Manohla’s piece on the interlocking web of references in the opening of Melancholia shows why we still can’t say TV has caught up with film as an art form. TV with its unlimited space to play out a story can build up characters year after year in a way that film can only imply. But in the hand of a filmmaker like Von Trier, it can imply it pretty well and one carefully coreographed glance can tell everything that it would take a season to unfurl on television. I think of the shot in The Searchers where you see for half a second Martha lovingly folding the returned Ethan’s uniform. Asked later if that shot was meant to imply there had been a relationship between them, John Ford said, (I paraphrase) I think everything was completely f-ing clear.
There is no TV show, not The Wire, not even the finale of The Sopranos, that expects that level of attention from its viewers, that they could pick up on a major character point from a mere glance. And no TV show for whatever its pretentions can pack the same density of reference as Melancholia.
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