“Visual Drone”: Slowing Down with Tarkovsky & Tati
It Came From The Wayback Machine Vol. 3 (orig. published in FilmBar, 2017)
“It’s so slow.” That’s one of the most common and damning critiques you can hear about a movie — that it’s slow. Slow is often used as a synonym for boring. Telling someone that a film is slow is probably the quickest and most effective way to convince them NOT to see it.
That aversion makes sense: slowness is in short supply in our culture. We watch cartoons growing up, which are all about rapid movement. Hollywood films likewise eschew slowness as often as possible; the story templates that screenwriters treat as gospel from tomes like Save The Cat and Robert McKee’s Story don’t leave a lot of dead air in films. It’s all about moving the pieces on to the next plot beat, the next destination in the Hero’s Journey. There’s no time to settle into one place for a spell and stretch things out.
To some degree, slowness has become less of dirty word lately. You can see it in the growing popularity of slow cooking and Slow Art Day — the whole notion of deliberate living, disconnected from 24–7 digital connectivity. Prestige TV has also made the case for slowing down: shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and the Twin Peaks revival (more on that later) have used long, drawn-out…
