Signs and Meaning in the Cinema

[Editors Note: On March 19, 2008, the eminent inventor, futurist, and science fiction writer, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, died at his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka, at age 91. Clarke s clear-eyed view of human nature figured large at the beginning of his most well-known work, the popular 2001 : A Space Odyssey. This excerpt originally appeared, with permission, in the Winter 2000-2001 ETC, Vol 57, Issue 4 .]

From 2001: A Space Odyssey

Plot Summary Vicious delinquent Alex (Malcolm McDowell), incarcerated for his crimes, undergoes a form of aversion therapy so that he is incapable of doing evil. Violence of any kind produces nausea and distress. After he is released he tries to kill himself and the government is forced to ‘cure’ him and cover up the whole experiment. Can be used to discuss Kantian ethics and the connection Kant makes between morality and freedom.

A Clockwork Orangeにおける閉鎖性からの解放

‘샤이닝’(The Shining)

This special issue of Cinergie on the American director Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) was inspired by a threeday conference, Stanley Kubrick: A Retrospective, held at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK in May 2016. The conference, convened by I.Q. Hunter and James Fenwick, brought together some of the leading Kubrick scholars to reflect on the methodological approaches taken towards Kubrick since the opening in 2007 of the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of Arts London.

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Stanley Kubrick: A Retrospective. Introduction

Ten years ago those immersed in researching the life and work of Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) were gifted a unique opportunity for fresh insights into his films and production methods. In March 2007...

The Stanley Kubrick Archive: A Dossier of New Research

Pramaggiore claimed that Barry Lyndon is slow, similarly Ciment suggested that 2001: A Space Odyssey and Eyes Wide Shut are slow films, too. Moving from the debate on slowness, especially from Jaffe’s discussion, from the data collected in Cinemetrics about Kubrick’s films, from their comparison with data of other films elaborated by Bordwell, and from a stylistic analysis of Kubrickian films, I will show that, in Kubrick’s oeuvre , only the three films mentioned by the French scholar can be considered slow. One of the features of slowness is the presence of numerous long takes characterised by a few dialogue or silence, by rare and slow movements of the camera that often do not follow the staged events, and that show in long shots the lengthy movements of characters and objects. During these takes, the associative narrative form substitutes the sequential one – as discussed by Grodal – and the expressed time – as defined by Yacavone – is emphasised. Beginning with Totaro’s discussion of long takes, I will analyse them in 2001 , Barry Lyndon , and Eyes Wide Shut , and compare their features with those of long takes in slow cinema. When either the camera or the characters and objects in frame moves, I will draw conclusions about expressed time through a discussion of movement, adopting the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. My hypothesis is that Kubrick managed to extend expressed time, much like the directors of slow films do, although in his films the sequential narrative form is never completely abandoned in favour of the associative one, and coexists along with it.

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Slowness and Time Expansion in Long Takes: 2001: A Spacey Odyssey , Barry Lyndon , and Eyes Wide Shut

In alternative and time travel narratives, our everyday conception of time is often challenged. Similarly, in counterfactual history, various parallel realities exist. In time travel narrative, it is possible to travel in the past or in the future. In all of these cases, there are clues that help viewers to comprehend new ideas of time and, in some cases, the construction of the story time is not sufficient to comprehend the story. In order to solve some of the main logical paradoxes, personal time needs to be considered and discussed. In alternative narrative, the clues are often to be found in the plot and story time, as well as in the mise-en-scene. In some examples of counterfactual history, for example Groundhog Day, and in some time travel narratives, the spectator has to reconstruct the time traveller's personal time through story and plot time and mise-en- scene, as in Twelve Monkeys, or they have to deduce story time from personal time and mise-en-scene, as is the case in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The relationships between plot, story and personal time can be visualized through graphics which can also help us to draw conclusions about A-series and B-series. There are films in which time becomes the film's very theme and subject matter, and which challenge our everyday conception of time. This happens mostly in narratives that present alternative or counterfactual history and in time-travel films. Counterfactual history occurs when a story is dominated by different versions of the same protagonist and these alter egos occupy another, parallel reality which, however, occurs in the same time-space. If the alter egos occupy a different time, but the same space, we have a time-travel narrative. As regards the story time, David Bordwell introduces a distinction between fabula/story and syuzhet/plot: Presented with two narrative events, we look for causal or spatial or temporal links. The imaginary construct we create, progressively and retroactively, was termed by Formalists the fabula (sometimes translated as "story"). More specifically, the fabula embodies the action as a chronological, cause-and-effect chain of events occurring within a given duration and a spatial field. . . The syuzhet (usually translated as "plot") is the actual arrangement and presentation of the fabula in the film. (Narration in the Fiction Film 49-50 emphasis in original) Three principles link the fabula and the syuzhet: time; space; and narrative logic, which mostly refers to causality. The arrangement of the events in the plot, in terms of order, duration and frequency, can aid or prevent the construction of the narrative logic and the story time (51). The plot time is the time that a film takes to present a story, and the story time is the time of what is represented by a film. Sometimes, the story time is insufficient to understand the story and to solve its logical paradoxes. For example, in counterfactual history it is usually possible to reconstruct the story time from the plot, but there are films, such as

http://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue%202/PDFs/ArticlesPDF/ArticlePezzotta.pdf

Personal time in alternative and time travel narrative: the cases of Groundhog Day, Twelve Monkeys and 2001: A Space Odyssey

<JATS1:p>We are imprisoned in circadian rhythms, as well as in our life reviews that follow chronological and causal links. For the majority of us, our lives are vectors directed toward aims that we strive to reach and delimited by our birth and death. Nevertheless, we can still experience fleeting moments during which we forget the past and the future, as well as the very flow of time. During these intense emotions, we burst out laughing or crying, or we scream with pleasure, or we are mesmerized by a work of art or just by eyes staring at us.</JATS1:p> <JATS1:p>Similarly, when we watch a film, the screening time has a well defined beginning and end, and screening and diegetic time and their relations, together with narrative and stylistic techniques, determine a time within the time of our life with its own rules and exceptions. Through the close analysis of Stanley Kubrick’s, Adrian Lyne’s, Michael Bay’s and Quentin Tarantino’s oeuvres, this book discusses the overall ‘dominating’ time of their films and the moments during which this ‘ruling’ time is disrupted and we momentarily forget the run toward the diegetic future – suspense – or the past – curiosity and surprise. It is in these very moments, as well as in our own lives, that the prison of time, through which the film is constructed and that is constructed by the film itself, crumbles displaying our role as spectators, and before our deepest relations with the film.</JATS1:p> 

Elisa Pezzotta

Papers

Stanley Kubrick: A Retrospective. Introduction

The Stanley Kubrick Archive: A Dossier of New Research

Slowness and Time Expansion in Long Takes: 2001: A Spacey Odyssey , Barry Lyndon , and Eyes Wide Shut

Personal time in alternative and time travel narrative: the cases of Groundhog Day, Twelve Monkeys and 2001: A Space Odyssey

The Prison of Time