Abstract

What sort of experiential phenomenon is boredom? Is it to be understood as an emotion or the lack thereof? If it is a mood, is it triggered by a determinate set of external stimuli, or is it an internal state that “colors” our perception of the world? More specific to the present study, how do we begin to make sense of the affective specifications of the boredom that we feel when watching a film—that is, what exactly are we feeling? This paper seeks to address these questions, first, by delineating how boredom as it operates in and through Antonioni’s L’eclisse (1962) poses problems for current trends in the study of film spectatorship, and, second, by turning to the phenomenological project of Martin Heidegger, whose account of mood draws attention to the ways in which boredom affords a unique affective disclosure of our relationship to time. Thus, reading Heidegger alongside L’eclisse can elucidate the unusual kind of engagement that Antonioni’s film demands, while also opening up new ways to think about film affect and ontology.

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