paradoxes of belonging in contemporary
Turkish society.Ó77
As such, instead of depicting a utopian vision of rural life, which is
at the end impaired by external forces, CeylanÕs provincial films portray the internal
conflicts of his characters and their relationship to their environment. Although a similar
imagery of rural life and narrative themes occur throughout popular nostalgia films and
CeylanÕs provincial trilogy (namely The Small Town, Clouds of May and Distant) there
are significant differences in terms of narrative structure and film style, which
ultimately represent an unusual and unique portrayal of contemporary Turkish life for
its critics and audiences.
Despite the critical acclaim, Ceylan remained an obscure name with Turkish
audiences until international critics recognized Distant as a profound masterpiece of
international art-house cinema following its success at the Cannes Film Festival in
  201 
2003. For instance, Jonathan Romney hailed Distant as Òone of the most vital
discoveries of European cinemaÓ in the wake of its theatrical release in the United
Kingdom, while GuardianÕs Peter Bradshaw commented that Ò[i]t is one of the best
movies of the year, perhaps of many years - the work of a brilliant film-maker.Ó78
Romney also provided a longer piece for Sight and Sound in the next month, including
an interview with Ceylan as well as an overview of his previous films.79
Suddenly,
Ceylan received an even larger attention in British cinephile circles, culminating in a
season of CeylanÕs films at the British Film Institute. Tony Rayns, on the other hand,
was already comparing his work to filmmakers like Tarkovsky, Ozu and Bresson,
recalling the term Òtranscendental styleÓ originally suggested by Paul Schrader, a term
that has a close affinity to Slow Cinema.80
Ironically, the filmÕs theatrical release in
Turkey preceded its win at Cannes and attracted only meagre attendance. With only five
print copies distributed in major cities, the film yielded approximately 20,000
spectators, an extremely low number compared to popular Turkish films, let alone
mainstream Hollywood productions. However, it was quickly re-released after Cannes
and the audience numbers more than doubled to approximately 45,000. Even more
ironic was the filmÕs release in France, which reportedly attracted about 100,000
audiences following a successful marketing campaign.81
As disappointing as it was, this
situation was rather expected for Turkish filmmakers. In fact, Ceylan had already
realized his target audience was extremely niche and deliberately chose five copies to be
distributed against the suggestions made by distribution companies to achieve an
optimum exposure and profit.82
In this respect Distant epitomizes the tensions between national cinema and art
cinema, hence illuminating some of the varying discussions regarding Slow Cinema.
Whilst praised for its ability to represent Turkish culture on screen, the film did not
receive any attention whatsoever in Turkey until it was awarded at Cannes. Following
the headlines, the film was re-released in the country for those who were curious
enough to find out what kind of film represented Turkey on such a culturally high
international stage and significantly increased its modest box-office numbers. This is in
many ways common ground for the dissemination of Slow Cinema films as they
attracted attention not within the context of national cinemas, but more so through
exhibitions and awards at international film festivals. However, this incident not only
  202 
shows the typical trajectory of art films worldwide, but also reveals an important
element of Turkish spectatorship. A cultural artefact becomes recognizable and
important when it receives a positive critical attention from the West Ð a tendency that
can be observed in other art forms in Turkey, for example Elif ŞafakÕs book The
Bastard of Istanbul (2007), a novel that provocatively explored the highly sensitive and
controversial issue of the so-called Armenian Genocide in 1915. While the book was
praised in the international circuit as well as garnering a wide readership in Turkey,
Şafak was condemned by the right-wing Turkish press and was tried at court for
Òinsulting Turkishness.Ó83
The case against criticism of Turkish politics was eventually
dropped, but many Turkish writers are known to have gone through the same procedure,
including the Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk.
Although CeylanÕs work has never been overtly political, these events illuminate
the highly disparate and sensitive values of Turkish spectatorship. In many ways the
reaction against socially realist Turkish films in the Yeşil•am era followed a similar
pattern. While films such as Revenge of the Snakes, The Road and Bitmeyen Yol (1967)
projected the grim realities of Turkish society, on the national level these films were
criticized for their openness and were considered anti-Turkish by the government and
the right-wing press, many of them eventually censored or banned until recently.
CeylanÕs films, on the other hand, failed at the box office not because of their political
stance, but rather for their unusual style, niche audience as well as poor distribution
networks. As mentioned earlier, aspects of national distribution, namely the general
leaning towards Hollywood blockbusters and a much smaller interest in the circulation
of independent films also exacerbated the exposure of CeylanÕs films. These patterns,
however, strongly recall the previously discussed notions of šzenti and Turkification
proposed by Savaş Arslan. On the one hand, CeylanÕs work represents a rising artcinema
sensibility within Turkish cinephile circles, which was left in an inactive
vacuum since the early 1980s. Furthermore, this new art cinema wave modelled itself
after the preceding European waves: they were all auteur-based productions, marketed
as well as received with the directorÕs own personal vision driving the film and although
they achieved critical and international attention, in reality they remained very marginal
when compared to the mainstream popular cinema. Making personal films and adopting
minimalism altogether evoke influences of European art cinema and contemporary
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Slow Cinema respectively. As such, CeylanÕs reworking of European art cinema
aesthetics into a Turkish context has fundamental parallels to the ways in which
Yeşil•am defined itself by way of Hollywood conventions, in effect rendering concepts
of šzenti and Turkification all the more present in contemporary Turkish art cinema.84
Following Distant, and certainly after Climates, many international critics hailed
Ceylan as a staple of contemporary European art-house cinema, a critical opinion that
reached its peak in the release of Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. For instance, while
claiming the film as CeylanÕs Òfinest work to date,Ó Philip French declared the director
as Òone of the most significant moviemakers to have emerged this century, an original
figure in his own right and a major force in reviving a belief in the kind of serious,
ambitious, morally concerned European art-house cinema.Ó85
Similarly, Manohla Dargis
viewed Ceylan as Òone of the consistently most exciting directors on the international
scene,Ó and the film as a Òvisually stunning meditation on what it is to be human.Ó86
The
film regularly featured in the top-ten lists of credible publications such as Film
Comment and Sight & Sound and some critics went as far as claiming that it should
have grabbed the top prize at Cannes.87
Furthermore, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
marked CeylanÕs largest box-office success in Turkey. A total of 160,468 spectators
saw the film in Turkey, a number previously unimaginable by auteur-directors, although
previously Three Monkeys had surpassed expectations by attaining 127,668 spectators.88
As such, following ten years success in the international festival scene, Nuri Bilge
Ceylan enjoys a prestigious international reputation, which no other Turkish filmmaker
had previously achieved and is considered by many a principal example of
contemporary Slow Cinema.
Following this historical background, I now turn my focus to the formal aspects
and the stylistic configurations of the films. An understanding of Yeşil•am conventions
and the ways in which Ceylan positions himself in regard to this tradition is crucial,
because his work begins as a mixture of both worlds, in terms of production practices
and stylistic features, but eventually becomes involved in the much more complex
network of global cultural production. The past sections aimed at establishing Yeşil•am
cinema fundamentally as an entertainment industry with no regard for aesthetic or
intellectual elation. The cultural taste of its spectators was commonly deemed as
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Òprimitive;Ó as director Şadan Kamil observes: ÒPeople used to go to see a film as if
they were going to coffee houses or night clubs. They listened to music and watched
famous singers and dancers,Ó the spectators Òenjoyed looking at a star player, listening
to a couple songs, or crying at a few touching scenesÓ and the producers Òmarvelled at
how these spectators never tired of watching the same subjects time and time again.Ó89
As such, cinema was a popular form of pastime; its purpose was to entertain, not
contemplate. Ceylan, however, completely turned this around by adopting minimalist
aesthetics and stylistic features of Slow Cinema predecessors (Bergman, Tarkovsky,
Antonioni) and transformed Turkish art cinema by emphasizing boredom as a receptive,
creative and insightful experience. The next section, therefore, investigates the ways in
which boredom occupies a central role in CeylanÕs filmography and in effect as a
central aesthetic strategy in Slow Cinema.
4.5 Ð Boredom: a State of Mind and an Aesthetic Virtue
From this section onwards, I focus on the relationship between boredom and cinema,
essentially arguing that Slow Cinema transforms boredom as a simple, everyday state of
mind into an aesthetically rewarding experience. Whether boredom is an actively
engaging or lulling phenomenal experience marked a great part of the Slow Cinema
debate as I have outlined in the very introduction to this thesis. Yet, boredom as a
psychological state of mind has never been explored in any of these writings, let alone
in a scholarly context in relation to cinema. What exactly do we mean by boredom? Is it
a similar notion when we ascribe this emotion to an artwork? How can boredom benefit
us? Are there different types of boredom? These are some of the questions this section
initially pursues. Although we traditionally view boredom as a negative, unwanted and
undesirable condition, I claim later in this section that it bears some aesthetic virtues. I
refer to literary scholars and artists who find creative inspiration in boredom as well as
recent research in psychology, which empirically suggests that boredom in its simplest
form may improve problem solving abilities and generate creative insight. Following
these arguments, in the next section I explore how boredom is used as an aesthetic
strategy in CeylanÕs Distant and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Boredom as a narrative
subject as well as an aesthetic style inhabits a significant feature of the 1960s avant-
  205 
garde and art film, which accentuates the influence of modernist traditions visible in the
works of Slow Cinema directors, as my earlier case studies attempted to show.
The concept of boredom is related to CeylanÕs films in many levels. Firstly,
Ceylan portrays characters that are bored with their environment. In many ways their
desire for change as well as their inability to make change is rooted in their boredom.
Secondly, Ceylan insistently portrays these characters in their very moment of boredom.
Many scenes involve the inactivity or characters or their idleness. Thirdly, Ceylan
strongly suggests that boredom is a feeling intrinsic to Turkish provincial lifestyle. In
the earlier films such as Small Town and Clouds of May, for instance, Saffet
consistently shows his dissatisfaction with provincial life, emphasizing its tediousness
and entrapment, and explicitly indicates his willingness to leave the small town for a
much more attractive lifestyle in a larger city. Furthermore, Once Upon a Time in
Anatolia also acknowledges this aspect with the endless repetitions of the police inquiry
and the mundane dialogues the doctor faces with his colleagues. Finally, the feeling of
boredom is further projected onto the spectators as Ceylan doubles the boredom
experienced by the characters, at times creating humorous situations.
First, however, I should note why boredom is in fact an interesting subject in a
general sense and briefly set out its relevance to cultural productions. Boredom is a
largely pervasive experience and occupies all areas of human interaction. In other words
it is universal, ever-present and used in diverse contexts for varied meanings, although
often for negative and undesirable conditions. Boredom may constitute a strong
emotion, a temporary feeling, a general sense of mood or a form of depression. When
ascribed to cultural productions it is often meant in a degrading way, yet it has been the
main subject for countless artworks, as we shall see later. However, the relationship
between boredom as an everyday experience and cinema has only recently begun to
attract rigorous scholarly examination, which I will briefly refer to throughout this
section. ÒWe live in a culture of boredom,Ó writes Lars Svendsen and Ò[t]o investigate
the problem of boredom is to attempt to understand who we are and how we fit into the
world at this particular point in time.Ó90
The study of boredom is significant, according
to Patricia Meyer Spacks, because boredom Òas a historically locatable manifestation of
trivialization, [it] provides a paradigm of the ordinary and, examined, helps elucidate
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the gradual construction of ordinariness.Ó91
As a crucial element of our everyday lives,
the study of boredom reveals much about our engagement with Slow Cinema, which
aims to capture and reflect on this everyday experience. Although still a burgeoning
field within film studies, boredom has received much philosophical, scholarly and
artistic interest for centuries, some of which I will summarize below.92
Before turning to its history and typologies, let us briefly examine its
etymological origins. Boredom becomes an even more interesting concept for its
etymological origins and its ambivalent use in everyday culture. Spacks charts the use
of the verb Òto boreÓ and the noun ÒboredomÓ in the history of the English dictionary
and discovers that their earliest appearances were in 1750 and 1884 respectively. While
these relatively new words in the English language were preceded by ennui in French,
she suggests that boredom may in fact be an emotion specific to modernity Ð in other
words, the emotion developed through time and formed an important part of everyday
life only in the early stages of modernity.93
According to this view, civilizations
preceding the modern age did not feel bored, or at least, when they felt it, they werenÕt
aware of what exactly they were feeling. In response to SpackÕs claim, Peter Toohey
argues that the lack of a specific term does not entail a whole emotion to be absent in
earlier parts of history, and offers a variety of words and expressions that are essentially
synonymous with the feeling of boredom.94
Toohey writes ÒPatricia Meyer Spacks,
Elizabeth Goodstein and Yasmine Musharbash, to cite but three of the most interesting
writers on boredom, all take a more or less constructionist position on the matter. They
present the view that boredom was invented and that it derives from the Enlightenment,
at its most sophisticated and convincing.Ó The author disagrees with this by referring to
ancient artefacts in archaic Beneventum and Pompeii, both of which prove the existence
of boredom long before the Enlightenment.95
According to Toohey, the underlying
problem for this disagreement is merely the confusion between different forms of
boredom.
Despite minor disagreements, the major agreement amongst various scholars in
approaching boredom as a state of mind is its theorization within two distinctive forms.
As such, a sweeping number of literary theorists separate boredom into: (1) simple
boredom, a fleeting, temporary and time-bound condition arising from either the lack of
  207 
stimuli in an environment, an inability of attention, impatience or other external
circumstances such as confinement; and (2) existential boredom, which, similar to
depression or ennui, is characterized by a realisation of futility in life and runs deeper
and longer within the human psyche, more often than not labelled as a maladic or
pathological condition.96
The terminology used here as well as the description of either
term is remarkably consistent amongst different writers, even though their focus of
attention varies between the two forms. Reinhard Kuhn, for example, argues that simple
boredom is Òhardly worth serious studyÓ because Òit is a temporary state dependent
almost entirely on external circumstances. When the conditions that makes for this
frame of mind cease, as they always do, the forced inactivity of the mind comes to an
end as well.Ó97
Kuhn exclusively explores the notion of ennui in his work, of which I
shall elaborate more below. Peter Toohey, on the other hand, defends simple boredom
by claiming the significance of Òits own tradition [that is] more fundamentally rooted in
human psychology than existential boredom because it is an emotion that has been felt
in all periods of history.Ó98
Clearly, however, there is a certain amount of overlap
between these forms of boredom as simple boredom often can influence existential
boredom, or vice-versa. Lars Svendsen explicates other typologies of boredom in his
work and although some of them are more detailed and specific, there is still a great
amount of overlap.99
Theorizing boredom is precisely difficult for this reason. Its various forms and
types seem to be overlapping with each other, basically because some types refer to an
emotion, while others refer to a mood. Generally speaking, emotions are specific and
are directed towards other entities. Just as when we are scared, we are scared of
something, similarly, when we are bored, we are usually bored of something. Mood, on
the other hand, is more general, objectless and extends over a longer period of time. In
other words, it characterizes our general attitude to the world outside.100
In this respect,
boredom can accommodate both options with its various forms. Toohey, for example,
argues that since existential boredom is a more permanent and a longer lasting
condition, it can best be characterized as a mood, rather than an emotion. In contrast,
simple boredom depends on external circumstances and can be rapidly altered by
changing the source of boredom (confinement, repetition, etc.) and as such is more
suitable to be labelled as an emotion.101
Until now, I have been using the word boredom
  208 
in its widest sense, generally referring to a psychological state of mind and
encompassing notions of an emotion and mood. Strictly speaking, both notions of the
term are relevant to my argument. Many of the films that I explore in this thesis and
their narrative themes are characterized by boredom as a mood. Boredom as emotion,
however, characterizes the aesthetic experience felt by the individual spectator, albeit
not in a negative sense. As I shall detail later, Slow Cinema has a special relationship
with boredom. While in mainstream cinema, boredom is an undesired condition, Slow
Cinema, and CeylanÕs work in particular, uses boredom an aesthetic strategy, which
Julian Hanich describes as the formal operation that Òaims at producing the emotion: it
takes place on the filmic level and can therefore be objectively described and analyzed
stylistically as part of the filmic object. Since these aesthetic strategies exist only in
order to affect us,Ó Hanich writes, Òtheir implicit goal is to evoke subjective experienced
(cinematic) emotions of the exact same name.Ó102
As such, the way I approach boredom
in cinema in this section is not merely an emotion felt in the cinema theatre, but also
formal aspects of narrative structure and film style that bear some resemblance to its
basic psychological features.
The origins of delineating boredom as an aesthetic strategy are found in
Reinhard KuhnÕs work. As a synonym for existential boredom, Kuhn accounts for ennui
in its dual meanings: on the one hand a kind of profound sorrow, and on the other a
sense of irritation. Within the context of Marcel ProustÕs Remembrance of Things Past
(1913-1927), for example, Kuhn argues that ennui is irreducible to a narrative theme or
subject, but is Òalso a part of [the novelÕs] temporal fabric and spatial structure.Ó
ÒHence,Ó writes Kuhn, Òennui through its inevitable deformation of time determines the
very rhythm of ProustÕs style, the mode of his thought, and the structure of his work.Ó103
In other words, Kuhn considers ennui an aesthetic device, which, far beyond its function
as an extrinsic state of mind, shapes and manipulates the artwork in certain aspects. I
shall argue that similarly in Slow Cinema, boredom functions as an aesthetic strategy,
not least for taking an interest in boredom as a narrative subject, but more importantly
for employing particular stylistic features that substantiate this very mood, such as
idleness, monotony and stillness. Such a mood structured across the whole film, in turn,
creates a revelatory, meditative and contemplative experience by the spectator through
their viewing of the film based on the aforementioned aesthetic strategies. As such,
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boredom as a subjective and critical evaluation (such as ÒThis film is boring.Ó) is
outside my focus and completely irrelevant to my argument. The experience of
boredom, or rather the emotion of experiencing boredom, as I shall suggest towards the
end of this section, can be characterized as the paradox of aversive emotions. But before
that, let us see how ennui as an aesthetic strategy can be employed to cinema in the
ways in which Kuhn suggests its development across the artwork.
Kuhn illustrates the concept of ennui in three stages. Firstly, Òit is a state that
affects both the soul and the body,Ó for instance in SartreÕs Nausea, the symptom is not
only a metaphor for Òa sort of spiritual revulsion but the same physical disgust that leads
to vomiting.Ó Secondly, it is Òentirely independent of any external circumstances,Ó
although it is nor dependent on our own free will, as no external factors can direct us
towards ennui. We cannot want to be in the state of ennui, nor our will to be out of it
would lead to succession. Thirdly, ennui Òis usually characterized by the phenomenon
of estrangement,Ó in other words, for the victim Òthe world is emptied of its
significance.Ó104
It would be too far-fetched to suggest that ennui is related to cinema
spectatorship, but in itself, ennui has been one of the fundamental obsessions of modern
art cinema and has enjoyed an extensive treatment as a favourite narrative subject in a
variety of examples. As such, a great number of scholarly works examine the works of
filmmakers such as Roberto Rossellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Rainer Werner
Fassbinder and Jean-Luc Godard that exclusively deal with modern alienation, in many
ways a similar conception of ennui.105
In such films, the protagonists are often estranged
and alienated from society and find themselves aimlessly wandering and drifting across
desolate spaces within the film. In fact, the portrayal of depression, boredom, anxiety
and the individualÕs alienation from society against the background of modern
capitalism were so frequently ascribed to AntonioniÕs work that the American critic
Andrew Sarris coined the term ÒAntoniennui.Ó106
Origins of this obsession with
boredom and manifestations of ennui as a narrative subject are largely rooted in the
modern, specifically European, literary fiction. Saul Bellow, for example, suggests that
boredom as an aesthetic mode found its voice, above all, in late 19th
century French
literature.107
Later in the 20th
century, boredom occupies a central and fundamental
aspect in the French Existentialist novels, such as Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre, 1938) and
The Outsider (Albert Camus, 1942). From Franz KafkaÕs The Metamorphosis (1915) to
  210 
Fernando PessoaÕs The Book of Disquiet (1982), from Alberto MoraviaÕs Boredom
(1960) to the plays of Samuel Beckett, Anton Chekhov and Henrik Ibsen, numerous
authors and dramatists, most of whom adopt a modernist aesthetic, explore boredom as
a state of mind in the wake of modernity.108
In this respect, boredom has a peculiar connection to modernity and modernist
forms of art. Similar to the fl‰neurÕs alienated gaze and slow drifting against the everaccelerating
world outside, boredom in its simplest manifestation represents a resistance
to modernity because it is in essence a refusal of attention; its stillness and affective
lethargy contradicts the progressiveness and efficiency of modernity. In one of his
Weimar period essays, Siegfried Kracauer writes that if Òone has the patience, the sort
of patience specific to legitimate boredom, then one experiences a kind of bliss that is
almost unearthly.Ó109
This type of revelatory boredom, however, appears to be in
opposition to KracauerÕs conception of distraction, which, through the highly adorned
architecture of BerlinÕs gigantic picture houses, Òrivet[s] the viewerÕs attention to the
peripheralÓ and as the Òsimulations of the senses succeed one another,Ó it leaves no
room Òfor even the slightest contemplation.Ó110
Nonetheless, according Patrice Petro
boredom and distraction are Òcomplementary rather than opposing terms,Ó whose
relationship she defines in the following manner: Òreception in a state of distraction
reveals cultural disorder and increasing abstraction; the cultivation of boredom,
however, discloses the logic of distraction, in which newness becomes a fetish, and
shock itself a manifestation of the commodity form.Ó111
For Petro, because the 20th
century theorists situate boredom within Òthe realm of the everyday,Ó boredom Òshares
important affinities with traditions of the avant-garde, particularly those that come after
political modernism and refuse its aesthetics of distraction, sensory stimulation, and
shock.Ó As such, referring specifically to Andy Warhol films and Chantal AkermanÕs
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975, both of which I have
examined briefly in Chapter 2) Petro finds Òan aesthetics of boredom [that] retains the
modernist impulse of provocation and calculated assault. (How long must one watch
and wait until something actually happens? How much tedium can one possibly
stand?)Ó In this respect, the experience of boredom in avant-garde and modernist
cinema facilitates Òan awareness of looking as a temporal process Ð bound not to
particular object but to ways of seeing.Ó112
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Slow Cinema borrows a great deal from these traditions of avant-garde and
modernist cinema, as past case studies attempted to show. As such boredom itself
features routinely across the works of directors discussed in this thesis. In the films of
BŽla Tarr, for example, the camera ostensibly follows its drifting characters, creating an
active form of dialectical engagement with the spectator, while the state of mind of its
protagonists in the films of Tsai Ming-liang can at best be characterized by alienation,
depression, emptiness of life, or in short, ennui. The result is, as is well-known, difficult
films outside commercial circuits for their unusual and deliberate pacing. In other
words, these films displayed a specific stylization of cinematic temporality that was
often regarded as boring by mainstream spectators. Similar tendencies are clearly
paralleled in CeylanÕs case as much of his protagonists embody the notion of ennui
throughout the various crises they are going through. DistantÕs Mahmut, for example,
goes through an emotional and intellectual crisis. Although nothing is made certain, the
film implies that since his divorce Mahmut was not able to attach himself emotionally
to a female other, while at the same time his faith in photography as an art form has
severely diminished. They key scene involves a round table discussion between Yusuf,
Mahmut and his colleagues. Yusuf is unable to participate in this highbrow discussion,
while Mahmut, to his friendsÕ surprise, bemoan the end of photography as an art form.
The parallels of emotional and intellectual crisis is even more evident in Climates, in
which İsa not only is drifting between his ex-girlfriend and Bahar intermittently, but is
also inexplicably unable to complete his doctoral thesis on architecture. In Three
Monkeys, the ethical dilemmas faced by the characters create an enormous emotional
gap between the father and mother, eventually causing the collapse of the traditional
family structure. Similarly, the struggles within the family under impoverished
circumstances take the form of a generational clash in Clouds of May, in which the
disagreements between the father, Muzaffer and Saffet lead to the failure of their main
objectives (the father loses his cultivated land, Muzaffer fails to complete his film and
Saffet does not even attempt to escape the town that he claims to be bored with). All of
these examples emphasize the ways in which ennui, or rather the existential type of
boredom has affected the main characters. In these films, the sense of existential
boredom is manifested not only through characterization, dialogue and mise-en-sc•ne,
but more importantly, through a specific use of duration, long takes and repetitive
  212 
action, all of which are important factors in creating a sense of simple boredom on the
spectators, yet in a productive way, as I shall detail below.
Boredom in its simplest, time-bound form can tell us a great deal about the
nature of spectatorship in Slow Cinema, because in many ways the dominant criticism
against this type of cinema emphasizes its idleness, inactivity and banality. The lack of
variety in action and representation of the mundane, monotonous and everyday life are
defining tropes of Slow Cinema Ð but do such aesthetic strategies cause boredom in the
negative sense? The polarizing opinions within the Slow Cinema Debate addressed this
question, as outlined in the introduction chapter. On the one hand, some critics blamed
Slow Cinema for being boring and monotonous, while on the other, some critics praised
it for being hypnotic, contemplative and meditative. Although these opinions are
seemingly opposite of each other, this section claims that the experience of boredom
and those such as contemplation and meditation share a fundamental affinity as both
experiences are based on an aesthetic of slowness and similar notions of idleness. The
type of boredom experienced by the spectator in the cinema theatre is the simple type of
boredom; it is a temporary emotion that inevitably resolves following the change or
termination of external circumstances, in this case referring to the end of the actual
screening. As such, external circumstances such as entrapment and confinement also
lead to endless repetition, thus boredom. In this respect the cinema theatre in itself is a
space of confinement, in which the spectator experiences boredom, if faced with films
emphasizing monotony. However, there is also an act of subjective introspection and
creativity involved in simple boredom based on external circumstances, notwithstanding
its nature of idleness, emptiness and negativity. Lars Svendsen, for example,
emphasizes the productivity inherent in boredom: ÒBoredom pulls things out of their
usual contexts. It can open ways up for a new configuration of things, and therefore also
for a new meaning, by virtue of the fact that it has already deprived things of
meaning.Ó113
In other words, because boredom empties life out of meaning, it can lead
to a state of ÒreceptivenessÓ Ð a state crucial for understanding CeylanÕs intentions of
making films, as we shall see below. As such, boredom in itself reveals important
questions regarding the aesthetic and cultural value of Slow Cinema.
  213 
Traditionally speaking, however, as a leisure activity with pretence to
entertainment or artistic stimulation, cinema is the antithesis of boredom. Few, if any,
spectators afford the cinema in order to be bored. On the contrary, cinema suspends the
desire to fill time with offering the perfect escape and it is a cure for those who are too
idle.114
It is able to transform empty lives by providing a variety of emotions. Cinema is
a powerful device because it is accurate and persuasive in its depiction of reality. In
other words it is realistic, but it isnÕt real; it absorbs us in the theatre, but may remain
forgotten once the lights turn on. Slow Cinema synthesizes boredom and cinema and it
does so by going back to basics. It is a reaction to the exponential increase of pace in
contemporary life, as other counter-culture movements such as Slow Food, Slow
Science and Slow Media. ÒTheyÕre pausing not in any na•ve effort to Ògo back,Ó [É]
but to slow down,Ó Pamela Lee writes: ÒFor it is in slowness and the capacity to parse
oneÕs own present that one gains ground on whatÕs coming up next, perhaps restores to
the every day some degree of agency, perhaps some degree of resistance.Ó115
In the
current digital age, however, our experience of the world is dictated by the speed of
technology insofar as to claim time as the most valuable commodity, therefore the
arising needs to spend it sparingly. The increasing pace also regulates the entertainment
we engage with: rapid cutting, quick dialogue exchanges, the MTV aesthetic and an
increasing reliance on movement and action for the intensification of sensation and
stimulation nowadays more or less define mainstream cinema.116
Such a culture and
society of speed, as outlined in the introduction chapter, deliberately avoids cultural
productions that emphasize slowness, because slowness is completely at odds with the
expectations of mainstream society. Unless in epic proportions and filled with
breathtaking action, durationally long films do not interest people because it appears to
be a waste of time.
Within this context slowness has become a global reaction and most importantly a
marker of higher cultural taste. Ceylan is one of the figures to explicitly address the
increasing pace of contemporary everyday life and defend Òslowing downÓ as a more
profound way of experiencing reality. While editing Once Upon a Time in Anatolia,
Ceylan kept a diary in which he wrote:
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This afternoon, as if weighed down by the accumulation of fatigue from all these
years, I lay down on the bed and fell asleep, fully clothed, for several hours. When I
opened my eyes, I had the impression of waking up with a new form of perception. In
the silence, before my eyes, in a fluid fashion, the immobile objects in my room
surrounded me with infinite affection, as if the doors of a different level of perception
had just opened. I stayed lying there with my eyes open for over an hour. My senses
felt completely alert. This state allowed me to take enormous pleasure in life. I
understood that I donÕt truly feel the emotions of everything I live, because we live at
such a frenetic rhythm. ItÕs obvious that we should slow down the rhythm of our lives
so that our senses are sharpened. Here resides my reason for liking films that are slow
in pace Ð and my desire to make this kind of film. This state of mind that I felt on
waking today can only appear through a slow and languorous rhythm.117
In short, Ceylan feels that Òa slow and languorous rhythmÓ yields a heightened
sensitivity, or a kind of perceived evocativeness, in which inactivity and idleness
paradoxically create a fascination with the simplicity of the world outside. This is
perhaps a reference to those moments in life, such as dŽjˆ vu, in which we, consciously
or not, perceive things as out of the ordinary, or the feeling that there is an underlying
structure mysteriously exists for no special reason whatsoever. This evocation,
according to Ceylan, can only be attained through a state of mind that closely resembles
boredom for its defining features are also idleness and inactivity. To put it simply,
Ceylan uses boredom as an aesthetic strategy and deliberately employs stylistic features
bearing an affinity to boredom for foregrounding the very same emotion on the
spectators. At the same time, Ceylan considers boredom as an aesthetic virtue as he
strives to make it a significant part of his work. As I shall elaborate shortly, the idleness
and loss of meaning within boredom is for many a significant artistic inspiration and as
a form of creative insight, it can be valuable in our engagement with Slow Cinema.
Other artists and scholars also support the view that boredom is an aesthetic virtue.
Reinhard Kuhn points out the ways in which boredom and idleness can be beneficial to
the artist. Firstly, boredom Òforces [the artist] to distract himself through creation.
Boredom, according to Goethe, and not necessity, is the mother of all invention.Ó118
In a
letter Schiller, Goethe explains how the monotony of travelling and the lack of any
external impulse Òmakes it possible to turn inward, to gather oneÕs thoughts.Ó Kuhn
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continues; ÒBoredom does more than provide the leisure and tranquillity indispensable
for the state of concentration required by artistic endeavour. As a source of sensual joy,
it is also a source of creation.Ó Joseph Brodsky writes in an essay titled ÒIn Praise of
Boredom;Ó
When hit by boredom, [É] let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom. In
general, with things unpleasant, the rule is, the sooner you hit bottom, the faster you
surface. The idea here [É] is to exact full look at the worst. The reason boredom
deserves such scrutiny is that it represents pure, undiluted time in all its repetitive,
redundant, monotonous splendor.119
In reference to this quote, Peter Toohey emphasizes boredomÕs ability to let us be
ourselves: ÒBoredom intensifies self-perception. In fact boredom offers an unusual and
rare enforced opportunity to see yourself as another.Ó120
In other words, such idleness of
the mind in temporally restricted situations can be productive by providing one the
ability create space for reflection and contemplation, leading towards a more profound
understanding of the reality that surrounds us, such as our experience in Slow Cinema.
There is, then, a meditative quality in boredom that is both time-bound and lasting
deeper in ourselves, in many ways a mixture between the simple and existential forms
of boredom mentioned at the outset of this section.
Boredom as a suitable emotion that fosters artistic creativity, productivity and
inspiration is further evidenced in psychological research. A phenomenon called mind
wandering, which is characterized by Òa shift of attention away from a primary task
toward internal information,Ó is largely responsible for this cognitive processing.121
Mind wandering occurs frequently when we engage in an undemanding, monotonous or
simple task that does not require our full attention or faculties of reasoning. As such, our
mind shifts attention inward, exploring personal issues that might or might not directly
relate to the sensory information in front of us. An important characteristic of mind
wandering is that the subject is often unintentional in initiating mind wandering and is
unaware that the process has started taking place. Smallwood and School write, for
instance, mind wandering Òcan be viewed as a state of decoupled attention, because
instead of monitoring online sensory information, attention shifts inward and focuses on
oneÕs thoughts and feelings.Ó122
The subject often performs this inward movement
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without intention and is not aware of doing so. An important function of mind
wandering in our everyday life is that it increases our efficiency in problem solving by
shifting attention to personal goals. Whether it fuels artistic creativity, however, remains
an experimental question, although current evidence shows that it may very well be
possible.123
One study, for example, concludes that Òtaking a break involving an
undemanding task improved performance on a classical creativity task (the UUT) far
more than did taking a break involving a demanding task, resting, or taking no
break.Ó124
In other words, undemanding, monotonous tasks facilitate mind wandering
that empirically demonstrates an increase of creativity and use of insight in problem
solving. The same study also considers the possibility Òthat mind wandering enhances
creativity by increasing unconscious associate processingÓ and as such mind wandering
may Òserve as a foundation for creative inspiration.Ó125
Examples of such revelations,
discoveries and creative inspirations are varied, but evident, across history. But how
does mind wandering relate to our experience in the cinema? How does notions of
creativity, insight and productivity help us understand our engagement with Slow
Cinema?
Slow Cinema performs these productive functions of boredom in a variety of
ways. Firstly, the abandonment of traditional narrative structures and conventions serve
as an undemanding task for the spectator. As such the lack of plot events, character
motivations and cause-effect links draw attention to other aesthetic features of the films,
such as music, photography or camerawork, sound design and choreography in staging,
all of which are stylized and often abstracted with idleness, slowness and/or stillness. In
other words, film style, through its manipulation of temporality, conveys a suspended
aesthetic experience devoid of narrative meaning and as such creates a type of boredom
that bears aspects of both simple and existential boredom. ÒFaced with duration not
distraction,Ó writes Manohla Dargis, Òyour mind may wander,Ó but in Òwandering there
can be revelation as you meditate, trance out, bliss out, luxuriate in your thoughts,
think.Ó126
Similarly, Karl Schoonover writes that art cinema Òturns boredom into a kind
of special work, one in which empty one screen time is repurposed, renovated,
rehabilitated.Ó127
In this respect, through its long and complex history, art cinema has
attained an interestingly rich relationship to boredom, one that remains to be scrutinized
in detail. This section has thus explored boredom as a state of mind and examined its
  217 
implications as a mood as well as an emotion. Despite its negative connotations, I have
attempted to recover boredom as a productive emotion, which fosters creativity,
generates insight and amplifies receptiveness. In this respect, Slow Cinema uses
boredom as an aesthetic strategy and permits mind wandering, transforming boredom
into an aesthetically rewarding experience. The resolute application of the long take
aesthetic and the use of dead time are central to this transformation. But what exactly
are these aspects of style that produce boredom on the spectators? How do they relate to
narrative and how do they function? The next section will answer these questions by
demonstrating several examples from CeylanÕs Distant and an in-depth analysis of Once
Upon a Time in Anatolia.
4.6 Ð Aesthetics of Boredom in Distant and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
This section aims to substantiate the arguments presented above by focusing strictly on
the formal aspects of the aforementioned films, with an emphasis on framing, duration,
lighting and depth of focus. The overarching purpose in exercising this close analysis is
to establish boredom as a valid aesthetic strategy, which Ceylan as well as other Slow
Cinema directors frequently implement in order to stimulate a mode of spectatorship
based on contemplation, insight, revelation and creative interpretation. As the concept
of dead time is fundamental to my argument, I will begin by revisiting the notion of
descriptive pause, which was introduced in detail in Chapter 2. I suggest here that the
descriptive pause and the long take are the main components for activating boredom as
a receptive state of mind, largely because both devices allow for mind wandering
through establishing idleness. In this respect, the examples in this section, initially
drawn from Distant and then through a more sustained attention to Once Upon a Time
in Anatolia, are instances of descriptive pause, namely scenes in which story action is
abandoned despite the continuity in narration. I argue in this analysis that through an
overt foregrounding of film style and duration that temporarily pauses plot progression,
Ceylan distracts his viewers from the habitual concerns of the narrative as a whole, but
rather invites a closer inspection of its formal parameters (the dŽcor, the setting, edges
of the frame), which eventually unveil hidden and deeper truths regarding the story
world or the nature of storytelling in general. This argument, then, harkens back to my
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preliminary observations regarding Slow Cinema; in other words that it is a mode of
narration based on an intensified application of film style, favouring mood and
atmosphere over plot. In addition to an examination of stylistic features, I will also
investigate the narrative form and thematic structures of the films in order to
demonstrate the various incarnations of the distinctive types of boredom.
As I have argued in earlier sections, CeylanÕs films were initially unsuccessful in
their national reception because they employed unusual narrative structures and stylistic
decisions. His films were a clear break from Turkish popular cinema in terms of the dedramatization
of the plot as a major force within the narrative. Profoundly influenced by
Anton Chekhov, CeylanÕs stories revolve around situations, moods and mental states
while the progression of events and the cause-effect links in between them are largely
neglected from the foreground, if not wholly abandoned. Weaving together ordinary and
everyday situations, Ceylan projects a sense of contemporary Turkishness, but does so
through establishing long sequences of silence enhanced by the use of elliptical editing,
subtle sound designs, fixed camera angles, still frames and dead time. These sequences,
some of which involve slow movement and are open to interpretation, do not advance
the plot and hence function in similar ways to the descriptive pause, which I have
outlined in Chapter 2. To recall, descriptive pause is a category of narrative tense and
describes moments in the film where the story action stops, narration continues. In other
words, despite the pause in story events and plot progression, the act of storytelling
proceeds, chiefly through its narrative discourse. The definitive examples I ascribed to
the descriptive pause are largely from BŽla Tarr films, in which action is literally
paused despite slow camera movements and droning sound effects. However, in
CeylanÕs films the descriptive pause functions figuratively (as I have suggested earlier),
in the sense that despite the continuation of physical action (for example, characters
walking or standing), these instances do not relate to the story structure or advance any
plot progression. Routinely appearing in between two significant plot points, such dead
moments are immaculately shot, composed, staged and more than often accompanied by
a soundtrack that either contains an extremely banal dialogue (or conversely shot in
total silence) or an ambient mixture of sound effects. These empty moments slow down
and pause plot developments and are instead preoccupied with projecting the mental
states of the characters by throwing the audience into a suspended feeling of time. In
  219 
other words, they embody typical features of the Slow Cinema tradition: through
stillness or monotonous movement, pointless dialogue or absolute silence, atmosphere
instead of event and most importantly, a systematic and careful application of the long
take in purpose of reducing narrative pace. With the use of deep-focus cinematography,
these sequences use composition to obfuscate the actions and spatial orientation of
characters. In some scenes various objects occupy the foreground of the image,
eclipsing characters or important moments in the background. In many ways such an
austere representation of action tests narrative intelligibility and in CeylanÕs case, the
inactivity of the characters becomes revelatory in the sense that the spectators begin to
build, develop or imagine several character traits and question whether there is another
meaning beyond what we see in the image.
Let us begin with several examples from CeylanÕs Distant. The first example
takes place during the scene where the heavy snowfall is introduced. Yusuf has finally
managed to enter MahmutÕs apartment and talks about his intentions of finding work on
international trading ships. He tells Mahmut that he will go out the next day for the
docks and talk to the officials to get more information. In the next day, Istanbul is
covered with snow and our perspective slightly changes to Yusuf and along with him
we experience the city through various images and sounds. This remains one of the
most memorable sequences in the film, both visually and sonically, and shows the ways
in which Ceylan plays around visually stunning images edited together with ambient
sounds. The emotional tone of the film suddenly expresses an eerie quality with a
particular emphasis on sounds coming from the ships passing through the Bosphorus,
whose tonal qualities are modified to such a degree insofar as they become some sort of
ambient music Ð as we have seen earlier, aspects of sound editing and design that were
completely ignored in previous forms of Turkish cinema.
! ! !
  220 
   
