Which movies impressed you when it comes to manipulation of time?
Some movies use the straight narrative, telling the story from beginning to end. Some movies deviate, using flashbacks for possibly more dramatic impact. Some filmmakers, like Hitchcock and Tarantino manipulated time frames liberally, showing two scenes at the same time in split screen or jumping from present to the future then back into the past or middle part of the story.
So which movies made quite an impression to you in terms of time use?
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Hitchcock’s Rope.
Filmed in “real time” giving the impression of one continuous take throughout, in reality, impossible, but a master film-maker crafting his way through a fine, ground breaking movie.
Timecrimes is a Spanish movie about time travel. The manipulation of time is what the film is all about and it is brilliantly done.
“Cloverfield” was something different as the whole movie was shot from the perspective of a single video cam.
Somewhere in Time starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. It was super-romantic, a love story set in the past, present and future (or were they all the same thing?)
If anyone says “The Lake House”, I’ma hafta hurt a mutha.
The Very Thought of You. 1998. I saw it for the first time a couple days ago, and you would have to see it to appreciate the use of time in telling the story. I generally hate that shit. Like Memento. I HATED it.
But this was well done and quite enjoyable.
Jacobs Ladder shifts time from reality to unreality so deftly one doesn’t really understand the movie until the last scene, if then.
Memento, Cloverfield and Rope are all very good mentions here.
Pulp Fiction was another great use of time manipulation. It is unsettling at first, but makes perfect sense.
Like mentioned above, Pulp Fiction. Also The Butterfly Effect is what I can think of right now.
Also, I hated cloverfield.
@filmfann Oh man I love Jacob’s Ladder, but a lot of parts I don’t get. I think I get the jist of it, but perhaps not, since as I understand it, time for the living doesn’t even matter in this. maybe
Another interesting film on its techniques around time passages is Closer, with Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, and Clive Owen. There are scenes that, at first, seem to happen directly after the last, but 2 minutes in you realize 6 months has passed.
Time After Time
H. G. Wells goes back in a time machine to track Jack the Ripper and falls in love with a bank teller who helps him maneuver around an unfamiliar world.
For me this ties with Somewhere in Time for fantastic romance and plot resolution.
And Mary Steenburgen is incredible in this movie.
And Malcolm McDowell who is usually cast as a villainous sort in more recent movies is here seen as a nerdy bumbling and sweetly endearing Wells.
A great little movie with a satisfying ending. And it’s one of the few time travel movies which actually makes sense and doesn’t trip all over it’s paradoxes.
Memento, for sure. Inception, of course.
Really though, nobody does it better than Doc Brown.
Kurosawa’s masterpiece Rashomon.
Triangle is another film with a plot based on slips in time. Creepy and unsettling and very enjoyable.
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