Stroeykens 1

Maxim Stroeykens

Julian Ross

Cinema: Avant-garde

November 1st, 2021

Avant-Garde Cinema: Larry Gotheim’s Fog Line and the Cinema of Stasis.

The cinema of stasis provided a fresh, though very unorthodox breeze for film in the

1960’s with slow, almost completely still images as a new cinematic subject matter. In this

essay I want to raise Fog Line (1970) by Larry Gotheim as an especially exemplary case of

this avant-garde movement and dive deeper in its cinematic qualities.

Fog Line by Larry Gotheim is an 11-minute silent short film in which we look at a

single shot of a garden landscape covered in fog. At first, nothing seems to be happening.

And in fact nothing much will happen, besides a couple of barely visible horses and a single

bird passing the screen. But as the film progresses, the fog gradually clears away. At the 11

minutes timemark the mist covered fields shown at the start of the film have now become

almost completely visible. The end.

With its static cameraposition and lack of action within the frame, Fog Line places

itself within what film scholar Justin Remes calls “the cinema of stasis” (3). This patient

approach to filmmaking became very popular within avant-garde cinema in the 1960’s

(Remes 4) and produced films where the movement of conventional cinema is replaced by

stillness and boredom. The nearly unmoving film images are often showcased in only one

static shot, as is the case in Fog Line. Many artists took interest in the new movement, most
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notably pop icon Andy Warhol, who made extremely still films such as Empire (1964), an

eight hour shot of the empire state building and Chantal Akerman who filmed La Chambre

(1972), described as a “moving still life” (“La Chambre”) of a woman’s room.

The comparison between static films and paintings is a much used one and Justin

Remes notes how the cinema of stasis indeed explored and stretched the boundaries between

different artforms (3). This aspect definitely comes to mind when watching Fog Line. In the

beginning, what we see on the screen may just look like a photograph and the idyllic scenery

reminds one of a realistic painting of nature. Granting cinema the status of a legitimate

artform has been a goal of many avant-garde filmmakers and I believe Gotheim does a great

job of underlining cinema’s closeness to these other visual arts, especially photography. It’s

only when time progresses and what’s on the screen slowly becomes visible, that Fog Line

really reveals itself as a movie.

So, by taking the movement out of movies, static films such as Fog Line bring cinema

closer to other visual arts. At the same time, they point to qualities inherent to cinema in a

very interesting way. Most importantly, the cinema of stasis challenges our existing notions

of what cinema is. When we think about cinema, we tend to think about some form of action.

Be it captivating dialogue, stunt work or just documentation of daily life, movies show

movement. The term ‘motion picture’ really says it all here. Consequently, many filmmakers

and theorists have coined this as the defining quality of cinema: from Rudolf Arnheim to

Germain Dulac, all have claimed that cinema essentially deals with the representation of

movement (Remes 6).

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Most famous may be the quote of French writer Georges Duhamel, who said the

following about watching films: “I can no longer think what I want to think. My thoughts

have been replaced by moving images” (qtd in Remes 20). Static films do not just take these

definitions of cinema as always moving into question, they absolutely shatter it. By

abolishing filmic action, they provide a space for meditation and invite contemplation from

the viewer. I believe this is definitely the case for Gotheim’s 11 minutes short, more so than

with the hours-long works of someone like Andy Warhol, which are really just a question of

how long someone can endure monotony. And while watching the slow disappearing of fog

may indeed also be very tedious, the lifelike capturing of such a natural event simultaneously

brings a kind of poetic beauty with it. It has a soothing effect, one that surely would have

brought Mr Duhamel to think what he wants to think.

This is why Justin Remes says that if we had to pin cinema down to one essential

quality ( a reduction of the artform that he actually discourages) it would not be movement

but duration. The one thing that all movies share and other visual arts do not possess, is a

running time (Remes 12). In other words: one may look at a painting of a foggy landscape for

a minute and say he has seen it, but the same could only be said of Fog Line when you watch

it for the entire 11 minutes. Static films, then, are meant to make us aware of the passage of

time, something conventional cinema tends to avoid, instead aiming to absorb the viewer in

its story (Remes 13). In Fog Line we can’t see any mist disappearing between one second

and the other. But gradually we do see a change, and the difference between beginning and

end is like night and day. With its slowly changing landscape, Fog Line puts us face to face

with the fact that time is passing by. What to do with it is in the hands, or rather the mind, of

the viewer.
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As a strand of avant-garde filmmaking, static films belong to the greater whole of

structural cinema, adequately described by Adams P. Sitney as a “cinema of the mind, rather

than the eye” (146). Structural filmmakers made complex, formal films concerned with the

question of what the essence of cinema really is. Above all, they were interested in the

materiality of film. In its own way, the cinema of stasis also points to this materiality of the

medium in their films. Remes explains it like this: by showing still objects, the cinema of

stasis reminds us that film rolls are essentially made of still frames. The movement that it

shows us is only an illusion (18). In my opinion, Fog Line highlights this ontology of cinema

exceptionally well. As I’ve mentioned, we can’t see any movement happening from shot to

shot in the film but we do recognize that the fog is disappearing. In this way, Gotheim’s work

reveals that films practically work like advanced flip books, where little changes in paper

drawings look like motion when played rapidly. Or as film theorist Laura Mulvey put it:

“Cinema’s stillness [is] a projected film’s best-kept secret” (qtd. in Remes 6).

Of course, this isn’t all that relevant anymore now films are shot and distributed

digitally. That’s why static cinema is best understood in its original context. These slow

burning film experiments came to the front in a time where the popularity of television was

rising steadily. With moving images now being shown in almost every American household,

they lost that special quality that attracted avant-garde artists when cinema was still a new

medium. That’s why static films should also be seen as rebellious artworks. Films that, in an

age of constant entertainment and fast-cutting action, dwell on the simple marvels of life,

such as a grassy field covered in fog. In this, they do resonate in today's moviemaking: slow

cinema still exists as an alternative to mainstream cinema (de Luca and Jorge 2) where

stillness and boredom receive its rightful place.

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In this essay I’ve wanted to highlight how Larry Gotheim’s Fog Line is an excellent example

of the many characteristics of the cinema of stasis. Pointing out its closeness to photography

and paintings, all the while using the portrayal of disappearing mist to raise awareness of

cinema’s unique qualities. Giving the viewer a space for relaxation and reflection, as a piece

of art defiant to the fast edge of (tv) entertainment. That there is so much to say about a work

of static cinema, is a testament to the versatility of this superficially monotonous avant-garde

movement.
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Works Cited

de Luca, Tiago, and Nuno Barradas Jorge. “INTRODUCTION: FROM SLOW CINEMA TO

SLOW CINEMAS.” Slow Cinema, edited by Tiago de Luca and Nuno Barradas Jorge,

Edinburgh University Press, 2016, pp. 1–22,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1g09wrj.8.

“La Chambre.” e-flux, https://www.e-flux.com/video/333153/la-chambre/. Accessed 11

November 2021.

Remes, Justin. “Introduction: The Filmic.” Motion(less) Pictures: The Cinema of Stasis, New

York: Columbia University Press, 2015, pp. 1-30.

Sitney, P. Adams. “The Structural Film.” Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, 1943-

2000, 3rd ed, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 347-370.
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