Return to Intro to Film syllabus
Updated 18 April 2007
ENGLISH 114: INTRODUCTION TO FILM, Fall 2006
Section 2: Monday, 6:00-9:30 p.m., Professor Larsson
Week 13, April 16, 2007
6:00-7:45 Discussion of Magnolia
More on editing
7:45-7:55 Break
7:55-9:25 Editing, continued
9:25: Pass in Extra Credit cards
Reminders:
Test 4 next week (April 23)
· 25 multiple-choice, true-false questions
· Terms and concepts from Barsam (Chapter 6: Editing), lectures (see Terms to Know page on website:
o Editing
o How terms and concepts apply in/to:
§ Run Lola Run
§ Magnolia
o Narrative and meaning in Run Lola Run and Magnolia
· Some questions may relate to a still shot or a short clip from a film.
· Bring full-sized Scantron sheet (8 ½ “ X 11”) and a Number 2 pencil
Extra Credit papers are due in 2 weeks. No papers will be accepted or read after April 30.
Final Exam will be at 6:00, this room, on Monday, May 7
Magnolia (1999)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson; Script: Anderson; Cinematographer: Robert Elswit; Production Designer: William Arnold and Mark Bridges; Editor: Dylan Tichenor; Music: Jon Brion
Cast:
Tom Cruise (Frank T.J. Mackey)
Jason Robards (Earl Partridge)
Julianne Moore (Linda Partridge, Earl’s wife)
John C. Reilly (Jim Kurring, the police officer)
William H. Macy (Donnie Smith)
Philip Baker Hall (Jimmy Gator, host of What Do Kids Know?)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Phil Parma, Earl’s nurse)
Melora Walters (Claudia Wilson Gator)
Jeremy Blackman (Stanley Spector, game show contestant)
Michael Bown (Rick Spector, Stanley’s father)
Alfred Molina (Solomon Solomon)
Ricky Jay (Burt Ramsey/Narrator)
Luis Guzmán (himself)
Henry Gibson (Thurston Howell)
Felicity Huffman (Cynthia)
Discussion Questions (for next week):
1. This film uses the numbers 8 and 2 often. Why?
2. What kinds of problems do each of the major characters exhibit? What are the causes of these problems? Do they get resolved by the end?
3. How do the lives of these various characters intersect—or are they connected at all?
4. How does editing work to connect these characters in time and space? If long camera takes are used, how and why do they occur?
5. What does the film imply about the direction of human lives and connections?
Narrative in Magnolia
Plot duration all takes place in space of a few hours
But makes reference to events that have occurred long before
· Donnie as Quiz Kid
· Jimmy Gator and daughter Claudia
· Earl Partridge, Frank and mother
· Linda’s marriage to Earl
Cause-and-effect: Incidents in past, especially childhood, have alienated or ruined lives of characters
Coincidence, unexplained events link characters:
· Officer Jim Kurring investigates disturbance at Claudia’s apartment
· Kurring loses gun after meeting with Claudia
· Phil Parma contacts Frank on same day that interviewer reveals his past
· Earl Partridge dies as Jimmy Gator begins to lose control
· Donnie is rebuffed at bar
· Kurring helps Donnie return money to store
· Rain of frogs changes events, saves Linda’s life, helps bring Claudia together with mother
Example of ensemble film: movie with large group of major roles, with no one dominating others. (Similar to Babel, Crash, Syriana, others)
Common links among characters?
Some causal relationships: Frank-Earl-Phil-Linda, Jimmy-Stanley-Father, Jimmy-Claudia-Kurring, Jimmy-Donnie-Kurring
Donnie: “I’m just another spoke in the wheel”
Wheel of characters with TV show as hub
Jimmy: host, father of Claudia
Donnie: Former Quiz Kid on show
Stanley: Current Quiz Kid
Earl: Producer of show (“an Earl Partridge Production”)
Show title: What Do Kids Know?
Explicit Meanings:
Song: “It’s not going to change until you wise up.”
Narrator, Donnie and Jimmie: “And so it goes. And so it goes. And the books says, ‘We may be through with the past, but the ain’t through with us.’”
Stanley: “Dad, you’ve got to treat me better.”
Sign: “But it did happen!”
Implications:
· What do kids know? That children aren’t toys, shouldn’t be confused with angels, should be treated better
· People plan things in their lives, only to discover that the plans change or don’t work out for them
· Death is inevitable, but we can still make contact with one another
· If frogs can fall from the sky, anything can happen!
