If Bergson moved the question of time from the realm of measurable, quantitative time into the realm of lived experience, Martin Heidegger took an even more radical step. Heidegger asked whether time could be understood at all without considering the way human beings exist in the world. In Being and Time, time is no longer an independent subject alongside other philosophical questions; rather, it is the fundamental horizon within which the possibility of understanding Being—and consequently the possibility of understanding human existence itself—emerges. For Heidegger, human beings are not entities that first come into existence and are then placed within time. On the contrary, their mode of existence is temporal from the outset. Heidegger uses the concept of “Dasein” to describe this condition: a being for whom its own Being is an issue, and whose existence is continually shaped in relation to the possibilities that lie before it.
The significance of this conception for film theory lies in the fact that the experience of watching a film cannot be reduced to observing a sequence of images. The film spectator is a being situated within a particular temporal condition. They remember a past that the film has constructed; they inhabit the present moment of the shot; and, simultaneously, they await something that has not yet happened. Even the simplest narrative experience in cinema entails a certain orientation toward the future. When a character approaches a closed door, the spectator anticipates that it will open; when a telephone rings, the expectation of hearing a conversation emerges; and when a film holds on a long take of a silent face, the spectator is not merely seeing something but is placed in relation to something that has not yet happened.
The fundamental question of this article, therefore, is not what Heidegger said about cinema—since he never developed a theory of cinema—but rather how Heidegger’s analysis of temporality can help us understand the temporal experience of cinema. This question becomes particularly significant when we turn to modern cinema, where the relationship between past, present, and future is no longer necessarily subordinated to the rapid advancement of action, and where waiting, delay, pauses, and suspense become independent elements of cinematic experience.
Time as the Horizon of Being
To understand Heidegger’s conception of time, we must turn to Being and Time. From the opening pages of the book, Heidegger treats time not as a secondary property of beings but as the horizon within which an understanding of Being becomes possible. For him, time is not a linear and numerical quantity; rather, it is experienced through the horizons of the future (anticipation and death) and the past (thrownness). (Heidegger, 1962, pp. 39–40.) In the introduction, he emphasizes that “the question of the meaning of Being must be pursued within the horizon of time.” In doing so, he demonstrates why time is fundamental to the understanding of Being.
This position marks a fundamental departure from the conventional conception of time. In everyday understanding, time is something like a container in which events take place. Events exist in time in much the same way that objects exist in space. Such a conception turns time into a continuous line: the past occupies one end, the present lies somewhere in the middle, and the future extends toward the other end. Heidegger considers this conception secondary. What we know as clock time—the chronological succession of moments—is the product of a more fundamental mode of temporality.
This distinction is particularly significant for cinema, since cinema initially appears to be a medium entirely dependent upon precisely this measurable, chronological form of time. Every film has a specific duration; every shot has a length; every cut occurs at a particular moment; and every frame occupies a position within a temporal sequence. Yet the spectator’s experience does not necessarily correspond to this chronological time. Five minutes of waiting in a film can feel longer or shorter than five minutes of rapid conversation. A ten-minute shot may contain almost no event in narrative terms while being filled with temporal, sensory, and psychological changes from the spectator’s point of view. We must therefore distinguish between the film’s physical duration and the time that the film makes experiential. This is where Heidegger’s concept of temporality becomes significant.
Time, the Present, and the Illusion of the “Present Moment”
One of Heidegger’s most important contributions is his separation of the “present” (now) from its ordinary meaning. The present, or “now,” is not an immobile point between past and future. Rather, “authentic temporality” emerges from the unity of the three dimensions of past, present, and future. In his analysis, Heidegger emphasizes that time is not something that exists like an object; rather, it temporalizes itself. (Heidegger, 1962, p. 377.)
This perspective has considerable implications for cinema. What we call the “present” of a film is never simply the present. A cinematic shot always carries the past of the preceding shots while simultaneously remaining open toward the shots that follow. Even if a frame remains fixed for several minutes, the spectator cannot separate it from its past and future.
