{"id":12891,"date":"2024-10-29T23:10:13","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T22:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/?p=12891"},"modified":"2025-01-10T13:01:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T12:01:38","slug":"the-present-is-the-past-is-the-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/2024\/10\/the-present-is-the-past-is-the-present\/","title":{"rendered":"The Present Is the Past Is the Present: Sonic Repetition and Temporal Distortion in <em>Enys Men<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Present Is the Past Is the Present: Sonic Repetition and Temporal Distrotion in Enys Men\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1024329037?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"696\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Film\u2019s bias toward linearity is evidenced in its physical construction, from strips of film spliced one after the other that create a single material continuum, to sequentially placed clips on a digital editing timeline. However, filmmakers\u2019 attempts to distort and undermine this linearity is as old as the form itself, from <em>The Great Train Robbery<\/em> (Edwin S. Porter, 1903) \u2013 which broke the rules of continuity even as it was establishing them (Gaudreault 43) \u2013 to experimental films like Hollis Frampton\u2019s <em>Nostalgia<\/em> (1971), or Christopher Nolan\u2019s mainstream features (<em>Following<\/em> [1998], <em>Memento<\/em> [2000], <em>Tenet<\/em> [2020]). This video essay examines Mark Jenkin\u2019s sophisticated subversion of linearity in <em>Enys Men<\/em> (2022), with a broader focus on how film music may participate in the disruption of linearity and time in film art.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Enys Men<\/em> (\u201cstone island\u201d in Cornish) is the story of a solitary woman completing repetitive daily tasks. The Volunteer (Mary Woodvine) leaves her cottage, hikes to a remote location, observes a rare flower, drops a rock in an abandoned mine shaft, comes home, and makes tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again, and again, and again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As narrative, visual \u2013 and notably \u2013 sonic repetition build in <em>Enys Men<\/em>, it becomes unclear whether The Volunteer is moving into the future, the past, or is stuck in an eternal loop of the present. She interacts with the island\u2019s past inhabitants, as well as future events, occasionally even coming face to face with multiple instances of herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I frame my video with a quote by music theorist Rebecca Leydon: \u201c\u2026I am wondering what kinds of subjectivities are possible when musical syntax is undermined by obstinate motivic repetition\u201d (2002). Leydon asks this in the context of an analysis of Minimalist music of the 1960s and 70s \u2013 music famous for its dizzying use of repetition \u2013 but her question and argument apply to film music broadly, and <em>Enys Men<\/em> specifically. Two music theory concepts warrant brief examination. \u201cMusical syntax\u201d refers to the broad set of compositional practices, specific to different types of music, which are used to create structure and meaning. Musical syntax, like the syntax of sentence structure or noun\/verb relationships in language, may be intentionally and creatively subverted. In the context of western concert music, through its use of repetition Minimalist music broke with a few hundred years of syntactical practice. And I argue Jenkin does the same, though in this case, within the context of narrative film and the film music tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Secondly, \u201cObstinate motivic repetition\u201d is a term Leydon coins to analyze the syntax of repetition. Because in music there is repetition. And there\u2019s <em>repetition<\/em>. The first type is found in almost all music: the famous 4-note motive in Beethoven\u2019s 5th Symphony is repeated and varied throughout that work; a pop song\u2019s verse is repeated, moves to the chorus, then back again to the verse. These discursive uses of repetition help build temporal structures and narrative meaning in music. On the other hand, obstinate motivic repetition refers to the intentionally extreme use of repetition in music. This repetition is the record stuck in a groove, playing the same phrase over and over. Obstinate repetition breaks the contract of causality we informally enter when listening to music or viewing a film, that <em>this<\/em> will lead to <em>that<\/em> (Foster Wallace 170). As Leydon asks: \u201c\u2026what happens when the sense of musical cause and effect is attenuated or abandoned altogether?\u201d To that I would add: what happens when the syntax of obstinate repetition is brought into narrative film?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mark Jenkin is a filmmaker of the DIY, process cinema tradition (MacKenzie and Marchessault 4), who wrote, directed, shot, edited, and composed the soundtrack for <em>Enys Men<\/em>, and this allows for a particularly deep integration of the soundtrack into the film\u2019s creative goals. Jenkin\u2019s score, which runs throughout the entirety of my video, consists largely of repeating tape loops. And notably, the tape loop is a compositional form that has been rooted in obstinate motivic repetition from its conception (Reich 1966, Radigue 1968). Tape loops and sonic repetition are always in motion, but where are they going? Is time moving forward? Is it stuck in an eternal now? Or, as I posit in the video, perhaps time moves backward, as the end of a loop always moves to its beginning, to that which has already happened. This is where the loop moves from compositional technique to a narrative phenomenon able to alter temporality and subjectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Volunteer in <em>Enys Men<\/em> walks through a doorway and comes face to face with 19th century miners; she stands on a hill overlooking her cottage, seeing herself in its doorway. The cottage is decrepit. Is she looking at the past, before the rugged home was reinhabited? Or into the future after it has been abandoned? Time breaks open in <em>Enys Men<\/em>, and this video asks us to listen deeply to the soundtrack, recognizing its significant ability to express and subvert temporality in film art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>* * *<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Facts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Film<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><em>Enys Men<\/em>. Directed by Mark Jenkin, Film4, Sound\/Image Cinema Lab, Bosena, 2022.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Foster Wallace, David. \u201cDavid Lynch Keeps His Head.\u201d <em>A Supposedly Fun Thing I\u2019ll Never Do Again<\/em>, Back Bay Books, 1998, 146-212.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Gaudreault, Andr\u00e9. \u201cDetours in Film Narrative: The Development of Cross-Cutting.\u201d <em>Cinema Journal<\/em> vol. 19, no. 1, 1979, 39-59.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Leydon, Rebecca. \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mtosmt.org\/issues\/mto.02.8.4\/mto.02.8.4.leydon.html#FN1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Towards a Typology of Minimalist Tropes<\/a>\u2019, <em>Music Theory Online<\/em> (Society for Music Theory), vol. 8, no. 4, 2002. Accessed 3 November 2023.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>MacKenzie, Scott and Janine Marchessault. \u201cIntroduction.\u201d <em>Process Cinema: Handmade Film in the Digital Age<\/em>, McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press, 2019, 3-18.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Radigue, \u00c9liane. <em>Elemental I<\/em>. 1968. (Recording: \u201cJouet \u00c9lectronique \/ Elemental I.\u201d Alga Marghen, 2010)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reich, Steve. <em>Come Out<\/em>. 1966. (Recording: \u201cNew Sounds in Electronic Music.\u201d Odyssey, 1967).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VIDEO ESSAY. Steven Sehman, in his video essay on <em>Enys Men<\/em> (2022), examines the effect of filmmaker Mark Jenkin\u2019s highly repetitive soundtrack on the film\u2019s sense of time. Linear temporality relies on a cause-and-effect syntax: <em>this<\/em> will lead to <em>that<\/em>. But what happens when extreme repetition subverts such causality? Does time continue to move forward? Does it stand still? Or does it move into the past?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":12896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[227,33],"tags":[557,562],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12891"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12891"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13054,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12891\/revisions\/13054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16-9.dk\/3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}