Chungking Express and the Distinctive Temporality of the Film Form

This is a piece that I wrote for a class. It's egghead-y. I'm fond of it.

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A central question in film theory pertains to the ontology of the medium: what is it about the cinema that differentiates it from other artistic forms? Jean Epstein and Maya Deren, in their writings on cinematography, make contrasting cases for how the possibilities of film form extend beyond those of literature, the stage, and still photography. Both arguments rely chiefly on how the mechanism by which film imitates motion can be manipulated to alter the speed at which and manner in which time appears to unfold. Epstein’s perspective is that the ability to alter the speed of reality allows the viewer to extend their notion of reality, presenting time in a more complete sense than how we typically experience it, thus taking our world’s three dimensions and adding a fourth. Deren, on the other hand, places greater emphasis on the creative possibilities that this power imparts. The opening scene of Wong Kar-wai’s film Chungking Express proves that these ideas do not exist in opposition to one another. The manner in which Wong plays with how time unfolds speaks to how this aspect of cinema affords a filmmaker innumerable creative possibilities and the ability to create a fuller depiction of reality, uniting the arguments of Deren and Epstein.

In discussing the power of cinematography, Jean Epstein implicitly proposes a potential answer to the question of the distinguishing feature of the film form: the ability of filmmakers to alter the speed of motion rendered, a function unique to cinema. In filming a scene, the film itself is exposed at some rate. If the consequent sequence of still images is projected at that same rate, the speed of motion on screen mirrors the speed of the captured motion perfectly. But if that same sequence of images is projected at a frame rate less than the rate of capture, the motion on screen – and indeed, time itself – appears to slow. The opposite effect occurs if the rate of projection exceeds the rate of capture, with everything on screen moving quicker than recorded. It is this mechanism of the apparatus of cinema that gives rise to slow and fast motion and, according to Epstein, reveals its true power.

Epstein argues that, rather than merely mimic how the viewer typically experiences the world, the magic of slow and fast motion in fact heightens the viewer’s experience of reality. Anatomically, human beings have binocular vision and thus a capacity to experience the three spatial dimensions of reality without serious impediments. However, in the way humans experience time, they are constricted – bound to experience it merely as it unfolds linearly, unable to experience it as a uniform whole. The medium of cinema thus elevates itself above the reality experienced by mankind to display a more complete version of it: “Cinematography currently is the only instrument that records an event according to a system of four reference points. In that, it is proving superior to man, who seems constitutionally unsuited to capture a continuous event in four dimensions all by himself” (Epstein 1988, 189). Epstein refers to this capacity of the cinematic medium as a kind of “clairvoyance” – an ability to discover that which the human eye cannot perceive (Epstein 1988, 189). Instead of the artificial stasis which the human eye renders the majority of objects, “Slow motion and fast motion reveal a world where the kingdoms of nature know no boundaries. Everything is alive” (Epstein 1988, 189). Fast motion demystifies the process of plants sprouting from seeds into full bloom; slow motion reveals the mechanics of a horse’s motion, a fact to which the early photographic experiments of Eadweard Muybridge can attest. The power of cinema to slow and quicken the rendered motion thus allows viewers to escape the subjectivity of their reality to an extent, and experience time as but another fully formed dimension of reality, rather than an abstract, imperceptible one.

Maya Deren’s perspective on the distinctiveness of the film form’s ability to slow and speed time largely mirrors that of Epstein, albeit with some extensions. Her argument begins with a recognition of the very same power of discovery of the motion-picture camera that Epstein considers, mentioning how the true nature of a bird’s flight as well as the logic of a plant’s growth can be revealed with this technique (Deren 1978, 63). In this sense, she notes that such imagery is “unique to the motion picture medium” and thus could be considered “an even more valid basic element in a creative film form based on the singular properties of the medium” than the mere fidelity of photographic images to the objects they reproduce (Deren 1978, 64). Here she points towards what ultimately forms the crux of her argument: that the uniqueness of film must be a result not of its analytical power, but what the mechanisms unique to the apparatus of motion-picture capture afford the artist in terms of a creative canvas (Deren 1978, 72-73). This is what shall allow film to become a creative art in its own right, rather than a fundamentally scientific apparatus which artists employ to create facsimiles of the art they produce in other mediums.

While Epstein takes the analytical power of the film form to be its capacity for temporal manipulations, Deren believes that its creative power also lies in its relation to time. She explains that the precise narrative logic of the images presented is divorced from how they truly occurred sequentially in filming, which implies that the ordering of these images by the filmmaker is the engine of creativity within the medium: “The creative action in film, then, takes place in its time dimension; and for this reason the motion picture, though composed of spatial images, is primarily a time form” (Deren 1978, 69). While her argument in this sense has to do with editing, she does mention slow motion’s creative capacities as well, stating that “it has its expressive uses as well as its revelatory ones” (Deren 1978, 67), and indeed the speed of motion is inherently related to the time dimension of film form that is in her view the source of cinematic creativity. She also indicates that slow motion is fundamentally “something which exists in our minds, not on the screen, and can be created only in conjunction with the identifiable reality of the photographic image” (Deren 1978, 67). In this way, the creative capacity of slow motion could result from the ability that the technique has to create a clash in the mind of the viewer between that which they experience in the corporeal world and that which is being depicted upon the screen. The time dimension of cinema, and indeed alterations in the speed of motion, thus form a prominent element of the creative distinctiveness of film for Deren, distinguishing it from other forms of art.