Figure 4.1 Ð Distant (2002) Figure 4.2 Ð cont.
As soon as the snow is introduced as part of the setting, a loosely connected series of
images in and around the city dominate the film narrative structure. In these sequences
the progression of plot slows down, until Yusuf enters the dock and begins enquiring
about jobs at the port (see Figures 4.1 and 4.2). The film temporarily abandons plot
progression in this sequence to capture the urban rhythms through unusual images such
as the bent ship that dominates most of the screen. In a city known for its chaotic pace,
the sudden snow abruptly interrupts the very essence of the city itself and introduces a
calm and idyllic nature. Later on, Ceylan insistently portrays his characters gazing to
each other as well as to the city out of a window with no complementary dialogue or
plot element. These ephemeral depictions also slow down the plot time as well as the
spectatorÕs experience of the film, allowing for contemplation instead of building causal
links between each moment.
Figure 4.3 Ð Distant (2002) Figure 4.4 Ð cont.
  221 
Figure 4.5 Ð cont. Figure 4.6 Ð cont.
Another example of Ceylan resisting conventional forms of narrative is the
scene in which Yusuf and Ebru wait for the janitor to pick up a package for Mahmut.
The uncomfortable waiting within the apartment building here occurs through an initial
establishing shot; the janitor goes downstairs to pick the package and Yusuf is left alone
with Ebru. They are conveniently framed against each other and Yusuf tries to pose
himself to attract some kind of attention. Moments later, the uncomfortable silence
between the two is further exaggerated with the lights going off Ð a very typical, albeit
somewhat old-fashioned situation in İstanbul where all apartment lights switch off
automatically (Figures 4.3-4.6). What is striking in this scene is CeylanÕs blend of an
extremely familiar and banal situation with one that is also extremely uncomfortable.
A secondary function of the lights going off is to attain a stylized tableaux
vivant in silhouette. Ceylan was previously praised for his immaculate photography and
his grounding in composition as well as still life is evidently revealed in these
sequences. The situation is followed with a close up of Yusuf looking at Ebru, and then
Ebru looking outside, towards the light. The empty moment of waiting is emphasized
further with these close ups and in many ways their gazes remain elusive and
inconclusive. The scene finally comes to an end with the janitor, putting an end to the
uncomfortable situation by turning on the lights and returning the parcel, but the whole
scene emphasizes moments of still life, inactivity and dead time. The effect of such a
use of duration is the emergence of what Mieke Bal calls Òsticky images: images that
hold the viewer, enforcing an experience of temporal variation. They enforce a slowing
down as well as an intensification of the experience of time.Ó128
The bulk of the
examples Bal cites as sticky images are contemporary sculptures and installations,
which foreground an awareness of temporality and render the act of looking palpable
  222 
through emphasizing the ephemerality of the artwork itself, essentially by using
transient materials or composition.129
For painting, however, Bal turns to Caravaggio,
who Òallegedly destroyed painting by disrupting narrative,Ó namely by pausing the
narrative action in favour of contrast, texture and colour, and whose Ònarrative
dimension derives from its appeal to an interaction with the viewer; to its own
processing in time.Ó130
In other words, pausing narrative progress envelops the viewer
in a different state of perception, one that enables the viewer to participate in the
construction of meaning as well as negotiate the role and function of visual style.
While these scenes demonstrate the ways in which Ceylan uses the descriptive
pause to attain an aesthetic experience based on boredom, it also highlights how these
sequences establish borderline cases between narrative and non-narrative forms. By
eliminating causality, progression and development, these sequences move towards a
different engagement with the spectator: not only the exact feelings of the characters are
clouded by the filmÕs deliberate concealment but also the sequences try to project the
exact idleness of the charactersÕ mental states. In other words, these sequences duplicate
the feeling of boredom by the characters onto the spectator by depicting the very
moments of boredom. But how is this experience of boredom creative, insightful or
productive? The remainder of this section I will demonstrate this aspect of the
descriptive pause fully by arguing for Slow CinemaÕs ability to transform boredom
(resulting from slowness, idleness or lack of engagement) into a heightened sense of
perceptivity in which natural occurrences and rudimentary compositions elicit mind
wandering As such, boredom, while traditionally understood as a negative emotion and
time wasting activity, can be a productive and revelatory emotion in the context of Slow
Cinema.
The curious connection between boredom and creativity takes a different shape
in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Boredom is a useful concept in relation to the film
because it is, similar to CeylanÕs other films, manifested in various levels along with its
both types. On the narrative level, for instance, the film puts considerable amount of
emphasis to moments of simple boredom faced by the principle characters. The
prosecutor Nusret and Doctor Cemal are disaffected by the mundane tasks of police
inquiry and are expressively fed-up with drifting from one location to another in search
  223 
of the dead body. Furthermore, both characters embody conventional notions of
existential boredom similar to CeylanÕs other films. The prosecutor Nusret is torn by the
recent death of his wife, where the circumstances and causes of the passing have
remained mysterious. He refuses to admit responsibility, not least for his anonymous
retelling of the story to Doctor Cemal, but also for dismissing CemalÕs rational
explanation of the mystery, which essentially suggests that the wife could have
committed suicide to punish her husband. Later in the film, Nusret finds CemalÕs
alternative scenario plausible, but this does not function as a coming to terms with
reality, on the contrary, he becomes further disturbed and filled with remorse.
However, there seems to be considerable amount of overlap between the simple
and existential forms of boredom, which is best exemplified in the characterization of
Doctor Cemal. Cemal represents a different case because his situation involves both
types of boredom with overlapping varieties. In other words, it is difficult to determine
whether he is primarily troubled with the simple or the existential form, simply because
he seems to be embodying both at all times. His presumably unhappy emotional past is
represented through a series of black and white photographs, which imply that he might
have been involved with an unsuccessful relationship.131
Moreover, since the beginning
of the film, Cemal is portrayed as an outsider, firstly because of his refusal to get
involved with the crime scene interrogations, but also through the way in which he
expresses himself to others. In many ways he is depicted as an urbanite, or at least
educated in an urban centre, and is most likely held up in the provinces against his will,
fulfilling his national duty.132
In this respect, his moral and intellectual struggles as an
educated urbanite in the provincial setting are a recurring plot trope in the film.
However, his boredom is not only related to the time-bound simple boredom commonly
associated with the stasis of provincial life. Rather, he seems to be disaffected with a
kind of boredom that runs deeper, independent of time and space, perhaps due to
incidents happening in his past. More importantly, however, his boredom is related with
his inability to practice his free will against his entrapment in a provincial setting. The
lack of free will in this case seems to be the crucial point, in which a simple form of
boredom evolves into its existential variety. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that both
forms of boredom exist in an overlapping manner throughout the film to establish
character psychology.
  224 
Far beyond its function within the narrative level, boredom should also be seen
as an aesthetic element that entails a similar effect on the spectator. Once Upon a Time
in Anatolia achieves this effect through a blend of repetition within its narrative
structure as well as its long takes designed as frame-within-frames. For example, the
first half of the film portrays the investigation in its various stages, but there is little
difference amongst the sequences and an even slower plot progression. In these scenes,
the long takes depict more or less the same action in different circumstances and
locations, relegating the truth quest of the characters to a banal and repetitive activity.
Although we learn something new about all characters in each new scene, the film
insistently extends the investigation and the actual search. Visually, for instance, Ceylan
consistently shows the car lights illuminating the dark, which happens exclusively in all
scenes with careful attention, as if they are a significant part of the plot. Many of the onlocation
investigation scenes are also connected by sequences that take place within the
car, particularly the one with the suspect, Dr. Cemal and The Commissar in it. These
scenes also interrupt and suspend plot progression, mostly by creating deadpan humour
through a use of mundane dialogue. In many ways these interludes and deviations from
the plot indicate that the film is interested in things other than the truth regarding the
dead body the characters are searching for, presumably because the film imposes a
narration that seeks a kind of truth beyond everyday realities. In this respect, the film
tells us that there is a poetic truth that lies beneath the surface of the reality, one that can
be observed through a narration that echoes boredom, which prompts the gaze by
slowing down in repetitive observations.
The filmÕs national and international critical reception confirms these claims
about the filmÕs narration. J. Hoberman, for instance, describes the film as Òan
epistemological murder mystery,Ó which Òinvites the viewer to meditate on the nature of
truth or basis of knowledge.Ó133
Similarly, Senem Ayta• argues that the corpse that the
characters pursue throughout the film functions as a Hitchcockian Macguffin; in other
words a bogus object that obscures the actual truth quest of the film. Ayta• claims that
the film in fact is not concerned with illuminating the murder or the murdererÕs identity,
but instead aims at revealing the power struggle and social hierarchy that deeply
embodies Turkish provincial life.134
The role of the police procedure is central to this
argument. ÒAs the rambling, shambling, for some time seemingly futile investigation
  225 
proceeds, Ceylan uses it as the framework for a richly quizzical meditation on a range of
themes,Ó writes Geoff Andrew and claims that he film explores humanistic questions
such as Òthe mores and manners of provincial life, the way weÕre shaped by where we
live; the balancing of ethics and pragmatism; our responsibilities to our loved ones; and
our need to hold on to the banalities of life when faced with misfortune, absurdity and
death.Ó135
As such, the film constructs its plot in such a way that its subtle revelations
appear to possess a close affinity to boredom as an aesthetic experience. In other words
the film creates an atmosphere of boredom in order to emphasize Òa slow and
languorous rhythm,Ó as Ceylan calls it, just so the realities of the everyday may remain
as fleeting as they are in real life. ÒA police investigation is a sound movement, [É] a
dialectic: the quest for truth in a concrete and common expression, where it is
innocently at work,Ó said the French director Bruno Dumont, another important but
often overlooked figure of Slow Cinema. Dumont continues: ÒThe discovery doesnÕt
really matter. What counts is the movement: looking.Ó136
In the remainder of this
section I examine sequences in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia that embody this notion
of looking, mainly through shots that emphasize looking as a voyeuristic activity. I
argue that there is a systematic use of the frame-within-the frame across the film,
altogether shot in a style reminiscent of the descriptive pause and therefore represent
boredom as an aesthetic strategy. Secondly, these images represent a window through
which the spectators are offered a deeper truth within the film, in other words something
ephemeral and fleeting, or other than its main plot. The police inquiry represents a
crucial aspect of this looking and movement from the banal into the sublime truth, but
as we will see its plot details are persistently clouded by the filmÕs frequent use of
ambiguity in narrative causality. Below, however, I attempt at unravelling these
sequences and trying to make sense of what sorts of revelations, insights and creative
interpretations these sequences might be offering.
  226 
Figure 4.7 Ð Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)
 
