COM 320, History of Film–The Origins of Editing Styles and Techniques
I.
The Beginnings of Classical (Hollywood) Editing (“Invisible Editing”)
1. Intercutting (between 2+ different spaces; also called parallel editing or crosscutting)
-e.g., D. W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms (1919) (boxing match vs. girl/Chinese man encounter)
-e.g., lack of intercutting: The Life of An American Fireman (1903)
2. Analytical editing
-Breaks a single space into separate framings, after establishing shot
3. Continguity editing
-Movement from space to space
-e.g., Rescued by Rover (1905)
4. Specific techniques
1.
Cut on action
2,
Match cut (vs. orientation cut?)
3.
180-degree system (violated in Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920))
4.
Point of view (POV)
5.
Eyeline match (depending on Kuleshov Effect, actually)
6.
Shot/reverse shot
II.
Soviet Montage Editing (“In-Your-Face Editing”)
1. Many shots
2. Rapid cutting—like Abel Gance
3. Thematic montage
4. Creative geography
-Later example—Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds
5. Kuleshov Effect
-Established (??) by Lev Kuleshov in a series of experiments (poorly documented, however)
-Nature of the “Kuleshov Effect”—Even without establishing shot, the viewer may infer spatial or temporal
continuity from shots of separate elements; his supposed early “test” used essentially an eyeline match:
-e.g., man + bowl of soup + man = hunger
man + woman in coffin + man = sorrow
man + little girl with teddy bear + man = love
6. Intercutting—expanded use from Griffith
7. Contradictory space
-Shots of same event contradict one another (e.g., plate smashing in Potemkin)
8. Graphic contrasts
-Distinct change in composition or action (e.g., Odessa step sequence in Potemkin)
9. Cubism
-From Yuri Tsivian’s analysis of Strike: Multiple views of the scene are presented, views that are not POVs
of any characters in film–like the work of a cubist artist
10. Overlapping editing
-Repetitions expand the time of the event shown
-Later examples–Mission Impossible 2, Babe
11. Elliptical cutting/Jump cutting
-Opposite effect of overlapping editing
-A portion of the event is left out (often via jump cuts), so the event takes less time than it
would in reality
-Later examples–Rocky Horror Picture Show, Basquiat
12. Nondiegetic inserts
-Elements from outside the “story world” (diegesis) are inserted for symbolic or
metaphorical purposes
-e.g., Slaughterhouse/police attack in Strike
-Later examples–My Own Private Idaho, Basquiat, Naked Gun 2-1/2
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