“Temportation, in its emphasis and mutable timespace… cinema carries toward a new dialectical crisis. For in its mix of action and virtuality, of both inhabited space and (in a profound double sense) occupied time, it grows clear that the… digital interface does not so much synthesis as elide the ground of durée and of consciousness of itself.” – Garrett Stewart

A frame in cinema is like an index. Once you’ve taken the visuals, it becomes a series of stills, working together one after the other to create the illusion of movement and more importantly, time. In a single frame time stops and is on an infinite pause. It’s caught between moments and captures the world instantly in the confines of that frame.

Viewing L’avventura (1960), the developments of the frames were incredibly guided by cinematography and elements of photography. Emerging through the ethics of the craft, the film illustrated this week’s readings as it occupied time and space to create a story world suspended, visually strung out and most importantly, an example of the ontological understanding of cinema and the temporality of segments.

Deconstructing the narrative parts and simulating a stretched out constructedness, the images directed by Michelangelo Antonioni are often specifically held in focus, reverting traditional stylistic techniques of film noir with clarity, bright open spaces and sharp aesthetic impulses. As if playing on the relationship between time and characters themselves, L’avventura (1960) is a carefully constructed example of the power and strategy of frame length, providing a sharp speculation of this cinematographic strategy.