Slow and Transcendental Cinemas: Aesthetics, Philosophy and Politics

Catalog description

Almost as if they were foreseeing the pandemic slowdown to come, key international filmmakers and cinephiles used the decade prior to 2020 to develop a discourse of slow and transcendental cinemas. These cinemas presciently engage the values and hardships of slowing down, and in that way they raise the question: can we think of slow cinemas in the same way we think of other slow movements such as slow food or slow living? The aesthetic styles of these films include simple mise-en-scene, long takes, ambiguous narrative, economy of music, and an overall resistance to action cinema. These styles heighten aesthetic experiences of time, the mundane world, and parallel realities. They give spectators a chance to explore aesthetic sensations and affects that can lie outside the world of distraction, rapid consumption, and narrative closure. These experiences from the outside include alienation, absurdity, and despair, but also presence, compassion, and spiritual enlightenment associated with well-being and flourishing. This seminar is devoted to slow cinemas and the philosophies, aesthetics, and political theories related to slow cinemas. It is designed for film lovers at all varieties of engagement. Our goal is to create a cine-club ethos for contemplating the potentially transformative impact of these film experiences. Filmmakers we draw from include Ozu, Bresson, Rossellini, Antonioni, Varda, Ackerman, Tarkovsky, Jarmusch, Tsai, Costa, Tarr, Reichardt, Kiarostami, Ceylan, McQueen, Llinás, and Rohrwacher. Philosophers and theorists include Sontag, Jaffe, Baumbach, Hall, Mulvey, Foucault, Lacan, Bergson, Deleuze, Ranciere, Chanter, Schrader, and Lim.