‘A very very long amount of time passes’: Slowness, cinema and Annie Baker’s The Flick (2013)

Abstract

Annie Baker’s 2013 play The Flick prompted divisive reactions from its audience from the time of its original run, ones largely based on the play’s feeling extremely slow. Setting out from the intersection of the play’s temporal affect and the play’s setting ‐ a movie theatre ‐ this article builds on recent work on slow-cinema scholarship, particularly as it relates to theatrical exhibition, to explore contemporary discourse on both slowness and cinema. Going further, it sets this work against the backdrop of broader, multi-disciplinary conversations about the cultures of speed and slowness, before considering the particular slowness in The Flick as well as its evocation of the theatrical experience. Finally, the article concludes by asking what it means today to attend the cinema.