Clip 1 - Battleship Potemkin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laJ_1P-Py2k
In this silent Russian film from 1925, frequent fast cuts are used to show a sequence of clips of people running away from an attack. Editing like this was not common at the time in mainstream American cinema and films like this inspired many more in the future to use similar rapid cutting techniques for the purpose of creating intensity in these fast paced action sequences on a large scale. Cuts from wide shots of running down the stairs to close ups of individual people reacting to the attack are used to show the damage being caused and further immerse the viewer into the situation to create tension while at the same time showing the sheer size of the chaos. Specific characters such as the mother of the child that gets trampled and the woman with the pram are picked out to which makes the viewer relate to the scene on a more personal level, they see how the innocent are being harmed and the tragedy of the scenario arises. At the start of the clip there are various cuts that show the front of the crowd continuing to run down the stairs. A wide shot showing the full staircase is never used so the cuts give the illusion that the staircase is inescapable. The techniques used here are effective but compared to contemporary methods introduced later in cinema they seem primitive today. With the advent of Steadicam, the scene could have been more immersive and have tighter pacing.
Clip 2 - Way Down East
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI2e3pXat54
In a scene from American director D. W. Griffith’s 1920 film “Way Down East”, parallel editing is used to create a tense scene showing a man trying to rescue a woman from a waterfall. The cuts are inserted back and forth between the woman in danger, peril (the waterfall) and her would be savior to show how dire the situation is and to remind the viewer of what is at stake and build tension. Frequent close ups of the woman showing her hopelessness and wide shots let us see the desolation of the environment, and how this man is the only hope at saving this woman’s life. At the climax of the scene, the woman and the waterfall are shown together before one shot shows all of the elements in relation to each other as the man saves the woman from the waterfall. Prior to this, the rapid cuts between the three aspects emphasize the speed and urgency of the situation before everything is tied together, in a very similar way to how Sergie Eisenstien does in Battleship Potemkin with its stairs scene.
Clip 3 - The Silence of the Lambs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts1x6uADFtM
Parallel editing is used to create false confusion by misleading the viewer into believing that the police are raiding the house of the killer, when they are actually preparing to raid a different house. Scenes are shown from within the actual house and the exterior of the other house to make the viewer think that this is the same house. This is done to create suspense that leads to a twist that surprises the audience. It does this effectively by eventually combining and blending the audio and visuals from both scenes together cohesively.
The scenes taking place within the house are made tense by creating a busy ambience. The background music, dog and dialogue combined with the situation are anxiety inducing. This is juxtaposed with the cuts to the almost silent approach of the police, throwing the viewer back and forth from these soundscapes in a jarring way when cuts are placed in. The cut back to the house where Buffalo Bill is frantically looking for a gun is shot handheld as a tracking shot for the sake of immersion for the viewer and adds to the tension as the viewer starts to believe the situation will have more risk when the police arrive. Then as the doorbell is activated, the diegetic sounds stack up and more suspense is added to the audio. It subverts the conventions of standard editing techniques to subvert the audience’s expectations completely. The reveal happens before we see the FBI raid the house, and the tones of the scenes are now completely changed. Buffalo Bill calmly answers the door to Clarice Starling, engaging in a relaxed conversation with her, while the raid begins loudly. Windows are smashed, officers are shouting, and guns are drawn. When the FBI realize that the house is empty, the scene returns to near-silence and the suspense and buildup dies incredibly quickly. As tension ends in one scene, it is tonally changed and intensified in the other. This film is in the thriller genre and while the editing is unconventional compared to the typical film in this genre, the tone and theme of the scene is clearly a thriller. The genre usually aims to create a high amount of anxiety in the viewer during intense scenes such as this, and while the unconventional approach is different, the objective is the same and intensified by this factor.
Clip 4 - Rocky 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4soF2wigKSM
Montage quite literally translates to “editing” in French. The purpose of this type of editing technique was originally popularized in Soviet cinema by director Sergie Eisenstein (director of Clip 1’s Battleship Potemkin). It was then popularized in the American film industry in the monumentally and globally influential film Citizen Kane by Orson Welles in its newspaper printing scene. In the 80s, Hollywood began overusing the technique, most notably in practically every film of the long-running Rocky franchise.