From this perspective, editing is not merely the linking of images; it is the organization of temporal relations. Every cut establishes a past while reopening a future. But when a film moves away from rapid editing and toward long takes, this temporal structure becomes less concealed. The spectator is no longer simply looking for new information; they begin to experience the continuity of the present itself. This point is crucial to understanding the concept of “waiting” in cinema.
Waiting as the Disclosure of Time
If we understand “waiting” merely as waiting for an event to occur, we reduce it to a narrative device. But if we understand it within the framework of Heidegger’s philosophy, waiting concerns the human relationship to the future. Human existence is always moving beyond its present condition and taking shape within the horizon of possibilities that lie ahead.
Cinema can either conceal or reveal this structure. Classical cinema generally directs “waiting” toward an outcome. The spectator waits for an event to occur, a secret to be revealed, a narrative knot to be untied, a character to achieve their goal, or the conflict between protagonist and antagonist to be resolved. Here, waiting serves the narrative and ends with the occurrence of the anticipated event.
Modern cinema, however, can separate “waiting” from narrative resolution. A film can place the spectator in a situation where waiting itself becomes the object of their experience. The question is no longer simply, “What will happen?” but rather, “How are we situated within time now?”
From this point, one can move from Heidegger toward the cinema of Ozu, Antonioni, Tarkovsky, Béla Tarr, Haneke, and Kiarostami. In Ozu’s cinema, pauses and seemingly superfluous or “dead” shots release everyday time from the dominance of events. In Tarkovsky’s films, time becomes a material through which spiritual experience and memory are shaped. In Béla Tarr’s films, “waiting” can extend to such a degree that waiting itself becomes an exhausting experience. In Haneke’s films, delay and the refusal to provide answers keep the spectator suspended in an unsettling and anxious state of uncertainty and not-knowing. And in Kiarostami’s cinema, the distance between an event and its meaning often becomes a space for the spectator’s participation and interpretation of the character’s situation.
In all these cases, the issue is not simply the “slowness” of a film’s rhythm. What has changed is the relationship between image and time. Heidegger allows us to understand time not as a neutral container but as a fundamental structure of existence.
Dasein is a being that is always ahead of itself, entangled with its past, and living toward its future and its possibilities. For this reason, time for Heidegger is not a collection of successive “nows” but a dynamic unity of present, past, and future.
If we transfer this framework to cinematic experience, we can say that the cinematic image is never a pure present. Every image carries traces of the past while remaining open toward the future. The spectator exists in the interval between the two. They remember and they wait.
The further a film moves away from the rapid logic of action and reaction, the more visible this temporal structure becomes. From this perspective, “waiting” is one of the most important forms through which time is disclosed in cinema.
Waiting occurs when the future has not yet become the present and the spectator is compelled to remain in the interval between the two. By extending this interval, modern cinema draws time out from behind the narrative and transforms it into something palpable—something the spectator does not merely understand, but experiences.
Dasein and the Structure of Being-Ahead-of-Itself
To explain the existential structure of human beings, Heidegger employs a concept translated into English as “Being-ahead-of-itself.” In its very existence, Dasein is always “ahead of itself”; that is, it is never merely what it is at the present moment, but is always open to the possibilities of what it might become. Heidegger reveals this structure through his analysis of “care,” explaining that Dasein, in its very existence, always extends beyond its present situation (Heidegger, 1962, p. 236).
One of the important aspects of Being and Time is Heidegger’s privileging of the future in his analysis of temporality. In his discussion of authentic temporality, he employs the concept of “ecstatic unity” to describe the structure of temporality. “Ecstatic unity,” or ecstatic union, is sometimes associated with the highest level of mystical and intuitive experience, in which the boundaries between individual human existence and the sacred or the totality of being completely dissolve. The term “ecstatic” derives from the Greek ekstasis, meaning “standing outside oneself,” traditionally referring to a state in which individual consciousness is suspended and one becomes immersed in a sense of ecstasy, bliss, and absolute unity with the origin of the universe.
Heidegger, however, removes the concept of the “ecstatic” from the realm of traditional mysticism and metaphysics and gives it an explicitly existential and temporal meaning. In Heidegger’s philosophy, Ekstase does not refer to a mystical experience or a dissolution into God; rather, it describes the fundamental structure of Dasein, which is always “outside itself,” projecting toward the horizons of time. Heidegger develops this idea under the heading of the “ecstatic unity of temporality.” As discussed earlier, for Heidegger, time is not a straight line made up of successive moments. Genuine temporality has an ecstatic structure: its dimensions—past, present, and future—are not separate entities, but horizons into which Dasein is continually projected beyond itself.
Heidegger explicitly assigns a certain priority to the future within the ecstatic unity of temporality: “The primary phenomenon of primordial and authentic temporality is the future” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 378). This statement should not be understood to mean that Heidegger simply considers the future more important than the past and present. His concern is instead with the existential structure of time. Dasein is not closed and fixed within the present, only to move toward the future afterward. Rather, it is open from the outset toward its future possibilities, and this openness to the future also shapes its relationship with the past and the present.
This issue can be observed with particular clarity in the cinematic experience. A spectator does not experience a film simply by moving from the present toward the future. At every moment, the film is experienced through a network of assumptions, memories, and expectations. What we see within the frame acquires meaning through what we have already seen, while simultaneously leaving something open for the moment that follows. Cinematic time, therefore, is not simply a linear succession of presents. Every moment of a film is experienced within a network of past, present, and future. This is why a static shot can be temporally more complex than a series of moving images. In rapid editing, the future is often quickly converted into the present through narrative information. The film constantly raises questions and immediately provides answers. In a long take, however, the distance between possibility and realization expands. The spectator is compelled to remain within that interval. It is here that “waiting” emerges.
Anticipation and Waiting
To establish a connection between Heidegger and cinema, however, we must distinguish between two concepts: “anticipation” and “expectation.” In Being and Time, the distinction between “anticipation” and “expectation” is crucial to understanding the difference between authentic and inauthentic existence, or Dasein’s relation to time and death. In Heideggerian terms, “waiting” is not merely a psychological state in which an individual awaits the occurrence of an event. Rather, it derives from a more fundamental structure: the fact that human existence is open toward possibility. For this reason, the “future” in Heidegger’s philosophy is not simply a collection of events that have not yet occurred; it is one of the structural dimensions of Dasein itself.
It is here that we can establish one of the first serious connections between Heidegger and cinema. The spectator does not live solely within the present of the image. Their perception of every moment of a film is intertwined with an expectation of what may come next. Even when a film provides no specific information about the future, the spectator remains situated within a horizon of possibility. This possibility may be narrative, but it does not have to be. We may expect a character to speak, the camera to move, something to enter the frame, the music to change—or none of these things to happen. In this sense, a film is not merely a collection of present images, but a structure of possibilities.
“Anticipation,” by contrast, generally involves a form of calculation concerning the future. The spectator uses the information provided by the film to predict what will happen. Classical genre cinema, particularly thrillers and mysteries, relies heavily on this kind of anticipation. The viewer gathers clues and attempts to determine the future course of the narrative in advance. “Waiting,” however, can constitute a different condition. In waiting, the future has not yet been reduced to a specific outcome. What is experienced is the interval itself between the present and the possibility of the future.
This distinction is significant in Being and Time. Heidegger differentiates “expecting” from other modes of relating to the future. From his perspective, “expecting” and “awaiting” are not synonymous. Expecting is generally directed toward a probable event, whereas awaiting involves a more complex relation to temporality. This distinction can also be applied to film theory. If the spectator is simply waiting for an event to occur, waiting remains part of the narrative structure. But if a film makes the spectator experience the passage of time itself, waiting moves beyond the level of narrative and becomes a phenomenological quality.
Death and the Future / The Final Waiting
One of the most important aspects of Heidegger’s analysis of the future emerges in his discussion of death. For Heidegger, death is not simply the final event that takes place at the end of life; it is Dasein’s “possibility of the impossibility” or its ultimate possibility. The relationship between human existence and death therefore represents a privileged example of the relationship between being and the future. According to Heidegger, through “anticipation” of death, Dasein opens itself toward the ultimate possibility of its own existence. Heidegger argues that anticipation reveals the possibility of authentic existence because it confronts Dasein with the finitude and limits of its being (Heidegger, 1962, pp. 311–312).
The future, therefore, is not simply a place where something will happen later. It is a structure through which Dasein can experience itself as a finite and possible being. This idea takes on particular significance in cinema, because cinema is a medium that simultaneously makes the ending present and conceals it. Even before we know how a film will end, we know that it has an ending. From the moment a film begins, its temporal existence is finite and bounded. The spectator is always moving toward the end, even when the narrative makes no direct reference to it. In this sense, the cinematic experience can, at a fundamental level, be understood as an experience of limited time. A film has begun and will end. Every passing moment consumes part of the film’s remaining possibilities.
This becomes even more significant in modern cinema, where time is brought to the spectator’s awareness. In the final sections of Being and Time, Heidegger returns to the question of ordinary or conventional time and demonstrates how measurable, chronological time emerges from more fundamental structures of temporality. He even argues that the possibility of discovering and using the clock is itself grounded in Dasein’s temporality (Heidegger, 1962, pp. 464–466).
Cinema, in fact, is the product of an extraordinarily precise form of time measurement. Every film can be measured in frames, seconds, mise-en-scène, and shot duration. Yet the experience of a film cannot be reduced to these quantities. Two films may both be one hundred minutes long, while their temporal experiences are completely different. One may engage the spectator so intensely in its action that the passage of time becomes imperceptible; another may bring every minute of its duration to the forefront of the spectator’s awareness. We can therefore distinguish between the “actual time of the film” and the “experienced time of the film.”
It is at this point that Heidegger’s discussion can potentially become a framework for understanding “slow cinema” and cinema centered on time. Although Heidegger never discusses cinema in his book, his philosophical analysis of time allows us to understand why extending the duration of a shot does not necessarily mean that the experience itself becomes “slower.” On the contrary, a long take can detach the spectator from narrative time and confront them with lived time.
An important qualification, however, is necessary here: Heidegger should not be equated with a theorist of modern cinema. Heidegger was not a film theorist, and his concepts cannot be transferred directly and uncritically into film theory and analysis. The value of a Heideggerian approach lies elsewhere. It allows us to ask why certain films transform time into something that the spectator does not merely measure, but actually experiences and lives through.
In this sense, the central concern of time-based cinema is not slowness, but openness to possibility. A long shot or long take becomes significant when it does not imprison the spectator within the present, but places them within the horizon of something that has not yet arrived. Silence, pauses, delay, and “waiting” can all become cinematic forms of this openness.
Perhaps this is precisely where we can understand why the cinemas of Ozu, Tarkovsky, Béla Tarr, Haneke, and Kiarostami, despite their fundamental differences, converge at a certain point: they do not ask the spectator merely to watch what happens. They compel the spectator to remain within time.
This “remaining in time” is where Heidegger’s philosophy can be connected to the film theory of Gilles Deleuze. If Heidegger demonstrates that temporality is one of the fundamental structures of existence, Deleuze asks under what conditions cinema can present time directly rather than through movement. The transition from the “movement-image” to the “time-image” becomes significant precisely here: at the point where cinema no longer merely represents the time of action, but transforms time itself into an object of perception.
In the continuation of this discussion, I will examine Gilles Deleuze’s theory of cinema: how cinema moved from the “movement-image” to the “time-image,” and why waiting, stillness, and the rupture of causal relations came to occupy the center of this philosophical and aesthetic transformation.
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