+

The Art

of editing

Constructing Desire & Sculpting in Time

CLASS 4

+Endless Sunshine of a

Spotless Mind

-Michel Gondry (2004)

Discussion & Critique

+Scene Construction &

CoverageKey Terms

+Establishing Shot

A shot that sets the scene

+Master Shot

Wide shot of the scene, in which all the action is in frame.

Usually the first shot to establish geography, and which all

other shots conform.

+OTS “over the shoulder”

+Reaction Shot

+2-Shot

+3-shot

+Close Up '[T]he close-up does not tear away its object from a set of which it would form part, of which it would be a

part, but on the contrary, it abstracts it from all spatio-temporal co-ordinates, that is to say it raises it to the

state of Entity', Gilles Deleuze, 1986

+Extreme Close Up

+Insert & Cutaway

+Point of View Shot

+

POV & “The Gaze”

The art of looking & the Spectator

+ Eye line Matching The Gaze -- i.e. Rear Window, 1954 Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock also had the Klushov Effect in mind

+Constructing Desire

“The average public … are not aware of “cutting” as we know it, and yet that is the pure orchestration of the

motion-picture from” (Hitchcock, quoted in La Valley 1972:24)

“Cinematic codes create a gaze, a world and an object,

thereby producing an illusion cut to the measure of desire.”(1975:16)

+ The Gaze

One of Mulvey’s arguments is that

classical Hollywood cinema, thanks to its

illusion of reality – partly through

seamless editing – is constructed around

a triad of looks: the camera’s; the

spectator’s (both implicit); and the

characters’ looks between themselves

(explicit). “

In Rear Window, “the male hero does see

precisely what the audience sees …

Hitchcock’s skillful use of identification

processes and liberal use of subjective

camera from the point of view of the male

protagonist draw the spectators deeply

into his position, making them share his

uneasy gaze.” (1975:15)

Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”,

1975

+Rear Window

We “identify” with Jeff. Emphasis on action:

Jeff’s subjectivity

Point of view

Point of listening

Telephoto lens

+ Erotic gaze in Rear Window

“Jeffries is the audience” Creates an erotic dimension by watching

Lisa gains sexual interest when she crosses barrier from spectator

His enforced inactivity, “binding him to his seat as a spectator, putshim squarely

in the phantasy position of the cinema audience.” -Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure”

+ Woman as Image,

Man as Bearer of the Look“The images of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of man…”

• This active/passive heterosexual division of labour controls narrative structure

+Rupture & identification

“Every narration places the spectator in a position of agency;

and race, class and sexual relations influence the way in which

this subjecthood is filled by the spectator.”

Black British Cinema: Spectatorship & Identity Formation by

Manthia Diawara

+#OscarsSoWhite

This year's Oscar nominees in the four

acting categories, the least diverse

group of contenders since 1998.

As the Los Angeles Times

reported in 2012, the Academy of

Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

is predominantly white (94

percent of membership as of

2012) and predominantly male

(77 percent of membership as of

2012).

“Why it should Bother Everyone that the Oscars are so White”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/20/oscars-diversity-

problem_n_6709334.html

+“The Oppositional Gaze:

Black Female Spectators” bell hooks 1992

What about race and gender?

“…black female spectators have had to develop looking

relations within a cinematic context that constructs our presence

as absence”

“She’s Gotta Have It” (1986) Spike Lee

+“The Oppositional Gaze:

Black Female Spectators” bell hooks 1992

What hooks calls The Oppositional Gaze: “a critical spectator

whose gaze had been formed in opposition.”

“Black female spectators,

who refused to identify with

white womanhood, who

would not take on the

phallocentric gaze of desire

and possession, created a

critical space where the

binary opposition Mulvey

posits of ‘woman as image,

man as bearer of the look’

was continually

deconstructed.”

“Illusions” Julie Dash, 1982

+TO CUT, OR

NOT TO CUT?The Art of Editing

+Sculpting in Time

As Tarkovsky suggests, cutting is in the movement inherent in

the recorded images and sounds.

This may be movement of the frame, movement within the

frame, or movement of the eye around the frame, also be

movement of events or emotions.

+

+When Not to Cut

The Piano, 1993, Jane Campion

+“Happiness” Todd Solondz, (1998)