Film adaptation of The Atrocity Exhibition failed by imposing narrative duration.

Evidence

Part of the problem with Weiss’ film adaptation of The Atrocity Exhibition is that it subordinated the fragmentary mode of the novel to the duree — the lived time — of the feature film. The most successful part of the film was perhaps the first few moments, where Ballard’s text was intoned over still images in a style reminiscent of Marker’s La Jetee (a film which Ballard adores, of course). That is partly because it is the profound stillness of the Surrealist paintings which The Atrocity Exhibition describes and appropriates — their beaches drained of time — which sets the rhythm of the novel. The most successful adaptation of The Atrocity Exhibition would, precisely, be an exhibition — not only of photographs, but also of newsreel footage, mandalas, diagrams, paintings and notebooks. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 196

Categorization

• XREF: The novel’s fragmentary, time-drained mode matches the book’s earlier accounts of the mediatised unconscious and static oneiric juxtapositions.