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foreshadowing and flashback, or interwoven levels of action and time,
can be translated into film. The specific qualities of the medium
enable the treatment of time in ways that do not exist in other genres.
Simple examples of these techniques are fast motion and slow motion,
which defamiliarize the action. In the film Koyaanisqatsi (1983),
Godfrey Reggio (1940 ) uses fast motion and slow motion to draw
attention to everyday situations such as city traffic or the changes of
the seasons, stressing the importance of an ecological awareness on an
endangered planet.
It is, however, not absolutely necessary to resort to special speeds
in order to lengthen or shorten the temporal dimension. The cinema
has other ways to create a discrepancy between the time span
portrayed and the actual time. Stanley Kubrick s 2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968), for example, covers several million years of human evolution
by cutting from a bone tool, thrown into the air by a caveman, to a
futuristic spaceship. In the 1960 film version of the American short
story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1891) by Ambrose
Bierce (1842 1914?) directed by Robert Enrico (1931 2001), just
the opposite effect is created. A fraction of a second before the
protagonist s death is expanded to about 30 minutes, the duration of
the film. In his short story, too, Bierce had already experimented with
objective time and time as experienced subjectively by the
protagonist, who is being hanged on a railway bridge during the
American Civil War. While the convict is falling, he imagines that the
rope snaps and allows him to escape. What follows is the detailed
description of his imaginary escape. The story ends abruptly with the
death of the convict as his neck breaks. The reader realizes that the
escape of the man took place entirely in his imagination, the duration
of the scene encompassing only the interval between his fall and his
death.
In contrast to the above examples, films like Fred Zinnemann s
(1907 97) Western High Noon (1952) make the actual length of the
film more or less correspond to the 90-minute time span of the
64 MAJOR GENRES IN TEXTUAL STUDIES
action. The plot revolves around the elapsing time during which
precautions are taken before a dangerous criminal arrives on the
twelve o clock (high noon) train. By equating real time and plot time,
Zinnemann is able to emphasize the major feature of the film s
content on a formal level, thus creating a powerful impression on the
viewer.
The use of clocks, calendars, newspapers, signs of aging, or fashion
are only some of the many ways to indicate the passage of time in
film. In the discussion of character presentation and plot, the use of
time indicators in Virginia Woolf s novel Mrs Dalloway (1925) has
already been pointed out. The novel consists of a number of
simultaneously occurring episodes. Jim Jarmusch (1953 ) uses a
similar narrative technique in his film Mystery Train (1989), in which
he presents the events in the lives of three groups of people in Memphis,
Tennessee. The film is divided into three independent episodes which
are connected by a number of time indicators. A revolver shot, a radio
announcement, and a passing train are recurring features in all three
episodes, making it clear for the spectator that the episodes are taking
place simultaneously. Like Virginia Woolf, Jarmusch here tries to
present a picture from diverse, fragmented perspectives, which are
nevertheless held together by a number of unifying elements. While
Mrs Dalloway places the character of Clarissa at its center, Mystery Train
revolves around the mystic figure of Elvis Presley, who is viewed from
three different perspectives in three different episodes. As in Woolf s
novel, multi-layered modes of character presentation are highlighted
by complex narrative and temporal structures.
c)
Acoustic dimension
It was not until the 1920s that the acoustic aspect was added to film,
bringing about a radical change of the medium. Information was no
longer conveyed merely by means of visual effects such as facial
expressions, gestures, or subtitles, but also through language
(dialogue or monologue), recorded music, and sound effects.
Billy Wilder deals with the transition from silent film to sound film
in Sunset Boulevard (1950). He plays with the concepts of verbal and
non-verbal expression as the two basic dimensions of film. The two
MAJOR GENRES IN TEXTUAL STUDIES 65
main characters a script writer of the new sound film and a diva
from the silent era personify the discrepancies between word and
image. While the visual dimension of the medium is embodied by the
diva, the acoustic dimension comes to life in the character of the
script writer. In order to give an even sharper picture of the two
underlying principles of verbal (dialogue) and non-verbal (facial
expressions, gestures) communication, Wilder adds subjective
commentary by the male protagonist which is built in as an interior
monologue and acts as a defamiliarizing element. Wilder s Sunset
Boulevard is representative of a group of self-reflecting films concerned
with the problems posed by the medium of film.
Beside dialogue and sound effects, film music assumes a special
position and usually supports the plot. Volume, sound, rhythm, and
pace of the music change according to the situation and underscore
levels of meaning with acoustic effects. Film music can also contrast
with the plot and create ironic or parodistic effects. A good example
is George Lucas s (1944 ) American Graffiti (1973). In this portrayal of
small-town American life from the point of view of young people, the
music of the 1960s stands in sharp contrast to the plot. The
youngsters are bored out of their minds as they cruise through town in
their cars at night. The music from the loudspeakers of their car
radios, laden with the typical themes of the American dream of
freedom, fulfillment, and love, creates an almost humorous effect,
serving as a counterpoint to the actual disillusionment of the
teenagers. Their reality is the monotonous recurrence of daily events,
reflected in the circular movement of driving through the town.
Plot may be supported by the conventional and inconspicuous use
of music and sound effects, or the action may be defamiliarized by
contrasting the level of meaning and content with the acoustic level.
In both cases, the acoustic dimension acts as an integral element of
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