“Boşluk”un Ontolojisi Olarak Angelopoulos Sineması: Sonsuzluk ve Bir Gün
The Cinema of Angelopoulos as an Ontology of the ‘Void’: Eternity and a Day

Summary/Abstract: Despite immense changes since the Antique Greek philosophers’ era, who described the ‘void’ -inspired by the East- as an entity to interpret the universe, a metaphysical and abstract vein has reached out to our day. This comprehension offers an ontological perspective on the norms of time and space. While ‘horror vacui’ (fear of emptiness) was considered in Western art as a rationalistic idea long years ago, the minimalist and abstract art pieces with empty spaces in the painting, music and cinema have brought an immanent form to the existence, time and being as a result of the influence of various geographies and cultures. ‘Obsessive framing’ that Pasolini names for Antonioni’s cinema and that Deleuze calls as ‘rarefied images’ appears as the tendency of the modernist film directors who have come until today. This tendency is related to the philosophy of emptiness by creating a philosophical field to transform the space into an extension and reach out a sense of stretchy time by extending it. The films of Theo Angelopoulos are not independent of this idea. Irregular rhythm, quietness, emptiness and stagnation are characteristics of his cinema. We can observe the descriptions and conceptions of the ancient philosophers’ universe from the director’s cinematic perspective and the structure of his films. ‘Water’, which has an important meaning in the universe’s creation and deemed fluid, uncertain and sacred, is an essential phenomenon emphasising the void almost in all of his films. The sense of eternity, which is conveyed by a calm and foggy sea, uncertainty and stagnation, brought in an ontological meaning. Extensive plans, the stationary camera, extended plan sequences, and the camera’s circular moves seem to promote the idea of void. This attitude is crystallised as spaces connected to the road, getting lost, limiting-limitlessness, home-homelessness, empty spaces, and the problem of being, in the Eternity and a Day and all other his films. Next to the collaborations private to emptiness, ‘The Eternity and a Day’, dated back 1999, allows the interpretation of the void’s ontology through the Greek philosophy. The film’s story produces a space for the void-image by recalling the ideas of coexistence of past-present-future, extended plans, stagnant rhythm, widening universe and the concept of fluid time.

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