Discuss ways in which Varda utilizes "real time" cinematically and how she portrays Cleo's worries of her impending diagnosis.
Be sure to research the film and include one quote from an essay you find. Here's one to get you started: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/499-cl-o-from-5-to-7-passionate-time.
Time plays an important role in Cleo From 5 to 7, for both the cinematography and the storyline. The storyline of the film is rather simple, a carefree singer worrying over a possible cancer diagnosis and learns to live in the moment after meeting a soldier, however by portraying the hour and a half moment of her day in “real time” her inward emotions and the her growth as a character are better portrayed. In many films, the aspect of time is hardly ever concise as many tend to cut out the “boring” events that don’t play a role in furthering the plot, Varda on the other hand, utilized the audience’s perception of time in film to his advantage, seeming to draw out the waiting for both Cleo and the audience. In many films, editing magic is preferred to the two hour wait period, whether it be adding a montage to draw it out for a few more seconds, or completely editing the waiting out. This has caused many audiences to expect constant action or movement of the plot rather than seeing the normal lives of the characters on screen. This precedent allowed many directors , including Alexander Sokurov and Agnès Varda, to grab the audience's attention when even the most simple actions, like waiting for a friend, or walking through a cafe, are portrayed rather than skipped over. To Cleo even these small moments feel much longer as she is anticipating the results of the test, “every second [is] piling up, every step [is] traced out” in her mind and by portraying them in real time, Varda forces the audience to further understand her worry.
ReplyDelete“It is said in France that between the afternoon hours of five to seven, those are the magical hours that lovers first meet one another.” “From 5 to 7 p.m. is the traditional time that French people consecrate to having an extramarital affair”, however Cleo and Antoine meet within these so called magical hours and it is then that Cleo begins to let go of the stress of waiting and has fun with him. Jose, Cleo’s lover, is already a part of her life and the irony in having her meet someone who she connects with emotionally during the hours of five and seven would not have been missed by a French audience. To the intended demographic, the hours of five to seven have a meaning outside of the film, making the timeframe of the film that much more important. The time spent with lovers is not a time that is rushed or easily forgotten, and Varda makes that apparent with her use of “real time” in the film.
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ReplyDeleteIn Cléo from 5 to 7, Agnès Varda uses real time to allow the audience to experience the events of the film at the same time and in the same way as Cléo. By watching this short segment of Cléo’s life unfold, viewers see things that could happen in their own lives and can relate to the content of the film. They can also relate to how the film is presented, which is in almost consistently real time. This adds to the verisimilitude since the audience obviously experiences life in real time in the same way that the film is presented. The way Varda achieves this effect is through a different style of editing than typically seen in films that cover a usually longer time span. There are not cuts where you would expect there to be one to save time. For example, long car rides are not cut to seem shorter and “Varda seizes the kind of immediacy and tension”(Martin) as the viewers are essentially taken on the entire car ride with the characters as the whole thing plays out. During the 90 minutes that this film covers, Cléo is waiting for her medical diagnosis. By using real time, Varda makes the viewers wait with her. Viewers can feel the worry Cléo feels from simply waiting without an answer. Cléo hasn’t been able to get an answer about her diagnosis and Varda is also keeping this answer from the audience by showing the story in real time without speeding it up to the answer. The audience can then find the answer at the same time as Cléo. Varda keeps the audience and Cléo in the same situation to avoid any dramatic irony where the audience knows more than the characters do.
ReplyDeleteWhen you are worrying over something, like a diagnosis, time seems to go very slowly. You feel every second. That is what Agnès Varda does with the story of Cléo from 5 to 7 being told in real time. As Cléo agonizes over her approaching diagnosis and thinks about death, the real time aspect of the film makes it seem like it lasts forever. The viewer, too, thinks about death for long amounts of time because it takes up so much of Cléo’s thoughts. At the end of the film, however, things change. She knows her diagnosis now so she is more calm. The stress is gone. The camera moves out, giving her more space, because “she is truly comfortable with the time and people in front of her for the first time in the film” (source). Before, many of the shots were close and constricting but this one is farther away and indicates how she is now free. Another way real time is portrayed during this scene is through the sound of bells to announce the time. This is at the very end. However now she is not worried, because time passing no longer troubles her. So, she reacts to the sound by just smiling. The film ends with Cléo at peace with the passage of time.
