There was another thing I’d like to discuss, namely the question of time, Fred Kelemen (cameraman of Béla Tarr) mentioned. The Turin Horse contains 30 shots over a running time length of approximately 150 minutes, this means an average of 5 minutes per shot. Kelemen told he was exactly on the same wavelength as Tarr concerning the visuals of the movie. The length which sometimes is kept on a bit too is long, is also done so because then time itself (the passing of time) is made visible, to be grasped. He describes these moments as moments where ‘the screen looks back at you.’ In our daily activities we are not concerned with the passing of time, we don’t get a grasp of it (it just ‘flies by’ as is sometimes said). Thus for Kelemen and Tarr, cinema is a place where can you get a feeling of ‘pure time’, the feeling of genuinely time passing. Kelemen also mentioned it’s not perhaps something we should be happy about, or ‘like’ to be conscious of (because it can remind us of our mortality). While commercial cinema aims to elipse time, ‘having a good time,’ letting time fly by, Kelemen, Tarr (and among other probably, Tarkovsky and perhaps Antonioni) have different aims for the cinema, for instance reminding us of the passing of time (and our mortality). (See also this interesting interview with Béla Tarr concerning The Turin Horse and mortality http://filmkrant.nl/TS_oktober_2011/7279 [it’s in dutch though] ).
Tarkovsky writes about almost exactly the same ideas in his book Sculpting in Time. “Time, printed in it’s factual forms and manifestations: such is the supreme idea of cinema as an art” (p. 63). This also relates back to the title of his book, and what he thinks he should do with cinema (sculpt time in certain ways, according a personal expression of the filmmaker). Because the camera always records concrete things, it is by way of these (factual forms) that cinema can grasp time. Cinema and music are perhaps in that sense the only two art forms whose main characteristic is time (cinema and music take place in the course of time passing).
Tarkovsky also has a clear view of why people go to the cinema (when they’re not going for entertainment), namely: “for time lost or spent or not yet had” (p. 63). Or, as the title of Proust’s famous book series suggests “In search of lost time.” He later adds to this that we go in search of lost time because a person “seeks to fill that spiritual vacuum which has formed as a result of the specific conditions of his modern existence: constant activity, curtailment of human contact and the materialist bent of modern education” (p. 83). This relates back to Kelemen, when he described that in everyday life we are not conscious of time, or time passing (because we are busy). Essential for Tarkovsky is then also this spiritual vacuum, as a result of modern society (which doesn’t let us contemplate or stand still by our existence, mortality). The need to be conscious of this or be concerned with it can be in a sense then perfectly be fulfilled for Tarr and Tarkovsky (as opposed to commercial cinema).
Source: Andrey Tarkovsky – Sculpting in time (Translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair 2008).
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I’ve only recently found a quote in which Tarkovsky describes almost the same thing as Kelemen, namely: “In Stalker I wanted there to be no time lapse between the shots. I wanted time and it’s passing to be revealed, to have their existence, within each frame […].” (Page 193-194).
Cinema is like music. Satantango is like a vast symphony whereas Turin Horse reminds me of chamber music. Both are great masterpieces from a truly great director. The same can be said of Bergman’s Fanny @ Alexander and Winter Light.
I think I agree with you that cinema is perhaps most closely related to music than to other arts. David Lynch also says this in an interview. For Tarkovsky (and Bresson I believe), the rhythm is very important, rhythm being closer to music than to other forms of art. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t seen Satan’s Tango and Winter Light yet.