Boredom as a state of mind is visually embodied in the film, especially through
its visual narration. There are three specific moments in the film where the cinematic
frame precisely corresponds to another frame within the filmÕs narrative world. Ceylan
uses the cinema-window analogy here to emphasize the instances and the processes of
looking, as well as emphasizing our inability to grasp what lies beneath by holding
some of its shots for minutes without any change. All of these scenes contain very little
action and there is no dialogue or any other direct connection to plot events, hence they
pause plot progression to allow temporal space for contemplation only through the use
of mise-en-sc•ne and cinematography. In the opening scene, for example, the camera
closes down to a hazy window, rendering objects on the other side of the glass out of
focus and extremely blurry (See Figure 4.7). Moments later, the focal depth slowly
adjusts to the space inside the room and only through a sharp image we realize that the
two suspects and the future victim are having a small party. Is this a metaphor for the
viewerÕs involvement with the film? No. As a matter of fact, the narration achieves
exactly what the viewer is going through. The focal depth is not a metaphor; it is exactly
the same procedure that our eyes go through, adjusting a lens to render further objects
visible. Although the image sharpens at the end of the scene and renders the mise-ensc•ne
visible, hence provides more information for us, we keep asking questions
regarding the filmÕs plot. The same play of focal depth is repeated across the film in two
significant moments and signify the way in which the spectator is unable to arrive at a
  227 
truthful conclusion regarding how the events have unfolded, emphasizing our inability
to fully access the information regarding to the murder and the investigation.
Figure 4.8 Ð Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)
This is perhaps best exemplified in the scene prior to the location in which the
characters finally find the burial ground. Preceding this discovery is a long take where
the camera is placed just behind the wheel of the car, doubling the cinematic frame with
the front window of the car (See Figure 4.8). It is difficult to tell whether this is a point
of view shot, but judging from the central location of the camera it most likely is not.
The shot is held for a couple minutes on the landscape in front, accompanied by
traditional Turkish folk music playing from the radio.137
It is finally dawn and the rain
has arrived on the scene. Although the focal depth is arranged in a way to illuminate the
other side of the window the constant raindrops temporarily blur the image we see, at
least in the moments where the window is not swiped clean. In short, the whole camera
setup is designed in a way to evoke a partial understand of whatever unfolds right in
front of us. As soon as we are able to notice a clear image, the raindrops immediately
obscure the image further. As such, similar to the example earlier, the frame-within-theframe
literally represents our relationship to the film and its plot events. Although we
receive information, we never quite grasp the reality and as such the information flow
remains fleeting, temporary, perhaps causing frustration on the part of the spectator.
It is significant that Ceylan decided to insert this imagery right before the
officials finally find the piece of evidence they have been looking for, because within
  228 
the scene, the style foregrounds some of the plot points that will occur later. There are
two important questions regarding the plot in the film, both of which remain
unanswered, at least explicitly. The first one is the question whether the suspects have
really committed murder. The policemen find KenanÕs confession satisfying, but the
younger brotherÕs culpable emotional breakdown at the scene implies otherwise and the
film does not revisit this question. Secondly, during the autopsy scene, Dr. CemalÕs
assistant finds sand in the victimÕs lungs, suggesting that the victim was most likely
buried alive. Cemal, however, inexplicably refuses this conclusion and excludes it from
the final report, without showing any obvious rationale. This later point is surprising,
because earlier in the film Cemal was portrayed as someone dedicated to an objective
truth, not least because he is practicing medicine, but also for his conversations with the
policemen. In these dialogues Cemal disapproves the superstitious remarks made by the
policemen, defending the position that only an autopsy could determine the causes of
death in mysterious circumstances, or emphasizing the necessity for a medical diagnosis
against such rumours. Initially portrayed as a diligent doctor, CemalÕs final concealment
is all the more surprising to the spectator: not only we do not get a definitive answer as
to who has really committed the murder, but we are also not given any clue to why the
doctor does not fully report the apparent truth.
Figure 4.9 Ð Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)
The film ends with an image that fully realizes this situation, once again through
a frame-within-the-frame composition that reflects a clouded gaze towards the world
outside. In this image, however, the window is shot sideways from a diagonal angle
  229 
rather than from a perpendicular one as in the earlier examples (in this respect, it is at
once both a frame-within-the-frame and not so due to the change in the camera angle).
Moreover, our inability to see outside the window is caused by an oversaturated light
rather than an incongruity in the focal depth (See Figure 4.9). The overexposed image
literally disables our ability to see the landscape outside. The narration is effectively
implying that the viewer is unable to arrive at a truthful conclusion in spite of the
various pieces of information and actions laid out earlier in the film. The film ends
literally the way it started, with a look through a window, perhaps emphasizing its
parenthetical examination of Anatolian culture. Observing exactly the same visual
pattern in the filmÕs Cannes press release, Vecdi Sayar describes the filmÕs formal
structure as portraiture instead of the traditionally plot-driven narrative film (echoing
the Chekhovian influences) and establishes its distant kinship to Turkish literary works
such as Yakup Kadri KaraosmanoğluÕs The Stranger (Yaban, 1932).138
The novel
portrays the story of a stereotypical Republican subject, an enlightened individual (a
lawyer, doctor, teacher, or engineer), who travels to a remote Anatolian village with the
purpose of educating its dwellers, but instead faces a compulsive backward environment
totally indifferent to the Republican project of social edification.139
Another visual and
formal method that the film utilizes in creating such a portrait of Anatolia is its lingering
use of extreme close-ups on the faces of its characters, which in the words of Fõrat
YŸcel brings an ÒAntonioniesque touch to a Spaghetti Western convention,Ó hence the
title of the filmÕs homage to Sergio LeoneÕs signature films Once Upon a Time in the
West (1968) and Once Upon a Time in America (1984), both of which similarly explore
a deeper cultural reality while the main plotlines masquerade criminal procedures. For
YŸcel, the sustained gaze at these Òrigid facesÓ at the same time reveals Òa hidden
fragility and disgraceÓ of a previously unseen Anatolian masculinity.140
These examples also emphasize our status as viewers, not least through frame
compositions that illustrate the conditions of looking, but also through its unique
narration. The narration focuses on moments dominated by dead time and repetitive
long takes, both of which distract the viewer from the actual plot and conceal story
information in ways that contradict the pleasures of cinema. These factors create
suspense and at times create a kind of patience test on the spectator and, more
importantly, they establish a state of mind that can best be characterized as boredom.
  230 
Instead of showing important moments overtly, the narration system in the film
concentrates on the dead moments by evoking the story through a particular use of
imagery. Even the last clue given to us right at the end of the film does not reveal or
accentuate the questions that troubled us throughout the film, and the film closes in a
similar manner by withholding evidence from the spectator, which in itself highlights
the way in which the spectator, as well as Dr. Cemal, are nothing but outsiders.
This brings us back to the issue where representation of the everyday and
boredom as a state of mind are essentially paradoxical aesthetic strategies. While Once
Upon a Time in Anatolia celebrates moments of boredom through elements of style that
directly inherit specific aspects of the same feeling, boredom in itself becomes the very
fabric of its mode of narration. In other words, the filmÕs portrayals of ceaseless
interrogations, repetitive imagery and banal dialogue do not entail a sense of boredom
on the spectator that is negative, distractive or off-putting; on the contrary, the film
presents itself through a mode of narration that encourages the same idleness as a
method that allows a closer engagement with the film and its particular themes. Nothing
really happens in the scenes mentioned before, at least in the traditional sense, and that
is exactly why such an undemanding presence of mise-en-sc•ne and plot should create
mind wandering. The elusive use of camerawork and the mise-en-sc•ne, therefore,
invites the viewer to question and imagine what might have been happening beyond the
surface of the image, while the descriptive pause fosters creative insight in attaining
such thinking.
I conclude this section by once again referring to an early interview by Ceylan.
When asked whether his ordinary characters and everyday situations might displace,
alienate or bore his spectators, he answers:
In cinema, being boring, boring the spectator or not are not important. One can
reach a deep and profound understanding through the experience of boredom.
Films that have influenced me most are those I was bored most while watching
them. But their affection, their influence emerges two or three days, even years
after watching them.141
Here Ceylan refers to those films by Ozu, Bresson, Tarkovsky and Antonioni, whose
films were often criticized by the mainstream media for their pretentious attitude or
  231 
boringness.142
Yet, while the works of these elusive directors often baffled critics and
spectators alike, many of these works are now regarded as classics of modernist art
cinema within contemporary film studies. In other words, the cultural value of such art
films that used boredom as an aesthetic strategy have, over the course of history,
matured into inflicting a more profound sense of aesthetic experience and artistic
inspiration. There is, however, another critical attention attributed to these films by artcinema
friendly critics, who describe the cinematic experience as contemplative,
meditative, hypnotic and/or mesmerizing, feelings that I think, share a fundamental
affinity with boredom as a state of mind, simply because they stress a suspended sense
of idleness.143
Boredom is not only present in the narrative level of the films, in the
sense that the characters are affected by this particular emotion, but the filmmakers use
boredom as an aesthetic strategy to create a very different kind of engagement. In this
sense, boredom is not merely a negative emotion and it may attain several positive
functions. Peter Toohey, for example, finds boredom Òan adaptive emotion in the
Darwinian sense,Ó while other critics draw attention to the curious relationship between
boredom and artistic creativity.144
While it may still remain as an undesirable condition,
boredom is in many ways as an aesthetically rewarding experience, mainly because its
idle nature allows an opportunity for mind wandering that might lead to creative insight.
In this respect, boredom achieves a similar function to other aversive emotions, such as
horror and disgust, and its application in Slow Cinema offers a radical, and at times,
paradoxical reconsideration of our emotional attachment to moving images. If, across
centuries, tragedy as a type of dramatic art based on human suffering has captivated
audiences, then perhaps viewing artworks that elicit boredom can also arouse forms of
aesthetic pleasure.
4.7 Ð Conclusion
This chapter argued Slow Cinema directors establish an international presence by
negotiating local traditions with an aesthetic sensibility largely drawn from European art
cinemas. CeylanÕs films cogently demonstrate this aspect of Slow Cinema, because they
represent a composite of Yeşil•am and art cinema traditions. On the one hand, Yeşil•am
cinema is largely characterized by its low-budget production mechanisms that depict
  232 
familiar narratives in an easily recognizable manner. While CeylanÕs films display
certain filmmaking practices (artisanal mode of production) and narrative themes
(clashes between different generations of a family or the urban and the provincial)
originating from the Yeşil•am tradition, in a strictly aesthetic sense their deployment of
the long take aesthetic and foregrounding of boredom are largely in defiance of
established local cinematic conventions. CeylanÕs most successful films, Distant and
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, as I have demonstrated, are powerful examples of this
adaptation of European art cinema aesthetics into a Turkish context. I have argued that
the use of boredom as an aesthetic strategy is the main element of this negotiation and
hence provided a theory of boredom that emphasizes its idleness as a basis that fosters
inspiration, insight and revelation through the psychological phenomenon known as
mind wandering. As such, boredom is not a state of mind in which meaning is lost, but a
stream of consciousness encouraged by the apparent idleness or lack of activity in the
film and establishes an imaginative and ruminative mode of spectatorship. Yet, I believe
boredom accommodates a function larger than a capacity for contemplation and, despite
its undesirable condition, I argue that it should be considered alongside significant and
cinematic aversive emotions, such as horror and disgust, as well as generic dramatic
forms such as tragedy.
In the next chapter, I will summarize the conclusions of previous case studies
along with recapitulating and developing my arguments in approaching Slow Cinema
through concepts of nostalgia, absurd humour and boredom. I will also offer a broader
conception of Slow Cinema via a reference to the optique, which, as proposed by
Dudley Andrew, describes a set of stylistic devices at a given moment in time as well as
their function for a demanding audience. Furthermore, I will offer a broader look at the
historical evolution of Slow Cinema by noting its changes within the past four decades.
  233 
CHAPTER 5
Conclusion
My objective in this thesis has been to scrutinize Slow Cinema in terms of its diverse
aesthetic features and its concomitant institutional background. I have argued that
nostalgia, absurd humour and boredom are fundamental concepts in attaining a
comprehensive account of Slow Cinema, especially one that is specifically concerned
with its aesthetic, historical and critical discourses. Before concluding this thesis and
summarizing my case studies, however, I want to briefly set out some broad parameters
to evaluate the Slow Cinema discourse in relation to contemporary art cinema currents.
In other words, while the earlier chapters of this thesis offered an in-depth examination
of three distinctive directors, I want to understand whether Slow Cinema in general
qualifies as an art cinema movement and if so, under what aesthetic, economic or
cultural criteria should this assessment take place. Tiago de Luca and Matthew
Flanagan, in their respective doctoral theses, have briefly posed the same question and
concurred in defining Slow Cinema not so much as Òa structured film movementÓ or
Òthe divergent aesthetic concerns of individual artists and collectives,Ó but more an
emerging and varied aesthetic sensibility in the wake of digital technologies (for de
Luca) and experimental practices (for Flanagan).1
While I am in agreement with both
scholars, I also want to explore these ideas regarding the nature of Slow CinemaÕs
contemporary existence further and at the same time suggest future areas of research.
Slow Cinema is a complex phenomenon. Although it is a form of resistance, its
aesthetic and political effects cannot simply be reduced to a response towards dominant
aesthetic modes. On the other hand, despite embracing an anti-mainstream rhetoric, not
all of its exemplary features are politically, culturally or aesthetically subversive.
Throughout this thesis I have emphasized that Slow Cinema exists within a global
framework, in which local articulations of culture are traded and consumed by an
international and culturally sophisticated elite. Whilst the slowness of Slow Cinema is
typically seen as a romantic reaction against acceleration, globalization and
digitalization, it simultaneously embraces these developments through various means.
  234 
Digital technologies not only enable the production of these films, but also inform
newer distribution and exhibition practices. Because none of these films are readily
available in local multiplexes, technological advancements in exhibition (such as
official streaming services, Internet piracy, home video and high-definition systems, and
so on) increase their visibility and hasten their accessibility. Likewise, while some films
exclusively deal with localized issues, such as adaptations of national folk tales or
allegorical narratives of national histories, they nevertheless circulate globally and often
reach audiences with no immediate concern for such indigenous specificities. In other
words, Slow Cinema is composed of many paradoxes: as much as the films are elusive,
opaque and difficult to grasp, the discursive and theoretical framework in which they
operate similarly eludes comprehension.
In the midst of all this debate is the international film festival as a powerful and
vital institution. As I have now emphasized numerous times, Slow Cinema functions at
a transnational paradigm. Nevertheless, even the broadest conceptual frameworks of
transnational cinemas are unable to accommodate Slow Cinema within its typologies.
Mette HjortÕs taxonomy of Òcinematic transnationalisms,Ó for example, proposes
various categories of transnational activities, in which Slow Cinema resides in between
two particular types. On the one hand, as most Slow Cinema films are auteur-based
productions, some filmmakers belong to Òauterist transnationalismÓ and transcend the
boundaries of national productions through transnational collaborations, specifically
with international film festivals, distribution companies and other networks. On the
other hand, however, filmmakers like Jia Zhangke and Tsai Ming-liang should be
placed within a Òmodernizing transnationalismÓ for these filmmakers Òcannot be neatly
contained within their own national cinemas.Ó2
For Hjort, modernizing transnationalism
arises in particularly East Asian cinemas when Òa significantly transnationalized film
culture becomes a means of fuelling, but also signifying, the mechanisms of
modernization within a given society.Ó3
In other words, the debate circles back to a
negotiation in which the director, as an individual, cultivates a national film culture and,
concurrently, subscribes to the demands of a global audience.
Perhaps the alternative route to take in understanding Slow Cinema is turning to
its distinctive audience profiles. What kinds of audiences go to film festivals and see
  235 
these films? How do issues of gender, race, nationality or social class play a role in this
negotiation? How do DVD sales or Internet downloads affect the circulation of Slow
Cinema films? These are some of the questions I have largely escaped throughout this
thesis. However, an examination of audience profiles may give us a better sense of how
and why these films are frenetically consumed across international film festivals and
virtual environments. So far, I have approached these issues via tangential questions,
such as investigating the types of film critics and distinguishing the nature of
publications in which these critics write. In this regard, cinephilia, or a generalized love
and passion for the art of cinema, has largely been at the centre of the debate. In many
ways this harkens back to my emphasis on the ways in which Slow Cinema receives
institutional support, not only from cinephile publications, but also from individual
critics and official institutions (cinematheques, archives, education facilities, funding
bodies, etc.). Yet, what does Slow Cinema actually mean for its audiences?
To understand Slow CinemaÕs relationship to its audiences, I want to turn to the
neologism optique, proposed by Dudley Andrew in his authoritative study of 1930s
French poetic realism. Motivated by the structuralist term Žcriture, which Òdesignate[s]
the limited plurality of literary options available in any epoch,Ó optique similarly
represents a plethora of cinematic devices available at a given historical period and the
ways in which such devices are related to the Òspecification of audience expectations,
needs, and uses.Ó4
As such, optique not only refers to a diverse regiment of aesthetic
sensibilities and stylistic devices, but also, more importantly, designates the historical
and cultural circumstances behind the creation of these cultural productions as well as
the Òspecific type of experience offered by a set of films to the public.Ó5
In this respect,
optique Òencompasses more than a style or a genreÓ and constitutes Òa sensibility, a
function, and a mode of address.Ó6
For Andrew, the French poetic realism of the 1930s
can be seen as an optique not only in terms of the various directors and the conditions of
the film industry at that time, but is furthermore Òcharacterized by the particular rapport
the cinema developed with renegade literary, music, and artistic figures during the
heady days of the Popular Front.Ó7
Such a wide-ranging capacity of optique as a
classification system enables a broader, yet historically productive conception of Slow
Cinema, as I have attempted throughout this thesis, not only as a stylistic tendency in
  236 
contemporary art cinema, but also an aesthetic sensibility drawn from the technological,
institutional and cultural circumstances at the turn of the 21st
century.
Fifteen years after its original publication, Andrew revisits optique to categorize
the varied existence of contemporary cinema: Ònational folk films,Ó Òglobal
entertainment moviesÓ and Òinternational art cinema.Ó8
Whilst for Andrew, optique in
this instance entitles international art cinema as a broader category, I believe that it can
be further extrapolated within the complex terrain of art cinema and equally describe
what is meant by Slow Cinema, especially in regard to my objectives in this thesis. In
this respect, I wonder if Slow Cinema could also constitute a form of optique Ð perhaps
in a similar vein to the ways in which French poetic realism did. Throughout three
distinctive case studies, I have mapped the diverse array of stylistic elements that
contribute to an aesthetic sensibility based on the expansion, elongation and
exaggeration of cinematic temporality and the valorization of ambiguity. In order to
better understand the functions of this aesthetic sensibility, I have turned to concepts of
nostalgia, absurd humour and boredom, all of which, by virtue of their historical
relationship to art cinema movements, have revealed a striking inclination towards
modernism. Consequently, I have argued that this disposition towards modernism and
the filmsÕ prominent aesthetic sensibilities function for spectators simultaneously as a
nostalgic reflection and sheer contemplation, an absurd impression and melancholic
revelation, meditative boredom and aesthetic elation Ð in other words, I have largely
established Slow Cinema as an aesthetic discourse with its distinctive set of
characteristics that radically alters the perception of temporality and the foundations of
cinematic spectatorship.
This thesis, furthermore, examined the Slow Cinema phenomenon in another
crucial and remarkable aspect. I want to stress once again that Slow Cinema is also a
historical and critical discourse; in essence a continuation of the modernist project,
intensified in its minimalistic design, but relocated to the realm of international film
festivals in the wake of the diminishing number of art-house theatres. In other words,
Slow Cinema, via its unique modes of production, distribution and reception, represents
a nostalgic rebirth of the modernist art cinema movements. Varying from the artisanal
to the transnational, these productions are on the one hand distributed across film
  237 
festivals and, on the other, through new media channels. Likewise, the critical
receptions of the films take place in film festivals as well as online discussion boards,
forums, blogs and cinephile publications. Supported by the very same institutional
context that attended modernist film, Slow Cinema operates at a critical intersection,
negotiating and questioning the relationship between the polar extremes of the local and
the global.
The theoretical framework, which this thesis has approached Slow CinemaÕs
pronounced aesthetic experience, its critical and aesthetic history, is determined by three
pivotal concepts: nostalgia, absurd humour and boredom. These concepts pertain to both
the formal aspects of the films and their historical conjuncture. Slow Cinema films are
nostalgic, because they appear outmoded and retro-stylish against the ever-accelerating
world and technological progression faced in the 21st
century. Likewise, Slow Cinema
is nostalgic for its evocation of modernist art cinemaÕs institutional parameters and its
critical reception frequently elicits nostalgic references to this historical genealogy. The
films are absurdly humorous for their depiction of humanity in a condition that escapes
logical interpretation and, similarly, the paradoxes of its conceptual framework refuse
rational explanations. While certain critics lampoon Slow Cinema for its portrayal of
boredom, monotony and idleness, through subtle structures of repetition and
atmospheric pondering, the films elevate boredom into an aesthetic mode of experience.
In sum, Slow Cinema, as perhaps the most exciting contemporary counter-culture
current offers a radical and often paradoxical reconsideration of our emotional
attachment and intellectual engagement with moving images. For the purpose of
concluding this study, then, I will now offer brief summaries of my case studies and
point towards future areas of research.
Chapter 1 has offered a detailed outline of Slow CinemaÕs current status by
firstly addressing the Slow Cinema debate that originated in the pages of Sight and
Sound. Following Nick JamesÕs provocative editorial, many film critics and serious
bloggers joined in the debate by addressing the question whether Slow Cinema
represented an active form of rebellion against the blockbuster dominance in
mainstream cinema. The debate itself reveal factions amongst cinephiles, scholars and
critics; on the one hand, those that defended Slow Cinema by virtue of its artistic
  238 
capabilities, and on the other, those that demanded a comprehensive account of how
such aesthetic features were distinguished from earlier forms of art cinema movements.
Because the debate was a contemporary issue, until recently, much of its facets were not
accommodated in scholarly literature. The introduction chapter then has outlined the
critical literature, which ranges from recent PhD theses to journal articles as well as
other resources that briefly allude to the debate without a direct engagement with the
term Slow Cinema. In light of this lack, I have attempted to understand Slow Cinema
through a historical survey of what art cinema meant for audiences and how Slow
Cinema should be approached through a comprehensive account of art cinemaÕs
distinctive attributes.
An examination of the history of art cinema thus revealed the ways in which
discourses of slowness, contemplation and radical aesthetics were as ancient as cinema
itself. In this respect, I have argued that Slow Cinema is simply a moment of transition
within the evolution of art cinema, perhaps a moment in which a collective obsession in
temporality intensified and an exponential increase in the number of productions
followed at the turn of the century. Clearly, however, there are other technological,
economic and cultural factors behind this increase, all of which constitute future areas
of research. To exhibit this exponential increase, I have generated a graphic depiction of
the number of Slow Cinema features released in the last four decades (See Figure 5.1).
Although Slow CinemaÕs stylistic precedents are easily located in earlier films, such as
WarholÕs Empire (1964), DreyerÕs Ordet (1955) and even ViscontiÕs La Terra Trema
(1948), the film entries in this chart start at the year 1975 with Chantal AkermanÕs
Jeanne Dielman, perhaps a symbolic inauguration for Slow Cinema. Following nearly
two decades of fluctuating numbers, 1994 marks another critical year after which
productions escalate from 13 feature films (1990-1994) to 36 (1995-1999), 58 (2000-
2004) and finally reaching the peak at 72 (2005-2009), before descending to 40 (2010-
2013). The complete list of film entries can be consulted in the Appendix, which also
serves as an overview of Slow Cinema filmography.
  239 
Figure 5.1 Ð Line chart illustrating the exponential increase in the number of Slow Cinema films
I should note that, however, this filmography does not represent an exhaustive or
authoritative list and demonstrates a crude, yet approximate measure of the proliferation
of Slow Cinema films throughout the mid-to-late 1990s. The potential problems and
inaccuracies of this filmography are, firstly, due to the fact that some of the films are
nearly impossible to see. In this respect, some films are added purely because they are
the work of a critically established Slow Cinema director (such as the cases with Fred
Kelemen and Lav Diaz). Secondly, some unknown films are added because they
regularly feature either in cinephile publications, scholarly studies or online discussions
concerned with Slow Cinema. Thirdly, and finally, the year 2013 contains several
entries, which at the time of writing, are about to be released or have already premiered
in film festivals. In this respect the steep decrease in the period 2010-2013 can be
explained by not only the lack of an additional year (as all other periods include a total
of five consecutive years), but also because the potential candidates within this period
are, at the moment, not released theatrically. Moreover, the filmography contains a
diverse range of films, ranging from observational documentaries to minimalist art
cinema films or experimental features, but on the whole such a list should simply offer a
starting point towards a more comprehensive, detailed and precise account in the future.
The year 1994 saw another symbolic inauguration of Slow Cinema, namely BŽla
TarrÕs S‡t‡ntang—. Chapter 2 has explored the work of BŽla Tarr, perhaps the
0 
10 
20 
30 
40 
50 
60 
70 
80 
  240 
quintessential Slow Cinema director, whose films are not only equipped with its
defining stylistic features, but also project a distinctive atmospheric quality largely
inherent to regional artistic practices. This chapter constituted a historical objective and
argued that TarrÕs films represent a hyperbolic extension of a variety of modernist
techniques, such as the long take, dead time and claustrophobic framing. I offered a
historical overview of the evolution of the long take, in which I not only ascribed
several functions to it from the perspective of the filmmaker and the spectator, but also
examined its treatment by film theorists such as AndrŽ Bazin and Gilles Deleuze. While
for Bazin, the long take is an instrument that liberates the spectator from the impositions
of montage and the henceforth ÒplasticsÓ of the image, I have argued that Slow Cinema
in many ways extends this towards a sheer contemplation of reality, however distorted,
subjective and mannerist, and furthermore divests its spectator of narrative causality.
This motivated my investigation of dedramatization techniques in art cinema, which,
following a brief sketch of its various types, I have explored through Gerard GenetteÕs
taxonomy of narrative tense. Because Slow Cinema films often elongate temporality
insofar as to pause and stall plot progress, I have argued that the descriptive pause may
function as a fitting container to understand these pacing strategies. Through a series of
examples, then, I examined TarrÕs films in relation to the descriptive pause and
analyzed the role of camera movements and their shifting relationship to the actors. The
contemplative and ruminative mode of narration emerging from this triangular
relationship was then explained via the fl‰neur, which functioned as an apt metaphor in
delineating the correlations between movement and observation.
There were other formal elements that supported my claims. For instance, I
offered comparisons between Tarr and Michelangelo Antonioni and Rainer Werner
Fassbinder, in terms of their framing strategies. While TarrÕs claustrophobic staging
practices encouraged a more meticulous scanning of the image, I have referred to the
Òcinephiliac momentÓ and Òpanoramic perceptionÓ as viewing postures that benefited
from a contemplative mode of spectatorship. Because much of this aesthetic discourse
harkened back to the modernist cinema of the 1960s, I revisited the concept of nostalgia
in light of Slow CinemaÕs citation of previous art cinema directors and examined TarrÕs
use of black-and-white cinematography as an example of these nostalgic attitudes.
Because this chapter in general lacked a contextual overview of TarrÕs relationship to
  241 
contemporary Hungarian and/or European cinema, I concluded the chapter with brief
references to the works of directors as varying as Sokurov, Bartas, German and
Kanevsky, all of which similarly experimented with monochrome imagery and also
shared a mutual interest with Tarr in terms of their geopolitical circumstances.
Chapter 3 focused on Tsai Ming-liang from a similar geopolitical point of view.
While TsaiÕs films constituted a second leg of New Taiwan Cinema, which began in the
early 1980s and achieved international distribution through the support of international
film festivals, Tsai similarly sustained a global presence through a complex interaction
between these networks and specificities of Taiwanese culture. In this respect, I have
argued that TsaiÕs films represented a case in which many incongruous stylistic features
were appropriated, for example, on the one hand his adoption of modernist and
minimalist aesthetics often clashed with his genre-bending films that combined
conventions of pornography, musical and melodrama. Following an explication of the
New Taiwan Cinema and the mechanisms behind their circulation in international film
festivals, I provided a detailed account of TsaiÕs films, which, at once borrowed from
this preceding historical legacy as well as subverted some of its traditions. In terms of
narrative form, TsaiÕs films displayed a use of episodic structure that delayed narrative
causality and intelligibility. Instead, these films offered situations in which spectators
were confronted with unexplainable circumstances: stillness, monotony and
inconsequential daily rituals. I have examined the sense of deadpan humour arising
from these situations through another modernist phenomenon, namely the Theatre of the
Absurd and claimed that absurd humour as another defining quality of Slow Cinema.
Drawing parallels between silent comedies and the films of Jacques Tati, I concluded
this chapter with an in-depth examination of TsaiÕs Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003), a
film-within-a-film that nostalgically bemoaned the passage of grand cinema theatres
and the glorious past of cinema-going. Referring back to discourses of reflective
nostalgia, I argued that such films also functioned as a cinephiliac practice, aspects that
are common alongside other Slow Cinema films.
Nuri Bilge CeylanÕs films, which I concentrated in Chapter 4, represented an
even more compelling case study because of their ambivalent relationship to domestic
filmmaking practices and the ways in which they presented these cultural specificities
  242 
on the global stage. Following a historical examination of Yeşil•am cinema, TurkeyÕs
domestic film industry that proliferated roughly between 1960 and 1980, I situated
CeylanÕs alongside the rising New Turkish Cinema movement. While Yeşil•am
emphasized ubiquitous narratives and disregarded artistic innovation, CeylanÕs films
reversed these formal conventions by incorporating autobiographical features and an
aesthetic sensibility largely influenced by European art cinema. However, in terms of
cinematic practices, Ceylan also adopted a minimalist, low budget and guerrilla form of
filmmaking that often took place throughout the course of Yeşil•amÕs history. In this
respect, I have examined CeylanÕs filmography in a chronological order, which unveils
the various institutional and critical supports his films received from European funding
mechanisms and cinephile publications, enabling them an international outlook that
subtly combines aspects of localized conventions and European traditions. The central
element of CeylanÕs intervention into Turkish film history was, however, the
foregrounding of boredom as an aesthetic virtue. In this respect, I explored boredom as
a state of mind through a sustained attention to literary scholars, philosophers and
psychologists and argued that boredom, in its simplest manifestations, could achieve a
productive effect on the spectators. In other words, I have argued that Slow Cinema
transformed boredom into an aesthetically rewarding experience by emphasizing its idle
nature, allowing for a meditative and contemplative mode of spectatorship. I have then
demonstrated these claims in relation to CeylanÕs Distant (2002) and Once Upon a Time
in Anatolia (2011), which revealed formal and stylistic elements that encouraged mind
wandering and offered the spectator insightful, creative and revelatory instances in the
face of evocative sequences.
Boredom as an elusive, fleeting and difficult to pinpoint emotion characterizes a
central aspect of my argument in this thesis. The reason why I include boredom in the
title, despite the consideration of two other concepts, is because I believe boredom in
itself astutely informs the aesthetic modes of nostalgia and absurd humour. In spite of
its habitual undesirability, I have attempted to rescue boredom from its negative
implications and emphasized its profoundly meditative qualities Ð through which, Slow
Cinema plays an overwhelming role.
  243 
APPENDIX
Slow Cinema Filmography (1975-2013)
Film titles are listed chronologically with appropriate English titles (unless otherwise
known). Nationality refers to the directorÕs birthplace; the runtimes are given in minutes
and are taken from the International Movie Database (IMDB).
Title (English) Year Director Nationality Runtime
1 Jeanne Dielman 1975 Chantal Akerman Belgium 201
2 Mirror 1975 Andrei Tarkovsky Russia 108
3 The Passenger 1975 Michelangelo Antonioni Italy 126
4 The Travelling Players 1975 Theo Angelopoulos Greece 230
5 11x14 1977 James Benning USA 81
6 One Way Boogie Woogie 1977 James Benning USA 60
7 The Devil, Probably 1977 Robert Bresson France 95
8 The Hunters 1977 Theo Angelopoulos Greece 168
9 Stalker 1979 Andrei Tarkovsky Russia 163
10 Permanent Vacation 1980 Jim Jarmusch USA 75
11 Alexander the Great 1980 Theo Angelopoulos Greece 235
12 Blue Planet 1981 Franco Piavoli Italy 83
13 Koyanisqatsi 1982 Godfrey Reggio USA 86
14 Nostalgia 1983 Andrei Tarkovsky Russia 125
15 That Day on the Beach 1983 Edward Yang China 166
16 L'Argent 1983 Robert Bresson France 85
17 Stranger Than Paradise 1984 Jim Jarmusch USA 89
18 Almanac of Fall 1984 BŽla Tarr Hungary 119
19 Voyage to Cythera 1984 Theo Angelopoulos Greece 120
  244 
20 Taipei Story 1985 Edward Yang China 110
21
A Time to Live, a Time to
Die
1985 Hsiao-hsien Hou China 138
22 Therese 1986 Alain Cavalier France 94
23 Down By Law 1986 Jim Jarmusch USA 107
24 My Friend Ivan Lapshin 1986 Aleksei German Russia 100
25 The Sacrifice 1986 Andrei Tarkovsky Russia 142
26 The Terrorizers 1986 Edward Yang China 109
27 The Beekeeper 1986 Theo Angelopoulos Greece 140
28 Daughter of the Nile 1987 Hsiao-hsien Hou China 91
29 Dust in the Wind 1987 Hsiao-hsien Hou China 109
30 Landscape Suicide 1987 James Benning USA 95
31 Damnation 1988 BŽla Tarr Hungary 120
32 Powaqqatsi 1988 Godfrey Reggio USA 99
33 The Hole 1988 Ming-liang Tsai Malaysia 95
34 Landscape in the Midst 1988 Theo Angelopoulos Greece 127
35 A City of Sadness 1989 Hsiao-hsien Hou China 157
36 Mystery Train 1989 Jim Jarmusch USA 110
37
Recollections of the Yellow
House
1989 Jo‹o CŽsar Monteiro Portugal 122
38 O'Sangue 1989 Pedro Costa Portugal 95
39
Why Has Boddhi Dharma
Left for the East
1989 Yong-Kyun Bae South Korea 137
40 Twilight 1990 Gyšrgy FehŽr Hungary 105
41 A Brighter Summer Day 1991 Edward Yang China 237
42
The Suspended Step of the
Stork
1991 Theo Angelopoulos Greece 143
43 Night on Earth 1991 Jim Jarmusch USA 129
44 Rebels of the Neon God 1992 Ming-liang Tsai Malaysia 106
  245 
45 Three Days 1992 Šarūnas Bartas Lithuania 75
46 Libera Me 1993 Alain Cavalier France 75
47 DÕEst 1993 Chantal Akerman Belgium 107
48 The Puppetmaster 1993 Hsiao-hsien Hou China 142
49 Satantango 1994 BŽla Tarr Hungary 450
50 Fate 1994 Fred Kelemen Germany 80
51 Vive L'Amour 1994 Ming-liang Tsai Malaysia 118
52 Casa de Lava 1994 Pedro Costa Portugal 110
53 Kardiogramma 1995 Darezhan Omirbayev Kazakhstan 75
54 Maborosi 1995 Hirokazu Koreeda Japan 110
55 Dead Man 1995 Jim Jarmusch USA 121
56 Good Men, Good Women 1995 Hsiao-hsien Hou China 108
57 Gods Comedy 1995 Jo‹o Cesar Monteiro Portugal 170
58 The Corridor 1995 Šarūnas Bartas Lithuania 85
59 Ulysses' Gaze 1995 Theo Angelopoulos Greece 176
60 La Rencontre 1996 Alain Cavalier France 75
61 The Promise 1996 Dardenne Brothers France 94
62
Chronicle of a
Disappearance
1996 Elia Suleiman Israel 88
63 Voices Through Time 1996 Franco Piavoli Italy 86
64 Goodbye, South, Goodbye 1996 Hsiao-hsien Hou China 124
65 Few of Us 1996 Šarūnas Bartas Lithuania 105
66 Taste of Cherry 1997 Abbas Kiarostami Iran 95
67 Mother and Son 1997 Aleksandr Sokurov Russia 73
68 The Life of Jesus 1997 Bruno Dumont France 96
69 Frost 1997 Fred Kelemen Germany 270
70 The River 1997 Ming-liang Tsai Malaysia 115
71 Moe No Suzaku 1997 Naomi Kawase Japan 95
  246 
72 The Town 1997 Nuri Bilge Ceylan Turkey 85
73 Ossos 1997 Pedro Costa Portugal 94
74 The House 1997 Šarūnas Bartas Lithuania 120
75 Krustalyov, My Car! 1998 Aleksei German Russia 150
76 Passion 1998 Gyšrgy FehŽr Hungary 155
77 Flowers of Shanghai 1998 Hsiao-hsien Hou China 130
78 Eternity and a Day 1998 Theo Angelopoulos Greece 137
79 The Wind Will Carry Us 1999 Abbas Kiarostami Iran 118
80 Molokh 1999 Aleksandr Sokurov Russia 108
81 Humanite 1999 Bruno Dumont France 148
82 Le Beau Travail 1999 Claire Denis France 93
83 Rosetta 1999 Dardenne Brothers France 95
84 Nightfall 1999 Fred Kelemen Germany 146
85 As Bodas de Deus 1999 Jo‹o CŽsar Monteiro Portugal 150
86 Naked under the Moon 1999 Lav Diaz Phillipines 110
87 M/Other 1999 Nobuhiro Suwa Japan 147
88 Clouds of May 1999 Nuri Bilge Ceylan Turkey 130
89 Mysterious Object at Noon 2000 Apichatpong Weerasethakul Thailand 83
90 Werckmeister Harmonies 2000 BŽla Tarr Hungary 145
91 The Captive 2000 Chantal Akerman Belgium 118
92 A One and a Two (Yi-Yi) 2000 Edward Yang China 173
93 Platform 2000 Jia Zhangke China 154
94
Songs from the Second
Floor
2000 Roy Andersson Sweden 98
95 Freedom 2000 Šarūnas Bartas Lithuania 96
96 Eureka 2000 Shinji Aoyama Japan 217
97 Taurus 2001 Aleksandr Sokurov Russia 104
98 Millennium Mambo 2001 Hsiao-hsien Hou China 119
  247 
99 Los 2001 James Benning USA 90
100 Batang West Side 2001 Lav Diaz Phillipines 315
101 Freedom 2001 Lisandro Alonso Argentina 73
102 La Cienaga 2001 Lucrecia Martel Argentina 103
103
What Time is it Over
There?
2001 Ming-liang Tsai Malaysia 116
104 H Story 2001 Nobuhiro Suwa Japan 111
105 Desert Moon 2001 Shinji Aoyama Japan 131
106 Fate 2001 Zeki Demirkubuz Turkey 119
107 Ten 2002 Abbas Kiarostami Iran 92
108 Waiting for Happiness 2002 Abderrahmane Sissako Mauritania 96
109 Rene 2002 Alain Cavalier France 85
110 Russian Ark 2002 Aleksandr Sokurov Russia 99
111 Blissfully Yours 2002 Apichatpong Weerasethakul Thailand 125
112 Japan 2002 Carlos Reygadas Mexico 133
113 The Son 2002 Dardenne Brothers France 103
114
At the First Breath of a
Film
2002 Franco Piavoli Italy 83
115 Naqoyqatsi 2002 Godfrey Reggio USA 89
116 Gerry 2002 Gus van Sant USA 103
117 Hukkle 2002 Gyšrgy P‡lfi Hungary 78
118 Hesus the Revolutionary 2002 Lav Diaz Phillipines 112
119 Distant 2002 Nuri Bilge Ceylan Turkey 110
120 The Confession 2002 Zeki Demirkubuz Turkey 100
121 Five Dedicated to Ozu 2003 Abbas Kiarostami Iran 74
122 Father and Son 2003 Aleksandr Sokurov Russia 97
123 The Return 2003 Andrei Zvyagintsev Russia 105
124 Twentynine Palms 2003 Bruno Dumont France 119
125 The Adventures of Iron 2003 Apichatpong Weerasethakul Thailand 90
  248 
Pussy
126 Elephant 2003 Gus van Sant USA 81
127 CafŽ Lumiere 2003 Hsiao-hsien Hou China 103
128 The Hours of the Day 2003 Jaime Rosales Spain 103
129 Come and Go 2003 Jo‹o CŽsar Monteiro Portugal 179
130
Spring, Summer, Fall,
Winter, É and Spring
2003 Ki-duk Kim South Korea 103
131 Good Bye, Dragon Inn 2003 Ming-liang Tsai Malaysia 82
132 Shara 2003 Naomi Kawase Japan 100
133
Tie Xi Qu: West of the
Tracks
2003 Wang Bing China 551
134 Tropical Malady 2004 Apichatpong Weerasethakul Thailand 118
135 Bombon: El Perro 2004 Carlos Sor’n Argentina 97
136 The Intruder 2004 Claire Denis France 130
137 Nobody Knows 2004 Hirokazu Koreeda Japan 141
138 13 Lakes 2004 James Benning USA 135
139 Ten Skies 2004 James Benning USA 101
140 Hotel 2004 Jessica Hausner Austria 76
141 The World 2004 Jia Zhangke China 143
142
Evolution of a Filipino
Family
2004 Lav Diaz Phillipines 540
143 Los Muertos 2004 Lisandro Alonso Argentina 78
144 The Holy Girl 2004 Lucrecia Martel Argentina 106
145 The Weeping Meadow 2004 Theo Angelopoulos Greece 185
146 Waiting Room 2004 Zeki Demirkubuz Turkey 94
147 The Sun 2005 Aleksandr Sokurov Russia 110
148 Sangre 2005 Amat Escalante Spain 90
149 Battle in Heaven 2005 Carlos Reygadas Mexico 98
150 The Death of Mr Lazarescu 2005 Cristi Puiu Romania 150
  249 
151 The Child 2005 Dardenne Brothers France 100
152 Broken Flowers 2005 Jim Jarmusch USA 106
153 Drifting States 2005 Denis C™tŽ Canada 91
154 Krisana 2005 Fred Kelemen Germany 90
155 Last Days 2005 Gus van Sant USA 97
156 Three Times 2005 Hsiao-hsien Hou China 135
157 Drawing Restraint 9 2005 Matthew Barney USA 135
158 The Wayward Cloud 2005 Ming-liang Tsai Malaysia 114
159 Our Daily Bread 2005 Nikolaus Geyrhalter Austria 92
160 Seven Invisible Men 2005 Šarūnas Bartas Lithuania 119
161 Honour of the Knights 2006 Albert Serra Spain 95
162 Syndromes and a Century 2006 Apichatpong Weerasethakul Thailand 105
163 Flanders 2006 Bruno Dumont France 91
164 12:08 East of Bucharest 2006 Corneliu Porumboiu Romania 89
165 Still Life 2006 Jia Zhangke China 111
166 Old Joy 2006 Kelly Reichardt USA 73
167
Heremias, Book one: the
Legend of the Lizard
Princess
2006 Lav Diaz Phillipines 540
168 Fantasma 2006 Lisandro Alonso Argentina 63
169
I Don't Want to Sleep
Alone
2006 Ming-liang Tsai Malaysia 115
170 Climates 2006 Nuri Bilge Ceylan Turkey 101
171 Paraguay Hammock 2006 Paz Encina Paraguy 78
172 Colossal Youth 2006 Pedro Costa Portugal 155
173 Destiny 2006 Zeki Demirkubuz Turkey 103
174 Aleksandra 2007 Aleksandr Sokurov Russia 95
175 The Banishment 2007 Andrei Zvyagintsev Russia 157
176 The Man from London 2007 BŽla Tarr Hungary 139
  250 
177 Silent Light 2007 Carlos Reygadas Mexico 145
178 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days 2007 Christian Mungiu Romania 113
179 Our Private Lives 2007 Denis C™tŽ Canada 82
180 Flight of the Red Balloon 2007 Hsiao-hsien Hou China 115
181 Solitary Fragments 2007 Jaime Rosales Spain 135
182 RR 2007 James Benning USA 111
183 In the City of Sylvia 2007 JosŽ Luis Guer’n Spain 84
184
Death in the Land of
Encantos
2007 Lav Diaz Phillipines 540
185 Mogari No Mori 2007 Naomi Kawase Japan 97
186 At Sea 2007 Peter Hutton USA 60
187 You, the Living 2007 Roy Andersson Sweden 95
188 Egg 2007 Semih Kaplanoğlu Turkey 97
189 Shirin 2008 Abbas Kiarostami Iran 92
190 Birdsong 2008 Albert Serra Spain 98
191 Los Bastardos 2008 Amat Escalante Spain 90
192 35 Shots of Rum 2008 Claire Denis France 100
193 The Silence of Lorna 2008 Dardenne Brothers France 105
194 All That She Wants 2008 Denis C™tŽ Canada 105
195 Still Walking 2008 Hirokazu Koreeda Japan 115
196 Bullet in the Head 2008 Jaime Rosales Spain 85
197 24 City 2008 Jia Zhangke China 112
198 Wendy and Lucy 2008 Kelly Reichardt USA 80
199 Melancholia 2008 Lav Diaz Phillipines 450
200 Liverpool 2008 Lisandro Alonso Argentina 84
201 The Headless Woman 2008 Lucrecia Martel Argentina 87
202 Three Monkeys 2008 Nuri Bilge Ceylan Turkey 109
203 Milk 2008 Semih Kaplanoğlu Turkey 102
  251 
204 Lunch Break 2008 Sharon Lockhart USA 83
205 The Dust of Time 2008 Theo Angelopoulos Greece 125
206 Crude Oil 2008 Wang Bing China 840
207 Giant 2009 Adrian Biniez Uruguay 84
208 Hadewijch 2009 Bruno Dumont France 105
209 Police, Adjective 2009 Corneliu Porumboiu Romania 115
210 Dogtooth 2009 Giorgos Lanthimos Greece 94
211 Ruhr 2009 James Benning USA 120
212 Limits of Control 2009 Jim Jarmusch USA 116
213 Lourdes 2009 Jessica Hausner Austria 96
214 Oxhide II 2009 Jiayin Liu China 132
215 White Ribbon 2009 Michael Haneke Germany 144
216 Face 2009 Ming-liang Tsai Malaysia 138
217 Yuki & Nina 2009 Nobuhiro Suwa Japan 92
218 Independencia 2009 Raya Martin Phillipines 77
219 How I Ended This Summer 2010 Aleksey Popogrebskiy Russia 130
220
Uncle Boonmee who can
Recall his Past Lives
2010 Apichatpong Weerasethakul Thailand 114
221 The Ditch 2010 Bing Wang China 112
222 Aurora 2010 Cristi Puiu Romania 184
223 Curling 2010 Denis C™tŽ Canada 96
224 MeekÕs Cutoff 2010 Kelly Reichardt USA 104
225 Le Quattro Volte 2010 Michelangelo Frammartino Italy 88
226 The Hunter 2010 Rafi Pitts Iran 90
227 Eastern Drift 2010 Šarūnas Bartas Lithuania 111
228 Honey 2010 Semih Kaplanoğlu Turkey 103
229 My Joy 2010 Sergei Loznitsa Belarus 127
230 Double Tide 2010 Sharon Lockhart USA 99
  252 
231 Porfirio 2011 Alejandro Landes Brazil 101
232 Elena 2011 Andrei Zvyagintsev Russia 109
233 The Turin Horse 2011 BŽla Tarr Hungary 146
234 Two Years at Sea 2011 Ben Rivers UK 88
235 Outside Satan 2011 Bruno Dumont France 110
236 The Kid with a Bike 2011 Dardenne Brothers France 87
237 Alps 2011 Giorgos Lanthimos Greece 93
238 Century of Birthing 2011 Lav Diaz Phillipines 360
239
Elegy to the Visitor from
the Revolution
2011 Lav Diaz Phillipines 80
240 Woman of the Wind 2011 Lav Diaz Phillipines 120
241 Michael 2011 Markus Schleinzer Austria 96
242 Hanezu 2011 Naomi Kawase Japan 91
243
Once Upon a Time in
Anatolia
2011 Nuri Bilge Ceylan Turkey 150
244 Las Acacias 2011 Pablo Giorgelli Argentina 82
245 Just the Wind 2012 Benedek Fliegauf Hungary 86
246 Post Tenebras Lux 2012 Carlos Reygadas Mexico 115
247 Beyond the Hills 2012 Christian Mungiu Romania 150
248 Dream and Silence 2012 Jaime Rosales Spain 120
249 Florentina Hubaldo, CTE 2012 Lav Diaz Phillipines 360
250 In the Fog 2012 Sergei Loznitsa Belarus 127
251 Heli 2013 Amat Escalante Spain 105
252 Camille Claudel 1915 2013 Bruno Dumont France 95
253 Vic+Flo Saw a Bear 2013 Denis C™tŽ Canada 95
254 Like Father, Like Son 2013 Hirokazu Koreeda Japan 120
255 Night Moves 2013 Kelly Reichardt USA 112
256 Norte, the End of History 2013 Lav Diaz Phillipines 250
257 Stray Dogs 2013 Ming-liang Tsai Malaysia 138
  253 
258 Touch of Sin 2013 Zhangke Jia China 133
  254 
NOTES
 
