The daylong movie is a concept that tends to pique curiosities and stoke imaginations. The reasons are many, but rarity has to be up there; there've only been a handful of 'em in cinema history (if you're thinking of Andy Warhol's "Four Stars," so are we, but it turns out that film actually runs for 25 hours. Duly noted.)
Christian Marclay's The Clock is an intriguing entry in the mondo movie canon. It's a visual exploration of time and experience, and it indeed lasts for 24 hours. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will start The Clock on Monday, May 16 at 11 a.m., meaning that the last frame'll flicker on screen around 11 a.m. the next day.
Now, here's the brain tickler: The Clock will show a multitude of timepieces taken from hundreds of filmed works, and it will always show local time. So if you arrive to watch for an hour at 3:14 on Monday afternoon, whatever clock or watch happens to be on screen will read 3:14.
No one is expecting anyone to sit for 24 hours, sans sleep and sans sustenance, but we suspect some will try. And watching clocks for a full day? Has to be interesting. Surely some will make clockwatching-at-work jokes, and how it is a very Monday thing to do, but we say take the higher route, and ponder not workaday tasks but the meaning of eternity and such. We're not called upon to do that often enough.
Admission to The Clock is free. The location is the Bing Theater at LACMA.
The Clock © Christian Marclay, courtesy White Cube, London and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Photo credit: Todd-White Art Photography
