- Mechanical time vs. Duration
- Authenticity
- Recirculation of time
Over the history of film, it has become a more artisitc medium, more debated as an artform, and less realist. Film is no longer seen as simply the saving grace of photography (see second diagram from session 1). Changes in culture and societal attitudes toward self also impact film making as it progresses.
If you haven't seen The Hudsucker Proxy, Magnolia, and/or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, then there are probably a lot of spoilers below (also, fix that problem soon).
The Hudsucker Proxy (Coen Brothers, 1994)
- Clip One: Beginning of film - New Year's Eve through Hudsucker's suicide
- Strong sense of mechanical time as represented by large clock on the Hudsucker building
- Sense of coincidental time: cutting between scenes that show things happening concurrently (but unaware of other actions occurring) - a relatively new concept in film
- Duration playing a role in addition to mechanical time => concept of recirculation of time
- Past, present, and future merging:
- e.g. trying to capture one moment in time on NYE, but by the time the clock strikes midnight, the moment is over before it can be acknowledged
- Clip Two: Mussburger makes Barnes president of Hudsucker
- Looming clock and tickertape in Mussburger's office
- Circle motif: seen earlier with newspaper and coffee stain (fate); seen here with hula hoop idea
- revolution and recirculation
- Looking for a dummy president => inauthenticity
- Clip Three: Amy Archer and Moses in the workings of the clock
- Time is money
- Huge concept of mechanical time
- Narrator of the story (Moses) is the guy who fixes/takes care of the clock
- has more information than everybody else, even though there is no reason for him to in his position
- he is outside of time, controlling time
- Amy Archer is also a phony - another case of inauthenticity
- Clip Four: The hula hoop catches on
- Fated circle: one hula hoop finds a boy, thus sparking a craze
- Turns time around: prices are shown going down and then going back up through addition/removal of price stickers on poster
- Clip Five: Buzz pitches the bendy straw
- Recirculation of the circle: coming back as a new idea
- Parallels to Barnes pitching the hoop to Mussburger
- circle graphic, "we don't crawl here" line, etc.
- Buzz's idea is authentic, but Barnes takes the idea as his own - another example of people being inauthentic
- Clip Six: Barnes's fall
- Stark difference between mechanical time and duration; surrealist version of time (shows what film can do that other media can't)
- Barnes grows and becomes more authentic as a person
- Authenticates Hudsucker through a coming together of past and future and space outside of time
- Barnes was inauthentic on several occasion and yet is rewarded in the end
- no death/punishment is different from what we saw in last week's films
- More surreal => greater sense of art
- doesn't feel the need to represent the death of something artistic, instead there is the birth of something artistic
Magnolia (Anderson, 1999)
- Clip One: Opening sequence
- All the characters shown are connected in various ways
- The beginning of each of their stories is shown to start with the same mechanical time but different durations
- when people connect, mechanical time and duration will sync up
- Authenticity issues within each character
- Weather forecast: surrealist element
- weather and time have a role related to what is going on regarding authenticity
- helps to pull everything together, creates continuity
- Clip Two: "Wise Up" sing along
- Authentic connection between characters, even though it is surrealist in nature
- surrealism is creating/adding authenticity
- Duration is representing mechanical time because the visuals are lining up with the lyrics of the song
- Scene ends with weather forecast, creating additional connection
- Clip Three: Raining frogs
- Question of mechanical time vs. duration: which one is more important/matters?
- mechanical time and duration can merge
- time can recirculate, but still be linear
- Frogs start falling on different people at different times, yet bring everybody together and create authenticity in the connection of characters
- authenticity, not time, is what is important here
- surrealism allows authenticity to manifest
- Past, present and future merge
- "We may be done with the past, but it ain't done with us"
- "But it did happen"
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)
- Clip One: Joel and Clem meet
- Authentic meeting in mechanical time
- mechanical time = duration
- Clip Two: Joel searches for a place to hide/save Clem
- Mechanical time and duration are shattered
- Joel is fighting for his memories and the authenticity of knowing Clem vs. the inauthenticity of having her erased
- Clip Three: Clem and Joel get their memories back
- Everything is recirculated
- Actions/memories are authentic the first time they happen AND the second time around (discuss amongst yourselves)
- Joel and Clem understand that memories have been distorted: memories tell them not to do something again, but they still do it
- consequences of memory
- Eternal Sunshine is a particularly strong example of what we can express and experience through film that we can't in other mediums
I am glad I had seen all of these films for entertainment purposes before this class because it made it more rewarding to look at them from a philosophical perspective on a second pass. Knowing the bodies of work of all three of these filmmakers, it is clear that these philosophical themes are important to them, and not merely by-products of the work or something superimposed on the work by those of us examining it after the fact. The consideration of philosophical themes could make future rewatches of some of my favorite films more interesting and fun. Vanilla Sky, anyone?
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