IPM

It is common among amateurs of Techno music to refer to tunes in terms of beats per minute (or “BPM”). Hence, compositions are often accompanied by a parenthetical reference to the BPM, facilitating the disc jockey with his mix (e.g., “nuclear meltdown – 80 BPM”). As one may well imagine, there is a tendency toward speed among aficionados, and those little numerical values seem to egg composers on to ever shriller rhythms.

Let us propose the IPM system: that is to say, books and movies should provide the ideas per minute. For just as sound, repeated in an organized manner, provides the composer with the material with which to carve his aural sculpture, ideas provide the writer with the selfsame stuff. Indeed, if one thinks about it, it is not editing, camera work, or even dialogue that determine the speed of a film, it’s the IPM. Case in point: Andrey Tarkovsky, who, despite the snail-like pace of his films, grips the viewer in a state of suspension that seems to continue for as long as the filmmaker wishes it. This is because, although his narrative flow is calm, the IPM quota is high. Or, to quote Woody Allen: “It just seems more fun and quicker and less boring for me to do long scenes.” In other films, amidst a blitz of rolling cars, explosions, gunfire and blood, we mysteriously find ourselves yawning. There is only one way to define such films: slow.

Artistic speed is not measured in footage cut (a negative value), but in the ideas per minute (which is positive like stepping on the gas). Indeed, only by accelerating the thoughts can the artist force the audience to hold on to its seatbelts? And, honorable reader, just as you wouldn’t like to sit in a room with a monotonous gong crashing in your ear 120 times per minute, why should being clubbed with a single idea over and again at the same frenetic rate be any less torturous?