Durational Metamorphosis

This chapter examines the phenomenological and aesthetic effects of “durational metamorphoses,” slow movements of incremental change that result in a sense of visual transformation, such as a sunrise or the shape-shifting of clouds. These movements have become hallmarks of “slow cinema” in the last twenty years, but also can be traced back to the non-narrative experiments of structural film such as Fogline (Gottheim, 1970) or the landscape films of James Benning (e.g., Ten Skies, 2004). By analyzing sequences featuring durational metamorphoses across narrative films and video installations such as Silent Light (Reygadas, 2007), The Locked Garden (Viola, 2000), and Cemetery of Splendor (Apichatpong, 2015), this chapter demonstrates how a phenomenology of durational metamorphoses can help rethink the discourse of cinematic slowness, which often treats slowness and stasis as occasions to retreat away from the perception of the screen and toward contemplation. Against this common understanding of slowness, this chapter argues that durational metamorphoses compel perceptual encounters with slowness as a form of movement, one that presents Bergsonian duration in visual form.