“When seeing a James Bond film … one expects only the exciting parts of Bond’s life to be portrayed: shootouts, explosions, sexual liaisons. One can imagine what the audience reaction might be if—in the interest of realism—a film devoted a substantial amount of time to Bond sleeping, eating a meal, getting a haircut, and using the restroom. Yet these uneventful events constitute the fabric of our existence. One is reminded here of the narrator’s insight in E. M. Foster’s A Passage to India: ‘Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obligated to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence’”.
Motion[less] Pictures: The Cinema of Stasis, Justin Remes.