Experimental College

Instructor Spotlight: James Oley

James Oley, Instructor of EXP-0050-E: Pioneers of Slow Cinema: Art-House & Experimental Film, Is a Senior Majoring in International Literary and Visual Studies
A young man with short brown hair smiles at the camera in an outdoor portrait. He wears a light-colored button-up shirt, with a blurred background of green trees, water, and a cloudy sky behind him

What is slow cinema?

Slow cinema is a stylistic paradigm in contemporary art cinema that has a long and fascinating history in postwar European art-house film, American experimental cinema, and more.

What is your favorite film that would fit under the category and why?

I think my favorite slow film would have to be Michelangelo Antonioni's 1961 film La notte or Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker from 1979. They both thematize this idea of aimless wandering in a really interesting way. I'm super excited to be teaching them both!

What can slow cinema teach us about the world around us?

I think slow cinema offers a crucial artistic resistance to what feels like the growing speed of the world around us, and the technologies that accelerate this speed. Taking three hours to contemplate a film in which "nothing happens" feels meditative and healing in this cultural landscape.