Though the film charts Cleo’s trip through Paris in the time-frame indicated by the title, it’s a film after all and not a literal rendering of time. Therefore there are spaces betwee the shots that “eat up” the indicated time — particularly where there are “jimp cuts.”
“Cleo” is partially subjective (we see and hear what she does) but partially “third person” as well. We’re free to react to Cleo’s friends and associates quite differently than she does. Not to mention the soldier she meets by chance. This is how time “slips away.”
Steve Munro
Manufacturing the present: The construct of time in Agnès Varda’s Cléo de 5 à 7
Cinema is a reflection of time and time is a construct of human interaction. The nature of time is such that it is consumed by experience, that is, it takes time to watch time. In film, it is the compression or extension of time that allows the audience to be involved with specific points within a characters life that are pertinent to the characters development. Conversely, there are necessary occurrences within the characters world that are of no interest to the viewer. Likewise, the passage of time is subjective and can be altered by the emotional state of the observer. In unison with ‘the observer effect’1 then, time can be changed by observation. It is, however, not mapped time that shifts, but rather, the perception of it. Therefore, if time is relative, more or less things can occur within it depending on the mind of the observer.
In Agnès Varda’s Cléo de 5 à 7 (1961), real time almost coincides with narrative time. As Dick says in ‘Anatomy of Film’
[w]e must observe the laws of time, but movies do not; they can expand or contract time. If the film engages our attention…we are oblivious to the fact that a story that spanned three generations took only [for example] 113 minutes to tell. A few films exhibit perfect unity of time: the running time coincides with the story time. Such films, admittedly, are rare, but Robert Wise’s The Set-Up (1949) and Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon (1952) run seventy-two and eighty-four minutes, respectively. Clocks are important markers of time in both films; as a result, we realize that there was no difference between the time it took to see the film and the time it took for the plot to unfold (11)
Cléo de 5 à 7 is a slice-of-life narrative – a ‘by-chance’ witnessing of maturation that remains true to the cinema of the new-wave. But the suggestive title of ‘_de Cinq à Sept_’, in combination with the narrative indicators, separates reel time from real time as the film runs for only ninety minutes whereas the title suggests two hours. As Varda sets out to establish the transition of a character, one wonders whether or not her original intention was to release the film as the title suggests. It is possible that, during assembly, she may have realised that the contrived nature of Cléo might alienate the audience with a screen-time of two hours. That is, there is not very much to like about Cléo and we have to wonder if we are able to spend any more time with her, other than that which is necessary to the story, as she engages with solipsism. Though the transitional journey is relevant to herself, there becomes a point where it no longer matters to us. It seems as though Varda either was, or became, aware of this.
There are several significant indicators in the film, both diegetic and non-diegetic, that work on the viewer to establish and maintain the present rather than the past or future. As Mazierska and Rascaroli say in ‘_Trapped in the present: Time in the Films of Wong Kar-Wai’_, “The phenomenon of replacing “meaningful time” with “raw time”… strongly affects the temporal hierarchy, undermining the importance of the past and future and increasing the significance of the present” (9). Cléo’s journey by foot, however, could, within the decade, be delineated beyond ‘raw time’ as the female walker would need to have a reason for independence besides contemplation. It is, though, that, without this journey, Cléo would not be able to place herself in time. That is, she has no relative experience of what it means to be an emotionally mature human. Those that are involved with her life on a permanent rather than passing basis (that is, those who are capable of affecting her decisions) such as Angèle who cocoons her, the composers that need to entertain her like a little sister and the ‘lover’ that affords her no more title than that of a specimen, are interested only in the manipulation of Cléo to serve their own needs. It is that the character of Cléo allows herself to be treated in such a way that the viewer can, at this point, only hope for a comparative analysis. Her pressure is that of internal-conflict and the solution is the yet unknown subjugation of those allowed in her ‘un-living’ space.
As she begins to place herself in the present, the schematics of the film covertly work on the audience so that the level of spectacle association and acceptance can heighten. It is important that this occurs when she is walking as Mazierska and Rascaroli go on to say: ‘…a significant by-product of hurrying is a tremendous waste of time’ (4). In truth it is that Cléo has no time to waste. And, in contrast to ‘_Donnie Darko_’ (2001) who must “[travel] back in time in order to die” (Matthews, 38) Cléo must transcend the present in order to live. She does this by recognising the people of the city as ordinary entities capable of raising an emotion. Her disgust with the frog-swallower and body piercer compares and contrasts with the café society that fails to recognise her. As she expects, but doesn’t receive, subject adulation, it is that, in walking the streets, she becomes grounded. At this point then, the cocoon begins to crack.
