The Narrow Focus of Minimalism in Films -Hidden Genres, Strategies, and Pleasures

초록

Most feature films use the traditional three-act story structure that employs an active protagonist facing clear obstacles, and through his/her will through a pattern of escalating conflict, culminate into a final and irreversible climax that creates a closed ending. However, several international and prominent filmmakers use a different approach to storytelling, which one can label as "Minimalism". These films follow a passive protagonist who goes through his/her daily routine in a specific time and space frame, embodying a shallow dramatic arc in which not much happens and often results in an open end with no resolution. This approach to story is often visualized through a spare visual aesthetic: long takes, eye-level camera angles, long shots, minimum camera movement, and wide-angle lenses which does not visually emphasize certain dramatic moments but treats all moments in the story as the same. These films strive to capture what is extraordinary in the ordinary moment. Rather than trying to re-create the mundane world or facade of reality, minimalism, by stripping so much away, strives to capture the minute, but ever shifting, changes of human behavior, and reveal what we normally cannot see: characters being rather than doing. The use of episodic storytelling strings a series of moments that stand by themselves rather than building into a larger arc of conflict. Vignettes focus only on a moment itself between characters to create an impression or an idea in the audience with no set-up, development, or resolution as in a plot.

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