CCC FAQ #6 : What are the main features of Contemplative Cinema?
Contemporary Contemplative Cinema Frequently Asked Questions #6 :
We could designate five aesthetic characteristics departing Contemplative Cinema from its Modernist precursors and its minimalist contemporaries (also known under the broader term of « Slow Cinema ») :
1. Exteriority
First and foremost, Contemplative Cinema takes a step back and aside, to observe the protagonists and the universe from outside. The non-intrusive camera plants itself in a corner and looks on the whereabouts of people who happen to pass by. The framing of this reality is all-embrassing and captures more than is necessary to provide a solid context to each shot. The spectator scrutinizes the outer shells of mutic faces and gazes over what could have been, ruminates blindingly on what once was, contemplates lengthily on what might happen next…
2. Hyperrealism
Real-life is the template. The screen is a mirror. Away from the artifice of pure fiction, Contemplative Cinema draws from docu-fiction its versimilitude with reality, which forms undramatic stories, uneventful actions, passive arcs… The scope of a frame : as wide as humanly possible (distance rather than close-up). The movement of a travelling : in the footsteps of our protagonists (« Nape-shot »). Contemplative Cinema is to Neorealismo, what Neoralismo was to Classicism, one (additional) step removed from melodrama.
3. Extensive Tableaux
The « surveillance-camera » lens inspects repeatedly the motions to their completion and beyond. The cuts only aggregate large tableaux together like a juxtaposition of evidences, in a straight forward manner. Situations unfold, experiences succeed, the flimsy narrative thread unravels regardless of odd histrionics. Each take is a tableau wherein enter and exit the protagonists like from as many rooms of your home. Time stretches out to its extremes and paints the minutiae of real-time life within the confinement of one bountiful tableau.
4. Quietude
People are muted or deliver anecdotal conversations (overheard rather than listened to), lacking the clues and inklings that normally inform the pursuit of the narrative. Silence is opaque, implicit images alone are sufficient. The power of non-verbal language supercedes the machination of words, intuiting familiar gestures rather than decyphering the dramaturgic intellect. Our brains is at peace, wanderings along half-baked ideas, chasing curious presupositions, contemplating related past memories...
5. Patience
Stillness structures the fundamental world of Contemplative Cinema. History is quasi-immobile, the mere ripples of time that animate ever-so-slightly the most minuscule emotions hidden in the wrinkles of life. Just like the protagonists, the spectators are investing their time on the promise of a richer film, a more sensitive image, a deeper insight. The story is calm, the tension is more ambiguous, the mise-en-scène is less rigorous... We face a new rapport to cinema, thus a new relationship with our own lives, in the real world.
What are the main features of Contemplative Cinema ?
We could designate five aesthetic characteristics departing Contemplative Cinema from its Modernist precursors and its minimalist contemporaries (also known under the broader term of « Slow Cinema ») :
1. Exteriority
First and foremost, Contemplative Cinema takes a step back and aside, to observe the protagonists and the universe from outside. The non-intrusive camera plants itself in a corner and looks on the whereabouts of people who happen to pass by. The framing of this reality is all-embrassing and captures more than is necessary to provide a solid context to each shot. The spectator scrutinizes the outer shells of mutic faces and gazes over what could have been, ruminates blindingly on what once was, contemplates lengthily on what might happen next…
2. Hyperrealism
Real-life is the template. The screen is a mirror. Away from the artifice of pure fiction, Contemplative Cinema draws from docu-fiction its versimilitude with reality, which forms undramatic stories, uneventful actions, passive arcs… The scope of a frame : as wide as humanly possible (distance rather than close-up). The movement of a travelling : in the footsteps of our protagonists (« Nape-shot »). Contemplative Cinema is to Neorealismo, what Neoralismo was to Classicism, one (additional) step removed from melodrama.
3. Extensive Tableaux
The « surveillance-camera » lens inspects repeatedly the motions to their completion and beyond. The cuts only aggregate large tableaux together like a juxtaposition of evidences, in a straight forward manner. Situations unfold, experiences succeed, the flimsy narrative thread unravels regardless of odd histrionics. Each take is a tableau wherein enter and exit the protagonists like from as many rooms of your home. Time stretches out to its extremes and paints the minutiae of real-time life within the confinement of one bountiful tableau.
4. Quietude
People are muted or deliver anecdotal conversations (overheard rather than listened to), lacking the clues and inklings that normally inform the pursuit of the narrative. Silence is opaque, implicit images alone are sufficient. The power of non-verbal language supercedes the machination of words, intuiting familiar gestures rather than decyphering the dramaturgic intellect. Our brains is at peace, wanderings along half-baked ideas, chasing curious presupositions, contemplating related past memories...
5. Patience
« There is no use in running, one must start on time » (La Fontaine)
Stillness structures the fundamental world of Contemplative Cinema. History is quasi-immobile, the mere ripples of time that animate ever-so-slightly the most minuscule emotions hidden in the wrinkles of life. Just like the protagonists, the spectators are investing their time on the promise of a richer film, a more sensitive image, a deeper insight. The story is calm, the tension is more ambiguous, the mise-en-scène is less rigorous... We face a new rapport to cinema, thus a new relationship with our own lives, in the real world.
 |
| Days (2020/TSAI Ming Liang) |
Also read at Unspoken Cinema:
Comments