Frames Cinema Journal
Slow Movies. Countering the Cinema of
http://framescinemajournal.com
Action
By Diana Popa
By Ira Jaffe
London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2014
Reviewed by Diana Popa
As the title suggests, Ira Jaffe’s book Slow Movies. Countering the
Cinema of Action rests on a central dichotomy between slowness at one
end and action at the other end. It is thus not surprising that the book
starts from an observation cited by Jaffe that “many times the word ‘slow’
is used as a synonym for dull or boring […] but we want to make a case
for movies that work without speeding from one plot point to another”
(1), an observation that speaks to the intention of the book itself.
Therefore, the book aims “to examine elements beside the plot that make
certain movies both slow and compelling” (1). Slow Movies is also one of
the first attempts at looking at “significant slow movies and their
directors as a group” (2) instead of looking at slowness through the
cinematic oeuvre of one filmmaker, for example Tsai Ming-liang (see Tsai
Ming-liang and a Cinema of Slowness).
As the second part of the book’s title suggests, the focus is not
necessarily on what makes these films slow, especially not in a
prescriptive way, but more on what sets these films apart from a “cinema
of action” in order to explore how these slow movies can potentially be
interesting for a larger audience.
The book’s remarkable achievement is twofold: on one hand, its premise
is that slowness is not something new or limited to a stylistic trend that
emerged in contemporary filmmaking and is particularly successful at
film festivals. This attitude transpires from the choice of films to be
discussed, some of which were released decades apart.
On the other hand, I particularly enjoyed the way in which the modernist
origin of the contemporary tendency towards the “slow” is not only stated
in a matter of fact way, but analysed in terms of both similarities and
differences with contemporary slow movies. Notable is the way in which
Jaffe points out how “a recent slow movie like Distant may alter our
perception of older slow films such as those of Antonioni” (68). Jaffe
argues that by looking at the similarities and differences between
1/4
Frames
Journal
slownessCinema
now and
slowness then may “illuminate […] the distinctiveness
of recent slow movies compared to their predecessors” (69). This
http://framescinemajournal.com
implicitly suggests not only that our perception of what constitutes slow
may differ but also, and perhaps more importantly, inscribes this book as
an attempt to add variety to slowness and challenge assumptions of what
slowness can be and how it can work in different films and over a longer
period of time.
For example, the chapter entitled “Long Shot” suggests Michelangelo
Antonioni’s L’avventura (1960), La Notte (1961) and L’eclisse (1962) as
potential antecedents for slowness in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s films.
Antonioni’s films are widely regarded as antecedents for this
contemporary tendency in filmmaking starting from Matthew Flanagan’s
seminal article “Towards an Aesthetic of Slow in Contemporary Cinema”
(2008). But Jaffe does more than that: he shows the aesthetic
distinctiveness of Ceylan’s films, the way in which they depart from
Antonioni’s “in their deployment of the camera, editing and sound, for
instance, and in their rendering of emotion” (11). This view is consistent
with the book’s overall concern with contemporary slowness as
distinctive from its earlier and often mentioned antecedents, such as
Yasujirô Ozu, Robert Bresson and Carl Theodor Dreyer.
The three filmmakers are the subject of Paul Schrader’s study
Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer (1972) and Jaffe
points out that the stylistic and aesthetic characteristics as discussed by
Schrader are also cinematic traits of slowness (3), particularly as
rehearsed in Slow Cinema debates. Illuminating is the way in which Jaffe
draws to its final conclusion the observation that “Schrader often
discerns in his transcendental films successful quests for spiritual grace,
holiness and redemption” pointing out that such quests “rarely occur in
contemporary slow movies, which tilt to a more secular and bleak
direction” (3). This turn to a “more secular and bleak direction” might not
be characteristic of all slow movies but it nevertheless raises the stakes
in showing in what other ways than transcendental (or contemplative, for
that matter) slowness can work. Here is the novelty of the approach and
also where I think a discussion on “a cinema of contemplation”,
shorthand for Slow Cinema, could have enriched the book.
Furthermore, the selection of films included can be considered potentially
controversial especially in the absence of a discussion on Slow Cinema.
