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SLOW CINEMA FOR SLOW DAYS by Michael J. Casey
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he story of cinema is the story of excitement. One of the first movies projected was of a train pulling into a station. The directors placed the camera on the edge of the platform, making it look like the train was coming right for the audience. It worked and viewers dove out of their chairs to avoid being run over. Ever since, filmmakers have been hurtling cameras up, down and across every possible directional axis in an attempt to recreate that primal reaction. Slow cinema does the exact opposite — it subverts expectations by withholding dramatics and embracing stasis. Sátántangó — reviewed in this week’s Film section — is one of the exemplary work of slow cinema (if not the exemplary work.) It’s 450 minutes of long takes and repetitive action. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? It is, but by design. When you watch a dynamic image bursting with energy and excitement, you think about that image, and only that image. But what do you think about when you watch an image with nothing happening? Does your attention remain on the screen, or does it turn inward — search-
ing the nooks and crannies of your consciousness? Maybe a better word would be “meditative.” Twenty-firstcentury viewers have been so accustomed to images that they gobble them up in fractions of a second. Slow cinema retards that consumption, expands it and forces viewers to reconsider what they are seeing and the speed they see it. It’s like reciting a mantra: The words take on a different meaning after you’ve uttered them 100 times. These movies require patience, but they also reward it. If the world seems too chaotic and hectic, even while your sitting still, give one of these a stream and see if they don’t slow things down.
‘TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN’ The first two seasons of ‘Twin Peaks’ were the oddest things on network television. But, as time passed, oddity became quirk, deadpan humor became meme, and FBI Agent Dale Cooper’s unflappable honesty became comforting. Twentyfive years after the show was canceled, David Lynch and Mark Frost reteamed for a third season, and the result was less a TV show and more an 18-hour movie. Using stillness, repetition and experimental techniques, ‘Twin Peaks: The Return’ is about as commercial as slow cinema gets. Streaming at Showtime Anytime, Hulu, Amazon Prime, YouTube TV and Sling TV.
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‘ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA’ A prosecu-
tor, a police commissioner, a doctor and a murderer are searching for a body. The murderer is trying to cooperate, but he can’t remember where he dug the grave. Car headlights carve away the darkness surrounding the Anatolian town of Keskin while seconds turn into minutes, minutes into hours. Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s ‘Once Upon a Time’ is as meditative as it is methodical, stunningly photographed, and as existentially provocative as anything Albert Camus ever wrote. Streaming at Kanopy.
‘MANAKAMANA’
‘SOLARIS’ Critic and filmmaker Paul Schrader calls Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky “the tipping point in the movement toward slow cinema.”
TV EVENTS R
ight after the 2016 election, Tom Cosgrove knew he wanted to show people they had more in common than they thought. Working through his Boulder-based nonprofit New Voice Strategies over the last three years, Cosgrove helped develop a new docu-series called Divided We Fall: Unity Without Tragedy, bringing 24 millennials and Gen Xers with different political and economic backgrounds together to talk about the issues that polarize the United States and what it means to be an American. The first episode will air on Thursday, April 30 at 7 p.m. on Rocky Mountain PBS and at RMPBS.org. The episode airs nationally on American Public Television on May 20. “We live in an age where we have big media systems that are designed to keep us in conflict,” Cosgrove says. “Fear is the easiest emotion to tap. It’s how we’ve evolved. But because we hunger for connection with each other and we look for models to do that, I’m hoping that these 24 people are our models for people to try something different, which is listening with curiosity.” The hour-long episode is culled from more than 60 hours of
His nearly three-hour psychological science fiction film ‘Solaris’ is among the greatest movies ever made, and changes every time you see it. What appears to be hubris to an 18-year-old viewer’s eyes fossilizes into understandable loneliness 30 years later. It’s as if the film is a living, thinking thing: A reflection of what you want when you need it. Streaming at The Criterion Channel and Kanopy.
Running a (relatively) brisk 118 minutes, ‘Manakamana’ documents worshipers on the gondola ride up the Nepalese mountains to the Manakamana temple. As the people go up, the camera goes with them. When the people go down, so does the camera. And in a twist of beautiful contradiction, the camera stays perfectly still inside a moving vehicle. Slow cinema doesn’t get much slower than this. Streaming at Kanopy.
“I think the pursuit of the more perfect union is when we recognize the humanity in each of us and we choose unity,” Cosgrove says. “So much of the culture, social media, cable ecosystems all thrive on contempt, all thrive on trying to keep us apart. And you can’t be a democracy if you have to treat people who have a different approach to solving a problem as a lesser being.” Cosgrove is quick to point out that civil discussion doesn’t excuse misogyny, racism or discrimination of any kind, but he feels that there’s less of that present in the country than the media might have us believe. There are moments in Divided We Fall that are difficult to watch, but that’s the point: We can’t shy away from difficult conversations. But if you push past the difficult moments, you’re rewarded with a glimpse of humanity at its best. —Caitlin Rockett A moderated audience conversation with four cast members will take place immediately following the RMPBS broadcast at dividedwefalltv.org. ‘DIVIDED WE FALL: Unity Without Tragedy.’ 7 p.m. MT, Thursday, April 30. Rocky Mountain PBD and RMPBS. org. The episode airs nationally on American Public Television on May 20.
footage. Cosgrove and his team brought millennials from Chicago and Gen Xers from Massachusetts together for 48 hours to talk about their backgrounds; the moments that made them proud to be an American; the moments that made them ashamed; the values they found most important; the issues that divide us; and how we can bridge the gap. Cosgrove found inspiration for the project in the work of late historian Vincent Harding, who long argued that in a nation made up of many people, democratic conversations are the only way to build a more perfect union.
APRIL 30, 2020
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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE