doctoral Dissertation

abstract

Doctoral dissertation The View Outside of Time. Apochrony and Photographic Affordance of the Landscape Image in Cinema (Aalto University 2023, in Finnish) studies the extraordinary character of the landscape image in cinema related to its temporality. A landscape image in cinema – equally in fiction and documentary – carries features which cause it to detach from the narrative structures of the film and imbue it with an independent identity within that work. According to the hypothesis studied, this independent status is based on the photographic affordances of cinema as a form of art and artistic technique combined with landscape images' own temporal characteristics.

The study opens by acknowledging the difficulties in giving a comprehensive definition of the concept of landscape. In the context of landscape, a definition based on classical theories of categorisation is seen as adequate, given its nature which blends geographic, art-historical and perceptual terms. The study proposes to approach the problem from the perspective of prototype theory, which yields analytical tools more suitable to the task.

Theoretically, the study seeks to chart the dimensions of landscape image in cinema, couching itself on the preceding scholarship in film studies, where the landscape has been an object of study from political, allegorical, psychological and philosophical perspectives. The main interlocution is provided by Martin Lefebvre's theory, in which landscape image is assigned the potential to trigger a spectacular mode of spectatorial activity. From there, the study moves to chart the temporal peculiarities of a landscape image and its accompanying philosophical implications, related to its distinct lack of eventhood, distinctions between the time-image and the movement-image, and cinematic poetics. The main theoretical contribution of the study is the analytical concept of apochrony, which describes a specific type of image. An apochronic image is indistinct between any possible temporal interpretation available in the assemblage of times in a film. This concept is elaborated in the context of an application, as it is used to analyse two important works in essayistic cinema: Trans-Siberia – Notes from the Camps (Cederström 1999) and La Jetée (Marker 1962).

The artistic component of the doctoral study is the essayistic short film The Cliff (Lassila 2022). The Cliff represents a hybrid form between cinematic and photographic arts and comprises monochrome, analogue still images except for one segment of a moving image shot with digital equipment. The analysis and exposition of The Cliff concentrate on three specific segments through which the apochrony of landscape image is elaborated, and its semiotic implications studied. In the study, its theoretical and artistic components come together to form a comprehensive notion of cessation, which the image of landscape image causes in a film, its causes and implications. Subsequently, the work seeks to recognise and characterise the concept of apochrony as an artistic resource, readily available to artists working on cinematic arts who seek to use landscape images to control their work's affective and narrative effects.

The dissertation e-book (in Finnish) may be found at Aalto University Library.

The book may be bought from Aalto Arts online bookshop.

Graphic design of the book presented here in designer Pekka Piippo’s portfolio.