Todd Haynes is not a usual suspect on the list of filmmakers who make
regular appearances in discourses on a cinema of slowness (cf Lim 2014:
14), while Cristian Mungiu’s and Cristi Puiu’s films don’t altogether
conform to the standard view of what Slow Cinema is. Perhaps not
accidentally the three filmmakers are grouped in one chapter entitled
“Wait Time”.
2/4
Frames
Cinema
A criticism
to beJournal
made is the occasionally unbalanced treatment of the
various films included in the book. For example, the author devotes
http://framescinemajournal.com
considerably more space (thirteen pages) to discussing slowness in
Gerry (Gus Van Sant, 2002) and Elephant (Gus Van Sant, 2003) compared
with 12:08 East of Bucharest (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2006), the discussion
of which barely occupies a page and a half in the book. Somewhat
disturbing is the fact that the film’s title in Chapter 7 becomes 12:08 East
of Budapest (168) which only confirms the impression that less effort has
been devoted to the discussion of this particular film.
My personal interest in Romanian films turned my attention to Jaffe’s
discussion of them. He mentions the Theatre of the Absurd as an
influence on directors of slow movies (4). This is not a novel idea in itself.
The connection is also made in Song Hwee Lim’s Tsai Ming-Liang and a
Cinema of Slowness (2014: 122). In Slow Movies I find particularly
insightful the way in which the chapter entitled “Wait Time”, which
discusses two of the most well-known Romanian films Moartea Domnului
Lăzărescu / The Death of Mr Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005) and 4 luni 3
săptămâni și 2 zile / 4 months 3 weeks and 2 days (Cristian Mungiu,
2007) draws inspiration from the Theatre of the Absurd and specifically,
from “Martin Esslin’s statement in The Theatre of Absurd that the subject
of Beckett’s Waiting from Godot ‘is not Godot but waiting’” (11).
The absurdist sense of humour is something of a national trait that
Romanians pride themselves with. Moreover, Eugène Ionesco, one of the
representative playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd was born in
Romania. The Ionescian brand of absurdist humour is considered by
Dominique Nasta (2013: 164, 169) as an influence behind the deadpan
humour of celebrated Romanian films such as The Death of Mr Lazarescu
and, especially, in A fost sau n-a fost? / 12:08 East of Bucharest and by
Doru Pop (2014: 167) a constitutive element of Romanian humour, albeit
not the only one. Given that Nasta’s Contemporary Romanian Cinema:
The History of an Unexpected Miracle was published in October 2013 and
Doru Pop’s Romanian New Wave Cinema: An Introduction came out only
in 2014, it is perhaps not surprising that these references and
connections are missing from Slow Movies.
Slow Movies. Countering the Cinema of Action is a welcome addition to
the growing number of books discussing slowness as a stylistic and
aesthetic preoccupation in films coming from a variety of cultural and
historical contexts.
Bibliography
3/4
Frames
Cinema
Journal
Flanagan,
Matthew.
“Towards an Aesthetic of Slow in Contemporary
Cinema.” 16:9, November, 2008. Accessed October 27, 2015.
http://framescinemajournal.com
http://www.16-9.dk/2008-11/side11_inenglish.htm
Lim, Song Hwee. Tsai Ming-liang and a Cinema of Slowness. Honolulu:
University of Hawai’i Press, 2014.
Nasta, Dominique. Contemporary Romanian Cinema: The History of an
Unexpected Miracle. New York: Wallflower Press, 2013.
Pop, Doru. Romanian New Wave Cinema: An Introduction. Jefferson,
North Carolina: MacFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2014.
Schrader, Paul. Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer.
Boston: Da Capo Press, 1972.
Filmography
4 luni 3 săptămâni și 2 zile / 4 months 3 weeks and 2 days (Cristian
Mungiu, 2007)
A fost sau n-a fost?/12:08 East of Bucharest (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2006)
L’avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Moartea Domnului Lăzărescu /The Death of Mr Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu,
2005)
L’eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)
Elephant (Gus Van Sant, 2003)
Gerry (Gus Van Sant, 2002)
La Notte (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961)
4/4
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)