The technique is used to show the long development of the character in a short amount of time, and timing it to the beats of energetic music makes it more interesting for the viewer to experience. It can also show various repetitions of the same action in different settings, giving the illusion that what is happening is a regular occurrence or done a lot. When each repetition is included, the improvements of his training are visible. Rocky is shown training hard for his fight, a recurring and iconic theme throughout each film in the franchise. In this training montage, humor is featured to help keep the audience engaged and cuts to reaction shots of spectators help show how he is improving. At the end of the sequence, his progress comes to a climax as he finally wins the race. Slow motion is used here to extend the scene and increase the impact of his success and celebration, emphasized in the freeze frame at the end with Rocky punching the air in victory. This is a common trope of the sports genre, as many of these films follow a character’s growth to become the best version of themselves in physical ability and endurance in preparation for an important event.
Clip 5 - Team America World Police
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhWiTORp22k
Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s unconventional puppet based 2005 comedy features a scene that is clearly a satirical take on the Hollywood cliché of training montages made popular in films like Rocky. This isn’t the first time the two comedians have parodied the technique, as their show South Park also features an almost identical sequence in the second episode of the sixth season.
In this instance they use the editing in a very "on the nose" way that disregards subtlety, similar to the typical montage training sequence. Due to the use of them in films like Rocky, montages have the reputation of being cheap and brash, which this parodies and contrasts with the relatively low brow humor of the scene.
This montage draws a parallel between a serious montage and the context of the film which makes the humor obvious for a wide audience. The editing does this effectively through using over the top transition effects (such as split screen) and cuts in irrelevant scenes (him reading) that subvert audience expectations to create a comedic situation. The footage used is not particularly funny alone but the humor is made in the way that it is edited together in an extreme manner which is highlighted by the lyrics of the song (“And with every shot you show a little improvement. To show it all would take too long. That's called a montage”). The overall impact on the audience is effective and the scene becomes amusing solely due to the editing.
In this silent Russian film from 1925, frequent fast cuts are used to show a sequence of clips of people running away from an attack. Editing like this was not common at the time in mainstream American cinema and films like this inspired many more in the future to use similar rapid cutting techniques for the purpose of creating intensity in these fast paced action sequences on a large scale. Cuts from wide shots of running down the stairs to close ups of individual people reacting to the attack are used to show the damage being caused and further immerse the viewer into the situation to create tension while at the same time showing the sheer size of the chaos. Specific characters such as the mother of the child that gets trampled and the woman with the pram are picked out to which makes the viewer relate to the scene on a more personal level, they see how the innocent are being harmed and the tragedy of the scenario arises. At the start of the clip there are various cuts that show the front of the crowd continuing to run down the stairs. A wide shot showing the full staircase is never used so the cuts give the illusion that the staircase is inescapable. The techniques used here are effective but compared to contemporary methods introduced later in cinema they seem primitive today. With the advent of Steadicam, the scene could have been more immersive and have tighter pacing.
Clip 2 - Way Down East
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI2e3pXat54
In a scene from American director D. W. Griffith’s 1920 film “Way Down East”, parallel editing is used to create a tense scene showing a man trying to rescue a woman from a waterfall. The cuts are inserted back and forth between the woman in danger, peril (the waterfall) and her would be savior to show how dire the situation is and to remind the viewer of what is at stake and build tension. Frequent close ups of the woman showing her hopelessness and wide shots let us see the desolation of the environment, and how this man is the only hope at saving this woman’s life. At the climax of the scene, the woman and the waterfall are shown together before one shot shows all of the elements in relation to each other as the man saves the woman from the waterfall. Prior to this, the rapid cuts between the three aspects emphasize the speed and urgency of the situation before everything is tied together, in a very similar way to how Sergie Eisenstien does in Battleship Potemkin with its stairs scene.
