[Your Name] Course: [e.g., French New Wave Cinema / Film Analysis] Date: [Current Date] Abstract Agnès Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) is renowned for its real-time structure, following a young singer in the two hours before she receives the results of a cancer biopsy. This paper argues that the film’s chapter-like subtitles—specifically the precise timestamps and location titles—are not mere orientational devices but formal elements that shape the viewer’s experience of time, subjectivity, and existential dread. By breaking the narrative into discrete, titled segments, Varda transforms temporal constraint into a structural rhythm, aligning the audience with Cléo’s oscillation between objectification and awakening. Introduction Unlike conventional intertitles that announce acts or flashbacks, the subtitles in Cléo from 5 to 7 are diegetically anchored, numerical, and relentlessly progressive. Each subtitle appears as a black-on-white card reading, for example: “Cléo de 5h08 à 5h13” (“Cléo from 5:08 to 5:13”) followed by a location (e.g., “Chez elle. La chambre” – “Her place. The bedroom”). This paper analyzes three key functions of these subtitles: (1) the quantification of anxiety, (2) the fragmentation of identity, and (3) the eventual dissolution of rigid time. 1. Quantifying Anxiety: The Tyranny of the Clock The subtitles enforce a hyper-awareness of minutes. Between 5:07 and 5:13, Cléo tries on wigs; between 5:13 and 5:17, she sings a melancholic piece. The subtitles convert waiting (an internal, formless state) into a measurable, external grid.
Marking Time, Mapping Anxiety: The Function of Subtitles in Agnès Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7 cleo from 5 to 7 subtitles
