'Waiting as Such': The Politics of Tarrying

Glyn Davis

doi:10.14591/aniki.v4n2.322

Abstract

This essay explores the subject of waiting in relation to cinema. It looks in particular at films that engage at length with waiting through extended duration, focusing on one 'black box' example (Lav Diaz's Death in the Land of Encantos) and one 'white cube' example (Wang Bing's Crude Oil). The essay outlines various ways in which waiting has been theorised, and interrogates how these can be related to cinema. In addition to exploring the ways in which waiting works in relation to the moving image in cinemas and galleries, the essay explores the politics of waiting. Even those films which concentrate on the oppressive political uses of waiting, it is concluded, may offer glimpses of ways in which waiting could be harnessed positively.

Highlights

Beyond mainstream cinema, though, it is possible to identify a body of films that are purposefully concerned with waiting: films with content that engages explicitly with the lethargy and stagnation associated with waiting, and which test the viewer’s patience, coercing them into tarrying and marking time
Long duration tactics and devices have been deployed by a wide array of filmmakers, a marked number of those associated with slow cinema have repeatedly engaged with long duration formally and stylistically
The two examples that this essay explores in detail are Lav Diaz’s Encantos and Wang Bing’s documentary Crude Oil (2008, fourteen hours), the second of which takes the form of a gallery installation

Summary

Introduction

Though, it is possible to identify a body of films that are purposefully concerned with waiting: films with content that engages explicitly with the lethargy and stagnation associated with waiting, and which test the viewer’s patience, coercing them into tarrying and marking time. ‘WAITING AS SUCH’: THE POLITICS OF TARRYING | 394 on: that is, films many hours in length in which waiting manifests as a theme and, for the audience and people depicted on screen, an embodied test of endurance.

Results

Conclusion