1. Introduction
1
Nick James, ÒPassive Aggressive,Ó Sight and Sound 20.4 (2010): 5.
2
Harry Tuttle, ÒSlow films, easy life (Sight&Sound),Ó Unspoken Cinema, May 12, 2010,
accessed August 20, 2012, http://unspokencinema.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/slow-films-easy-life-
sight.html.
3
ibid.
4
Steven Shaviro, ÒSlow Cinema Vs Fast Films,Ó The Pinocchio Theory, May 12, 2010,
accessed June 26, 2013, http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=891.
5
Vadim Rizov, ÒSlow Cinema Backlash,Ó IFC.com, May 12, 2010, accessed June 26, 2013,
http://www.ifc.com/fix/2010/05/slow-cinema-backlash.
6
For example, see Danny Leigh, ÒThe View: Is it OK to be a Film Philistine?,Ó Guardian Film
Blog, May 21, 2010, accessed June 26, 2013,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/may/21/film-philistine; Dan Fox, ÒSlow, Fast
and Inbetween,Ó Frieze Blog, May 23, 2010, accessed June 26, 2013,
http://blog.frieze.com/slow_fast_and_inbetween/; Glenn Kenny, ÒAbout Nothing, Or, New
Fast,Ó Some Came Running Blog, May 13, 2013, accessed June 26, 2013,
http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2010/05/new-fast.html.
7
Nick James, ÒBeing BoringÓ Sight and Sound 20.7 (2010): 5.
8
For Sight and Sound readersÕ letters, see: Garan Holcombe, ÒTime To Get Faster,Ó Sight and
Sound 20.5 (2010): 104; Erwin Houtenbrink, ÒDeclaration of Bore,Ó Sight and Sound 20.8
(2010): 96; Tom Eyers, ÒSlowly Does It,Ó Sight and Sound 20.9 (2010): 94.
9
Dan Kois, ÒEating Your Cultural Vegetables,Ó New York Times, April 29, 2011, accessed June
26, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/magazine/mag-01Riff-t.html?pagewanted=all.
10
Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, ÒIn Defense of the Slow and the Boring,Ó New York Times,
June 3, 2011, accessed June 27, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/movies/films-indefense-of-slow-and-boring.html;
Kent Jones, ÒThat was So Then, This is Totally Now,Ó Film
Comment 47.5 (2011): 56-58 and 61; Andrew OÕHehir, ÒIn Praise of Boredom, at the Movies
and in Life,Ó Salon.com, June 8, 2011, accessed June 27, 2013,
http://www.salon.com/2011/06/08/in_praise_of_boredom/.
11
For reviews of the AV Festival, see Henry Miller, ÒDoing Time: ÔSlow CinemaÕ at the AV
Festival,Ó Sight and Sound News and Reviews (2012), accessed June 29, 2013,
http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/newsandviews/festivals/av-festival-2012.php and Sukhdev
Sandhu, ÒÕSlow CinemaÕ Fights Back Against BourneÕs Supremacy,Ó The Guardian, March 9,
2012, accessed June 29, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/mar/09/slow-cinema-
fights-bournes-supremacy.
12
Marijke de Valck, ÒFestival Programming in Historical Perspective,Ó in Coming Soon to a
Festival Near You: Programming Film Festivals, ed. Jeffrey Ruoff (St Andrews: St Andrews
Film Studies, 2012), 26.
13
For a similar exposition regarding the scholarly value of the Slow Cinema Debate, see Elena
Gorfinkel ÒGlobal Art Networks: the Case of ÒSlowÓ Cinema,Ó Global Currents 8.1 (2012): 6-
7.
14
Jonathan Romney, ÒIn Search of Lost Time,Ó Sight and Sound 20.2 (2010): 43-44.
 
