"As a sequence is being cut, the cutter should know where a particular setup most effectively presents the information needed for that particular part of the scene. In other words, he will stay with the shot as long as that shot is the one which best delivers the required information and cut to another shot only when the new cut will better serve the purposes of the scene, whether because the size is more effective, the composition is more suitable, or the interpretation is superior.... In short, as long as the scene is playing at its best in the selected angle, leave it alone!"
-- veteran Hollywood director Edward Dmytryk ("Murder, My Sweet," "Crossfire," "The Caine Mutiny"), On Film Editing (1984)
Steven Boone at Big Media Vandalism says he gave up on film criticism (for the fourth or fifth time) this year:
I quit film criticism because somebody has banished the shot from mainstream commercial cinema.
The shot, man.
That unit of film composition which lends film its cumulative power and structural integrity.
In place of the shot, like a leaky sandbag in place of a brick, somebody put... Well, what to call it, this fragment of film that has more in common with a spontaneous cutaway during Monday Night Football than with the ruminative, kinetic moving image discovered by Kuleshov, Porter, Griffith, et al? I once jokingly called it a gotcha-fragment, but that doesn't quite get it. The word for "shot" in the new century shall be...
Snatch.
Reading Boone's impassioned personal essay, "Inglourious Snatch," is a rewarding, cathartic experience for me. It does my heart good to witness one man standing up for the cinematic values he believes in, the very essence of what drew him to movies in the first place. And I don't have to endorse all the examples he lists to fully appreciate what he's saying.
The various snatch-enabling technologies (non-linear editing, DVDs, portable media devices) aren't themselves invariably "evil," Boone says, but they have contributed to the erosion of cinematic infrastructure, which relies on the integrity of the shot. As David Bordwell wrote in his essential piece, "Unsteadicam chronicles," about the combination of such techniques as the "shaky-cam," choppy cutting, and frenetic camera movement:
The handheld camera covers three mistakes: Bad acting, bad set design, and bad directing. [...]
The run-and-gun style is indeed visceral, but let's be aware of how it achieves its impact. I've argued in Planet Hong Kong that the clean, hard-edged technique of classic Hong Kong films allows extravagant action to affect us viscerally; by following the action effortlessly, we can feel its bodily impact. We're shown bodies in sleek, efficient movement that gets amplified by cogent framing and smooth matches on action. But in the fancy run-and-gun style, cinematography and sound do most of the work. Instead of arousing us through kinetic figures, the film makes bouncy and blurry movement do the job. Rather than exciting us by what we see, ["Bourne Ultimatum" director Paul] Greengrass tries to arouse us by how he shows it. The resulting visual texture is so of a piece, so persistently hammering, that to give it flow and high points, Greengrass must rely on sound effects and music. As a friend points out, we understand that Bourne is wielding a razor at one point chiefly because we hear its whoosh.
What else does the handheld style conceal? Since the 1980s, in many action pictures the cutting has become so fast, and often capricious, that we can't clearly see the physical action that's being executed. That complaint is justified in "Bourne Ultimatum," certainly, but here the style also seeks to make the stunts seem less preposterous. Instead of showing cars crashing and flipping balletically, Greengrass barely lets us see the crash. All the conventions of the action film are smudged in "Bourne Identity," as if a sketchy rendering made them seem less outlandish. In a Hong Kong film, Bourne in striding flight, grabbing objects to use as weapons without missing a beat, would be presented crisply, showing him executing feats of resourceful grace. But many viewers seem to find this sort of choreography outlandish or cartoony. So when Bourne plucks up pieces of laundry and wraps them around his hands to protect them when he vaults a glass-strewn wall, Greengrass's shot-snatching conceals the flamboyance of the stunt.
Remember, we're talking about mainstream narrative movies here. When some of us lament the pervasive visual incoherence in contemporary movies (especially the lack of thrills and momentum in flatly composed "action" sequences), we are sometimes compared to fogies who complain that this rock 'n' roll noise is corrupting the young people of today. After all, snatch and grab (or what DB calls "run and gun") is a currently fashionable style, the kids seem to like it, and all styles are equally valid. It's like complaining that Impressionism is fuzzy, or that Abstract Expressionism isn't photorealistic, right?
