The 24-hour film that blew up Dunes 2 director Denis Villeneuve

You don’t become one of the most successful directors in Hollywood without a deep love of film and film history. This is certainly true of Denis Villeneuve, who rose to superstardom with films such as “Arrival”, “Blade Runner 2049”, and more recently “Vidma” and “Dune: Part Two.” At a recent Dunes 2 screening I attended at the Directors Guild of America in New York City, Villeneuve appeared and gave a brief introduction to the production process. Of course, being the big movie fan that he is, he also took time at the end of the discussion to promote another movie that has made a strong impression on him recently, and it’s not exactly what you might expect.

It’s about the movie The Clock, a 2010 film by artist Christian Markley currently part of the exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. You may ask yourself what kind of film can be called an exhibition of modern art, and the answer is one that lasts 24 hours and consists of images from the entire long history of cinema. The Hour, which has never been released for home viewing, is essentially an all-day montage, but it’s also much more than that, and it clearly made a strong impression on Villeneuve.

“I’m a little late with the news,” the director joked, as the film has been around for a decade and a half at this point. “I was blown away last week by this movie.”

“The Clock” is not just a collection of frames from famous films. Each piece of footage references the underlying concept of time, progressing through 24 hours with shots of characters checking their watches, looking at the clock, or announcing the time. Gary Cooper looks at his watch as the tension builds in Noon? There it is. This is how lightning strikes the clock tower in Back to the Future at 10:04 p.m. Night hours can show dream sequences, morning chapters show characters waking up and getting ready for the day, and so on. All from Movies about James Bond to the works of Ingmar Bergman, old Western classics and more modern films such as V for Vendetta playing on screen, creating a mesmerizing audiovisual display that pays homage to film history while focusing on its own artistic themes.

It is not surprising that a director like Denis Villeneuve would be so passionate about the film. “I encourage you to go,” said the director of public affairs at the DGA, referring to the current exhibition at MoMA. “You can walk in the theater, maybe 10 minutes, or maybe four hours.” Villeneuve even dug a bit into the thematic material of The Clock, praising Markle’s reflections on time as a unifying concept. “Every frame is connected to the idea of ​​time, and we see that through the history of cinema,” he said. “The shot of the clock, the clock, the tension, the beauty of time. So you’re watching the time for 24 hours. And it’s very interesting, I swear. Go.”

Those living in the New York metropolitan area can see The Clock for themselves at MoMA through February 17, 2025.