  255 
 
15
James Quandt, ÓThe Sandwich Process: Simon Field Talks About Polemics and Poetry at
Film Festivals,Ó in Dekalog 3: On Film Festivals, ed. Richard Porton (London: Wallflower
Press, 2009), 76-77.
16
Matthew Flanagan, ÒTowards an Aesthetic of Slow in Contemporary Cinema,Ó 16:9 6.29
(2008), accessed August 20, 2012, http://www.16-9.dk/2008-11/side11_inenglish.htm.
17
ibid.
18
Matthew Flanagan, ÒÔSlow CinemaÕ: Temporality and Style in Contemporary Art and
Experimental FilmÓ (PhD diss., University of Exeter, 2012).
19
ibid., 5.
20
Harry Tuttle, ÒSlower or Contemplative?,Ó Unspoken Cinema, March 17, 2010, accessed
August 20, 2012, http://unspokencinema.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/slower-or-contemplative.html.
21
Examples are abundant and admittedly appear significantly more in online blogs and
discussion boards. However, hereÕs a selection: Kieron Corless, ÒThe Turin Horse,Ó Sight and
Sound 22.6 (2012): 78-79; Paul Arthur, ÒHabeus Corpus: A Meditation on ÒThe Death of Mr.
LazarescuÓ and Corporeal Cinema,Ó Film Comment 42.3 (2006): 44-46, 48-49; Philip French,
ÒMeekÕs Cutoff,Ó Guardian, April 17, 2011, accessed July 3, 2013,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/apr/17/meeks-cutoff-review; and Peter Bradshaw, ÒThe
Man from London,Ó Guardian, December 12, 2008, accessed July 3, 2013,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/dec/12/the-man-from-london-review.
22
Mark Betz, Beyond the Subtitle: Remapping European Art Cinema (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 2009), 4.
23
ibid., 5.
24
ibid., 5-6.
25
James Agee, ÒDay of Wrath,Ó in American Movie Critics: An Anthology From the Silents
Until Now, exp. ed., ed. Philip Lopate (New York: The Library of America, 2008), 164-165.
26
Henry Miller, Ò1922 Fast, Too Continuous: Fast/Slow Cinema and ModernismÓ (paper
presented at the Fast/Slow Symposium, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, April 4-5, 2013).
27
Pamela Lee, Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s (Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press, 2004), xii.
28
Mary Ann Doane, The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the Archive
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 4.
29
ibid., 11.
30
Laura Mulvey, Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image (London: Reaktion
Books, 2006).
31
Robert Koehler, ÒTwilight Zone: Shadows and Fog in the In-between World of ThŽo Court's
Ocaso,Ó Museum of Moving Image Website, January 11, 2012, accessed, July 1, 2013,
http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/twilight-zone-20120111.
32
For more information concerning the Slow Food Movement, see Geoff Andrews, The Slow
Food Story: Politics and Pleasure (London: Pluto Press, 2008) and Carlo Petrini, Slow Food:
The Case for Taste (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), both of which include an
extract of the Slow Food Manifesto. Informal information about the organization and the
manifesto itself can be found at their website: http://www.slowfood.com/.
33
ÒRead This Slowly,Ó New York Times, September 28, 2002, accessed July 3, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/28/opinion/read-this-slowly.html.
34
The Slow Science Manifesto, accessed July 1, 2013, http://www.slow-science.org/.
35
Tiago de Luca, ÒRealism of the Senses: A Tendency in Contemporary World Cinema,Ó in
Theorizing World Cinema, ed. Lucia Nagib, Chris Perriam and Rajinder Dudrah (London: I.B.
Tauris, 2012), 183.
36
ibid., 193.
 
  256 
 
37
Karl Schoonover, ÒWastrels of Time: Slow CinemaÕs Laboring Body, the Political Spectator,
and the Queer,Ó Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 53.1 (2013): 67 and 68.
38
ibid., 68.
39
ibid., 70.
40
ibid., 70-71.
41
ibid., 71.
42
ibid., 72.
43
ibid., 74.
44
David Bordwell, ÒThe Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice,Ó Film Criticism 4.1 (1979):
56-64 and Steve Neale, ÒArt Cinema as Institution,Ó Screen 22.1 (1981): 11-40.
45
Bordwell, ÒThe Art Cinema,Ó 57.
46
ibid., 59.
47
ibid., 59.
48
ibid., 60.
49
ibid., 61.
50
AndrŽ Bazin, What is Cinema? Vol. 1, ed. and trans. Hugh Gray (1967, repr., Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2005) and What is Cinema? Vol. 2, ed. and trans. Hugh Gray
(1971, repr., Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005)
51
ibid., 60.
52
ibid., 61.
53
Neale, ÒArt Cinema as Institution,Ó 13.
54
ibid., 15.
55
ibid., 27.
56
ibid., 30-31.
57
ibid., 27.
58
ibid., 35.
59
ibid., 29.
60
ibid., 37.
61
Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover, ÒIntroduction: The Impurity of Art Cinema,Ó in Global
Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories, ed. Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2010), 6.
62
ibid., 6.
63
ibid., 7.
64
ibid., 8.
65
ibid., 8-9.
66
ibid., 8.
67
Robert Koehler, for instance, claims that Òwithout RotterdamÕs Hubert Bals Fund and its
mission to fund and support film artists in the ÔThirdÕ and developing worlds, a significant
number in the global ÔmarginsÕ would have been unable to make films at all.Ó See Robert
Koehler, ÒCinephilia and Film Festivals,Ó in Dekalog 3: On Film Festivals, ed. Richard Porton
(London: Wallflower Press, 2009), 94-95. The most comprehensive account of the Òbig threeÓ
festivals, namely Cannes, Berlin and Venice, is written by Marijke de Valck. See her Film
Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia (Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press, 2007).
68
Nick James, ÒAny Size That Fits,Ó Sight and Sound 23.7 (2013): 5.
69
For an overview of textual analysis as a structuralist methodology, see Robert Stam, Robert
Burgoyne and Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics: Structuralism,
Post-Structuralism and Beyond (New York: Routledge, 1996), 48-57. For an overview of film
theory influenced by structuralism, Marxism and psychoanalysis, see Robert Lapsley and
 
  257 
 
Michael Westlake, Film Theory: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2006).
70
David Bordwell, ÒContemporary Film Studies and the Vicissitudes of Grand Theory,Ó in
Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, ed. David Bordwell and No‘l Carroll (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), 3.
71
For well known individual examples, see Stephen Heath, ÒFilms and System: Terms of
Analysis,Ó Screen 16.1 (1975): 91-113; Raymond Bellour, ÒThe Obvious and the Code,Ó Screen
15.4 (1974): 7-17; Peter Wollen, ÒNorth by Northwest: a Morphological Analysis,Ó Film Form
1.1 (1976): 20-34; and finally Thierry Kuntzel, ÒThe Film-Work, 2,Ó Camera Obscura 5 (1980):
6-69.
72
See Heath, ÒFilms and System,Ó and Christian Metz, Film Language: A Semiotics of the
Cinema (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974).
73
For notable criticisms of the ÒGrand Theory,Ó see No‘l Carroll, Mystifying Movies: Fads &
Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008) and the
anthology of essays by David Bordwell and No‘l Carroll, eds., Post-Theory: Reconstructing
Film Studies (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996).
74
Judith Mayne, Cinema and Spectatorship (London: Routledge, 1993), 106.
75
ibid., 106.
76
ibid., 107.
77
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, 9th ed. (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2010), 58 and David Bordwell, Poetics of Cinema (New York: Routledge, 2008),
23.
78
For the earliest examples of this approach, see David Bordwell, The Films of Carl-Theodor
Dreyer (Berkeley: University of California press, 1981) and Kristin Thompson, EisensteinÕs
Ivan the Terrible: A Neoformalist Analysis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981).
79
Kristin Thompson, Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1988), 7-10.
80
quoted in Thompson, Breaking the Glass Armor, 10.
81
ibid., 11.
82
ibid., 15.
83
ibid., 16.
84
ibid., 19.
85
ibid., 19-20.
86
Bordwell addresses these and other theoretical implications of the fabula-syuzhet distinction
in his well-read blog. See his entry in May 2011, ÒCommon Sense + Film Theory = CommonSense
Film Theory?,Ó Observations on Film Art, May 2011, accessed January 29, 2013,
http://www.davidbordwell.net/essays/commonsense.php.
87
Thompson, Breaking the Glass Armor, 41.
88
David Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film (1985; repr., Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), 53.
Emphasis removed.
89
ibid., 150.
90
ibid., 274.
91
ibid., 275. Emphasis in original.
92
I should note here that I am not alone in making this claim. Scholars currently working on
contemporary art cinema and Slow Cinema have made similar statements, although such claims
are yet to be published in a scholarly context. See Flanagan, ÒÕSlow CinemaÕ,Ó 133-135.
93
Bordwell notes that the term ÒparametersÓ originates from No‘l BurchÕs suggestion in his
Theory of Film Practice (New York: Praeger, 1973). See Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction
Film, 278-279 for a lengthy explanation of what counts as parameters.
 
  258 
 
94
Mark Betz, ÒBeyond Europe: On Parametric Transcendence,Ó in Global Art Cinema: New
Theories and Histories, ed. Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2010), 39.
95
ibid., 40. Emphasis in original. Betz also notes that the work of Janet Harbord and John Orr
takes a similar approach to his understanding of modernist aesthetics and geopolitics. See Janet
Harbord, Film Cultures (London: Sage, 2002), 38-58 and John Orr, ÒNew Directions in
European Cinema,Ó in European Cinema, ed. Elizabeth Ezra (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004), 299-317.
96
Betz, ÒBeyond Europe,Ó 41.
97
Robert C. Allen and Douglas Gomery, Film History: Theory and Practice (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1985), 67.
98
ibid., 73-74.
99
ibid., 76 and 79. As a side note, Allen and Gomery refer to Bordwell and Thompson here,
suggesting that their Neoformalist method in formal analysis goes hand-in-hand with their
understanding of the aesthetic film history.
100
Bordwell, Poetics of Cinema, especially 23-29.
101
ibid., 86.
102
ibid., 90.
103
ibid.
104
Barbara Klinger, Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 69.
105
ibid., 70.
106
See Marc Ferro, Cinema and History, trans. Naomi Greene (Detroit: Wayne University
Press, 1988), 12.
2. Nostalgia for Modernism: BŽla Tarr and the Long Take
1
See Jonathan Rosenbaum, ÒA Place in the Pantheon,Ó Chicago Reader, May 9, 1996, accessed
September 12, 2013, http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/a-place-in-the-
pantheon/Content?oid=890479.
2
I should also note here that TarrÕs intense collaborations with Krasznahorkai and Hranitzky
(with the addition of Mih‡ly Vig, who also stars in S‡t‡ntang—) in many ways challenges the
romantic European notion of the cinematic auteur. While much of the filmsÕ critical reception
focus on Tarr, following from Damnation the films are frequently signed as if co-directed by his
collaborators, which reflects the collective effort that goes in to the production of these features.
3
Jonathan Rosenbaum, ÒA BlufferÕs Guide to BŽla Tarr,Ó in Placing Movies: The Practice of
Film Criticism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 55.
4
For journalistic sources, see Jonathan Romney, ÒOutside the Whale,Ó Sight and Sound 13.4
(2003): 32-33 and ÒEnd of the Road,Ó Film Comment 37.5 (2001): 55-56, 59, 61-62; John Orr,
ÒCircling the Whale,Ó Sight and Sound 11.4 (2001): 22-24. For notable interviews, see Eric
Schlosser, ÒInterview with BŽla Tarr,Ó Bright Lights Film Journal 30 (2000), accessed
September 12, 2013, http://brightlightsfilm.com/30/belatarr1.php; and Fergus Daly and
Maximilian Le Cain, ÒWaiting for the Prince: An Interview with BŽla Tarr,Ó Senses of Cinema
12 (2001), accessed August 25, 2013, http://sensesofcinema.com/2001/feature-articles/tarr-2/.
For sources that offer in-depth studies of TarrÕs films in relation to Hungarian history and
culture, see, in particular, John Hodgkins, ÒNot Fade Away: Adapting History and Trauma in
L‡szl— KrasznahorkaiÕs The Melancholy of Resistance and BŽla TarrÕs Werckmeister
Harmonies,Ó Adaptation 2.1 (2009): 49-64.
 
  259 
 
5
Andr‡s B‡lint Kov‡cs, The Cinema of BŽla Tarr: The Circle Closes (London: Wallflower
Press, 2013). See also Kov‡csÕs earlier piece ÒS‡t‡ntang—,Ó in The Cinema of Central Europe,
ed. Peter Hames (London: Wallflower Press, 2004), 237-243.
6
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, 9th ed. (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2010), 213.
7
Ed Gallafent, ÒThe Dandy and the Magdalen: Interpreting the Long Take in HitchcockÕs
Under Capricorn (1949),Ó in Style and Meaning: Studies in the Detailed Analysis of Film, ed.
John Gibbs and Douglas Pye (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), 68.
8
For an examination of the ways in which long take scenes relate to the rest of the film in terms
of editing practices, see Brian Henderson, ÒThe Long Take,Ó in Movies and Methods: An
Anthology, ed. Bill Nichols (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 314-324.
9
Barry Salt, Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis, 2nd ed. (London: Starword,
1992), 146. Salt avoids the use of feet of film simply because the differences in projection
speeds would certainly attain very different results.
10
For a comparison between different sources, see Donato Totaro, ÒTime and the Long Take in
The Magnificent Ambersons, Ugetsu, and Stalker,Ó (PhD. diss., University of Warwick, 2001),
4-7.
11
Salt, Film Style and Technology, 231.
12
While a group of Cinemascope films had an ASL of 13 seconds, other random pictures in the
same period consisted of an ASL of 11 seconds. ibid., 246.
13
ibid., 265-266. SaltÕs examples are GodardÕs Breathless (1960), ASL: 15.0 seconds and
LoseyÕs The Servant (1963), ASL: 20 seconds.
14
ibid., 249, 283 and 296.
15
David Bordwell, ÒIntensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film,Ó
Film Quarterly 55.3 (2002): 16. See also David Bordwell, ÒIntensified Continuity Revisited,Ó
Observations on Film Art, May 27, 2007, accessed August 13, 2013,
http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2007/05/27/intensified-continuity-revisited/.
16
Bordwell, ÒIntensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film,Ó 21-22.
Other stylistic tactics include Òbipolar extremes of lens lengths,Ó Òmore close framings in
dialogue scenesÓ and Òa free ranging camera.Ó
17
These ASLs are taken from the website Cinemetrics, which is a database for collecting
various ASLs from various films. See www.cinemetrics.lv.
18
See John Belton, ÒNew TechnologiesÓ in Oxford History of World Cinema, ed. Geoffrey
Nowell-Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 488.
19
Kristin Thompson, Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1988), 43. See also 89-95 for a broader discussion of the dominant.
20
ibid., 92.
21
Carl Plantinga, Moving Viewers: American Film and the SpectatorÕs Experience (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2009), 74.
22
AndrŽ Bazin, What is Cinema? Volume 2, ed. and trans. Hugh Gray (1971; repr., Berkeley:
California University Press, 2005), 28.
23
AndrŽ Bazin, What is Cinema? Volume 1, ed. and trans. Hugh Gray (1967; repr., Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2004), 30. 
24
AndrŽ Bazin, What is Cinema? Volume 2, 28.
25
ibid., 28.
26
AndrŽ Bazin, What is Cinema? Volume 1, 13.
27
In fact, demystifying BazinÕs arguments were so much in fashion during the 1970s and 1980s
that Philip Rosen coined the term ÒBazin-bashing.Ó See RosenÕs commentary on BazinÕs
aesthetic of reality in Philip Rosen, Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 3-41. For notable texts that contradict,
 
  260 
 
refuse or scrutinize BazinÕs realism, see Peter Wollen, ÒOntology and Materialism in Film,Ó
Screen 17.1 (1976): 7-23; Colin MacCabe, ÒTheory and Film: Principles of Realism and
Pleasure,Ó Screen 17.3 (1976): 7-28; No‘l Carroll, Philosophical Problems of Classical Film
Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988) and Theorizing the Moving Image
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
28
See also, David Bordwell, On the History of Film Style (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1997), 46-82.
29
Bazin, What is Cinema? Volume 1, 24.
30
For Bazin, the visual composition found in the silent cinema directors reveal reality, in the
sense that they add Ònothing to the reality, [they] do not deform it, [they force] it to reveal its
structural depth, to bring out the pre-existing relations which become constitutive of the drama.Ó
See ibid., 27.
31
ibid., 37. As such, Bazin finds two realistic tendencies in 1940s cinema that seemingly
contradict each other, but in effect argues that both tendencies in fact constitute two different
approaches to exhibiting cinemaÕs privileged connection to reality. For Bazin, ÒRosselini and
Welles have, to all intents and purposes, the same basic aesthetic objective, the same aesthetic
concept of realism.Ó See Bazin, What is Cinema? Volume 2, 39. According to Bazin, both
tendencies also appropriate the narrative techniques of the modern American novel (specifically
the works of William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos) by translating fragmented
narratives and the literal focus towards the factual quotidian lives of everyday people into
cinema.
32
ibid., 58.
33
ibid., 60. 
34
Tiago de Luca, ÒRealism of the Senses: A Tendency in Contemporary World Cinema,Ó in
Theorizing World Cinema, ed. Lœcia Nagib, Chris Perriam and Rajinder Dudrah (London: I.B.
Tauris, 2012), 192.
35
ibid., 193.
36
Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta
(London: Athlone Press, 1989), 3.
37
For the Òaction-imageÓ or more commonly the Òmovement-image,Ó see Gilles Deleuze,
Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta (London: Athlone
Press, 1986).
38
Deleuze, Cinema 2, 3 and xi.
39
While Deleuze himself does not offer a direct description of the numerous signs and images
he suggests, I have found the following resource helpful in understanding their relevance, see
Ronald Bogue, Deleuze on Cinema (London: Routledge, 2003). For resources that investigate
DeleuzeÕs theory of cinema and TarrÕs films, see: Elzbieta Buslowska, ÒCinema as Art and
Philosophy in BŽla TarrÕs Creative Exploration of Reality,Ó Acta Univ. Sapientiae, Film and
Media Studies 1 (2009): 107-116, accessed September 11, 2013, http://193.16.218.141/actafilm/C1/film1-8.pdf;
Jana Dudkov‡, ÒAn Image of Recurrent Time: Notes on Cinematic Image
and the Gaze in BŽla TarrÕs S‡t‡ntang—,Ó Human Affairs 23.1 (2013): 21-31.  
40
Bazin, What is Cinema? Volume 2, 81.
41
ibid., 81.
42
Karl Schoonover, ÒWastrels of Time: Slow CinemaÕs Laboring Body, the Political Spectator,
and the Queer,Ó Framework 53.1 (2012): 70. 
43
David Bordwell, Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2005), 152.
44
ibid., 153.
45
Ivone Marguiles, Nothing Happens: Chantal AkermanÕs Hyperrealist Everyday (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1996), 7.
 