Despite the appearance of a clash between the theories of Epstein and Deren, in truth they are quite compatible, as the opening scene from Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express indicates. It emphasizes both the analytical and creative possibilities of the temporal manipulations afforded by the film form, allowing Wong to use creative means to manufacture an accurate depiction of the subjective realities of his characters. Chungking opens under the neon glare of night time Hong Kong, in a crowded market, focusing on a woman in a blond wig and a policeman who ultimately become the dual protagonists of the film’s first half. It is shot mostly utilizing what Raymond Bellour refers to as “microseries” – sequences in which images are repeated between three and four times in succession before moving on to the next image. These images were captured at a lower frame rate, then repeated so as to imitate the normal speed of motion when projected at a more normal frame rate. This effect creates a choppy series of blurred images, where the only objects in the frame that can be seen clearly throughout the sequence are the two main characters. This creates two planes – that of the character of focus in the shot, and their surroundings – which appear to be moving at a different speed. Wong thus emphasizes the alienation of these characters, who appear to be isolated in time from those around them. Moreover, the choppiness engendered by the microseries technique creates a sensation of disjointedness, thus indicating that these characters are not merely isolated from their surroundings, but are even unmoored in time in their own isolated world. The fact that each of these characters is unmoored in the same way, however, prophesizes the connection that they shall ultimately form. Indeed, Wong makes this ever more explicit by looping back at the end of the sequence to an brief moment in the initial set of microseries, after either character has been shown in their own self-contained sequence: a moment when, unbeknownst to either character, they brushed up against one another, a mere millimeter apart. In looping back, he slows down the frames, placing emphasis on the fleeting nature of the moment, and thus on the fleeting nature of the possibility of connection in the bustling isolation of Hong Kong city living.

By creating these two degrees of isolation for these characters through his temporal manipulations, Wong creatively uses the film form to suggest broader truths of the subjective realities experienced by either of these characters, thus becoming a proponent of both Epstein’s thesis and Deren’s. His creative manipulation of time relies on a particular technique that could only be facilitated by the apparatus of cinema, supporting Deren’s notion of the medium as a unique creative art form. Yet simultaneously, this creative technique forms perhaps a more accurate depiction of the particular experiences and sensations of the two main characters. In spite of the fact that the images one sees are not likely the literal images that these main characters would be seeing, the manipulation of time engendered by Wong’s cinematic techniques leaves little doubt for the viewer about the states of being of the main characters. In this way, Wong’s techniques place the viewer inside of the perspective of either character, and create a potentially more accurate depiction of how the main characters are interacting with their surroundings than if more conventional temporality were displayed on screen. In so doing, he in fact improves upon the depiction of reality that would be engendered by simple direct observation of the characters in the real world, supporting Epstein’s notion of the clairvoyance and insights unique to the cinema.

Chungking Express’ opening scene can thus be interpreted as evidence for the arguments of both Maya Deren and Jean Epstein, proving the unique creative possibilities of the medium as well as its unparalleled ability to represent a diegetic reality, and indeed how the creative possibilities aid and abet that representation. Wong Kar-wai’s microseries techniques unmoor each of his main characters temporally, both from their surroundings and from themselves, in a manner that could not be easily replicated in a different artistic medium. In this sense, Wong’s work neatly captures the spirit of both theorists’ arguments, and shows how the creative capacities of the medium can be leveraged to realize more fully the diegetic reality the filmmaker is presenting to the viewer.

Bibliography

Bellour, Raymond. “Chungking Express: Slow–Images–Ahead.” In A Companion to Wong Kar-wai, 345-352. Edited by Martha P. Nochimson; translated by Allyn Hardyck. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2016.

Deren, Maya. “Cinematography: The Creative Use of Reality.” In The Avant-Garde Film: A Reader of Theory and Criticism, 60-73. Edited by P. Adams Sitney. New York: Anthology Film Archives, 1978.

Epstein, Jean. “Photogénie and the Imponderable.” In French Film Theory and Criticism, vol. II, 188-192. Translated by Richard Abel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. “Slices of Time: Eadweard Muybridge’s Cinematic Legacy.” YouTube Video, 3:51. August 2, 2017.

Wong, Kar-wai, dir. Chungking Express. Hong Kong: Jet Tone Production, 1994.

Wong, Kar-wai, dir. In the Mood for Love. Hong Kong: Jet Tone Production and Paradis Films, 2000.