Wrong. Impressionism is not striving for clarity, and Abstract Expressionism isn't representational art. But a mainstream narrative movie that's trying to create thrills and suspense without an understanding of basic film grammar is simply failing to achieve the desired effect. (Likewise, it's not "Godardian" because it's not doing what Godard was doing -- or interested in doing.) Try painting an Ed Ruscha gas station using Jackson Pollock's technique and you'll get something, but it won't look like a gas station. (See DB's "But what kind of art?.)
Fast cutting is not necessarily the same as "snatch and grab." A director can cut fast and remain coherent if the shots are composed so that the relationships between them matters. (Check out a Hitchcock or De Palma set-piece for a textbook example: the "Psycho" shower scene or the climax of the prom scene in "Carrie," which is a splendid example of combining long takes, quick cutting and split screen.) As DB writes:
... [The] director who is just (apparently) snatching shots doesn't have to worry about building up performances slowly; s/he can simply give us the most minimal, stereotyped signals in facial close-ups. Lengthier shots let the actor develop the character's reactions in detail, and force us to follow them. Classic studio cinema, with its more distant framings and longer takes, lets you follow the evolution of a feeling or idea through the actor's blocking and behavior. The villain in the average Charlie Chan movie displays more psychological continuity than the nasty agents in "Bourne Ultimatum."
Moreover, run-and-gun technique doesn't demand that you develop an ongoing sense of the figures within a spatial whole. The bodies, fragmented and smeared across the frame, don't dwell within these locales. They exist in an architectural vacuum.
(For contrast, please see my frame-by-frame analysis of a fragment of "The Bourne Supremacy," "Sudden Impact.")
Boone also links to "The lost art of film editing," a 2006 essay by Jessica Winter (The Rough Guide to American Independent Film), in which the author reports on the increasingly powerful, risk-averse filmmaking-by-committee that determines so much of what we see at the multiplex and the art house:
"You always hear things like, 'We need to put more energy into this scene,"' says Tim Streeto, who edited "The Squid and the Whale" and has also worked on films by Ang Lee and Steven Soderbergh. "That can translate into quick editing, where you go back and forth between two characters like a ping-pong match." [...]
"There is much more pressure on an editor to try to do something 'noticeable,"' [editor Steve] Hamilton ["Simple Men," "Henry Fool"] says, "or perhaps there are more editors who've grown up thinking that they have to make edits that are noticeable, whereas before the goal was simply to tell the best possible story and to do so relatively invisibly. I think this mentality is leading to a mistrust of the shot."
As for Boone, he says it was the respect for the shot manifested in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" that pulled him back in -- to movies and writing about them:
But it has taken Tarantino, with his infectious love of violent scenarios and grindhouse grand guignol to sell classical film technique not as a quaint alternative to snatch cinema but as the most vital, elastic and essential use of the form. Without shots, cinema disappears, and the movie house becomes just another noisy rec room. [...]In a summer still reacting to last year's snatch apotheosis, "The Dark Knight," "Inglourious Basterds" stepped in to assume the role of proper tutor. Whatever Tarantino's intentions, I happily project onto his film profound outrage at "TDK"'s senseless, anti-human use of screen time and space, along with an apostle's commitment to sharing his enlightenment with the deprived.
Spoken like a true cinematic patriot. Yep, he's back. Welcome back, Boone!
I was watching Michael Mann's "Heat" the other day and was amazed at how well structured the action scenes in that film are particularly the final scene on the LAX tarmac. Even the famous bank heist scene which is famous for its chaos, is structured and edited into an exciting action scene. Many directors today incorrectly think that action is synonymous with visual incoherence. The audience does not have to know what's going on, but that must have a purpose. The scene must have structure and rhythm to create suspense and excitement, rather than queasiness. The best action scenes are structured and edited not chopped up. I have no problem with hand-held shots. I love hand-held scenes in films like "The Bourne Supremacy", "Children of Men", and, yes, "The Dark Knight". The edits in those films have a purpose other than to create visual chaos.
Thinking back about a few movies I've watched recently, I've come up with the definite and obvious conclusion that the handheld style is neither good nor bad; it is merely another tool in the hands of film-makers. For instance, both "The Hurt Locker" and "District 9" feature a lot of shaky camera work, yet allow us to understand clearly what's happening at every moment. On the other side, "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "Quantum of Solace" display awful moments of chaos. In the former, during the fight scenes, it is often impossible to distinguish one character from another, to the point where the end of the scene comes a a genuine relief. In the latter, I will simply quote the opera action sequence, which is an absolute mess; I actually had to rewatch it to understand who had shot at who or what.
