Thank you to Robert for the comments on Barry Lyndon. Among other things,
the film is a homage to 18th & early 19th century painting. (The zoom out
is sometimes becomes a cliche in painting documentaries to render narrative
versions of paintings - a way of exploring and revealing paintings that can
rob them of their still but also timeless presentation. This detemporalised
condition of painting may look like a handicap in a moving image age but
painting has long made a virtue of it.)
Kubrick is very good at the slow almost imperceptible revelation of large
amounts of information. Not only is the movement of the frame in
counterpoint to Michael Hordens voiceover, the movement of the subject is
played off against the movement of the zoom - something that painting
documentaries cannot do. Things are actually happening fast but there is no
rush. The action and the wry calm, measured piling up of intelligence are
the same thing.
He demonstrates that the wonderful fact that movies move need not be naively
turned into a norm about moving more quickly and more.
Perhaps it is my liking of Kubricks pace that made me, unlike Janice, think
Eyes Wide Shut passed before my eyes as fast and fleeting and as mesmerising
as a dream.
Ross
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