The Complementary Nature of Streams and the Superimposition of Several Tempos: The Vertical Axis - Text 2
Multiple Times
These streams, however, are not necessarily governed by the same tempo. Whereas a figure such as Max Steiner always sought the tempo of a scene in order to conform to it, as part of a classical ideal of an affirmative Hollywood cinema,[1] the modern ideal has strived to transgress these conventions, seeking particularly singular and expressive effects. The interest of studying this “imbrication of opposites” in a film has already been demonstrated by Yvette Biró:
Drama discusses these processes on a magnified scale, and usually follows the inevitability of the eruption. But to show the place and role of “effusive eruptions” – as I tried to emphasise in my discussion of works inclined to deal with “streaming,” in which the quiet flow has a deeper meaning – slower reactions in cracks and crevices, which reveal minor, modifying phenomena, are important here too, precisely because this process may offer a better understanding of the insidiously threatening character of natural and internal human processes.[2]
While the contrast effect between slow music and rapid action or rapid editing is well known, its effects are no less singular. In this respect, the epilogue of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950) is edifying. Like a song murmured from beyond the grave, the harmonic, restless and spectral sounds of the violins take over without warmth or hope from the dull and heavy string basses, accompanied by a wan and subdued piano. The crowd’s excited movements on the screen appear quite vain in the face of such an assessment. The music by Franz Waxman, after a degree of liveliness in the time, when the irreparable act had not yet been committed, appears to dilate the time of the screen through the space the music takes over, slowing our internal clock in the process. The events we see on screen appear to unfold more quickly now that we are caught by the much heavier inertia of the music. As a result, while the time on screen slows, real time only appears shorter, because it unfolds much more quickly.
