Prison of Time

Elisa Pezzotta is Cultrice della Materia of Cinema at the University of Bergamo, Italy. She has participated at and co-organized several international conferences. She is the author of Stanley Kubrick: Adapting the Sublime, and of articles published on Cinergie, Elephant & Castle, Adaptation, Offscreen, Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance, and Wide Screen. She co-edited special issues on Cinergie, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, and Elephant & Castle. Her main interests are Kubrick Studies, Adaptation Studies and time in films.

A captivating journey into the ways in which contemporary cinema constructs a sense of rhythm that encourages spectators to free themselves from the prison of time in everyday life. Not the measurable time of the clock, nor just the time constructed by the narrative, but the value of a temporality lived in terms of emotional intensity. A rethinking of both the classic narratological and cognitivist approaches – an alternative yet integrative perspective to the much-debated theories on complex storytelling and impossible puzzle films.

• IntroductionChapter 1: Of Times – Temporalities1.1 Fabula, Sujet, Story and Plot1.2 The Order of the Film and Chronological Order of Diegetic Events1.3 The Duration of Represented and Representational Time 1.4 TemporalitiesChapter 2: Stanley Kubrick’s Temporal Revolution2.1 The Emergence of Rhythm in Photographs and Photo-Essays2.2 Experimenting with Narrative Schemas and Style in Shorts2.3 Staging Time: Fear and Desire (1953) 2.4 Between Classical and Art-cinema Narration2.4.1 The Order of Represented and Representational Time: Killer's Kiss (1955) and The Killing (1956)2.4.2 Different Diegetic Times: Paths of Glory (1957) and a Virtuoso Style, Spartacus (1960) and Massive Configurations 2.4.3 Interruptions in Diegetic Time: Lolita (1962) and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) 2.5 Art-cinema narration. Beyond classical diegetic time 2.5.1 Slowness2.5.2 Musical moments2.6 ConclusionChapter 3: The Play of Suspense and Eroticism in Adrian Lyne 3.1 Foxes (1980) and Flashdance (1983)3.2 From Staged Musical Performances to Staged Erotic Performances: Nine ½ Weeks (1986), Fatal Attraction (1987), Indecent Proposal (1993) and Unfaithful (2002)3.3 Lolita (1997): Another Adaptation, Not a Remake3.4 Jacob’s Ladder: A Change in Lyne’s Temporalities 3.5 ConclusionChapter 4: Temporalities: The Ghostly Conductor of Michel Bay’s Films4.1 Empathy between Spectators’ and Characters’ Experience of Time4.2 Alternation of Action Scenes or Staged Action Performances and Comedy Sequences4.3 Simultaneity through Cross-cuttings 4.4 Countdowns4.5 Expanding Diegetic Time through Sequels and Flashbacks 4.6 Temporalities Comes to the Fore 4.7 ConclusionChapter 5: Quentin Tarantino: Master of Temporalities5.1 Narrative Schemas5.1.1 Playing with Narrative Schemas. Jumbled and Repeated Event Plots: Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Vol. 2 (2004)5.1.2 Towards Classical Temporalities: Death Proof (2007), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Django Unchained (2012), The Hateful Eight (2015) and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019) 5.1.3 Conclusions about Narrative Schemas5.2 New Slowness5.3 Conclusion ConclusionBibliographyIndex