Boyhood | Event 4

Before I start this blog post, I just want to say that Boyhood was one of the best (if not the best) movie I've ever watched. It is absolutely unparalleled in its capture of real emotions and true growth, an ideal that is often sought after in film but rarely ever achieved.

I saw the trailer for Boyhood back in early-July and was immediately intrigued by its concept in relation to this class. As background information, the director of Boyhood, Richard Linklater, cast Ellar Coltrane when he was 6 years old and filmed the entire cast every year from 2002-2013 to create an epic movie that spans an actual 12 years through a fictional plotline.  Movies spanning years or even lifetimes (i.e. Benjamin Button) are not a new concept, but Boyhood is the first movie to utilize the same actors over such a long period of time, to an extent where you watch Ellar grow from a baby 6-year old with immature social skills to an 18-year old entering college and pondering the state of his humanism and existence.

This results in an intriguing concept that conflicts with a preconceived notion of the arts.  Commonly (or at least from my perspective before watching this movie), art seems to capture one concept in one moment of time.  In viewing art from a historical perspective, we often ask "how does this work of art reflect the ideologies of the time in which it was produced".  Instead of focusing on just capturing a moment in time like photographs or paintings, cinema + Linklater's unique concept creates a unique, overlapping relationship with time, in which the character growth in the fictional plotline is made so much more realistic through the physical passing of time that you witness on screen (that can't be replicated as realistically using different sets of actors).

This sentiment is best represented as quoted in Slate, "Among the arts, cinema has a unique relationship with time. Like photography, film captures a moment in permanent, reproducible form; but like music and dance, it also moves through time itself, requiring the listener or viewer to invest some portion of her allotted hours on Earth in accompanying its unspooling. Film can’t help but show time passing; that might be thought of as its most irreducible function, whether the object in frame is the Empire State Building in Andy Warhol’s Empire or Alida Valli striding coldly up the boulevard past Joseph Cotten at the end of The Third Man. Something (or in Warhol’s case, nothing) happened; a camera was there to record it; and though you can rewatch that past moment as often as you like, it will never take place again."

The concept of time itself as a major factor in art is not something that I seriously considered before this movie.  As quoted by Sophia.org: 

"Art exists in time as well as space. Time implies change and movement; movement implies the passage of time. Movement and time, whether actual or an illusion, are crucial elements in art although we may not be aware of it. An art work may incorporate actual motion; that is, the artwork itself moves in some way. Or it may incorporate the illusion of, or implied movement."

It's then interesting to revise the perspective I illustrated above.  Even in still artwork, artists can convey the passage of time, just as they can convey emotions and lessons through still work.  With the increasing technology we have in representations of art, interactive displays and moving works of art such as cinema can now traverse and physically represent the passage of time as a vector in which to convey the overall emotion and concept of their artwork.  This idea extends even further than just physical artwork -- In PBS' documentary, Time, Charles Atlas opens with a tap performance, illustrating how tap dance is an impression of time itself.

Thinking big scale about the concept of art + time, if you look at all of art in the history of time, you can thus also track the movements of cultures and ideologies through the perspective of art.  Art thus visualizes the passage of time in a meaningful, representative way that can't often be conveyed simply through the words or text of a historical source.  

From yet another perspective, in watching a "timeless" piece of art evolve through the passage of time, you can also learn about societies.  For example, tracking the Mona Lisa from its humble beginnings, to its ascent in becoming the most recognized work of art in the world, you can learn much about how time has affected the painting and society's perception of the painting, if you look at the world from the eyes of Mona Lisa and how she has 'withstood the test of time'.  It would be an interesting concept to personify these famous paintings and look at the world from "behind the painting".  Imagine yourself as the Mona Lisa -- imagine what interesting things you see every day, as thousands of people from around the world flock to the Lourve daily just to see you! It would be an unparalleled and extremely interesting perspective on the diversity (and commonalities) present in the human condition.

Sources:

"Elements of Art: Movement and Time." Sophia. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Aug. 2014. <http://www.sophia.org/tutorials/elements-of-art-movement-and-time>.

"Time." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 2 Aug. 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/art21/films/time>.

"Sundance: Boyhood and Richard Linklater's 4,207-Day Shoot." Vulture. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Aug. 2014. <http://www.vulture.com/2014/01/sundance-boyhood-richard-linklater-12-years.html>.

Cantwell, Lucy. "Art and Time." Artwrit. N.p., 1 Jan. 2011. Web. 2 Aug. 2014. <http://www.artwrit.com/article/art-and-time/>.

Stevenson, Seth. "Boyhood Reveals What Richard Linklater’s True Subject Has Been All Along." Slate Magazine. Slate, n.d. Web. 2 Aug. 2014. <http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/07/boyhood_review_richard_linklater_movie_highlights_his_true_subject_as_a.html>.