  261 
 
46
ibid., 69.
47
Cesare Zavattini, ÒA Thesis on Neo-Realism,Ó in Springtime in Italy, ed. and trans. David
Overbey (London: Talisman Books, 1978), 70.
48
Marguiles, Nothing Happens, 36-37. In these pages, Marguiles argues that the neorealist view
of cinema is not applicable to the films of Andy Warhol and Chantal Akerman, because both
filmmakers Òchoose the literal approach rather than the ÒiterativeÓ representation (deduction of a
recurrent series through the presentation of a single event).Ó As such, the crucial difference
between the minimal hyperrealism of Warhol and Akerman and the neorealist narrative,
according to Marguiles, is the latterÕs ability to signify larger social issues through the
perspective of one character. This statement, however, appears counter-intuitive, not only
because it slightly contradicts MarguilesÕs ensuing analyses, but simply for the fact that Jeanne
Dielman is often seen as a metaphorical narrative largely related to discourses of feminism.
49
Bordwell, Figures Traced in Light, 153.
50
Ben Singer, ÒJeanne Dielman: Cinematic Interrogation and ÔAmplificationÕ,Ó Millennium
Film Journal 22 (1989): 59.
51
Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1980), 29. Genette acknowledges that much of this categorisation is influenced by the
work of Tzvetan Todorov. For brief, individual definitions of order, duration and frequency, see
ibid., 35 and subsequent chapters that deal exhaustively with these aspects. The distinctions
between discours and histoire have an uncanny resemblance to the Neoformalist concepts
syuzhet and fabula, although they are not entirely the same, as explained in the introduction
section of this thesis.
52
David Bordwell makes good use of issues of order and frequency in analyzing classical
Hollywood films, particularly the detective film, which manipulates temporality insofar as to
surprise and entice its spectator. See David Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film (1985;
repr., Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), 64-70 and 77-88. For an explication of both terms in
contemporary cinema, see Allan Cameron, ÒContingency, Order, and the Modular Narrative: 21
Grams and Irreversible,Ó Velvet Light Trap 58 (2006): 65-78 and Cornelia Klecker,
ÒChronology, Causality É Confusion: When Avant-garde Goes Classic,Ó Journal of Film and
Video 63.2 (2011): 11-27.
53
Genette, Narrative Discourse, 86-89. There are obvious difficulties in applying this notion to
literature, such as determining the duration for narrating, which can vary within different
reading speeds. However, Genette addresses this problem and arrives at a conventionally
accepted definition Ð the number of pages to frame a story action. For our purposes here, the
duration of the act of narrating (the discourse) is simply the running time of a film. For different
types of duration, see pages 94-95. What follows is in fact me paraphrasing this passage and
giving concrete examples for each type.
54
This table is adapted from Monika Fludernik, An Introduction to Narratology (New York:
Routledge, 2010), 34. Fludernik uses the term speed-up instead of summary, but I have retained
the original translation for GenetteÕs terminology here.
55
For a definition of slow-down, see Mieke Bal, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of
Narrative, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 104-106.
56
Brian Henderson, ÒTense, Mood and Voice in Film (Notes after Genette),Ó Film Quarterly
36.4 (1983): 10.
57
Robert Stam, Robert Burgoyne and Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, New Vocabularies in Film
Semiotics: Structuralism, Post-Structuralism and Beyond (London: Routledge, 1996), 95-96.
This resource also provides a useful commentary on GenetteÕs work.
58
P. Adams Sitney, Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde 1943-1978, 2nd ed. (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 370. SitneyÕs definition of the structural film is Òa
 
  262 
 
cinema of structure in which the shape of the whole film is predetermined and simplified, and it
is that shape which is the primal impression of the film,Ó ibid., 369.
59
ibid., 370.
60
ibid., 373.
61
Sitney writes that ÒThe Flicker uses the aggressive speed of the flicker effect to suggest a
revelatory stasis or very gradual change.Ó ibid., 387.
62
ibid., 371.
63
Stephen Koch, Stargazer: The Life, World and Films of Andy Warhol (1975; repr., London:
Marion Boyars, 2002), 39.
64
Sitney, Visionary Film, 374.
65
Lee, Chronophobia, 284-287. Emphasis original.
66
For a brilliant discussion of the ways in which Slow Cinema borrows certain conventions of
visual composition from the structural and experimental film, including lengthy analyses of
WarholÕs Empire and James BenningÕs Ruhr (2009) as examples of Slow Cinema, see Matthew
Flanagan, ÒÔSlow CinemaÕ: Temporality and Style in Contemporary Art and Experimental
Film,Ó (PhD. diss., University of Exeter, 2012), 41-62.
67
Much of cognitive film theory ascribes to the claim that narrative is not simply a separate
outside phenomenon, but more a way of organizing information about our perceptions of the
world. See, perhaps one of the first proponents of this idea, Edward Branigan, Narrative
Comprehension and Film (New York: Routledge, 1992). For a brief discussion of this aspect of
film theory and its relevance to Tarr and other Òdifficult filmmakers,Ó see Manohla Dargis,
ÒWhat You See is What You Get,Ó New York Times, July 8, 2011, accessed September 11,
2013, www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/movies/why-difficult-movies-are-more-um-difficult.html.
68
See, for instance, David Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film, 280-281.
69
Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time, trans. Kitty Hunter-Blair (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1986), 117. For an examination of rhythm in cinema, see Yvette B’ro, Turbulence and
Flow in Film: The Rhythmic Design, trans. Paul Salamon (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2008).
70
As a historical figure, Andreas Werckmeister and his theory of musical temperament invite a
particularly interesting thematic reading of Werckmeister Harmonies as well as of TarrÕs (and
KrasznahorkaiÕs) world-view, both of which, unfortunately, remain outside my focus. Musical
temperament refers to the tuning of musical instruments, which in essence is a compromise
between different tones and intervals in order to achieve full harmony across the whole scale.
Werckmeister himself defended a tuning system that emphasized certain harmonies, but
completely disregarded others. See further in Stuart Isacoff, Temperament: How Music Became
the Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization (London: Faber and Faber
Limited, 2002) and a critique in Ross W. Duffin, How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony
(and Why You Should Care) (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007).
71
Daly and Le Cain, ÒWaiting for the Prince.Ó
72
Rob Shields, ÒFancy Footwork: BenjaminÕs Notes on Fl‰nerie,Ó in The Fl‰neur, ed. Keith
Tester (London: Routledge, 1994), 65.
73
Charles Baudelaire, ÒThe Painter of Modern Life,Ó in The Painter of Modern Life and Other
Essays, ed. and trans. Jonathan Mayne (London: Phaidon, 2010), 9. For a succinct elucidation of
the fl‰neur figure and its function in the modern city, see Keith Tester, ÒIntroduction,Ó in The
Fl‰neur, ed. Keith Tester (London: Routledge, 1994), 1-21.
74
Susan Buck-Morss, ÒThe Flaneur, the Sandwichman and the Whore: The Politics of
Loitering,Ó New German Critique 39 (1986): 103. For an examination of BenjaminÕs writings
on fl‰nerie and the fl‰neur, see Rob Shields, ÒFancy Footwork,Ó and David Frisby ÒThe
Fl‰neur in Social Theory,Ó in The Fl‰neur, ed. Keith Tester (London: Routledge, 1994), 81-
110.
 
  263 
 
75
On the relationship between fl‰nerie, cinema and modernity, see, in particular, Anne
Friedberg, Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern (Berkeley: California University
Press, 1993), Giuliana Bruno, Streetwalking on a Ruined Map: Cultural Theory and the City
Films of Elvira Notari (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Pres, 1993); and finally Giuliana
Bruno, Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film (New York: Verso, 2002).
76
Mark Betz, Beyond the Subtitle: Remapping European Art Cinema (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 2009), 132.
77
ibid., 132.
78
Bazin, What is Cinema? Vol. II, 55.
79
Schoonover, ÒWastrels of Time,Ó 69.
80
Betz, Beyond the Subtitle, 95.
81
quoted in Frisby, ÒThe Fl‰neur in Social Theory,Ó 95.
82
For instance: Die Siebtelbauern (The Inheritors, 1998), Die UnberŸhrbare (No Place to Go,
1999), Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (The Princess and the Warrior, 2000). See Mattias Frey,
ÒNo(ir) Place to Go: Spatial Anxiety and Sartorial Intertextuality in Die UnberŸhrbare,Ó
Cinema Journal 45.4 (2006): 79n35.
83
Daly and Le Cain, ÒWaiting for the Prince.Ó
84
See Peter Hames, ÒThe Melancholy of Resistance: The Films of Bela Tarr,Ó Kinoeye 1.1
(2001), accessed August 25, 2013, http://www.kinoeye.org/01/01/hames01.php; Richard
Williams, ÒDeep Waters,Ó The Guardian, April 19, 2003, accessed August 25, 2013,
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/apr/19/artsfeatures; Romney, ÒEnd of the Road,Ó 61 and
Romney, ÒOutside the Whale,Ó 33.
85
L‡szl— Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance, trans. George Szirtes (New York: New
Directions, 1989), 40.
86
Walter Benjamin, ÒThe Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,Ó in
Illuminations, ed. Hannah Ardent (London: Pimlico, 1999), 222.
87
J. Paul Narkunas argues for a similar stylistic tendency in Tran Anh HungÕs Cyclo (1995), in
which he writes: Òthe moving camera emulates a free-floating fl‰neur, consuming disjointed
fragments of experience which fall within its view as it explores space. Shots change rapidly,
seem disconnected, and limited in perspective, as if the camera occupies points of view of
several observers simultaneously.Ó While the comparison between two aesthetic strategies could
be the subject of a longer analysis, TarrÕs long take aesthetic clearly differs from HungÕs in its
uninterrupted movement across space. See J. Paul Narkunas, ÒStreetwalking in the Cinema of
the City: Capital Flows Through Saigon,Ó in Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in
a Global Context, ed. Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 155.
88
Rosenbaum, ÒA BlufferÕs Guide to BŽla Tarr,Ó 57.
89
Dudley Andrew, Film in the Aura of Art (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984),
176.
90
Erika Balsom, ÒSaving the Image: Scale and Duration in Contemporary Art Cinema,Ó
Cineaction 72 (2007): 28.
91
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, ÒSpace and Narrative in the Films of Ozu,Ó Screen
17.2 (1976): 41-73.
92
Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film, 130. In this instance, Bordwell examines the long
take within the context of Mikl—s Jancs—Õs The Confrontation (1969), which offers an
informative comparison to TarrÕs handling of space and cinematography.
93
Chatman, Antonioni: Or, the Surface of the World (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1985), 90. According to Trevor Whittock, the objective correlative Òis too wide and too
unspecific,Ó yet Whittock nevertheless examines it as a type of metaphor that is specifically
Òassociated with a particular character, or with some event or situation pertaining to that
 
  264 
 
character.Ó See Trevor Whittock, Metaphor and Film (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990), 14 and 62.
94
Chatman, Antonioni, 102-103.
95
Daly and Le Cain, ÒWaiting for the Prince.Ó
96
Andr‡s B‡lint Kov‡cs, ÒThe World According to BŽla Tarr,Ó special issue, KinoKultura, 7
(2008), accessed September 11, 2013, http://www.kinokultura.com/specials/7/kovacs.shtml.
97
For brief examples of the walk-and-talk sequence in classical Hollywood, see Bordwell,
Figures Traced in Light, 29. The walk-and-talk sequence is evidently a favourite storytelling
device for the television producer Thomas Schlamme and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, perhaps
best evident in their collaborations in the television serial The West Wing (1999-2006), but in
effect it is widely present across many other serials that can be described as occupational
dramas.
98
Steven Marchant, ÒNothing Counts: Shot and Event in Werckmeister Harmonies,Ó New
Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 7.2 (2009): 143.
99
ibid., 151.
100
Paul Willemen, ÒThrough the Glass Darkly: Cinephilia Reconsidered,Ó in Looks and
Frictions: Essays in Cultural Studies and Film Theory (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1994), 232.
101
ibid., 235.
102
ibid., 236.
103
Christian Keathley, Cinephilia and History, or the Wind in the Trees (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2006), 32.
104
For the Òobtuse meaning,Ó see Roland Barthes, ÒThe Third Meaning: Research Notes on
some Eisenstein Stills,Ó in Image Music Text, ed. and trans. Stephen Heath (London: Fontana
Press, 1977), 52-68 and for his similar notion of the Òpunctum,Ó see his Camera Lucida, trans.
Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981), 55. For a consideration of both concepts in
relation to cinematic experience, see Roger Cardinal, ÒPausing over Peripheral Detail,Ó
Framework 30/31 (1986): 112-130. For the stylistic excess, see Kristin Thompson, EistensteinÕs
Ivan the Terrible: A Neoformalist Analysis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981),
287-295 and ÒThe Concept of Cinematic Excess,Ó in Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology, ed. Philip
Rosen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 130-142. Christian Keathley summarizes
these arguments in Cinephilia and History, 30-36. For a brief explication of these concepts in
relation to Slow Cinema, see Flanagan, ÒÕSlow CinemaÕ,Ó 38-40, 169 and 198.
105
Keathley, Cinephilia and History, 41.
106
ibid., 44. Keathley takes the term from Wolfgang SchivelbuschÕs study on the ways in which
railway journeys have affected our perception of modernity. See, Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The
Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1986).
107
Willemen, ÒThrough the Glass Darkly,Ó 243.
108
Christine Sprengler, Screening Nostalgia: Populuxe Props and Technicolor Aesthetics in
Contemporary American Film (New York: Berghahn, 2009), 29. Combined of two Greek words
nostos (to return home) and algos (painful condition or longing), nostalgia was first coined by
the Swiss doctor Johannas Hofer in 1688. Hofer conceived nostalgia as a pathological condition
of homesickness for Swiss soldiers fighting in foreign lands. Shifting technologies in medicine,
however, altered the role of nostalgia, thus in late 18th
century nostalgia was less a medical
condition than it was a socio-political phenomenon. The development of industrial capitalism
and urbanization further altered the conceptualization of time in the 19th
century and, as
progress became palpable, nostalgia also become more noticeable amongst the urban population
who experienced a spatial as well as temporal change. By 1930s, nostalgia was frequently used
in cultural criticism (in the form of literary, theatre and film reviews) as a descriptive term to
 
  265 
 
render the experiences of fictional characters most typically associated with homesickness. See
ibid., 11-34 for a detailed history of the term.
109
Christine Sprengler, for instance, distinguishes between the 1950s, an actual period in
American history and Òthe Fifties,Ó the persistent representation of this historical period as an
idealized, prosperous and mythological past to the American public. ÒThroughout the 1950s,Ó
Sprengler writes, Òmass media representations of everyday life were part of a remarkably
intensive and astute self-mythologizing effort that continues to hold sway, even today, over
impressions of the decade. As such the Fifties were in part created during Ð and are thus
contemporaneous with Ð the 1950s.Ó See ibid., 39.
110
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism: or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (London:
Verso, 1991), 19.
111
ibid., 21.
112
For a counter argument, see Linda Hutcheon, Politics of Postmodernism (London:
Routledge, 2002), 109. Hutcheon essentially argues that there is no real, directly accessible
history for us today.
113
Grainge, Monochrome Memories (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002), 11 and 21.
114
ibid., 11 and 35.
115
ibid., 6. See also 35-39.
116
See Vera Dika, Recycled Culture in Contemporary Art and Film: The Uses of Nostalgia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), especially pages 89-155. Dika, however,
argues that Òsurface realismÓ alone is sufficient for a film to be deemed nostalgic, which nearly
conflates the nostalgia film with historical film.
117
Sprengler, Screening Nostalgia, 136.
118
See, in particular, Nick James ÒPassive Aggressive,Ó Sight and Sound 20.4 (2010): 5; and
Steven Shaviro, ÒSlow Cinema Vs Fast Films,Ó The Pinocchio Theory, May 12, 2010, accessed
June 26, 2013. http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=891.
119
Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 41.
120
ibid., 49.
121
Marc Le Sueur, ÒTheory Number Five: Anatomy of Nostalgia Films: Heritage and Methods,Ó
Journal of Popular Film and Television 6.2 (1977): 192-193.
122
ibid., 193-194.
123
ibid., 194-195.
124
Sprengler, Screening Nostalgia, 86. Sprengler furthermore writes, ÒWe should consider
subtle allusions to past media aesthetics as accomplished by Starship TroopersÕ [1997] visual
nod to early 1960s science fiction film or SchindlerÕs ListÕs [1993] black-and-white aesthetic
that seems to borrow from both 1940s documentary and fiction.Ó
125
ibid., 140.
126
Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film, 274. See further in Section 1.4 within this thesis.
127
Grainge, Monochrome Memories, 89.
128
ibid., 161-162.
129
Dina Iordanova, Cinema of the Other Europe: The Industry and Artistry of East Central
European Film (London: Wallflower Press, 2003), 93. On this issue see also McKibbin,
ÒCinema of Damnation: Negative Capabilities in Contemporary Central and Eastern European
Film,Ó Senses of Cinema 34 (2005), accessed September 11, 2013,
http://sensesofcinema.com/2005/feature-articles/cinema_of_damnation/.  
 
  266 
 
3. Less is Absurd: Humour in the Films of Tsai Ming-liang
1
Chris Berry, ÒTransnational Chinese Cinema Studies,Ó in The Chinese Cinema Book, ed. Song
Hwee Lim and Julian Ward (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 9-16. For the origins of the
concept, see Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, ed. Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood,
Gender (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997).
2
For example; Richard Read, ÒAlienation, Aesthetic Distance and Absorption in Tsai MingliangÕs
Vive LÕAmour,Ó New Formations 40 (2000): 102-112; Chuck Stephens, ÒIntersection:
Tsai Ming-liangÕs Yearning Bike Boys and Heartsick Heroines,Ó Film Comment 32.5 (1996):
20-23; Tony Rayns, ÒConfrontations,Ó Sight and Sound 7.3 (1997): 14-18; Jasmine Nauda
Trice, ÒDiseased Bodies and Domestic Space: Transmodern Space in Tsai Ming-liangÕs The
Hole,Ó Asian Cinema 16.2 (2005): 255-267; I-Fen Wu, ÒFlowing Desire, Floating Souls:
Modern Cultural Landscape in Tsai Ming-liangÕs Taipei Trilogy,Ó Cineaction 58 (2002): 58-64;
and Jen-yi Hsu, ÒRe-enchanting the Everyday Banal in the Age of Globalization: Alienation,
Desire, and Critique of Capitalist Temporality in Tsai Ming-liangÕs The Hole and What Time Is
It There?,Ó NTU Studies in Language and Literature 17 (2007): 133-158.
3
For example; Fran Martin ÒVive LÕAmour: Eloquent Emptiness,Ó in Chinese Films in Focus:
25 New Takes, ed. Chris Berry (London: BFI, 2003), 175-182; Chris Berry, ÒWhere is the
Love? Hyperbolic Realism and Indulgence in Vive LÕAmour,Ó in Island on the Edge: Taiwan
New Cinema and after, ed. Chris Berry and Feii Lu (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press,
2005), 89-100; Gina Marchetti, ÒOn Tsai Ming-liangÕs The River,Ó in Island on the Edge:
Taiwan New Cinema and After, ed. Chris Berry and Feii Lu (Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press, 2005), 113-126; Kai-man Chang, ÒDrifting Bodies and Flooded Spaces:
Visualizing the Invisibility of Heteronormativity in Tsai Ming-liangÕs The River,Ó Post Script
28.1 (2008): 45-62.
4
Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh and Darrell William Davis, Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 220.
5
Jean Ma, ÒTsai Ming-liangÕs Haunted Movie Theater,Ó in Global Art Cinema: New Theories
and Histories, ed. Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010),
339.
6
On this subject, the very few exceptions are: Giuliana Bruno, ÒArchitects of Time: Reel
Images from Warhol to Tsai Ming-liang,Ó Log 2 (2004): 81-94; Erika Balsom, ÒSaving the
Image: Scale and Duration in Contemporary Art Cinema,Ó Cineaction 72 (2007): 23-31; Marc
Saint-Cyr, ÒSlow Fuse: The Cinematic Strategies of Tsai Ming-liang,Ó Cineaction 85 (2011): 9-
14; Tiago de Luca, Realism of the Senses: A Tendency in Contemporary World Cinema (PhD
diss. University of Leeds, 2011), 117-203. Although all of these texts emphasize the function of
duration in TsaiÕs films, none of them explicitly relate his work to Slow Cinema, with the
exception of de LucaÕs PhD thesis.
7
Yingjin Zhang, Chinese National Cinema (London: Routledge, 2004), 113-114.
8
ibid., 124.
9
ibid., 128-131. In this period, the main competition in film production was between Taiwanese
dialect films and Mandarin dialect films, both of which were exported to the region. The
golden-age period was 1964-1969, through which Taiwanese dialect films flourished. During
this stage, both production companies and number of theatres increased and the increase of
movie attendance formed a significant part of TaiwanÕs economic success. However, Mandarin
films took over following 1969 largely by their technological advancements (colour
photography and wide-screen) as well as transferring well-known cast members. See ibid., 135-
137.
10
ibid., 142.
 