·
Apocalyptic overtones, Exodus 8:2
“And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with
frogs” (Moses giving God’s warning to Pharaoh)
Multiple “messages,” along with pop culture references (“Thurston Howell” from Gilligan’s Island) and “unrealistic” events (all characters singing Aimee Mann song) suggest film’s “overdetermined” meanings, self-consciousness—elements of film’s “postmodernism”
Run Lola Run (another postmodern film) is different from Magnolia:
· concentrates on Lola and Mani as central characters, giving them additional chances through repetition and change
· theme of possibility despite unreality
Magnolia
· concentrates on several individuals
· fate seems determined by the past until they manage to get past it
· theme of inevitability of disappointment and death unless the unexpected occurs.
Symptomatic: Both films deal with alienation of young protagonists from parents and adult world.
CONTINUITY EDITING
· Also referred to as “Hollywood editing” or “invisible editing”
· Developed in early years of filmmaking
· Highly developed as set of “rules” to be followed by early 1920s
· Still in effect today in film and TV despite some adaptation
· System has absorbed some practices once thought to be “violations” of “rules” of editing
· Purpose is to assure that the audience has a sense of continuity in
· Space
· Time
· Narrative
Some major devices used in continuity editing
(Each can work against continuity if the “rules” are not followed):
General Pattern:
1. Establishing shot
2. Breakdown of scene into closer shots
3. Re-establishing shot (if needed)
180-Degree Rule:
Keeps all action in all shots on one side of straight line (180 degree arc) in a scene (the “axis of action”)
C
C C
C C
ß-----------------------------------------------------------------------à
X
C=Possible camera position X=”Wrong” camera position
· Assures continuity of direction of motion
· Assures continuity of position of characters, objects
· Assures overlapping background space from shot to shot
· Allows shot/reverse shot setups in conversations, etc.
Eyeline Match
§ Shot of person looking offscreen, followed by shot of what he or she “sees”
Match on Action
§ Action in one shot is continued in next shot, even though camera has changed position.
Crosscutting
§ Cuts between shots of actions occurring in two or more different places (usually at the same time)
§ Creates links in time, cause-and-effect, theme among actions
Parallel Editing
§ Similar to crosscutting but used to create parallels between people, situations, etc.
Montage Sequence
§ Relatively long process or period of story duration is conveyed in short amount of screen duration by series of short shots.
Example: Continuity Editing in Tootsie
§ Michael and baby: Montage sequence
§ Establishing shot-breakdown pattern
§ 180-degree rule
§ Shot/reverse shot
§ Match on action
Cross-cutting and Spatial Relations serving continuity:
Opening of Strangers on a Train (1951), directed by Alfred Hitchcock
· Opening at Washington, D.C.’s Union Station
· Cross-cutting feet walking in opposite directions
· Lead to meeting of two men
· Shot/reverse shot conversation
(Bruno will suggest that he and Guy exchange murders)
Parallel Editing and Rhythmic Relations establishing theme:
He Got Game (1998), directed by Spike Lee
· Montage sequence of people playing basketball
· United by movement, tracking shots, slow-motion, music by Aaron Copland
· Leads to cross-cutting between young man playing in city court and older man playing in prison court
Sergei Eisenstein and Dialectical Montage
The “Odessa Steps” sequence from Potemkin (1925)
· Montage: Editing, especially of relatively short shots
· Dialectical: process involving conflict of two forces (“thesis” and “antithesis”) resulting in a synthesis that combines aspects of both but different from both
Eisenstein: Shot A collides with Shot B, resulting in concept not present in either shot alonge
· Conflict can also occur in design elements of individual shot
· Vertical vs. horizontal
· Light vs. dark
· Directions (left/right, up/down)
Opening establishes fairly steady rhythm of shots, but conflict is seen in design elements
· 180-degree rule not followed
· When soldiers attack, rhythm increases, decreases at other moments and then builds again
· Time is expanded in individual events (nurse and baby carriage, destruction of theater gates by battleship) and sequence as a whole by overlapping, repeating shots
· Apparent eyeline matches suggest spatial connection without establishing shots
· Separate shots of individual statues create artificial animation of lion
Non-continuity editing: Tokyo Story ( Japan, 1953), directed by Yasujiro Ozu
· Camera crosses the line in conversations
· Lack of establishing shot, breakdown from angles that will show space of action
· Shots between scenes don’t provide narrative information
· Emphasis on graphic similarities between shots in conversations
· Use of low camera height (“tatami position”) is not always motivated by characters’ points of view
Use of non-classical editing in The Conversation (1974), directed by Francis Ford Coppola
· Adapts techniques of other filmmakers, including Eisenstein and Ozu
· Creates sense of isolation, lack of attention on part of main character (Gene Hackman), who is a surveillance expert