Relating to Rhythm

I can't say that I know very much about the concept of rhythm, even though my early high school aspirations where to be a bass payer. I never really developed the sense of rhythm required in order to make that a reality. From the little I managed the acquire, I realized that articulating rhythm is easier said than done. It is something that is felt more than articulated. 

In my humble interpretation, I would say that rhythm is a recursive process in which movements – mechanical, acoustic, or visual –  that reflect and modify each other infinitely. One movement creating or affecting the next one and so on, even across mediums. The interplay of micro-adjustments as each movement informs and redefines the subsequent movements is precisely what makes it so hard to adequately articulate the concept since you can't separate the elements in order to define them. They either co-create rhythm or they don't.

Perhaps that is the reason, that the general trope is that rhythm cannot be learnt. It needs to be felt. Those that teach bass players and dancers to "feel" it, are in fact trying encourage the students into allowing these relationships to form naturally; to open up the possibility without making it formulaic and timed. If that recursive relationship is missing, and the timing (meter) takes precedence, the rhythm is empty and mechanical. 

Perhaps my previous attempts to master rhythm failed due to my adherence to meter and timing over that of movement and relation. Maybe I should try again. I do still have a beautiful 5-string Washburn, sitting in the corner, just waiting to be played. I wonder if philosophy makes better musicians! 

Opening Ceremonies

Many of the concepts from Erin’s ‘Animation’s Dance’ piece reminded me of how movement was expressed during this year’s Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing. Thousands of bodies worked in unison to convey a range of thoughts, emotions and symbolism.  Our perception was toyed with and tested by the range of bodies as they manipulated time, rhythm and space, and their movements constructed and deconstructed various positions and forms.  Similar to McLaren’s work, “We do not actually see the interval but we do feel its force as it unfolds into the perception of movement moving” (Manning, 1). During the performances of the opening ceremonies movement was experienced like a ripple in a wave, the viewer was unable to process the meaning in its entirety until every body had contributed to shaping the virtual idea.  Watching these performers was to experience the interval take form, which in turn expressed a thought in motion. Like Pas de Deux, movement in the opening ceremonies, “is felt not in a pose but in its experiential taking form across time and space” (Manning, 2). Often times the amazing part of the performance wasn’t the final position or thought but how they were able to create it through their range of motion. The choreography was simply unfathomable, and despite of its enormous scale I felt they were able to use extremely complex movements to convey an inviting and visually stunning display of beauty and tranquility.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tarkovsky's Rhythm

I think that Tarkovsky’s discussion of time, rhythm and editing is really invaluable especially for filmmakers and artists who have ever attempted to edit or shape something into a final work of art. “Editing has to do with stretches of time, and the degree of intensity with which these exist, as recorded by the camera; not with abstract symbols… but with the diversity of life perceived” (Tarkovsky 119).  His emphasis on the intensity of time is something he clearly perfected in his own films. The eerie feeling that the temporality in Solaris instills (as Erin said the‘on the edge of your seatness’) works to not only alter our perception but to resituate our notion of reality. When I re-watched the film recently I became more aware of the effect the rhythm had on my perception and the organization of the imagery.  Little nuances of sound also work to grab your attention and pull you in further to Tarkovsky’s world. For instance during the deposition scene we watched in class there is an intermittent beeping sound as the pilot gives his deposition which heightens the intensity of the man’s nervous testimony. A moment later, the clinking of a glass almost completely unravels him.  Erin has often said that perception “is a matter of foregrounding and back grounding” and I think that Solaris is a perfect example of a film where our level of total perception (the plane of imminence) is constantly being tested. Tarkovsky’s subtle methods work to shape a vivid and complete feeling of wholeness which is bound together and continuously reformulating by rhythm itself.  

Re-visiting Tarkovsky

I am re-visiting Tarkovsky after many years and I am reminded of the reasons I appreciated him as much as I did. He is not just an  artist, or just a cinematographer, or just a poet, or just a theologian. He is someone who is very concerned with the "big" questions regarding the human predicament and uses film to articulate his philosophical and spiritual musings. I am moved by his tender look at the human condition in all its expressions, and his attention to the quest for meaning, beauty, integrity, wholesomeness. 

To that effect, he challenges orthodox cinema by introducing his own rhythmic, poetic sculpting of time (against the logic of linear unfolding) which, he thinks, does greater justice to the complexity of conscious life and,by the same token, engages his audiences in a more constructive and involved way, so much so that they are " on a par with the artist in their perception of the film".