In short, shaky camera work is not a fireproof way to make a successful action film, but it doesn't necessarily make it bad either. If it was that inherently annoying, Eisenstein's Odessa Steps scene would not be part of every cinema beginner's course.
JE: Quite true. It's never the techniques or the styles themselves that are "good" or "bad," it's how they are used and the skill with which they are executed that matters. You or I may like or dislike a particular technique that we feel has become, say, a cliche or a hollow mannerism, but (theoretically, at least) there will always be some film in the past, present or future that uses even the most hackneyed device effectively.
Your post put me in mind of a sequence near the end of Sean Byrne's "The Loved Ones" (winner of the Midnight Madness Audience Award at the recently wrapped TIFF). Some spoilers here:
After a great wide shot that is held for a long time as we wait for the killer to reappear on one side of the screen (which they do as they drag themselves slowly along the road), there's three separate cuts:
1) Back of car. Held for a second or two longer than you might think before the reverse lights come on.
2) Straight on shot of the face of our killer staring ahead as the camera slowly, slowly, slowly zooms in. It keeps going until pretty much the entire face fills the screen (and lasts maybe 30 seconds). At this point the audience is actually giggling in anticipation...
3) The "money shot" as the car hits (lasts maybe a second). Huge audience reaction.
Whether you like horror or not, the scene is incredibly effective for what it intended to do - lay final waste to the central evil character of the film and to do it with maximum audience pleasing effect.
In discussions afterwards, pretty much all of the people I spoke with agreed that in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, that whole sequence would have been sped up, cut a hundred times and would've been somewhat anti-climactic.
been diving back into Soviet "Montage" cinema lately. They put so much thought into every shot, every cut. There was THEORY behind the choices.
JE: Yup. And sometimes it looks like illustrated theory -- the Powerpoint of its day. But while styles have changed, the principles are still sound.
It would be very interesting to track the evolution of-say- Eisenstein's "Montage" theory throughout stylistic movements in film history.
Of course, for Eisenstein, it was exceedingly useful not only as an artistic choice, but also for propaganda purposes. Since I don't like to feel propagandized, I am interested in seeing where these philosophies find themselves today.
I know that is a broad statement if there ever was one, but perhaps it would make an interesting blog series.
The Theories of the Shot. I don't know.
Movies that ask us to meditate on shots have become so much more rewarding to me (as I see more of them). I'm able to think some more about what I'm seeing, contemplate the poetry of it... or even the meaning. I also have time to soak it up how it makes me feel and reflect on that. In my 'serious-filmgoing-infancy', I made the mistake of thinking that directors who do this are milking each shot for every last drop of drama, thus turning it into melodrama... and perhaps that is still true in some scenarios. But as I see movies like "Public Enemies", I've come back around to feeling that the quick editing is really just a distraction from the movie itself, an incessant reminder that it is a movie, thus taking me out of the film. Brian De Palma's "Scarface" might have been in your face but at least you could see what was happening in each scene.
As audiences will be seeing soon, the opening shots of Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant" are more entertaining in their poetry than all of the spaz-out, constantly-climaxing, trying-so-hard-to-be-cool snatches in the awful "Fast & Furious". Herzog slickly finds the right picture to put in our heads as we dive into the movie (and, for the record, it's a wonderfully wacky film from there on out). He knows he doesn't need pounding music to send a chill up our spine, just the right unsettling image. As a result, though both "BL" and "F&F" are set in Grand Theft Auto environments, only one is engrossing, the other is numbing, a dead zone of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
As for year-later analysis of "TDK"... I have come to some conclusions. If you go through the film on DVD with the aid of being able to pause, it has some great shots. (For example(s): Joker with his head out of the police car, just before the hospital detonation, The Dark Knight mourning destruction, the movie's closing shot and it's opening shot... and a few others.) If only I could have got a better look at them, had more time to think about what I'm seeing. And if only some parts were edited more cleanly, they would have more visceral impact. Compare the penthouse rescue-fall in "TDK" to the opening robbery scene getaway-fall from Kathryn Bigelow's "Strange Days" and you'll see and feel the difference. Only one of them makes you squirm in your seat.
I think, ultimately, with a movie like "TDK", those who defend it, myself include it, celebrate it for what is there, overlooking its many flaws, because we can't come to terms with letting the elements that are so terrific go to waste. (In that sense, we take the movie's closing message to heart.) I even invented a term to describe how Ledger's Joker performance impacts audience perception of the film: The Kong Effect. Basically this is a reference to the original "King Kong" which has flaws from start to finish but is held together by the awe of the raw Kong affects... and we return to the film for that. Ledger is The Kong in "TDK" and we mostly return to the film for him. (Notice Manohla Dargis ends her review by noting Heath's Joker is "some kind of masterpiece"... but not the movie itself.)
