Wavelength is a 1967 short film (45 minutes) by Michael Snow.
It is an experimental film. The film opens with a shot of an artist's loft. A woman leads in a couple of movers, who put a bookshelf up against a wall. Later, the woman and another woman come into the loft, drink coffee, and listen to the radio. A while after that—the time is not specified but it appears to be several days—a man stumbles into the room, collapses, and dies. Still later, a different woman enters the loft, sees the dead body, and calls her boyfriend to ask for advice.
As far as plot goes, that's it. But what Wavelength is remembered for is its surreal imagery. The film starts with a camera in a far corner of the room, showing most of the room, with four high windows against the far wall. The camera slowly, slowly, slowly zooms in to the far wall. The lighting in the room changes wildly—brightly lit, dark, at one point so brightly lit that only the window panes are visible. Sometimes the film is tinted. Sometimes the film is out of focus, or double-exposed. Not quite nine minutes in, a sine wave tone starts, a droning noise that steadily increases in pitch for the rest of the film. Through all that, the camera, without changing angle once, continues its very slow zoom, eventually coming to a tight closeup of a picture of ocean waves, pinned up against the wall between two windows.
Not to be confused with the 1983 sci-fi film of the same name.
Tropes:
- Drone of Dread: The buzzing tone, which starts at the 8:50 mark and continues until the end, starting at a low pitch and getting continuously higher over the course of the film. It is unpleasant, and contributes to a sense of unease and disorientation.
- Dull Surprise: The woman near the end, who comes into the loft, sees the body on the floor (the viewer can no longer see it as the camera has zoomed in too much), and calls her boyfriend. She asks what to do and even says "I'm frightened," but her tone of voice is bizarrely flat and even bored.
- The Dying Walk: Mostly offscreen. But not quite halfway through, there is a sound of clattering and banging and breaking glass. Footsteps can be heard. Then a man, played by Snow's fellow experimental filmmaker Hollis Frampton, walks unsteadily into the room, crumples to the floor, and dies.
- Fade to White: The end of the film has the camera zoom in to the picture of ocean waves until it fills up the entire screen. Then the brightness of the image increases until the image goes white. Then the movie ends.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The credits! The opening credits, which were typed out on sheets of notebook paper, flash by so quickly it is impossible to read them without pausing the film.
- Leave the Camera Running: Over a 45-minute film the camera never moves! The camera angle never changes. Instead the camera slooooooowly zooms in onto a picture of ocean waves taped to the far wall.
- Re-Cut: Snow eventually learned that some people were watching his film sped up. So in 2003 he released WVLNT (or Wavelength For Those Who Don't Have the Time), a 15-minute version of the film that consists of the first, middle, and last thirds of the film superimposed on each other.
- Shout-Out: The first woman, when she re-enters the loft with her friend and drinks coffee, turns on the radio. The radio plays "Strawberry Fields Forever" by The Beatles.
- Staggered Zoom: Basically, the longest staggered zoom of all time, as the camera does not actually continuously zoom but instead focuses in on the picture in a series of jumps and cuts towards the picture on the far wall.
- Stylistic Suck: Obviously, Michael Snow knew how to focus a camera and record film. So all the times when the camera goes out of focus, or the camera shutter blinks, or images of the film are superimposed on each other, are deliberate as part of the bizarre imagery of the film.
