| | | | | | To confront what is present in its own life continuity, to pay attention to the being at hand, opens up a new window on reality based upon "pure action . . . sufficient to itself." 65 Since Bazin identified the potential of the "cinema of duration," many films have successfully taken advantage of this peculiar effect of the medium.66 Of all of them, the one closest to Bazin's thinking is without doubt Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman. There is nothing unusual, strictly speaking, about the editing of the film. What makes the whole experience of Jeanne Dielman so troublesome for so many viewers is therefore not some confrontational or disharmonious technique but the fact that the cutting lets each action run its autonomous course. When the protagonist takes the elevator to her apartment, we stay with her all the way. When she bathes, we are spared no detail of her toilette. When her son eats his soup, we watch him until he is finished. Akerman, in other words, makes us face the circumstances of daily life in real time, "fragments of concrete reality" that are called "image facts'' by Bazin.67 The offering may not be to everyone's taste but, for those who survive the initiation, cinema will never be the same again. | | | | | | | | | Ultimately, Bazin can be seen as arguing for a different kind of pro-filmic reality. For reality, unlike conventional narratives, does not carry identifying tags. Existence precedes essence and things happen, events take place in the real world without predetermined meanings being imposed on them. At the same time he is urging us to adopt filmmaking approaches that keep spectators, on some level at least, from claiming mastery over the rendering of the world in a film. Bonitzer gets it right when he writes that Bazin wants us (directors and viewers) to reconcile ourselves to a vision of things that acknowledges the ultimate mystery of nature and its works. Deep focus, spatial simultaneity, and duration are thus techniques that can complicate our imperious drive to know everything all at once. They also help us resist the temptation of drama for its own sake and the theatrics of editing in particular. Yet, even "image facts" need to be assembled somehow. One approach at least is suggested. Not surprisingly, knowing Bazin's respect for the Italian director, it originates in a film by Roberto Rossellini. | | | | | | | | | In Paisa's (1946) last segment, "a complex train of action is reduced to three or four brief fragments, in themselves already elliptical enough in | | | | |