Clip 3 - The Silence of the Lambs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts1x6uADFtM
Parallel editing is used to create false confusion by misleading the viewer into believing that the police are raiding the house of the killer, when they are actually preparing to raid a different house. Scenes are shown from within the actual house and the exterior of the other house to make the viewer think that this is the same house. This is done to create suspense that leads to a twist that surprises the audience. It does this effectively by eventually combining and blending the audio and visuals from both scenes together cohesively.
The scenes taking place within the house are made tense by creating a busy ambience. The background music, dog and dialogue combined with the situation are anxiety inducing. This is juxtaposed with the cuts to the almost silent approach of the police, throwing the viewer back and forth from these soundscapes in a jarring way when cuts are placed in. The cut back to the house where Buffalo Bill is frantically looking for a gun is shot handheld as a tracking shot for the sake of immersion for the viewer and adds to the tension as the viewer starts to believe the situation will have more risk when the police arrive. Then as the doorbell is activated, the diegetic sounds stack up and more suspense is added to the audio. It subverts the conventions of standard editing techniques to subvert the audience’s expectations completely. The reveal happens before we see the FBI raid the house, and the tones of the scenes are now completely changed. Buffalo Bill calmly answers the door to Clarice Starling, engaging in a relaxed conversation with her, while the raid begins loudly. Windows are smashed, officers are shouting, and guns are drawn. When the FBI realize that the house is empty, the scene returns to near-silence and the suspense and buildup dies incredibly quickly. As tension ends in one scene, it is tonally changed and intensified in the other. This film is in the thriller genre and while the editing is unconventional compared to the typical film in this genre, the tone and theme of the scene is clearly a thriller. The genre usually aims to create a high amount of anxiety in the viewer during intense scenes such as this, and while the unconventional approach is different, the objective is the same and intensified by this factor.
Clip 4 - Rocky 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4soF2wigKSM
Montage quite literally translates to “editing” in French. The purpose of this type of editing technique was originally popularized in Soviet cinema by director Sergie Eisenstein (director of Clip 1’s Battleship Potemkin). It was then popularized in the American film industry in the monumentally and globally influential film Citizen Kane by Orson Welles in its newspaper printing scene. In the 80s, Hollywood began overusing the technique, most notably in practically every film of the long-running Rocky franchise.
The technique is used to show the long development of the character in a short amount of time, and timing it to the beats of energetic music makes it more interesting for the viewer to experience. It can also show various repetitions of the same action in different settings, giving the illusion that what is happening is a regular occurrence or done a lot. When each repetition is included, the improvements of his training are visible. Rocky is shown training hard for his fight, a recurring and iconic theme throughout each film in the franchise. In this training montage, humor is featured to help keep the audience engaged and cuts to reaction shots of spectators help show how he is improving. At the end of the sequence, his progress comes to a climax as he finally wins the race. Slow motion is used here to extend the scene and increase the impact of his success and celebration, emphasized in the freeze frame at the end with Rocky punching the air in victory. This is a common trope of the sports genre, as many of these films follow a character’s growth to become the best version of themselves in physical ability and endurance in preparation for an important event.
Clip 5 - Team America World Police
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhWiTORp22k
Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s unconventional puppet based 2005 comedy features a scene that is clearly a satirical take on the Hollywood cliché of training montages made popular in films like Rocky. This isn’t the first time the two comedians have parodied the technique, as their show South Park also features an almost identical sequence in the second episode of the sixth season.
In this instance they use the editing in a very "on the nose" way that disregards subtlety, similar to the typical montage training sequence. Due to the use of them in films like Rocky, montages have the reputation of being cheap and brash, which this parodies and contrasts with the relatively low brow humor of the scene.
This montage draws a parallel between a serious montage and the context of the film which makes the humor obvious for a wide audience. The editing does this effectively through using over the top transition effects (such as split screen) and cuts in irrelevant scenes (him reading) that subvert audience expectations to create a comedic situation. The footage used is not particularly funny alone but the humor is made in the way that it is edited together in an extreme manner which is highlighted by the lyrics of the song (“And with every shot you show a little improvement. To show it all would take too long. That's called a montage”). The overall impact on the audience is effective and the scene becomes amusing solely due to the editing.
Comments
Post a Comment