Rethinking Genre Conventions and the Impact of "Slow Cinema" in Nicolas Winding Refn's "Too Old to Die Young"
Alina R. MARTYNENKO
7/9, Universitetskaya Emb., St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, 199034
PhD Student ay the Institute of History
e-mail: alinaa.martynenko@mail.ru
Abstract: The article is analyzed N.W. Refn's series "Too Old To Die Young" as an example of "interme-diate text" that combines the strategies of cinema, contemporary art and television. The director turns to serial form to continue his experiments with duration and slowing down of narrative progress. N.W. Refn balances between intensity of action and stopping, adherence and refutation of the genre formula, narra-tive clarity and ambiguity and creates the series with shifted boundaries of illusion and reality. Further-more, use of narrative and visual codes of "slow cin-ema" leads to weakening of plot connections, which is superposed with stylistic excess. Long takes let the eyes wander within the parameters of the frame, ob-serving details that would remain veiled by a more intensive form of narration. The significance of dra-ma, consequence and psychological motivation of characters is consistently relaxed, reaching a point at which all the narrative elements become equivalent in representation. In spite of the directors of "slow cin-ema", N. V. Refn completely controls a viewer's gaze and his body reactions, which should be like a ma-chine. The author of the article proves that the serial form, acting as an object of director's reflection, al-lows combining several modes of film practice, genre forms and stylistic trends. At the same time, the topi-cality of the series as a form of cultural production is explained by its plasticity and openness, flexibility of media boundaries, as well as the possibility of direct appeal to the viewer and his perception of time.
Key words: Nicolas Winding Refn, slow cin-ema, slowness, art-cinema, serialization, serial design, stylistic excess, duration, streaming, cinema on de-mand, transmediality, film noir.
Kushnareva, I. (2013). Kak nas priuchili k serialam [How we were accustomed to series]. Logos, №3(93), 9–20. (In Russian).
Lur'e, Ya. (2013). Formula amerikanskogo nuara [American film noir' formula]. Iskusstvo kino.http://old.kinoart.ru/archive/2013/04/formula-amerikanskogo-nuara. (In Russian).
Bordwell, D. (1979). The art cinema as a mode of film practice. Film Criticism. №4(1). 56–64.
Çağlayan, O. E. (2014). Screening boredom: the history and aesthetics of slow cinema. Canterbury: University of Kent.
Iordanova, D., & Cunningham, S. (Eds.). (2012). Digital Disruption: Cinema Moves On-line.St. Andrews: St. Andrews Film Studies.
Lim, S.H. (2014). Tsai Ming-Liang and a cinema of slowness. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
Jancovich, M., & Lyons, J. (Eds.). (2003). Quality Popular TV: Cult TV, the Industry and Fans.London: Routledge.
Dennison, S., & Lim, S.H. (Eds.). (2006). Remapping World Cinema: Identity, Culture and Politics in Film.London: Wallflower.
Romney, J. (2010). In Search of Lost Time. Sight & Sound, №2. 15-19.
Allen R., & Berg van den, T. (Eds.). (2014). Serialization in Popular Culture. N.Y.: Routledge.
Sobchack V. (2004). Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Luca de, T., & Barrades Jorge N. (Eds.). (2016). Slow cinema.Edinburgh: University Press.
Thompson, K. (1977). The concept of cinematic excess. Cine-Tracts, №1(2). 54–65.
Martynenko, A. (2021). Rethinking Genre Conventions and the Impact of "Slow Cinema" in Nicolas Winding Refn's "Too Old to Die Young". International Journal of Cultural Research, 2(43), 34–44. DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2021_2_34