ReplyDeleteCleo from 5 to 7, is a film that utilizes real time to the fullest. Through the film we follow two hours out of the day with Cleo a woman that predicts that she has cancer, the movies two hours opens with a tarot card reading which foreshadows Cleos cancer. The use of real time is significant because it makes the movie feel drawn out, just like how it feels when you are expecting news or worried. The reason this works is because we are used to the norm of movies being a lot faster than real time. The use of time is also important because “Because of its real-time structure, Cléo from 5 to 7 transforms what, in almost any other filmic context, would be mundane, or at least unspectacular, into drama”, this all together adds to portrayal of Cleos worries, lighting also adds to this as there is a lot of dark lighting throughout the film.
ReplyDeleteIn Cleo From 5 to 7, director Agnes Varda utilizes “real time” cinematically to so effortlessly depict the anxiety ridden moments awaiting the reveal of potential bad news. The film follows two hours of the protagonist Cleo’s life as she waits to learn if she has cancer or not. By showing this journey in real time, Varda more effectively reflects the stress of Cleo’s disposition, yet never allows the narrative to slow down or become boring. If a majority of films made use of this technique, the results would most likely fall flat or become monotonous, but because Cleo is constantly in motion to distract herself, the drama in her life is able to translate to the screen. A simple way real time is used effectively in the film is through every scene of Cleo walking alone. Since the screen isn’t rushing with movement, the audience don’t have much to ponder except for the main character’s fate. This is the same question on Cleo’s mind as well, real time uniting the protagonist and audience members, further attaching viewers to the main focus of the narrative. As a result of this bond, audience members are able to relate to Cleo and her problems on a much deeper level. By watching someone move exactly how they do in everyday life for 90 minutes, the honesty of their character is revealed in a way manipulated editing doesn’t allow for. Varda seamlessly “transforms Cleo herself from a distracted, self-obsessed entertainer into someone whose fate [viewers] fix on and care about” (Martin), a task subtly achieved without the audience member’s knowledge. Varda’s use of real time begs the question that if one were to watch another’s life for a straight two hours would they see them differently?
ReplyDeleteA common expression is "time flies when you are having fun." However, have you ever noticed how time feels when you are not having fun, or even more so when you are dreading a coming event. In cases such as these time seems agonizingly slow and you can feel the passing of every minute.
ReplyDeleteIt is this effect which is emulated in Agnes Varda's "Cleo from 5 to 7", which uses "real time" to show the slow passage of time. The film follows a young woman from the hours of 5 to 7 as she makes her way around the city of Paris, all the while waiting to hear friom her doctor what the results of her recent test were. If they are positive she will be diagnosed with cancer. As a result, time seems slow, as Cleo dreads what is to come. The film preserves real time through its continuous following of Cleo. Not once does the film cut away to some over event or character, and neither does it ever skip ahead in time. Instead it tracks her every move throughout the course of the two hours. "It is a stunningly scrupulous, exact film, in space as well as in time—so much so that a viewer can draw a precise map of Cleo's path and consider touristically re-creating her journey, down to the last second, in the Left Bank as it exists today."
Through this technique the audience is allowed to feel the tension that the character is experiencing.
Cléo from 5 to 7 uses “real time” structure to tell the story of Cléo, a woman who is waiting to find out whether or not she has cancer. The movie is structured so that, as an hour in the movie passes, an hour in real life passes, with varying moments causing the screen to show what time it is for Cléo. This serves to benefit the storytelling of the film in many ways. For one, Cléo from 5 to 7 aims to show the world as it is. The events and characters of the film are grounded in reality, which is reflected by the portrayal of Paris and, by extension, the portrayal of time. By making the audience experience events at the same speed that Cléo experiences them at, Varda is able to emphasize Cléo’s emotional state, true, but is also able to help the audience empathize with Cléo. Varda recognized that shared experiences and relatability are important in creating a compelling narrative, which is why she has “devoted a large part of her art to conveying….how we process [the world] internally in our mind, body, and heart” (Martin) - in this way, the audience does not relate just to Cléo’s character or the environment around her, but how she experiences and interacts with that environment.
ReplyDeleteThe use of real time is also used to emphasize the troubling nature of Cléo’s situation. In real life, time often seems to pass slower when one is waiting for someone, and the same is true in this film. This is largely because, often in film, stories are told in a way where the plot duration and the screen duration have a summary relationship - aka, the events that happen in the plot are condensed to be portrayed within a shorter period of time via the screen. Because of this, Cléo from 5 to 7 ’s structure and treatment of time stands out, and the events that occur in the movie seem to take longer than we expect them to, meaning that our viewing of the movie mirrors how Cléo is experiencing these events.
