M. Bazin et le temps: reclaiming the timeliness of cinematic time

Abstract

This essay begins by identifying a deficiency within contemporary film theory related to the topic of cinematic time. In recent years, prominent scholars such as Philip Rosen, Mary Ann Doane and Laura Mulvey have each returned to the conceptual terrain of André Bazin to produce new theorizations of filmic temporality. In each case, what is distilled from Bazin's ontology is a strong emphasis upon the indexical character of the film medium. This discussion suggests, however, that there is more to say about cinematic time than is conveyed by the notion of the filmic index. Returning to Bazin's writings – and to his profound commitment to filmic ambiguity, in particular – this essay locates Bazin's insistence upon the pleasure and possibility of temporal experience, and outlines a fuller formulation of filmic temporality than is presently available. Specifically, I suggest that Bazin's notion of ambiguity illuminates what we might call the timeliness of cinematic time – or the way that cinematic time occurs as a dynamic exchange between film and viewer. As a term, timeliness derives from Martin Heidegger's analysis of the temporal character of existence in Being and Time; it also benefits from Hans Georg Gadamer's dialogic conception of art experience as play. Attentive to the experiential dimension of filmic temporality, and distinct from the theorization of temporality offered by Gilles Deleuze, timeliness illuminates cinematic time as something that is actively mediated by films and viewers. In sum, this discussion recovers both the phenomenological inflection of Bazin's project for the topic of cinematic time as well as the rich appeal of temporal experience for viewers.