미켈란젤로 안토니오니의 <일식>과 ‘죽은 시간’의 모험

Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’eclisse and the adventure of the temps mort

By exploiting the possibilities of the temps mort in L’eclisse, Antonioni makes an irreversible abyss inside of the classic cinema and opens a significant way of the modern cinema. In this film, the temps mort relates respectively to new narrative structure, the empty space and finally the poetic moments. At first, the temps mort, that is, all of which prevents the dramatic structure from developing, mitigates significantly the causal chain of the classic cinema. Otherwise, it introduces the deep silences in the advancement of the dialogues. Then, the impressive apparition of the temps mort is always bound up to its fusion of the empty space. The ways of which Antonioni uses the latter in L’eclisse, appear in presenting the figures with the large empty space, or in the systematic use of long shots, or in the construction of the shots which grow more longer than usual shots by hesitating to cut. Finally, the temps mort arrives to create the poetic moments by organizing the simple fragments born in daily lives in the modern city. This is eloquently shown in the last sequence of L’eclisse which consists of the simple landscapes of the empty streets from which the main figures disappear definitely. All of these can be considered by the different development of the temps mort. By fortifying one of the privileged capacities of camera, that is, the description, Antonioni exploits inside of the classic cinema the limits of the temps mort, and prepares its ruin. That is why he who pursues the origin of the modern cinema can’t avoid confronting L’eclisse.