Finally, the chapter titles that draw attention to what time it is throughout the movie also serve to mirror Cléo’s anxiety. Though there may be points during the film where the audience is not thinking about how long it is until Cléo will get her diagnosis, Cléo is constantly thinking about it, which is evidenced by her behavior (and how this behavior is cinematically portrayed) throughout the film. By not only having the story pass in real time, but by periodically reminding the audience what time it is, Varda effectively portrays “the relentless march of time of which Cléo is hyper aware” (Smithey), both emphasizing Cléo’s feelings and reigniting the audience’s.
Agnes Varda utilizes the use of “real time” in “Cleo From 5 to 7” to further characterize the main protagonist. On the surface, Cleo seems high and mighty, with her immense wealth, talent, and beauty, but the use of real time opens up her character. Her impending medical results made her more and more anxious throughout the hour and a half wait, and in becoming more anxious, she becomes more vulnerable to the audience. We see her less as a famous person on a pedestal and more of a normal human reacting to things in a normal way. As stated by Adrian Martin, “It transforms Cléo herself from a distracted, self-obsessed entertainer into someone whose fate we fix on and care about.” With most celebrities, they seem almost alien to us normal people, they are rich, their names are everywhere, but deep down they are just human. In the case of Cleo, just because she is famous and rich doesn’t mean she isn’t susceptible to something like cancer. This humanizes her character and makes us feel bad for her situation, as it seems inescapable. This could almost definitely be portrayed not in real time, but the use of real time increases the effectiveness of this character shift. We see the gears slowly turning, the distress slowly building. We relate to this better because if we or someone we know was in that situation, we would become slowly more and more distressed, just like Cleo.
ReplyDeleteVarda's Cleo From 5 To 7 is a character study of the titular character Cleo. The film utilizes real time as a means to give the character of Cleo depth. It is important to understand that Cleo is a relatively famous pop singer who is selfish and only cares for herself primarily. Her extraordinary lifestyle is put on halt when she learns that she might have cancer. The only things that make Cleo universally relatable as a character is time and death. Varda utilizes real time to ground the narrative, and Cleo, in reality. The use of real time as according to Adrian Martin is "every second piling up" as a means to build tension in the film. The long term impact of the use of real time is that of one which makes Cleo a more relateable character.
ReplyDeleteCleo from 5 to 7 depicts a woman waiting for a potentially life threatening diagnosis over the span of two hours. Because the movie itself has a runtime of two hours, it can be said that the movie is shot in “real time”, which is extremely impactful to the pacing of the film itself. This idea of time is done to ground the narrative, as well as depict Cleo’s world as a direct reflection of our own. Furthermore, this choice illustrates Cleo as a much more relatable character, one who follows the rules of a real life person. This makes her thoughts and actions more realistic, thus creating emotional ties between the viewer and her problematic and stressful problem. This creative decision presents a variety of problems however, as it forces the director to commit to extreme verisimilitude, as well as avoid conventional film techniques. For instance, Cleo from 5 to 7 often lacks the familiar cuts, instead choosing to follow every movement and action by the protagonist. This can be seen through the use of long, drawn out car driving or walking scenes, which would usually be shortened but are instead displayed in their entirety. If done incorrectly, this would create a boring and uneventful film, but in this case it adds to the overall pressure felt by the audience. Because Cleo’s fate is truly unknown, each of her actions becomes more substantial, thus making even her most normal routines paramount in the build up of tension leading to the finale. As Adrian Martin beautifully states, “It is a stunningly scrupulous, exact film, in space as well as in time—so much so that a viewer can draw a precise map of Cleo's path and consider touristically re-creating her journey”, further cementing the idea that Cleo’s journey is one which resonates with the audience’s emotional responses.
ReplyDeleteAgnes Varda's "Cleo from 5 to 7" shows an hour and a half of the well known singer, Cleo, as she awaits the results of a medical examination. No shots in the film are used to skip forward or backward in time, every second of the film passes the same way as time did for the audience. Because of this, the audience was able to really get inside Cleo's head and feel her experiences with her, especially her anxiety about her test. To quote Adrian Martin, "Unlike traditional story films, which skip everywhere in both time and space, Varda gives us a gauntlet: every second piling up, every step traced out." There was no point when the audience had no contact with Cleo in the film, except for the few minutes she spent watching a silent film, so every part of her anxiety and grief were shown. Her expression of the worry through song, her outbursts about the uselessness of her writers and eventual acceptance of the coming events were all displayed.
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