Classical Realist Texts: American Films between 1916 and 1960

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Classical Realist Texts American Films between
1916 and 1960

• Montage

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Montage in Classical American Films

• As mise-en-scène, montage must help a narrative
  move on without distracting the attention of the
  viewer from it.
• Smooth flow from a shot to the next shot
• CONTINUITY EDITING

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Montage in Classical American Films

• Continuity editing
• PURPOSES
• To tell a story coherently and clearly
• To display the chain of actions in an
  un-distracting way

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Montage in Classical American Films

• GRAPHIC CONTINUITY
• Shot-Reverse Shot
• The positions of figures, the balance of
  compositions, and the set designs must be kept
  consistent over shot-reverse shots.
• The overall lighting tonality and colour schema
  must remain constant over shots.

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1. Interior scene at Sam Spades office Medium
shot of Sam in straight-one angle
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2. Long shot of Effie over Sams shoulder
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3. Medium shot of Effie in low angle
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4. Reverse shot of Sam in straight-on angle
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5a. Cut to the shot in which Effie inviting in a
client, Ruth Wonderly
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5b. Sam gets up and the camera rises, too.
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6a. Reverse shot of 5
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6b. Both sit down at Sams desk
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7. Reverse shot of 6 and straight-on angle over
Sams shoulder
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8. Reverse shot of 7 over Ruths shoulder
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9. Reverse shot of 8 in which Ruth speaks
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10. Reaction shot of Sam while Ruth talking
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11a. Reverse shot of 10 with Ruth still talking
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11b. Ruth looks right out of frame when she
hears the sound of the door opening
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12. Shot of Miles Archer, Sams partner private
eye, entering the office in eye-line match
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13. Shot of the same set up as 6 with attention
directed to Miles out of frame
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14a. Shot of Miles walking in
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14b. The camera pans right and establish the
position of all three figures
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14c. The position of the three figures
established and maintained
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Non-Continuity Editing

• An example which ignores the rule of continuity
  editing. Ozus Autumn Afternoon

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Montage in Classical American Films

• EYE-LINE MATCH
• Shot A presents someone looking at something
  off-screen shot B shows us what is being looked
  at by him/her.

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Montage in Classical American Films

• Eye-line match
• Alfred Hitchcocks Rear Windows (1954)
• In one shot Jefferies looks through his camera
  and the next shot shows what he is watching.

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Montage in Classical American Films

• 180-DEGREE RULE
• Two characters (or other elements) in the same
  scene should always have the same left/right
  relationship to each other.
• The axis of action (or centre line, 180º line)
  is assumed between two characters. Then, this
  axis of action determines a half-circle, or 180º
  area, where the camera(s) can be placed to
  present action.

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Montage in Classical American Films

• Examples of the scenes which blatantly ignore the
  180-degree rule
• Jean-Luc Godard, A bout de souffle (1960)
• Ozu Yasujiro, Tokyo Story (1953)

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180-degree Rule

• The imaginary axis is established between Ruth
  and Sam and the camera stays on in the same 180
  degree area, on the door side of the room.

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180-degree Rule

• Conscious rejection of the 180-degree rule
• Jean-Luc Godards A bout de souffle (Breathless,
  1960)

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Montage in Classical American Films

• TEMPORAL CONTINUITY
• Time, like space, is organized according to the
  development of the narrative
• ORDER, FREQUENCY, DURATION

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Montage in Classical American Films

• ORDER
• Continuity editing typically presents the story
  events in a 1-2-3 order.
• With the exception of occasional flashbacks.
• Christopher Nolans Memento its narrative told
  in a backward 3-2-1 order

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Montage in Classical American Films

• FREQUENCY
• Classical editing also typically presents only
  once what happens in the story.
• Non-classical montage
• Sergei Eisensteins Battleship Potemkin (1925)
• Spike Lees Do the Right Thing (1989)

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Montage in Classical American Films

• DURATION
• In the classical continuity system, story
  duration is seldom expanded or shortened. The
  story time is equal to the film time.
• Story time is extended in the famous Odessa Steps
  scene in Sergei Eisensteins Battleship Potemkin
  (1925)

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Montage in Classical American Films

• JUMP CUT
• A device to compress (dead) time. (A man enters
  a large room at one end and must walk to a desk
  at the other end. Jump cut eliminates most of
  the action of traversing the long room.)

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Montage in Classical American Films

• Unobtrusive jump cut - a cut which does not make
  the viewer aware of it.
• Excess dead time must smoothed over either by
  cutting away to another element of the scene or
  by changing camera angle sufficiently so that the
  second shot is clearly from a different camera
  placement.
• Jump Cut Jump Cut 2

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Formalist Montage

• Obtrusive, jugged jump cut
• An action is abruptly interrupted before it is
  completed or a scene begins in the middle of an
  action after it has already started.
• Jean-Luc Godard, A bout de souffle (1960)
• Lars von Trier, Dancer in the Dark (2000)
• One of the avant-gardes favourite expressive
  techniques.
• Making artificiality evident.

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Formalist Montage

• CROSS CUTTING
• Alternates two or more lines of actions taking
  place in different places simultaneously.
• Cross cutting could be employed to enhance
  reality and truth effects, but is generally
  associated with more formalist editing.
• Edward Yans Yi, Yi (A One and a Two, 2000)
• Francis Ford Coppola, Godfather

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Formalist Montage

• David Lean as a master editor
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• Formative editing jumping thousands of miles in
  space over two shots

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Formalist Montage

• The most audacious editing
• 2001 Space Odyssay
• Time travels million years in one editing.

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Classical Realist Montage

• Analyse a classical realist montage David Lean
  Great Expectations (1948)

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