Face and Time
I saw this photograph on twitter of a man on a ladder positioned such that his face was replaced by the face of a gigantic station clock.
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(Why is a clock said to have a face? A face even with hands, like Humpty Dumpty’s, except attached in the middle, where the nose should be?)
It reminded me of the sign I saw in Lindau hanging in front of a shop that said “Timeless.” Here I guess it was meant to convey the unique quality of the shop’s fashion ware for sale, a quality which negated the whole idea of fashion as something time-bound, by default.
That sign had reminded me of one scene in Ingmar Bergman’s movie “Wild Strawberries,” which I saw together with a girl when I was in high school.
In that scene we see a man from the back as he walks on the street, passing by a clock whose face has no hands, only the markings of hours in the familiar constellation. Then, in a heart-rending move, the camera switches and we see the man’s face which is entirely empty as well, contourless like the back of a bald head.
This was the first time I had asked her out to a movie. The evening did not go well. She hated every bit of it. We talked about the movie afterwards, and came to the conclusion that we had nothing in common.
Afterwards I was grateful to Bergman for cutting short a romance that was doomed from the start.
Now, with the benefit of the internet, I see that the clock was actually part of a sign for an optometrist. Glasses with eyes inside were attached to the bottom.
Face, eyes, hands — body parts capriciously intermingled and exchanged! No wonder Bergman’s films follow us into our dreams.
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This entry was posted in Blog and tagged clock, face, girl friend, Humpty Dumpty, Ingmar Bergman, Lindau, romance, Wild Strawberries. Bookmark the permalink.
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