Also, the script, which has its weaknesses, also created what many (though certainly not all) feel are some very human characters who contradict themselves in all sorts of ways that make the movie a thoughtful, refreshingly bleak and emotional experience about hope against chaos, doing evil to achieve good, resisting falling into despair, et cetera. (I'll be here all night if I venture down that road.) There's something very archetypal about the three main characters -- and perhaps also Oldman's Gordon -- that people have responded to deeply and refuse to let go because of other logical errors in the script, hack direction here and there and even knowing that, yes, the movie could have been even better with a script polish and more careful direction from Nolan (who is normally a decent director who was probably in over his head a little with this film, especially because his speciality is not action). I can forgive Nolan. It was his vision originally that led to the film being made at all. And I praise the film on those grounds. Even in its imperfect form, I'm happy it was made and would still prefer to watch it over so many other films... because of what it does tap into.
I know there have been endless debates about this, but I felt that, now that the dust has settled somewhat, this might help explain the phenomenon. It's not just that people were anticipating the film, it's that it half-delivered and the one half was so great that we can't let the other half be of importance... That's inexcusable to those who watch closely and respect what's on screen, I agree. As you've said before, you can't tell "TDK" fans. They ignore what's right in front of them... on purpose. I simply cannot let the more terrific aspects of the movie be in vain but, in principle, I agree with the film's detractors.
"Inglorious Basterds" is a better directed, better planned, better written film on all levels. One thing it doesn't have going for it -- even though Waltz's performance is delightful - is a Kong Effect. But so few films do.
@Nick,
I'm glad you mentioned Michael Mann's "Heat." I don't know how many times I've watched the bank heist, but I've come to the conclusion that it is the single best action sequence of the 1990s. The editing, music, geography, and build-up for that sequence is amazing.
I might go so far as to say THE best camera move of the '90s is when De Niro is firing from behind a lamp post, yells "Go!" and Val Kilmer runs past him. As Kilmer runs, the camera swoops in on De Niro laying a suppressive fire on the police roadblock. It's brilliant.
During the '80s and '90s, Mann was big into long takes and static cameras, but starting with "The Insider" (1999) he gradually moved over to being one of the few superb "snatch-and-grab" directors.
(Kathryn Bigelow made a similar transition. In revving up for the house raid / shoot-out in "Point Break," she does a great tracking shot in which she follows Keanu getting into position.)
Anyway, I was reading Boone's description of snatch-and-grab editing, and I know he was trying to denigrate it, but I couldn't help feeling that that kind of editing, while wasted on action sequences in movies like "Transformers," might capture the rhapsodic stream-of-consciousness of someone like Joyce or Faulkner.
Then I thought back to another great movie of the 1990s, "Chungking Express" by Wong Kar-Wai, in which a healthy dash of visual incoherence is not squandered on fight sequences, but to show how we remember things in snatches and grabs and odd moments.
(2nd best action scene of the 1990s might be the running battle in "The Thin Red Line.")
But I ramble.
This posting of yours reminded me that Manohla Dargis, in her initial review of the film, referred to Sally Menke as a "nominal editor". Now, I don't presume to know what type of working relationship Tarantino has with Menke, but I've always thought of her as being a good editor in the sense that you describe - invisible. With some obvious exceptions, Tarantino's films don't seem to ride on crazy editing techniques. He and Sally seem to prefer a rather classical cinematic grammar in this area of filmmaking. While other aspects of his films seem to jump off the screen, demanding your attention, his editing does not seem to do this in my estimation.
Where is Dargis coming from on this one? Menke hasn't done a whole lot of editing outside of Tarantino films, and I haven't seen any of those movies to judge against his.
The Dark Knight again! Alright. Time to play the devil's advocate. Some of the close quarter combat sequences do rely on the rapid fire editing which I also find antithetical to its intended effect. However, several sequences in the Dark Knight benefit from the long take and exemplary editing.
Case the First: Batman's descent from the sky scraper before he crashes into office building. Nolan does not cut away from batman the entire time from when he spreads his cape until he breaks through the window. This choice builds tension as the audience anticipates the effect of batman's plunge through the window. When it does occur Batman burst into a kinetic fight which stuns the audience with its sudden ferocity. This is one example of expert construction and editing building suspension.