Diegetically speaking, the significant indicators include, within the film: contemporary news bulletins; character fascination with the date; clocks on shelf, wall and street; Cléo’s popular and contemporary song on the radio; conversational pauses; involvement of and with the ordinary and everyday (for example: street performers, noticeable and critical observations of the female flâneur (the flâneuse), the generational contrast between Angèle and Dorothée); and a passing fascination with cultural commodities (for example, the Citroën D.S., a fur hat, death masks and art-school sculpture resembling the work of both Giacometti and Moore) or, as Doane says in ‘The Emergence of Cinematic Time’, “there is the temporality of the diegesis, the way in which time is represented by the image, the varying invocations of present, past, future, historicity” (30). And, of the film, there exists: non-diegetic titles stating the segmentation of time; camera movement that rocks to the rhythm of music; compositional elements that further reflect the cinema of the new wave, such as: natural lighting, lack of establishing shots, documentary style footage and the black and white photography; the absence of ‘flash-back’ and no dissolves within the editing. The combining of these elements work on audience perception to show that contemporary events are not necessarily diachronic. That is, stories involved with the human condition can, and often do, remain timeless.
In applying the words of Tarkovsky, “Cinema…is able to record time in outward and visible signs, recognisable to the feelings”. These feelings work with Cléo’s childlike nature so that “…the past and memory matter very little. Instead, they live in the present” (119). The present, here, is important because the time we are allowed to understand Cléo is the time it takes for her to understand herself. And, as her self-analysis moves her from object to subject and child to adult, it is her perception of time that forms her speech: “It’s maddening; I’ve waited two days for this” and “we’ve so little time”2. As she becomes aware of her mortality, and so can place herself within an epoch, the audience can realise that the suggestive time of the 1960s, as presented by the style of dress, citation of historical events, mode of transport and the portrayal of the city and its people, is as diegetic as it can be in relation to the author’s text. The subject matter, then, transcends decades as the necessity of maturation is timeless, as was Varda’s intent.
So then, if the back-story can be told in the time it takes the credits to roll, it equally should be that we are witness only to the introduction of Cléo’s and Antoine’s relationship. Cleó’s realisation of a future (and a sense of loss) underscores her maturation and her altered reality shifts infinite time to an understanding of compressed temporality. It becomes evident that, should we wish to contemplate her future, her time will now be concerned with thoughts of Antoine and his time in Algiers. Although they (Cléo and Antoine) serve no practical societal purpose within their movement from A to B, their time can be considered meaningful rather than raw because it is used to set a precedent. That is, if Antoine survives the Algerian conflict and they remain true to each other, they will refer to this moment at some point in their future together.
_Cléo de 5 à _7, then, is a manifestation of the suggestion by Maya Deren that “the photographic image […] excercises an authority comparable in weight only to the authority of reality itself” (159). As we are aware of only ninety minutes in Cléo’s life, there is no real time to become involved with, to any depth, the other characters. As Cléo adopts the role of flâneuse and we become voyeurs, she places herself into the reality of an ordinary experience. For the placement to be effective, and for the viewer to understand the transformation, Varda affords no real interaction with secondary characters other than to provide information on the nature of Cléo herself. In that way, the film is comparable to a short story. And short stories, as a reflection on a particular aspect of society or an individual’s place within it, are usually told by focusing on single character observation over a short period, such as England, My England By D.H. Lawrence. The difference is only in the process of visualisation and, astutely observed by Tarkovsky, is such that the
®hythm in cinema is conveyed by the life of the object visibly recorded in the frame. Just as from the quivering of a reed you can tell what sort of current, what pressure, there is in a river, in the same way we know the movement of time from the flow of the life-process reproduced in the shot (120).
As she finally escapes the confinement of a “child that needs to be looked after”3, Cléo’s metamorphosis is complete – her butterfly wings beat to independent thought.
Notes
1. The observer effect can be stated as: ‘The nature of observation is such that it will always alter that which is being observed’.
2. The first quote occurs when Cléo has childlike behaviour, the second when she has spent some time with Antoine.
3. This is Angèle’s narration in response to Cléos claim that, if she is going to die, then she will “kill herself”. The actual narration is: “Such a drama queen. She could be happy but needs to be looked after. She’s a child”. The suggestion is not that she is behaving in a childlike manner, but rather, she’s not yet reached emotional maturity. Although this could be analysed as an assumption based on Angèle’s personal mis-placed matriarchy, it is a familiar and recurrent assertion that is relevant to Cléo’s transformation.
Works Cited
Cléo de 5 à 7 (Cléo from 5 to 7). Dir. Agnès Varda. DVD. The Criterion Collection, 2000.
Deren, Maya. Cinematography, the creative use of reality. In: George Amber, “The Art of Cinema”. New York: Arno Press, 1972.
Dick, Bernard F. Anatomy of Film. 4th edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2002.
Doane, Mary Anne. The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the
Archive. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Matthews, Peter. Spinoza’s Stone: The Logic of Donnie Darko. In: Post Script, Essays in Film and the Humanities, Volume 25, No. 1, Fall 2005.
Mazierska, Ewa, and Rascaroli, Laura. Trapped in the present: Time in the Films of Wong Kar-Wai. In: Film Criticism, Vol XXV, No. 2, Winter 2000-01.
Tarkovsky, Andrey. Andrey Tarkovsky: Reflections on the Cinema. Austin: University of Texas press, 1989.