Editing Time Indefinite

{{Short description|1993 documentary film by Ross McElwee}}
{{for|the 2025 album|Time Indefinite (album)}}
{{primary sources|date=January 2009}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Time Indefinite
| image          =
| caption        =
| director       = [[Ross McElwee]]
| producer       =
| writer         = Ross McElwee
| starring       =
| music          =
| cinematography = Ross McElwee
| editing        =
| distributor    =
| released       =
| runtime        = 114 min.
| language       = English
| budget         =
}}

'''''Time Indefinite''''' is an autobiographical 1993 [[documentary film]] directed by [[Ross McElwee]]. It explores themes of [[grief]], mortality, and the convenient disconnection of watching life through a camera lens.

The title comes from a passage from the [[Bible]] mentioned by a visiting [[Jehovah's Witness]]. McElwee is filming the interaction and focused on adjusting the exposure to try to catch the play of light over the man's face; distracted, he "hears" the phrase about 30 seconds after the man says it and understands it to refer to the unpredictable imminence of death.

==Synopsis==

In the film, director Ross McElwee gets married, finally putting an end to his family's worrying; his grandmother dies; his wife Marilyn has a miscarriage; and his father, a medical doctor, dies suddenly within a week of McElwee's wife's miscarriage. His mother had died of [[cancer]] ten years earlier and so McElwee returns to his father's house, where his father's housekeeper ministers to him about [[Christianity]] and [[faith]].

McElwee goes to visit his friend Charleen, who is now living alone in a new apartment. She had lived on an island in an old two-story house abandoned by the [[U.S. Army]]; she and her husband worked to restore it and lived together there for years before becoming estranged. Charleen then lived there alone, but on returning home from a trip she finds that her husband has set fire to the house and died downstairs at the grand [[piano]] in an [[arson]]/[[suicide]]. Charleen has her husband's [[cremation|cremated]] remains in a bag inside a box and tries to get rid of them but can't bring herself to do it.

McElwee's brother is a successful doctor; on a visit to his brother's practice, Ross talks with his brother about their father's death, which took them both by surprise. Ross's brother receives a patient who has a large malignant tumor on her breast; the woman has had the tumor for years without seeking medical help. Ross's brother takes a slide of the tumor for his files; it has spread across much of her chest and is both multifaceted and multicolored. Ross incorporates his brother's interview with the woman—and the slide his brother takes—into his film, musing in [[voiceover]] about motivation and fatality and marvelling at the power of denial.

Eventually Ross abandons the film, only to continue it later: his wife is pregnant. The pregnancy comes to term and Ross and Marilyn go with their baby son to visit Charleen, who criticizes them for bringing children into such a hostile and unpredictable world but speaks to the passion that drives life and procreation. Ross and Marilyn dote on their son and seem largely unbothered by the criticism.

== Year-end lists ==
* 3rd&nbsp;– Peter Rainer, ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''<ref name = "LATimesYE">{{cite web|last=Turan|first=Kenneth|date=December 25, 1994|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-12-25-ca-12998-story.html|title=1994: YEAR IN REVIEW : No Weddings, No Lions, No Gumps |work=Los Angeles Times|accessdate=July 20, 2020}}</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.rossmcelwee.com Ross McElwee's web page]
* {{IMDb title|108341|Time Indefinite}}

[[Category:1993 films]]
[[Category:POV (TV series) films]]
[[Category:Films directed by Ross McElwee]]
[[Category:American documentary films]]
[[Category:Autobiographical documentary films]]
[[Category:Documentary films about death]]
[[Category:1990s English-language films]]
[[Category:1990s American films]]
[[Category:English-language documentary films]]