COM 320, History of Film–The Origins of Editing Styles and Techniques

I. The Beginnings of Classical/Hollywood Editing (“Invisible Editing”)

1. The invisible cut…Action is continuous and fluid across cuts

2. Intercutting (between 2+ different spaces; also called parallel editing or crosscutting)

-e.g., lack of intercutting?: The Life of An American Fireman (1903)

-e.g., D. W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms (1919) (boxing match vs. girl/Chinese man encounter)

3. Analytical editing

-Breaks a single space into separate framings, after establishing shot

4. Continguity editing…Movement from space to space

-e.g., Rescued by Rover (1905)

5. 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 = hunger

man + woman in coffin = sorrow

man + little girl with teddy bear = 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–Basquiat, My Own Private Idaho, Naked Gun 2-1/2

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