The Petrified Object and the Poetics of Time in Cinema

Abstract

This audiovisual essay addresses the poetics of time in cinema through depictions of objects that are markers of certain temporal densities. By exploring three films the essay offers a view to the petrified objects as the symptoms of the filmmaker’s obsessions with time. In the films cited here, time is a matter of concern as a historical process, as construction within the physical laws, and ultimately, as a psychological perception.

Keywords

• Poetics of tims
• Film
• Petrified object
• Modern cinema
• Postmodern cinema