Multitemporality and the speed(s) of thought in Johnnie To's action films

Abstract

ABSTRACTJohnnie To's post-1997 action films often contain sequences that present many simultaneous temporal processes. To's group-oriented narrative strategies typically place an ensemble of people in the frame; even when they don't speak we experience each of them seeing, hearing, touching, moving, and engaging in other sorts of body/brain activity. These sequences also include processes and forces that are other- than-human: wind, weather, machines, etc. Sound and music contribute to this complexity. What can we make of this multitemporal flow? Focusing on audiovisual practices this article considers three related effects of this multitemporality: (1) new possibilities for depicting the heterogeneity and the layered character of thinking (from higher-level decision-making down to autonomic processes); (2) an intense concreteness in the representation of thinking, especially nonverbal thinking, and (3) a thickening of the connections that bind cinematic renderings of what William Connolly calls the ‘body/brain/culture network’. Thinking becomes necessarily relational, externalized and ultimately collective.