Case the Second:
The bat pod highway chase. When Batman ejects the batpod from the batmobile, Nolan trails behind batman in an uninterrupted shot as he zooms through a shopping centre. The audience feels as though they are following behind the batpod and when batman burst onto the highway they audience feels as though they have been pulled along with it. The subsequent game of chicken (perhaps the best in the entirety of cinema) occurs in several long takes wherein Nolan makes the audience privy to every move both opponents execute.
There are other examples. If you're going to critique a movie gentleman, give the almost three hour film its just due and acknowledge those scenes which utilize classical cinematic action conventions, and not just several minor scenes meant to convey the frenetic experience of close quarter combat (again I don't like this technique but I don't find it quite so slap dash as some portray it in the Dark Knight).
In the case of "District 9" I find that movie to be a prime example of a confused use of the "run and gun"-style, especially because it is supposed to be part "documentary". But the footage for the documentary-part of the movie is filmed in the same way as the rest of the movie, so what is the point? Yet "District 9" is also a prime example of the advantage of the style, to hide the fact that the movies budget probably was not big enough for the kind of action sequences and special effects i wanted to make.
I want to mention a film, which I believe uses the style in a way that makes sense. The movie is Crank, which makes no attempt to build up character or to make any build up of suspense or story. In many ways its very similar to the bourne-films except the Bourne-films tries to mask the fact that they are basically flat and simple films with flashy style and a seriousness that, given the plot and structure, is out of place. Crank doe not have a very coherent narrative, but like and skater-video tries to entertain by being constantly inventive. If you want to entertain by swirling the camera around, why not go all the way? Of cause Crank does not have the budget of a Bourne movie, so it makes sense to find cheap ways to entertain. The result is a movie that entertains in the way that Bourne wants to. It is stupid but fun, instead of stupid posing as smart. There is no doubt that Greengrass I a vastly superior filmmaker to Neveldine/Taylor, but in this particular case they a using the style better and in a way that is better at making a fun action ride. I have wached Crabk a couple of times and been entertained, because of the craziness of the whole thing, but especially Bourne Ultimatum leaves me cold because since a can not care about the characters or the story it fails to thrill me with anything else. To be fair, I would rather watch a proper spy movie, than Crank, but since Bourne and Crank essentially tries to be the same kind of movie experience I prefere the absurd and over-the-top over the phony.
This is why, in large part, Watchmen is really such a triumph. Maybe it's his fidelity to the source material, but Snyder really lets the images breathe and his cuts are full of visual wit. (Example: Shot of Dreiberg moping in his basement lair, with Nite Owl suit in background. Cut to shot of Watchmen action figures on display from Dreiberg's POV. Dreiberg's hand picks up the Ozymandias figure. His POV and the camera pan as he turns it toward the actual Ozy to juxtapose the figure with the man, who then comes into focus.) Even the prison-escape scene, which seems to be trying to be both a kick-a$$ action sequence and a spoof of action extravaganzas, synchronizes action and space. Also true of Watchmen: it transcends this idea of the "mundane fantastic" that Matt Zoller Seitz recently wrote about even though it embraces CGI over practical effects. The movie allows you to behold things with awe, particularly whenever Dr. Manhattan is on screen, and it never soils the vision with unnecessary "grit." Jim, I know you're a fan of Watchmen, but I know there are still "haters" out there. Trust me, folks. Give it another go.
Here's the link to Seitz's piece:
http://www.ifc.com/news/2009/09/mundane-fantastic.php
I think you've hit on the real reason fast cutting has become de rigueur - risk aversity. And it's close cousin, cost control. I'm not a film maker, but I think I have a decent enough imagination to think about how long it would take to set up a shot in which a long (say, 10 seconds) sequence of action plays out versus having snatches of parts of the action. The director has only to set up the whole sequence in his head, and then show us parts of it. If he/she fails to envision it correctly, the result is chaos. If he/she fails to pick the correct parts to show, the result is confusion.
There are times I can justify the use of this technique. I remember thinking in Batman Begins, when Batman kicks the collective butts of a bunch of bad-guy types at the docks, we don't actually see the fight - just snatches, and finally Batman's legs as he walks away over the bodies of his fallen opponents. I can justify that in that it presents the confusion as deliberate - this is what the bad guys are seeing and feeling. But it begs the question: is the technique successful if I have to justify it? At what point do I stop validly analyzing the film and start excusing it?