  267 
 
11
ibid., 133. For a critical evaluation of Healthy Realism genre, see Mengsin C. Horng,
ÒDomestic Dislocations: Healthy Realism, Stardom, and the Cinematic Projection of Home in
Postwar Taiwan,Ó Journal of Chinese Cinemas 4.1 (2010): 27-43.
12
Guo-Juin Hong, Taiwan Cinema: A Contested Nation on Screen (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011), 86.
13
Zhang, Chinese National Cinema, 244.
14
ibid., 244.
15
See Tonglin Lu, Confronting Modernity in the Cinemas of Taiwan and Mainland China
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 95-115. Lu also suggests that because further
economic developments in Taiwan depended on Western investments, Òthe cultural hierarchy
between the East and WestÓ was reinforced by the Òmodernization of national economy.Ó The
growing acceptance of Western cultural values, in turn resulted in a Òcrisis caused cultural and
axiological clashes,Ó which was Òone of the favourite topics for Taiwan New Cinema directors.Ó
ibid., 3. See also William Tay, ÒThe Ideology of Initiation: The Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien,Ó in
New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics, ed. Nick Browne et al. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994), 151-159.
16
See Douglas Kellner, ÒNew Taiwan Cinema in the 80s,Ó Jump Cut 42 (1998): 101-115. The
article serves as an introduction to the ways in which New Taiwan Cinema represents this
investigation through the dialectics of tradition and modernity.
17
Zhang, Chinese National Cinema, 249.
18
Hong, Taiwan Cinema, 110.
19
Chia Chi Wu, ÒFestivals, Criticism and the International Reputation of Taiwan New Cinema,Ó
in Cinema Taiwan: Politics, Popularity and State of the Arts, ed. Darrell William Davids and
Ru-Shou Shen (New York: Routledge, 2007), 77-78.
20
The 228 Incident was a social uprising, which KMT officials brutally suppressed by killing
thousands of civilians overnight. See James Udden, No Man an Island (Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press, 2009), 90-95 for details of the incident and HouÕs portrayal of the incident.
21
Yingjin Zhang writes: ÒWhile most [Taiwanese critics] applauded HouÕs courage in
addressing the taboo subject, some were not pleased with his insistence on detached personal
observation as opposed to direct political confrontation.Ó See his Chinese National Cinema,
247.
22
Wu, ÒFestivals, Criticism and the International Reputation of Taiwan New Cinema,Ó 75.
23
ibid., 80.
24
ibid., 86. Wu also lists other newcomers such as Lin Cheng-sheng, Chen Kuo-fu and Chang
Tso-chi in this group of filmmakers.
25
Clearly there are exceptions to this and many European filmmakers did continue their work
throughout the 1980s, such as Jacques Rivette, Theo Angelopoulos, Agn•s Varda, Maurice
Pialat, Jean-Marie Straub and Dani•le Huillet, Werner Schroeter and Eric Rohmer. However,
their work remained mainly marginal and in no way compared to the work of those mentioned
in the earlier sentence. Conversely, following the East Asian waves, the late 1980s also saw the
emergence of new European talent such as Michael Haneke, Kryzystof Kieslowski, BŽla Tarr
and Pedro Almod—var.
26
For an examination of these geopolitical developments in world cinema, see Dudley Andrew,
ÒTime Zones and Jetlag: The Flows and Phases of World Cinema,Ó in World Cinemas,
Transnational Perspectives, ed. Nataša Durovicov‡ and Kathleen Newman (New York:
Routledge, 2010), 59-89.
27
Wu, ÒFestivals, Criticism and the International Reputation of Taiwan New Cinema,Ó 85.
28
Some of these films were called Òethnographic filmsÓ and received favourable reviews at
international film festivals, which facilitated their production even further. See Yingjin Zhang,
 
  268 
 
ÒChinese Cinema and Transnational Cultural Politics: Reflections on Film Festivals, Film
Productions, and Film Studies,Ó Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 2.1 (1998): 105-132.
29
See, for instance, Sheldon H. Lu, ÒEmerging from Underground and the Periphery: Chinese
Independent Cinema at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century,Ó in Cinema at the Periphery, ed.
Dina Iordanova, David Martin-Jones and BelŽn Vidal (Detroit: Wayne University Press, 2010),
104-118 and Ma Ran, ÒRethinking Festival Film: Urban Generation Chinese Cinema on the
Film Festival Circuit,Ó in Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit, ed. Dina Iordanova
and Ragan Rhyne (St Andrews: St Andrews Film Studies, 2009), 116-135.
30
Hong, Taiwan Cinema, 126-127.
31
Lu, Confronting Modernity, 116-154. See also Fredric Jameson, ÒRemapping Taipei,Ó in The
Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World System (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1995), 114-157.
32
Chris Berry and Feii Lu, ed. Island on the Edge: Taiwan New Cinema and After (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press, 2005), 164-165.
33
Jonathan Rosenbaum, ÒExiles in Modernity,Ó Chicago Reader, November 7, 1997, accessed
August 1, 2013, http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/exiles-in-
modernity/Content?oid=894839.
34
Daw-Ming Lee, Historical Dictionary of Taiwan Cinema (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2013),
148-150.
35
Zhang, Chinese National Cinema, 307f12.
36
ibid., 278.
37
Darrell William Davis, ÒTrendy in Taiwan: Problems of Popularity in the IslandÕs Cinema,Ó
in Cinema Taiwan: Politics, Popularity and State of the Arts, ed. Darrell William Davis and RuShou
Chen (New York: Routledge, 2007), 149-150.
38
ibid., 149-150. On the ARTE series and an analysis of The Hole in relation to Fredric
JamesonÕs concept of the Ògeopolitical aesthetic,Ó see Rosalind Galt, The New European
Cinema: Redrawing the Map (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 234-237.
39
Mark Betz, ÒThe Cinema of Tsai Ming-liang: A Modernist Genealogy,Ó in Reading Chinese
Transnationalisms: Society, Literature, Film, ed. Maria N. Ng and Philip Holden (Hong Kong:
University of Hong Kong Press, 2006), 162.
40
The short film The Skywalk is Gone (Tian qiao bu jian le, 2002) functions as a narrative
bridge between What Time is it There? and The Wayward Cloud by showing how Hsiao-kang
ended up as a pornographic actor following the destruction of the skywalk, on which he used to
sell watches.
41
See, for example, Zhang, Chinese National Cinema, 279.
42
Lee, ÒTsai Ming-liangÕs The Wayward Cloud,Ó 117-122.
43
ibid., 135.
44
Chris Berry, ÒWedding Banquet: A Family (Melodrama) Affair,Ó in Chinese Films in Focus:
25 New Takes, ed. Chris Berry (London: BFI, 2003), 183-185.
45
Yeh and Davis, Taiwan Film Directors, 240-241.
46
Martin, ÒVive LÕAmour,Ó 180.
47
Betz, ÒThe Cinema of Tsai Ming-liang,Ó 167.
48
Janet Staiger, ÒHybrid or Inbred: The Purity Hypothesis and Hollywood Genre History,Ó Film
Criticism 22.1 (1997): 15.
49
ibid., 15-16.
50
Yeh and Davis, Taiwan Film Directors, 219. Following quotes from same source, same page.
51
Susan Sontag, ÒNotes on Camp,Ó in Against Interpretation and Other Essays (London:
Penguin Books, 2009), 275-277.
52
ibid., 289.
 
  269 
 
53
Barbara Klinger, Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture and the Films of Douglas Sirk
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 135. See also Andrew Ross, ÒUses of Camp,Ó in
Camp Grounds: Style and Homosexuality, ed. David Bergman (Amherst, MA: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1993), 54-77.
54
Klinger, Melodrama and Meaning, 136.
55
ibid., 135.
56
Yeh and Davis, Taiwan Film Directors, 248.
57
James Udden, ÒThis Time He Moves! The Deeper Significance of Hou Hsiao-hsienÕs Radical
Break in Good Men, Good Women,Ó in Cinema Taiwan: Politics, Popularity and State of the
Arts, ed. Darrell William Davis and Ru-Shou Chen (New York: Routledge, 2007), 193-194.
58
For instance, Udden characterizes Tsai as a ÒHou literalist,Ó see ibid., 197. Very similar
arguments in evaluating these Òminimalist directorsÓ as imitators of Hou are also present in
James Udden, ÒOn the Shoulders of Giants: Tsai Ming-liang, Jia Zhangke, Fruit Chan and the
Struggles of Second Generation Auterism,Ó in The Chinese Cinema Book, ed. Song Hwee Lim
and Julian Ward (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 158-166.
59
David Bordwell, Poetics of Cinema (New York: Routledge, 2008), 161. Elsewhere, while
addressing HouÕs work, Bordwell writes that the long take Òbecame virtually a national brandÓ
for the New Taiwan Cinema in the 1990s and subsequently the ÒAsian minimalism [turned it
into] something of a festival clichŽ by the end of the 1990s.Ó See David Bordwell, Figures
Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 230-
231.
60
Ma, ÒTsai Ming-liangÕs Haunted Movie Theater,Ó 342.
61
Zhang, Chinese National Cinema, 279.
62
For an extended analysis, see James Udden, No Man an Island, 119-123 and 130, in which
Udden likens the film to another Slow Cinema precedent, The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena
Bach (1968) by Jean-Marie Straub and Dani•le Huillet.
63
According to Matthew Flanagan, such a use of the episodic structure recalls Òa distended form
of what Bordwell refers to as the Ônetwork narrativeÕÓ and henceforth examines TsaiÕs films in
light of these interludes. Flanagan also suggests that some Slow Cinema films, such as TarrÕs
S‡t‡ntang— (1994), van SantÕs Elephant (2003) and DiazÕs Evolution of a Filipino Family
(1994-2004), are Òkey contemporary equivalentsÓ of the network narrative. See Matthew
Flanagan, ÒÔSlow CinemaÕ: Temporality and Style in Contemporary Art and Experimental
Film,Ó (PhD. diss., University of Exeter, 2012), 109-111. For the network narrative, see
Bordwell, Poetics of Cinema, 189-250.
64
Kent Jones, ÒHere and There: The Films of Tsai Ming-liangÓ in Movie Mutations: The
Changing Face of World Cinephilia, ed. Jonathan Rosenbaum and Adrian Martin (London:
British Film Institute, 2003), 47.
65
Edward Branigan, Narrative Comprehension and Film (New York: Routledge, 1992), 1.
66
See ibid., 13-20.
67
ibid., 19-20. Following quotes from these pages.
68
On a macro level, Branigan suggests films such as Luis Bu–uelÕs The Phantom of Liberty
(1974) and Jim JarmuschÕs Mystery Train (1989) constitute unfocused chains. On a micro level,
however, he suggests certain unmotivated camera movements by filmmakers, such as Welles,
Mizoguchi and Jancs—.
69
Yeh and Davis, Taiwan Film Directors, 221.
70
Udden, No Man an Island, 73.
71
Betz, ÒThe Cinema of Tsai Ming-liang,Ó 164.
72
Jared Rapfogel, ÒTaiwanÕs Poet of Solitude: An Interview with Tsai Ming-liang,Ó CinŽaste
29.4 (2004): 29.
 
  270 
 
73
Rey Chow, Sentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films: Attachment in the age of
Global Visibility (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 185.
74
For a selection of these interpretations, see ibid., 246f12.
75
ibid., 187.
76
Yeh and Davis, Taiwan Film Directors, 227.
77
ibid., 227.
78
ibid., 238.
79
Berry, ÒWhere is the Love?,Ó 90.
80
Yeh and Davis, Taiwan Film Directors, 238-239.
81
Chow, Sentimental Fabulations, 183.
82
Yeh and Davis, Taiwan Film Directors, 234.
83
Neil Cornwell, The Absurd in Literature (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), 3.
84
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, trans. Justin OÕBrien (1955; repr., London: Penguin
Books, 2000), 33.
85
See Cornwell, The Absurd in Literature.
86
Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd 3rd ed. (1961; repr., London: Methuen, 2001), 23.
87
Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd, 26.
88
ibid., 26, 403 and 406.
89
ibid., 25.
90
Jonathan Romney, ÒIn Search of Lost Time,Ó Sight and Sound 20.2 (2010): 43.
91
Jean-Pierre Rehm, Olivier Joyard and Daniele Rivi•re, Tsai Ming-liang (Paris: Dis Voir,
1999), 30-34.
92
Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd, 86.
93
Yeh and Davis, Taiwan Film Directors, 244.
94
Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd, 328-329.
95
ibid., 335.
96
For an interesting anecdote that displays the relationship between TsaiÕs direction and LeeÕs
acting, see Rapfogel, ÒTaiwanÕs Poet of Solitude,Ó 29. Apparently Tsai was initially surprised at
LeeÕs slow movements in the scenes they were shooting, but later on realized that the slowness
was natural and decided to appropriate this aspect into his films. Such acting practices were,
however, local to some of TaiwanÕs avant-garde theatre groups. See Weihong Bao,
ÒBiomechanics of Love: Reinventing the Avant-garde with Tsai Ming-liangÕs Wayward
ÔPornography MusicalÕ,Ó Journal of Chinese Cinemas 1.2 (2007): 139-160.
97
Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd, 335.
98
ibid., 335-336.
99
ibid., 337.
100
For example, Bao, ÒBiomechanics of Love,Ó 141; and Bert Cardullo, ÒThe Space of Time,
the Sound of Silence,Ó Hudson Review 55.3 (2002): 477.
101
Kristin Thompson, Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1988), 96-97.
102
ibid., 97.
103
ibid., 100.
104
I would like to thank Karl Schoonover for making these suggestions and refining my
understanding of this particular scene.
105
According to Jerrold Levinson, the major proponents of the incongruity theory are Francis
Hutcheson, William Hazlitt, S¿ren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, D. H. Monro, Arthur
Koestler, Michael Clark, John Morreall and Immanuel Kant. See Jerrold Levinson, ÒThe
Concept of Humor,Ó in Contemplating Art: Essays in Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2006), 389-399. This essay also provides an overview of other theories of humour and
their shortcomings.
 
  271 
 
106
Clearly the element of surprise and incongruity are not sufficient to fully comprehend the
nature of humour because such strategies may also elicit emotions other than amusement (such
as anxiety, curiosity, etc.). Nevertheless, in many cases incongruity appears to be necessary in
order to attain humour in many cases. See the preceding note for theories of humour that review
these concepts.
107
Torben Grodal, Moving Pictures: A New Theory of Film Genres, Feelings and Cognition
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 189.
108
Jerry Palmer, The Logic of the Absurd: On Film and Television Comedy (London: BFI,
1987), 39-40.
109
ibid., 42-43.
110
ibid., 148-150.
111
Grodal, Moving Pictures, 192. Grodal later on claims that the Òlogic of the absurdÓ is not a
sufficient framework, because firstly it presumes humour as a formal structure (whereas Grodal
sees it as Òa mental reactionÓ) and secondly Òmany phenomena that provoke laugher [É] do not
fit particularly well into the syllogistic form.Ó See ibid., 197.
112
Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd, 191-192.
113
No‘l Carroll, ÒNotes on the Sight Gag,Ó in Comedy/Cinema/Theory, ed. Andrew S. Horton
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 26.
114
Marijke de Valck, ÒThe Sound Gag: The Use of Sound for Comic Effect in the Films of
Jacques Tati,Ó New Review of Film and Television Studies 3.2 (2005): 228.
115
See HŽctor Rodr’guez, ÒQuestions of Chinese Aesthetics: Film Form and Narrative Space in
the Cinema of King Hu,Ó Cinema Journal 38.1 (1998): 73-97 and Bordwell, Poetics of Cinema,
413-430.
116
In fact, some scholars contend that King Hu should be re-evaluated as an experimental/avantgarde
filmmaker whose careful attention to the planning of movement, rhythm and editing in his
action sequences were unsurpassed and as such his work should be placed alongside 1960s art
cinema masters, such as Tarkovsky, Godard and Jancs—. See Peter Rist, ÒKing Hu:
Experimental, Narrative Filmmaker,Ó in Cinema Taiwan: Politics, Popularity and State of the
Arts, ed. Darrell William Davis and Ru-Shou Chen (New York: Routledge, 2007), 161-171.
117
For an extended ÒsemioticÓ analysis of the opening sequence, see Yung Hao Liu, trans.
Ming-yu Lee, ÒI Though of the Times We Were in Front of the Flowers: Analyzing the Opening
Credits of Goodbye Dragon Inn,Ó in Cinema Taiwan: Politics, Popularity, and State of the Arts,
ed. Darrell William Davis and Ru-Shou Chen (New York: Routledge, 2007), 172-182. For
another in depth analysis of the film, see Joshua Willey, Cinematic Absence: An Analysis of
Tsai Ming-liangÕs ÒGoodbye, Dragon InnÓ (SaarbŸcken: VDM Verlag, 2009). Unfortunately,
neither sources are as elegantly written as one would expect.
118
On the subject of realism and the ways in which Tsai contradicts this aesthetic, see Chris
Wood, ÒRealism, Intertextuality, Humour in Tsai Ming-liangÕs Goodbye, Dragon Inn,Ó Journal
of Chinese Cinemas 1.2 (2007): 105-116.
119
de Luca, Realism of the Senses, 122-123.
120
Kenneth Chan, ÒGoodbye, Dragon Inn: Tsai Ming-liangÕs Political Aesthetics of Nostalgia,
Place, and Lingering,Ó Journal of Chinese Cinemas 2.1 (2007): 90.
121
quoted in Thomas Elsaesser, ÒCinephilia or the Uses of Disenchantment,Ó in Cinephilia:
Movies, Love and Memory, ed. Marijke de Valck and Malte Hagener (Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press, 2005), 28.
122
Susan Sontag, ÒThe Decay of Cinema,Ó New York Times Magazine, February 25, 1996, 60-
61.
123
Ben Slater, ÒThe New Cinephiles,Ó Screen International 30 (2007): 26-27.
124
See, for example, Jonathan Rosenbaum, ÒIs the Cinema Really Dead?,Ó in Movie Wars: How
Hollywood and the Media Limit What Movies We Can See (London: Wallflower Press, 2002),
 
  272 
 
19-38 and Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), ix-
xvi.
125
Dan Kois, ÒEating Your Cultural Vegetables,Ó New York Times, April 29, 2011, accessed
August 5, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/magazine/mag-01Riff-t.html?_r=0. See
also Nico Baumbach, ÒAll That Heaven Allows: What is, or What was Cinephilia? An Inquiry
into the Love that Dare not Speak its Name, Except When it Does,Ó Film Comment 48.2 (2012):
47-53.
126
Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 55.
4. Contemplating Boredom: The Films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan
1
Nuri Bilge Ceylan, ed., Kasaba (İstanbul: Norgunk, 2007), 99.
2
For example: Eylem Atakav, Women in Turkish Cinema: Gender Politics, Cultural Identity
and Representation (London: Routledge, 2013); GšnŸl Dšnmez-Colin, ÒWomen in Turkish
Cinema: Their Presence and Absence as Images and as Image-Makers,Ó Third Text 24.1 (2010):
91-105; Kevin Robins and Asu Aksoy, ÒDeep Nation: The National Question and Turkish
Cinema Culture,Ó in Cinema & Nation, ed. Mette Hjort and Scott Mackenzie (London:
Routledge, 2000), 203-221; Asuman Suner, New Turkish Cinema: Belonging, Identity and
Memory (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010); CŸneyt ‚akõrlar and …zlem GŸ•lŸ, ÒGender, Family and
Home(land) in Contemporary Turkish Cinema: A Comparitive [sic] Analysis of Films by Nuri
Bilge Ceylan, Reha Erdem and †mit †nal,Ó in Resistance in Contemporary Middle Eastern
Cultures: Literature, Cinema and Music, ed. Karima Laachir and Saeed Talajooy (New York:
Routledge, 2013), 167-183; and Nezih Erdoğan, ÒNarratives of Resistance: National Identity
and Ambivalence in the Turkish Melodrama Between 1965 and 1975,Ó Screen 39.3 (1998): 259-
271.
3
See Nijat …zšn, TŸrk Sinemasõ Tarihi (1896-1960) [History of Turkish Cinema] (1960; repr.,
İstanbul: Doruk Yayõnlarõ, 2010); Giovanni Scognamillo, TŸrk Sinema Tarihi [Turkish Cinema
History] (İstanbul: Kabalcõ Yayõnevi, 2003); and Rekin Teksoy, Turkish Cinema, trans. Martin
Thomen and …zde ‚eliktemel (İstanbul: Oğlak Yayõncõlõk, 2008).
4
Savaş Arslan, Cinema in Turkey: A New Critical History (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2011). Preceding ArslanÕs study, another valuable resource written in English is GšnŸl
Dšnmez-Colin, Turkish Cinema: Identity, Distance and Belonging (London: Reaktion Books,
2008), which, although lacking the historical rigour so crucially performed in other texts,
nevertheless offers a rich examination of the socio-cultural forces at play within Turkish
cinema. A historical overview is found in pages 22-56. Another informative, yet extremely brief
overview of Turkish cinema from a national and transnational perspective can be found in Nezih
Erdoğan and Deniz GšktŸrk, ÒTurkish Cinema,Ó in Companion Encyclopaedia of Middle
Eastern and North African Film, ed. Oliver Leaman, (London: Routledge, 2001), 532-573.
5
The Ottoman Empire officially existed between 1299-1923. However, discourses of modernity
and Westernization were already part of Turkish culture beginning in early 19th
century and
intensified in the period following 1876 until the dissolution of the empire in 1918-1923. See
Erik J. ZŸrcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 1993), 11-94.
6
See Arslan, Cinema in Turkey, 23-61.
7
ibid., 9.
8
ibid., 7.
9
ibid., 10.
10
ibid., 15.
11
ibid., 17.
 
  273 
 
12
The nostalgic overtone of the term is also crucial, as Yeşil•am distinguishes as a temporal
entity as well. In many ways it is difficult to talk about Yeşil•am following the 1980s, during
which the social and cultural outlook of the whole state underwent a rapid change. However,
Arslan still views the 1980s as a Late Yeşil•am period, while the 1990s produce in his words the
post-Yeşil•am. See his Cinema in Turkey, 201-236.
13
ibid., 17. Similar arguments are posed in Nezih Erdoğan, ÒMute Bodies, Disembodied Voices:
Notes on Sound in Turkish Popular Cinema,Ó Screen 43.4 (2002): 233-249.
14
Although Dry Summer is often seen as a crucial and inaugural success, Derviş Zaim argues
the first Turkish film to be acknowledged by a European Film Festival occurred in 1934 in the
Venice Film Festival, where the jury awarded an Honorary Diploma to the film Chickpea Seller
(Leblebici Horhor Ağa, Muhsin Ertuğrul, 1934). See Derviş Zaim, ÒYour Focus is Your Truth:
Turkish Cinema, ÒAlluvionicÓ Filmmakers and International Acceptance,Ó in Shifting
Landscapes: Film and Media in European Context, ed. Miyase Christensen and Nezih Erdoğan
(Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 89.
15
As other notable Turkish directors of the period, Yõlmaz GŸney is embarrassingly underresearched
in Anglophone film criticism. For a brief and informal introduction to his work, see
Bilge Ebiri ÒYilmaz GŸney,Ó Senses of Cinema 37 (2005), accessed May 23, 2013,
http://sensesofcinema.com/2005/great-directors/guney/. GšnŸl Dšnmez-Colin dedicates a
chapter to the director in her Turkish Cinema, 116-141 and finally Savaş Arslan writes about
some of GŸneyÕs films in relation to Yeşil•am cinema in his Cinema in Turkey, 180-187.
16
Arslan, Cinema in Turkey, 18-19.
17
ibid., 74.
18
The only English resource available regarding the history of the TŸrk Sinematek Derneği is in
fact an MA dissertation by Hakkõ BaşgŸney, completed in 2007 at Boğazi•i University, which
was later published as a book in Turkish as TŸrk Sinematek Derneği - TŸrkiye'de Sinema ve
Politik Tartõşma [Turkish Cinematheque Association Ð Cinematic and Political Debates in
Turkey] (İstanbul: Libra, 2009). Furthermore, certain essays by the associationÕs influential
founder, Onat Kutlar, were published in an anthology: See Onat Kutlar, Sinema Bir Şenliktir
[Cinema is Festivity] (İstanbul: Yapõ Kredi Yayõnlarõ, 2010), especially pages 11-28.
19
The members of the club based in Ankara revived the association in 2000 under leadership of
YŸcel †nlŸ, then a young Turkish director. However, the current activities of the Sinematek are
rather focused on practical aspects of filmmaking and the association is mostly composed of
workshops aimed at developing screenplays and aspects of production. See their website, which
includes a brief history of the original Sinematek: http://www.sinematek.org/ (in Turkish)
20
Arslan, Cinema in Turkey, 154.
21
ibid., 154 and also GšnŸl Dšnmez-Colin, Turkish Cinema, 39-40.
22
For a comprehensive overview of the clash between modernity and tradition in Turkey, See
Reşat Kasaba, ÒKemalist Certainties and Modern Ambiguities,Ó in Rethinking Modernity and
National Identity in Turkey, ed. Sibel Bozdoğan and Reşat Kasaba (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1997), 15-36.
23
See Erik ZŸrcher, Turkey, 276-277 and 292-315; Savaş Arslan, Cinema in Turkey, 201-203.
24
Savaş Arslan, for example, notes that the number of film theatres decreased from
approximately 2,500 in 1970 to 938 in 1980, and then to approximately 300 in 1990. See
Arslan, Cinema in Turkey, 207.
25
ibid., 203-4.
26
Asuman Suner, New Turkish Cinema, 5-6. The filmÕs political allegory and frankness in
depicting the aftermath of the 1980 coup was rewarded with the Palme dÕOr in the Cannes Film
Festival in 1983, but due to the political overtones of GŸneyÕs later films much of them were
banned under the military dictatorship. Following his exile to Paris, GŸney went on to make his
 
