Perceptions of a Never Changing Motion
Philosophy, Art, and Film are interrelated and each one affects each other. Film is a rather new art medium in which we have barely tapped into its full potential. Thanks to its mainstream nature, it has helped spread awareness of controversial topics. These Film makers draw inspiration from readings predating the birth of Christ to present day. Some of these philosophical ideas influence film makers, influencing how these film makers see the world.
The problem that movies depict change in film is an illusion of reality in which the world around us may change but we don’t. Movies depict coming-of-age stories, or transformation stories, in which characters change, most of the times for the better, but what they propose is that there is no actual change in our character. Rather, every movie is in a state of stasis, and our minds deceive us in to believing that we are always changing, because our minds perceive motion and change in time and immediately ties it into change.
I propose that movies are images. Images can never be changed, as they are in a constant state of stasis that might depict a change in events but does not depict a change in character. When viewing images, we are reminded of the events that happened, and we look back on our self and realize that our appearance may change, but we are still the same person in the image. The plot in the movie represents the memory and the film represents the image.
Greek Philosopher, Parmenides, says that the real illusion is that humans think the world is always changing when it is not. As Parmenides wrote, on his way to heaven he heard the “whirling of wheels” and the “sound as of a pipe.” As he entered the heavens, everything became silenced; the only thing he heard was the voice of the goddess declaring the “opinions of mortals in which is no true belief at all,” because all things “[are], and that it is impossible for it not to be.” What Parmenides is trying to convey is that all things to gods are static. They never change, because you can’t be something one minute and the other minute nothing. You can’t be in a state of eternal flux. Furthermore, Cambridge University press released a paper written by Robin LE Poidevin, titled, “Time and Static Image." In this research paper, Poidevin argues that “Photographs, paintings, rigid structures… provide examples of static images” and they can “fade” and “darken,” but the change is “irrelevant to their representational content.” A static image is “represent[ed] by properties” that will remain “unchanged” because the original meaning is engraved in the image “throughout its existence." E. Lessing’s Laocoon, “distinguishes the art of time and the arts of space.” He argues that an art of space can “only represent a single moment in action.” Poidevin adds on, that “change is properly through of as a series of instants,” but, because we see a horse moving from point A to point B, we do not see a “horse occupying different places at different movements.” A static image can only represent an instantaneous event.
This graph is taken from Robin Le Poidevin time and static paper. This depicts Gombrich argument that static images represent intervals of time because when we take a photograph, the photograph depicts an interval, but we perceive it as an instant. The reasoning behind this is when “moving objects appear blurred against a clear and therefore static background,” since “they are static representations of motion,” they are intervals of time. The definition of Montage, according to Miriam Webster, it is “a composite picture made by combining several separate pictures." Based on this definition and on my theory, every movie a montage, and that would make the movie a set of images, in which every image represents a time interval. So, a montage in film represents a sequence of events that happened throughout the movie but the only thing that remains constant is the main character.
When applying this theory, I choose to apply it to early cinema and modern-day cinema. I picked 4 movies:
the Great Symphony of Berlin
Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera
Ex Machina by Alex Garland
Pans Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro
The Great Symphony of Berlin is a movie based on a montage which depicts a normal life in the city of Berlin. It shows the daily and vibrant life of the working folk and the upper-class folk in Berlin. We get to experience how we would live life in Berlin in one day but the film doesn’t proceed to show us the next day because we can infer that the next day and the day after that is the same people following the same routine; people go to work at the same places and nothing really changes. In "Man with a Movie Camera," we get to see a little bit more in depth in the peoples’ everyday routine, from waking up to going to sleep. The city goes from being a ghost town in the morning to a busy business sector. These two films show an image of their respected cities and we can infer that citizens will repeat the same routine the day after that.
Ex Machina by Alex Garland, talks about the story of Caleb Smith, a programmer who gets invited to his bosses’ home, Nathen Bateman. His purpose was to inspect an AI by the name of Ava and see if she was life-like. As he begins to interview Ava and ask her questions, he begins to fall in love with the sentient AI. As he falls in love with Ava, he conspires against Nathen to free Ava. What he didn’t know was that he was being monitored by Nathen. Caleb confronts Nathen, and he finds out that the reason he fell in love with Ava is that she was programmed for that exact same person to seduce Nathen. At this point, Nathen begins losing his sanity, making him vulnerable, and easily manipulated by Ava. Caleb frees Ava, and Ava kills Nathen, and locks up Caleb. As it turns out, he was being played by Ava all this time. The main twist was when Ava locked up Caleb, betraying him. Ava was the main character that showed a so-called transformation when she pretended to love Caleb. In the end, she was the same person she was in the beginning of the film, A sentient AI wanting to be free of human’s grasp.
Pan’s Labyrinth is a Spanish movie taking place in 1944 fascist Spain. This story is about the princess of the underground realm. Being young and foolish, she goes up into the mortal world and forgets who she is. The movie starts of with Ofelia, the main character, and her mother Carmen. They travel to Captain Vidal estate. The first day, she sees a fairy that leads her to a labyrinth. She meets a creepy looking faun that tells her she is the princess of the underworld, and if she wants to go back to her father, she must complete three tasks. In the first day at her new house, she makes friends with the housekeeper Mercedes and finds out that her and the doctor are part of the rebellion. The first task is that she needs to feed three magic stones to a frog causing him to vomit. Her second task is that she was supposed to steal a dagger from a monster. She steals it and sees food that was prohibited by the faun earlier, waking up the monster and almost killing her. Her mother gives birth to the child, and the last task was to bring him to the faun. As she obtains her brother, Captain Vidal finds out and tries to get him back and as this is happening, rebels go to his house and fight against the fascist. One thing leads to another and Ofelia is shot and Captain Vidal takes her brother away. As he returns to his estate, he sees rebels surrounding his house and take the kid away from him. Then, it cuts to Ofelia waking up in the Underworld where it is all bright and sees her father and mother, the faun, and hundreds of fairies welcoming her. Through this whole movie, all the characters don’t change at all, especially Ofelia since she keeps the same innocent character throughout the whole movie. Through the monster chase scene, her character doesn’t change much, and she continues caring for others and has the same outlook. Throughout the whole movie, her mother remains scared and obedient. Captain Vidal remains ruthless. As the Plot goes on, each character retains their personality through every event.
This theory depicts films as static images that don’t change, since the characters are the only people that can cause a cascade of events. With this theory, we can employ it in film to create better villains or tragic heroes. We can create twists, like in Ex Machina where Ava pretended to change but showed her true face in the end. If more movie directors apply my theory of stasis, the theory that we cant change who we are but we can mask who we are, we can depict more thrilling storylines. If we see more movies as static images, we should be able to create thrilling Story lines in movies.
Citations
Poidevin, Robin Le. “Philosophy.” Time and Static Image, vol. 72, no. 280, 1997, pp. 175–188.Utrgv Library Database, www.jstor.org.ezhost.utrgv.edu:2048/stable/3751098?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Time&searchText=and&searchText=Static&searchText=Image&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Ffc%3Doff%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3BQuery%3DTime%2Band%2BStatic%2BImage%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone&refreqid=search%3Aeaf3c4626a3b7ee658c97090c825fba3&seq=1#page_scan_tab_content.
Parmenedes. Parmenedes, Greek Fragments. Parmenedes, 500 BC
