About

Poetic Cinema is a phrase used by Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky in the documentary film Voyage In Time (1983). The term has been loosely defined as avant-garde or "art" cinema, which focuses more on images and abstract filmmaking to produce meaning as oppose to narrative cinema.^[1] A still image of Tarkovsky saying the phrase became a reaction image on Tumblr, used primarily as an ironic way to show one's appreciation for less artful film and television.

Origin

Tarkovsky says "poetic cinema" in a scene from Voyage In Time, a documentary released May 29th, 1983 which follows Tarkovsky through Italy as he reflects on his work (scene shown below).^[2]

Spread

On February 5th, 2014, the still appeared on Tumblr^[3] in a post by neverendingnoise, gaining over 1,200 notes (shown below).

On August 16th, 2016, Tumblr user tomshardys used the pic as a reaction image to the caption "a movie: (has one scene with neon lights)", gaining over 194,000 notes^[4] (shown below, left). On November 12th, 2017, user wrasslerjedi posted about Thor: Ragnarok using the image, gaining over 8,600 notes (shown below, right).

Eventually, the phrase itself became a meme as a way to humorously exaggerate moments in cinema and television. For example, user monalisa1797 used the phrase to describe a scene from Justice League, gaining over 680 notes (shown below, left). User gndydancer made a post about the show Critical Role, gaining over 300 notes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References