Timecode (2000)

reviewed by
Shane Burridge

Timecode (2000) 97m.

In the 60s Andy Warhol was responsible for producing a number of experiments in cinema. It wasn't so much the films themselves than the audiences that Warhol found interesting - by showing static, lengthy opuses he was actually encouraging his viewers to get bored and talk to their neighbors. His experiments with simultaneous projection were pretty much cut of the same cloth: cinematic narrative is arbitrary and you watch what you want when it suits. Bring on WOODSTOCK. Bring on Brian De Palma. Split-screen perspective was less about narrative deconstruction than it was of gimmickry - even Abel Gance knew that when he made NAPOLEON in 1927. End of story, you might think, but not quite. Developments in digital technology have once again allowed us to throw a fresh coat of paint on the old split-screen wagon. In TIMECODE, director Mike Figgis uses the new lightweight Sony DSR-I to synchronize not two, but four narrative divisions on the cinema screen. You want more? The separate narratives have all been filmed simultaneously on one Friday afternoon. Improvised. In unbroken 93-minute takes.

Let's put aside the storyline - or storylines - for a moment and address a more obvious issue: how do you watch something like this? More pertinently, how do you watch four screens when one of them always focuses on Salma Hayek in a snug-fitting top? Figgis knows ahead of time which screen his viewers are going to be drawn to, and this is the most impressive aspect of his film. The fast-tracking digital countdowns in the title credits are there to advertise the logistical feat that he has accomplished. Although his actors and camera operators improvise around a preset framework of circumstances, they are each given a 'timecode' to follow - a sort of time clock which must be punched at intervals throughout the film. This most noticeably occurs during periodic earth tremors, but also effectively in moments where all frames are simultaneously filled with close-ups of faces, telephone conversations, characters in restrooms, or contemplative scenes that allow the musical soundtrack to engage with the action.

You would think the theme underlying Figgis' work would be one of unification, but he takes the opposite tack, and it works just as well. TIMECODE is set in and around a small-time film studio, where we see actors, producers, writers, and directors sifting through the bric-a-brac that passes for their daily management. It seems an amusingly perfect setting for TIMECODE's sensibilities: the studio execs' juggling act is in symmetry with Figgis' own deployment of images on screen, but there the similarity ends. Instead of harmony we find duplicity. The multiple screens become testament to untruths, causing us to debunk one character's assertion that the tyranny of montage (as per Eisenstein) has resulted in 75 years of manipulation and lies. If the implication is that the opposite must be true, then TIMECODE rejects that also: unedited footage does not prescribe integrity, as evidenced by the continual deceptions perpetrated in real-time before our eyes. But that's okay. Figgis has undertaken his project with humor, and tips us a self-referential wink every now and then without coming across as smug. His orchestrated synchronicities are not designed to dazzle us into an oh-gosh appreciation of his technical skill, they are there to elicit grins. You smile because it's cute, because it all seems made up even though you know it isn't. TIMECODE is a confidence that we have been taken into, and we enjoy participating in the director's game.

It takes a confident film-maker to place his work so heavily in the hands of his actors and camera operators (essentially second and third unit directors), and it's heartening to see another contemporary talent trying to mess around in the mainstream. See this in a theater if you can, otherwise make sure you've got a big screen TV if video is your only option (those four divisions could get mighty small). And don't touch that pause button. You know Mike wouldn't want you to.

sburridge@hotmail.com

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