  274 
 
last film The Wall (Duvar, 1983) with French financial support and died of cancer shortly after
the release of the film
27
Nezih Erdoğan, ÒNarratives of Resistance,Ó 263 and GšnŸl Dšnmez-Colin, ÒFilm Festivals in
Turkey: Promoting National Cinema While Nourishing Film Culture,Ó in Coming Soon to a
Festival Near You: Programming Film Festivals, ed. Jeffrey Ruoff (St Andrews, St Andrews
Film Studies, 2013), 107.
28
Catherine Simpson, ÒTurkish CinemaÕs Resurgence: The ÔDeep NationÕ Unravels,Ó Senses of
Cinema 39 (2006), accessed February 26, 2013, http://sensesofcinema.com/2006/feature-
articles/turkish_cinema/.
29
Enis Kšstepen, ÒBeyond the Great Divide of Art-house versus Popular?: Emergent Forms of
Filmmaking in Turkey,Ó in Young Turkish Cinema, ed. Senem Ayta• and Gšzde Onaran
(İstanbul: Şan Ofset, 2009), 7-8. (Festival booklet for the Young Turkish Cinema Program of
International Film Festival Rotterdam 2009 and Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz 2009).
30
For one of the earliest accounts of New Turkish Cinema written in English, see GšnŸl
Dšnmez-Colin, ÒNew Turkish Cinema Ð Individual Tales of Common Concerns,Ó Asian
Cinema 14.1 (2003): 138-145.
31
Suner, New Turkish Cinema, 13-15.
32
Fõrat YŸcel, ÒOpening the Path: Times and Winds of the Ô90s,Ó in Young Turkish Cinema, ed.
Senem Ayta• and Gšzde Onaran (İstanbul: Şan Ofset, 2009), 12.
33
ibid., 12. In this passage YŸcel specifically refers to the films of Derviş Zaim, Yeşim
Ustaoğlu, Tayfun Pirselimoğlu and †mit †nal. A similar tendency in Turkish cinema reappeared
in the mid-2000s, for example, the films of Kazõm …z, …zcan Alper and Seyfi
Teoman, all of which are also in focus within the same festival booklet.
34
Suner, New Turkish Cinema, 78.
35
Zaim, ÒYour Focus is Your Truth,Ó 88.
36
ibid., 90.
37
Enis Kšstepen, ÒBeyond the Great Divide of Art-house versus Popular?,Ó 6-7. It has to be
noted that 2005 marked a year in which the Committee was officially setup and began its
allocations. However, as early as 1999, the Ministry of Culture did support some films,
including early features of Ceylan. By 2011, the Committee evolved into Sinema Genel
MŸdŸrlŸğŸ, literally the General Directory of Cinema, a much more centralized institute still
tied to the Ministry of Culture, whose mission involves developing the cinema industry in
Turkey by adopting wide-ranging policies, including creating distribution networks, supporting
production and post-production either through funds, grants or incentives, promoting Turkish
cinema abroad and finally publishing various reports and journals. See their website:
http://www.sinema.gov.tr/
38
Zaim, ÒYour Focus is Your Truth,Ó 94.
39
ibid., 94-95.
40
Dšnmez-Colin, ÒFilm Festivals in Turkey,Ó 106.
41
ibid., 106-107.
42
ibid., 102.
43
The sources here are my own experiences as well as the festival catalogues I have retained
over the years. For an overview of the festivalÕs historical evolution in the form of personal
memoirs by its founder and director for nearly 25 years, see HŸlya U•ansu, Bir Uzun Mesafe
Festivalcisinin Anõlarõ: Sinema GŸnleriÕnden İstanbul Film FestivaliÕne [Memoirs of a Long
Distance Festivaler: From Cinema days to İstanbul Film Festival] (İstanbul: Doğan Kitap,
2012). 
44
See their website for more information: http://film.iksv.org/en/meetingsonthebridge
45
Although the majority of scholars argue that Yeşil•am cinema was officially terminated,
Engin Ay•a argued in 1994 that ÒYeşil•am is not over but has changed its medium,Ó suggesting
 
  275 
 
that the very same aesthetic sensibility that defined Yeşil•am is now present in Turkish
television serials. See Arslan, Cinema in Turkey, 247.
46
There is a huge argument regarding the ways in which certain Turkish New Wave directors,
such as Yeşim Ustaoğlu, achieved European funding and distribution by focusing on politically
sensitive issues. European policies supported these projects mainly for political reasons and in
certain respects the decisions were based on policies for enabling TurkeyÕs ascension into the
European Union. I should note here that CeylanÕs work represents a strong counter-argument to
these claims. See Zaim ÒYour Focus is Your Truth,Ó 102.
47
Although brief biography in English can be found at the directorÕs official website
(www.nbcfilm.com), much of the information provided in this section has been collated from
CeylanÕs early interviews conducted in Turkish. Conducted by various critics and writers, these
interviews are collected and reprinted in Ceylan, ed., Kasaba, 87-106. Also, CeylanÕs friend
Mehmet Eryõlmaz has selected and edited many of CeylanÕs interviews and has reprinted them
as a valuable resource in Nuri Bilge Ceylan: Sšyleşiler [Interviews] (İstanbul: Norgunk, 2012).
48
Ceylan, Kasaba, 89.
49
Orhan Pamuk, for example, talks about his similar experiences in his Nobel Prize winning
book İstanbul: Memoirs of a City, trans. Maureen Freely (London: Faber and Faber, 2005).
50
Boğazi•i University was converted from Robert College, an American cultural and
educational institution, evidently the Òfirst American institution of higher education abroad.Ó
See Keith M. Greenwood, Robert College: The American Founders (İstanbul: Boğazi•i
University Press, 2003), xi. The student clubs that Ceylan showed an interest in were as varied
as mountaineering, chess, photography and cinema.
51
Many of the elective courses offered at this university eventually evolved into the Mithat
Alam Film Centre, founded in 2000, an extremely influential institute for filmmakers and
cinephiles alike, which is not only the closest thing to a Cinematheque in İstanbul, but also is an
environment that fosters a rich film culture through its publication organ Altyazõ (literally,
Subtitle) and the more recently founded production company Bulut Film (literally Cloud Films).
Ceylan acknowledges the Film Centre as well as Altyazõ in ÒBoğazi•ili Yšnetmenler: Nuri
Bilge Ceylan, Derviş Zaim, Halit Refiğ,Ó Altyazõ 22 (2003): 56-58.
52
Ceylan, Kasaba, 89-91
53
Matt Bochenski, ÒInterview: Nuri Bilge Ceylan,Ó Little While Lies, February 16, 2009,
accessed April 19, 2013, http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/features/interviews/nuri-bilge-ceylan-
3333.
54
Ceylan, Kasaba, 92.
55
ibid.,, 92-93.
56
ibid.,, 93, 95 and 107.
57
ibid., 107; Deborah Young, ÒThe Town (Kasaba),Ó Variety 371.10 (1998): 48.
58
Much of these reviews remain in print, but they can be accessed from CeylanÕs website:
www.nbcfilm.com/mayis/press.php.
59
Yama• Okur and Fõrat YŸcel, ÒNuri Bilge CeylanÕõn İstanbulÕu,Ó Altyazõ 13 (2002): 46-49.
60
In early interviews, Ceylan claims that he was able to continue filmmaking by revenues
acquired from his prior production. In this respect, and contrary to popular belief, his early films
did make profit, mostly through international and television sales. As mentioned earlier,
Ministry of Culture made a small contribution to the production of Small Town, and the Turkish
beer company Efes Pilsen was involved in the production of Clouds of May as a private sponsor.
Obtaining The Hubert Bals Fund marks an important moment in which Ceylan began to receive
foreign funding for all of his future features. See his Uzak (İstanbul: Norgunk, 2004), 224-226
and Ayşe Teker ÒNuri Bilge Ceylan ile Sšyleşi,Ó [Interview with Nuri Bilge Ceylan], Mega
Movie Dergisi [Mega Movie Magazine] (December, 2002), accessed March 1, 2013,
http://www.nbcfilm.com/uzak/press_ozeninterview.php.
 
  276 
 
61
A list of these festival awards can be found in Ceylan, Uzak, 265-267 and CeylanÕs official
website.
62
Senem Ayta• and Fõrat YŸcel, Òiklimler,Ó Altyazõ 55 (2006): 20.
63
ibid., 20 and ÒNuri Bilge Ceylan yeni filmine hazõrlanõyor,Ó Altyazõ 34 (2004): 5.
64
Ayta• and YŸcel, Òiklimler,Ó 21.
65
According to the IMDB, the filmÕs USA Gross is $138,730 by June 3, 2012, an amount that
significantly surpasses earlier features (for example: Distant, $96,293; Climates, $119,458 and
Three Monkeys, $41,343). The filmÕs UK release was one of the top-ten foreign language films
in 2012, achieving £277,447. See Charles Gant, ÒThe Numbers: 2012 In Review,Ó Sight and
Sound 23.2 (2013): 19.
66
The film received €450,000 towards its production, marking the highest-ever Eurimages
support for any Turkish film. See Birka Yõldõz, ÒNuri Bilge CeylanÕa Rekor Destek,Ó Radikal,
March 25, 2013, accessed July 5, 2013,
http://www.radikal.com.tr/hayat/nuri_bilge_ceylana_rekor_destek-1126574.
67
Tunca Arslan, ÒKasaba: Puslu Manzaralar,Ó Radikal, December 2, 1997, and Sungu ‚apan,
ÒHayat †stŸne Farklõ Bir Film,Ó Cumhuriyet, December 5, 1997, both of which are reprinted in
Ceylan, Kasaba, 71-76.
68
ibid., 78.
69
For detailed accounts of dubbing practices in Yeşil•am, see Nezih Erdoğan, ÒMute Bodies,
Disembodied Voices,Ó 236-241 and Arslan, Cinema in Turkey, 116-124.
70
quoted in Arslan, Cinema in Turkey, 121.
71
Erdoğan, ÒMute Bodies, Disembodied Voices,Ó 234.
72
Arslan, Cinema in Turkey, 226.
73
ibid., 182.
74
ibid., 234.
75
Suner, New Turkish Cinema, 26.
76
ibid., 37.
77
ibid., 188.
78
Jonathan Romney, ÒNo Effects, No Happy Ending, No Problem,Ó Independent on Sunday,
May 30, 2004, 20-21 and Peter Bradshaw ÒReview: Uzak (Distant),Ó Guardian, May 28, 2004,
accessed March 27, 2013,
http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_Film_of_the_week/0,4267,122
6133,00.html.
79
Jonathan Romney, ÒA Silky Sadness,Ó Sight and Sound 14.6 (2004): 20-23.
80
Tony Rayns, ÒReview: Uzak,Ó Sight and Sound 14.6 (2004): 72, for transcendental style in
film, see Paul Schrader, Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1972).
81
İbrahim TŸrk, ÒUzak DVDÕsinin başarõsõ,Ó Altyazõ 39 (2005): 9. The same article argues that
the DVD of Distant was a major success in the Turkish market, achieving about six thousand
sales. The following box-office numbers should make more explicit the disappointing amount of
audiences that went to the theatres to see Distant in its first release: Lord of the Rings: The Two
Towers (2002), 105 copies, approx. 323,000 spectators in first week; Harry Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets (2002), 110 copies, approx. 823,000 spectators after four weeks;
Irreversible (2002), 14 copies and approx. 98,000 spectators after four weeks. Numbers taken
from ÒBox Office,Ó Altyazõ 14 (2003): 96.
82
At this stage Ceylan was producing his own films and the producer was required to finance
the duplication of the distribution copies. Realistically, the audience numbers would not
increase dramatically if there were more copies. Five was really a magic number to cover
enough screens in major urban centres such as İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir, at least within the
first weeks of release, and then the copies could slowly be distributed to smaller towns and
 
  277 
 
cities. See Enis Kšstepen, Yama• Okur and İbrahim TŸrk, ÒNuri Bilge Ceylan: Sinema Pratiğini
Fotoğrafa Benzetmeye ‚alõşõyorum,Ó Altyazõ 15 (2003): 43.
83
Richard Lea, ÒIn Istanbul, a writer awaits her day in court,Ó Guardian, 24 July, 2006,
accessed August 10, 2012,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jul/24/fiction.voicesofprotest.
84
I should note here that for Turkish speakers the term šzenti might evoke a negative, perhaps
offensive and demeaning characterization of CeylanÕs (or perhaps any other directorÕs) films. I
certainly do not claim CeylanÕs films as šzenti nor want to characterize the New Turkish
Cinema movement as such. Rather, I claim that šzenti, as a defining aspect of Yeşil•am cinema,
similarly informs the ways in which contemporary Turkish art cinema relates to Western
culture, in the sense that there is, implicitly, a ÒdesireÓ to be like the other. In this respect, there
is no doubt that CeylanÕs films are truly original and cannot be relegated into imitative works,
but they nevertheless exhibit certain aspects and influences of art cinema conventions.
85
Philip French, ÒOnce Upon a Time in Anatolia Ð Review,Ó Guardian, March 18, 2012,
accessed March 27, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/mar/18/once-upon-time-in-
anatolia-review.
86
Manohla Dargis, ÒOne Search for a Body, Another for Meaning,Ó New York Times, January 3,
2012, accessed March 27, 2013, http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/movies/once-upon-a-
time-in-anatolia-directed-by-nuri-bilge-ceylan-review.html.
87
Since the film was released in 2011 but also ran in theatres in 2012, it actually featured both
in the 2011 and 2012 lists. See Sight and Sound 22.1 (2012): 16-26 and 23.1 (2013): 50-60.
88
Numbers sourced from http://www.boxofficeturkiye.com/, accessed March 18, 2013, a
website that collates Turkish box office statistics. Unfortunately these records begin in 2006, so
earlier numbers were approximated from journalistic sources.
89
quoted in Arslan, Cinema in Turkey, 77-78.
90
Lars Svendsen, A Philosophy of Boredom, trans. John Irons (London: Reaktion Books, 2005),
7.
91
Patricia Meyer Spacks, Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995), 27.
92
Although many of the scholarly books I will be citing throughout this section contain
historical approaches to boredom, I found the following one in particular concise and
comprehensive: Lars Svendsen, A Philosophy of Boredom, 49-106.
93
Spacks, Boredom, 27-28. For an anthology that pursues the connection between boredom and
modernity, see Barbara Dalle Pezze and Carlo Salzani, ed., Essays on Boredom and Modernity
(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009).
94
Peter Toohey, Boredom: A Lively History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012),
152-155. Toohey refers to the word ÒdefeatÓ which did not appear in English dictionaries in any
form until late 15th
century, but argues that surely the English had known what exactly the
feeling meant much earlier.
95
ibid., 149.
96
Here I am specifically referring to the works of Patricia Meyer Spacks, Peter Toohey and
Reinhard Kuhn.
97
Reinhard Kuhn, The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1976), 6-7.
98
Toohey, Boredom, 142.
99
Svendsen, A Philosophy of Boredom, 41-45. The typology he favours most is Martin
DoehlemannÕs, which states four types: situative boredom (very simple boredom, based on
external circumstances), boredom of satiety (arising from monotony), existential boredom (selfexplanatory)
and creative boredom (Òone that is forced to do something new.Ó). For various
reasons, this typology does not seem to be sufficient for my purposes here, although the last
 
  278 
 
type (Òcreative boredomÓ) is similar to a mode that I will investigate in detail later in this
chapter.
100
Svendsen, A Philosophy of Boredom, 110. For a broader discussion of emotion and its
relation to film, See Carl Plantinga, Moving Viewers: American Film and the SpectatorÕs
Experience (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 53-64.
101
ibid., 33-34.
102
Julian Hanich, Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers: The Aesthetic Paradox of
Pleasurable Fear (New York: Routledge, 2010), 23.
103
Kuhn, The Demon of Noontide, 4-5.
104
ibid., 12.
105
For example, see Rob Burns, ÒFassbinderÕs Angst Essen Seele Auf: A Mellow Brechtian
Drama,Ó German Life and Letters 48.1 (1995): 56-74; Seymour Chatman, Antonioni: Or, the
Surface of the World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 51-82; James S.
Williams, ÒThe Rhythms of Life: An Appreciation of Michelangelo Antonioni, Extreme
Aesthete of the Real,Ó Film Quarterly 62 (2008): 46-57; and Chris Fujiwara, ÒBoredom,
Spasmo, and the Italian System,Ó in Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and
Politics, ed. Jeffrey Sconce (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 244. 
106
See Andrew Sarris, Confessions of a Cultist: On the Cinema, 1955-1969 (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1970), 280. In his review of AntonioniÕs Blow-Up (1966), Sarris uses the term
ÒAntoniennuiÓ in a slightly derogative manner by associating it with the feeling of pain
experienced by the spectator. See ibid., 189-193 for a negative review of AntonioniÕs Red
Desert (1964), although it does not contain the term ÒAntoniennui.Ó
107
In BellowÕs HumboldtÕs Gift (1975), Charlie Citrine, the protagonist who is working on a
scholarly book on the experience of boredom, writes: ÒModern French literature is especially
preoccupied with the theme of boredom. Stendhal mentioned it on every page, Flaubert devoted
books to it, and Baudelaire was its chief poet.Ó See Saul Bellow, HumboldtÕs Gift (1975; repr.,
London: Penguin Books, 2007), 200. An extract from the book was reprinted as ÒOn Boredom,Ó
The New York Review of Books 22.13 (August 7, 1975): 22.
108
In addition to the already cited KuhnÕs The Demon of Noontide, see Elizabeth S. Goodstein,
Experience Without Qualities: Boredom and Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2005) for the relationship between boredom, modernity and modernist literature.
109
Siegfried Kracauer, ÒBoredom,Ó in The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, ed. and trans.
Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 334.
110
Siegfried Kracauer, ÒCult of Distraction,Ó in The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, ed. and
trans. Thomas Y. Levin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 326.
111
Patrice Petro, ÒAfter Shock, Between Boredom and History,Ó in Aftershocks of the New:
Feminism and Film History (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 66.
112
ibid., 68. 
113
Svendsen, A Philosophy of Boredom, 142.
114
For an examination of how mainstream cinema disavows boredom, Òwhich reflects a cultural
refusal to address the implications of time passing,Ó see Richard Misek, ÒDead Time: Cinema,
Heidegger, and Boredom,Ó in After Taste: Cultural Value and the Moving Image, ed. Julia
Vassilieva and Constantine Verevis (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), 133-141.
115
Pamela Lee, Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s (Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press, 2004), 308.
116
See, for example, David Bordwell, ÒIntensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary
American Film,Ó Film Quarterly 55.3 (2002): 16-28 and Steven Shaviro, Post Cinematic Affect
(Winchester: Zero Books, 2010). 
117
Nuri Bilge Ceylan, ÒThe Second Marathon,Ó Sight and Sound 22.4 (2012): 30.
118
Kuhn, The Demon of Noontide, 184. Following quotes from the same source, same page.
 
  279 
 
119
Joseph Brodsky, ÒIn Praise of Boredom,Ó in On Grief and Reason: Essays (London: Penguin
Classics, 2011), 94. In the next page, Brodsky writes that boredom Òputs your existence into its
perspective, the net result of which is precision and humility.Ó ibid., 95.
120
Toohey, Boredom, 186-187. Although I agree with Toohey up to this point, in the remaining
page of the same book he writes: ÒSuch contemplation, thanks to boredom, is not necessarily a
mind-altering experience. Getting a sense of yourself, paradoxically can be quite a boring
pursuit,Ó which, perhaps satirically or not, effectively disapproves his main argument in the
preceding pages of the book.
121
Jonathan Smallwood and Jonathan W. Schooler, ÒThe Restless Mind,Ó Psychological
Bulletin 132.6 (2006): 946.
122
ibid., 951.
123
See Michael D. Mrazek, Jonathan Smallwood and Jonathan W. Schooler, ÒMindfulness and
Mind-Wandering: Finding Convergence Through Opposing Constructs,Ó Emotion 12.3 (2012):
442-448, for a study that approaches the same question by another concept, mindfulness.
124
Benjamin Baird et al., ÒInspired by Distraction: Mind Wandering Facilitates Creative
Incubation,Ó Psychological Science 23.10 (2012): 1120.
125
ibid., 1121. See also Ap Dijksterhuis and Teun Meurs, ÒWhere Creativity Resides: The
Generative Power of Unconscious Thought,Ó Consciousness and Cognition 15.1 (2006): 135-
146; Ilan Yaniv and David E. Meyer, ÒActivation and Metacognition of Inaccessible Stored
Information: Potential Bases for Incubation effects in Problem Solving,Ó Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 13.2 (1987): 187-205; and Eric
Klinger, ÒThought Flow: Properties and Mechanisms Underlying Shifts in Content,Ó in At Play
in the Fields of Consciousness: Essays in Honor of Jerome L. Singer, ed. Jefferson A. Singer
and Peter Salovey (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1999), 29-50. 
126
Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott, ÒIn Defense of Slow and Boring,Ó New York Times, June 3,
2011, accessed July 9, 2013, www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/movies/films-in-defense-of-slow-
and-boring.html.
127
Karl Schoonover, ÒWastrels of Time: Slow CinemaÕs Laboring Body, the Political Spectator,
and the Queer,Ó Framework 53.1 (2012): 70-71.
128
Mieke Bal, ÒSticky Images: the Foreshortening of Time in an Art of Duration,Ó in Time and
the Image, ed. Carolyn Bailey Gill (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 80.
129
For example, sculptures by the Norwegian artist Jeannette Christensen that are made of JellO
and marble chips, two contrasting materials in terms of their physical changes over time. For
Bal, this relationship in the sculpture makes the notion of linear time even more complex. See
ibid., 89-90.
130
ibid., 80 and 81-88. See further in Mieke Bal, Quoting Caravaggio: Contemporary Art,
Preposterous History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
131
Onur Civelek notes that these photographs are from the series The Country Doctor (1948),
shot by W. Eugene Smith, in which he shadowed a real American country doctor, Dr. Ernest G.
Ceriani, in his daily tasks. Civelek considers this more than a basic reference to CeylanÕs
previous profession: not only is Dr. Ceriani an alter-ego model for Cemal, but it is an indication
that Cemal is becoming a spectator himself, just like us watching the film, and although he tries
to convince himself otherwise by keeping the photograph on his desk, he has succumbed into a
permanent spectator by accepting provincial mores. See Onur Civelek, ÒBŸrokratik Ağda
Dolaşõm,Ó [Wandering in the Bureaucratic Network], Altyazõ 110 (2011): 84-85.
132
It is worthwhile to note here that Once Upon a Time in Anatolia was adapted from the real
life experiences of a doctor, Ercan Kesal, also CeylanÕs friend and co-scriptwriter since Three
Monkeys, who takes the cameo role as the Muhtar (literally, an administrative official of a
village community, periodically elected by its members). Kesal also spent years in an Anatolian
province to fulfil his national duty as a qualified doctor and witnessed a similar series of events
 
  280 
 
in which he and other government officials set out in search for a dead body across a whole
night. Much of this main arch-story was complemented with quotes and allusions from stories
of Chekhov, including a poem by the Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov. See this interview with
Ceylan, Geoff Andrew, ÒJourney to the End of the Night,Ó Sight and Sound 22.4 (2012): 28-32.
133
J. Hoberman, ÒA Search for a Corpse is So Much More in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia,Ó
Village Voice, January 4, 2012, accessed March 28, 2013, http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-
01-04/film/a-search-for-a-corpse-is-so-much-more-in-once-upon-a-time-in-anatolia/.
134
Senem Ayta• ÒBir Zamanlar AnadoluÕda: Hakikat Kõrõntõlarõ,Ó [Once Upon a Time in
Anatolia: Fragments of Truth], Altyazõ 110 (2011): 28-31.
135
Geoff Andrew, ÒJourney to the End of the Night,Ó 28.
136
quoted in Jonathan Rosenbaum, ÒOverrated Solutions: LÕHumanite,Ó Chicago Reader, June
23, 2000, accessed March 27, 2013, http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=6389.
137
The folk tune is titled Allõ Turnam, in this instance performed by Neşet Ertaş, who recently
passed away on September 25, 2012.
138
Vecdi Sayar, ÒBozkõrda Otopsi: Bir Zamanlar AnadoluÕda,Ó [Autopsy on the Steppes: Once
Upon a Time in Anatolia], Altyazõ 107 (2011): 39-41.
139
On the struggles between the Republican intellectuals and the Anatolian villagers as well as
KaraosmanoğluÕs literary career, see Asõm Karašmerlioğlu, ÒPeasants in Early Turkish
Literature,Ó East European Quarterly 36.2 (2002): 127-153.
140
Fõrat YŸcel, ÒUtan•,Ó [Shame], Altyazõ 110 (2011): 1. My translation. Zeynep Dadak takes a
similar approach to the film in her longer critical review ÒBir Zamanlar AnadoluÕda: Bir Evet
Uğruna,Ó [Once Upon a Time in Anatolia: For the Sake of a Yes], Altyazõ 111 (2011): 82-83.
141
Ceylan, Kasaba, 102. My translation.
142
A key example to these claims can be seen in Dan Kois, ÒEating Your Cultural Vegetables,Ó
New York Times, April 29, 2011, accessed June 26, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/magazine/mag-01Riff-t.html?pagewanted=all.
143
See Jonathan Romney, ÒIn Search of Lost Time,Ó Sight and Sound 20.2 (2010): 43-44.
144
Toohey, Boredom, 7.
5. Conclusion
1
Tiago de Luca, ÒRealism of the Senses: A Tendency in World Cinema,Ó (PhD diss., University
of Leeds, 2011), 24; Matthew Flanagan, ÒÔSlow CinemaÕ: Temporality and Style in
Contemporary Art and Experimental Film,Ó (PhD diss., University of Exeter, 2012), 213.
2
Mette Hjort, ÒOn the Plurality of Cinematic Transnationalism,Ó in World Cinemas,
Transnational Perspectives, ed. Nataša Durovicov‡ and Kathleen Newman (New York:
Routledge, 2010), 26.
3
ibid., 24. 
4
Dudley Andrew, Mists of Regret: Culture and Sensibility in Classic French Film (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 19.
5
ibid., 234.
6
ibid., 25.
7
ibid., 20.
8
Dudley Andrew, ÒForeword,Ó in Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories, ed.
Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), x.
  281 
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