Seeing With Another's Eyes: Slow Cinema and Marginalised Communities (Joe Turrell)
Seeing With Another's Eyes: Slow Cinema and Marginalised Communities (Joe Turrell)
16 march 2021 (28min)
Joe Turrell reads his essay from the Cambridge Review of Books, on Slow Cinema and in particular 3 auteurs : Pedro COSTA, Lav DIAZ and WANG Bing. (text here - January 25th 2020)
"In documenting the precarious existences of their subjects these directors use techniques rooted in a distinct cinematic philosophy: ’Slow Cinema’. It is this approach that gives these films their power, and in employing these radical techniques these directors open the door to a relationship with their subject matter which is not available through conventional methods of filmmaking. [..]First, a historical/definitional note on the term ‘Slow Cinema’. Slow Cinema is not a precisely defined or delineated collection of films and filmmakers; |..] it is a useful way of grouping together a set of filmmakers arising largely out of the mid-1990s festival circuit, whose films share important aesthetic predilections. How does one know when one is watching a Slow film? Look for long takes. Really long. [..] slow films tend not to rely on creating narrative continuity through editing. Time, real time, is a much clearer presence in these films. [..] Minimal camera movement is another common (though by no means necessary) feature of Slow Cinema. So too is a focus on the quotidian, the seemingly unremarkable. Dramatic, sharp-tongued dialogue is rare: we are more likely to hear people talking about the weather, or watch them smoking a cigarette. These remarks don’t constitute anything like a definition of Slow Cinema, but they highlight some important characteristics that crop up in notable examples of the style. [..]"
See also at Unspoken Cinema :
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