The New World

Abstract

This final chapter extends Part II’s discussion of time’s ontological impact in 1960s modernist European cinema through a more formally detailed and philosophically conclusive account of L’eclisse and Last Year in Marienbad. It begins by examining the gaze resulting from temporal stretching and ellipses, then moves to delineate the spatial and perceptual ingredients of an interior crisis at the epicentre of which lies time. This is followed by a close analysis of the films’ rendering of a space-time potentially characterised by the post-human (which is in fact anything but an escape from human-forged space) and the new, yet also the always present alien world that may lie in wait. The chapter then pulls together Part II’s philosophical account of temporality in seeking to better define the ambiguous consequences of the time-image for the subject, before concluding with a close-up on the time-image’s affect on and ultimate challenges to thought.