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Timecode (Excerpt 1) (QuickTime)
Timecode (Excerpt 2) (QuickTime)

At long last! Possibly even more breathlessly awaited than my first post on a De Palma film, here is a post on Timecode. I imagine that Timecode is the first thing that comes to mind of most moviegoers when thinking of split screens in movies.

Timecode maintains a fixed 2×2 grid at all times. Each quadrant shows a single, uncut shot for the entire movie. The four cameras were choreographed by director Mike Figgis so that they were synchronized loosely in terms of what to show and where to go. The audio tracks for all four sets of footage are played back simultaneously, with some adjustments in volume for clarity’s sake.

I saw Timecode on opening night in 2000 and had not watched it again until this week. There are many visually striking moments where the multiple images come together or play off each other. Given that it’s a narrative film, the fit of the split-screen form would partly depend on how much the multiple streams enhanced the narration. Do the multiple channels reflect, illuminate and color one another so as to deepen our experience of the story in a way a single-frame film could not do?

I think Timecode is hit or miss in that sense. Part of the problem is that much of the story is spoken rather than shown: the narration relies mostly on dialogue rather than imagery to propel the plot. This means that the audio from one subframe (say, a monologue of one character) might comment on and affect our understanding of the visuals and/or audio in a different subframe. For me this reliance on the audio tracks made for a distracting experience. Also, I admit that I have a tough time caring about the characters or the overall story, which is a big damper on my excitement of watching this film.

Still, Timecode is a milestone. My personal preferences aside, there’s much in the film that would be food for thought if you want to see how the split-screen form can help tell a story.

Thanks to readers who recommended this film.