Boredom at the cinema – an exploration [study]

 

Have you ever been profoundly bored watching a film? If so, is it possible that you may have overlooked the positive aspects of profound boredom? Either way(s), there’s an article on the subject of cinematic boredom in the current issue of the journal Film Philosophy, in which Dr Chiara Quaranta of the University of Edinburgh, argues that :

“[…] boredom – that from which we daily try to shy away – has the potential to un-conceal the ways we understand and interact with moving images in the world we currently inhabit.”

See (in full) : A Cinema of Boredom: Heidegger, Cinematic Time and Spectatorship, Film-Philosophy, Volume 24 Issue 1, Page 1-21.

Note: The film above (cited in the article) is ‘On Venom and Eternity’ (Traité de Bave et d’Éternité, 1951), from Isidore Isou, whom, Dr Quaranta explains, set out to “ […] dismantle cinema as entertainment; that is, he wished to destroy cinema as a way of killing time to escape boredom.”

Research research by Martin Gardiner