As I've grown more aware of the language of film and begun consciously analyzing films more, rather than just experiencing them as most people do, I find myself wondering where I should draw that line.
Where do you draw the line, Jim? Where for you does an effect become more about the effect itself than about how it tells the story?
Jim,
Thanks for the love and support, brother. Glad my piece fired you up, but you've been pointing this stuff out long before I could form any response to the trend more articulate than, "Ghaaaaa!"
Bordwell and Thompson's Film Art was among the books I would read and re-read at my local library as a movie-fevered teen. A line from that book has stayed with me all these years: "The mind craves form." That's what this fogie uprising is all about.
We are bound to come off like Tea Party patriots in our insistence that something has gone really wrong with big-time commercial cinema, but [sips Kool-Aid] we are right. And we can back it up.
There's much more to say on this, but I gotta make it to a screening. Keep the discussion popping...
JE: My pleasure. You nailed it! Now, as the late, great Haven Hamilton sang: "Keep a-goin'!"
we are sometimes compared to fogies who complain that this rock 'n' roll noise is corrupting the young people of today
I see it more like someone who's in love with singing criticizing rap music...which is not to say these arguments aren't valid, just that they may be a little biased. I think a lot of babies are being left to drown in the bathwater...what I mean is, can't ODB be a shallow gangsta rapper and brilliant?
There is some bias in this post. I don't see how knowing a razor is in someone's hand through hearing it is somehow immediately worse than if we were to see and hear it, and you might say, if we can hear it, why do we need to see it? A "Bourne" movie is not about the "flamboyance of the stunt" in the way that a Tony Jaa movie is, it's about following Bourne through the headlong rush of the plot, and having these incredible stunts seem ordinary is the correct approach because they're ordinary to the protagonist. That's what makes it thrilling.
And every action scene in "TDK" makes visual sense, even the final one in the Trump tower, they just happen really fast. You have to work a little to keep up with it, but that makes you (by which I mean me) feel more involved and more rewarded when they climax. On the other hand, the video game sequences in Neveldine/Taylor's "Gamer" are completely incoherent, but that's a deliberate choice on their part to communicate the insanity of that particular situation. It's just not the same thing as a simply crappy action sequence (see "Star Trek"). It's seeing that little difference that I think is important.
Anyway I don't think this is as much a problem as it comes off in discussions like this. Look back on some of the biggest action/adventure films of the past decade: "Iron Man," "The Incredible Hulk," "Indiana Jones," "Die Hard 4," the National Treasure movies, the Spider-Man movies, the X-Men movies, "Harry Potter," "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Lord of the Rings," "The Matrix," "3:10 to Yuma," every Pixar movie, "V for Vendetta," "300," "Casino Royale,"...none perfect, but none of these movies apply to the snatch-and-grab/run-and-gun style talked about here.
I'm glad that Hong Kong action films were praised. Besides the cheesy zoom-ins, the camerawork and editing is rarely mentioned. If you're watching an old Jet Li or Jackie Chan film, the camera and the cutting are there to serve the story and the action. No "cool" shots, no trendy editing. Straightforward filmmaking, and do we complain about being bored? Absolutely not. What I find sad are the special features of American action films talking about how hard the actors trained and how complex the choreography was, all to end up on the cutting room floor, chopped to little bits. Aside from the first Matrix film, I haven't seen a single decent fight scene in a recent Hollywood film where I can remember a long shot with clearly defined action. To all you Batman fans, can you describe how he moves, or what his technique is? Every cut is point-of-impact emphasis. I get that Nolan wants to show how fast he is, but fast at doing what? I yearn for a long shot showing some wow factor. We got a little bit of it in Casino Royale - nice clean wide shots during the opening chase and fight.
To be fair, few American actors can match a Hong Kong action star. The years of training and choreography almost allow for a camera to just sit there and soak it up. After seeing a few classics, it feels like a cheat if a fight scene is chopped up and full of close-ups. I feel like they didn't train or rehearse long enough, and it's up to the editor and director to make it look "exciting."
Stop it! These articles are getting ridiculous. 15 years ago you would have written the same article, except it would have said how exciting flash editing is. Styles ebb and flow just fine with our your rules Jimbo and backlash always peaks before the change. Then the change becomes tired.
And seriously readers. "Heat" has well constructed action scenes? Mann has made many exciting, adventurous movies in his day, yet his most boring and awful movie is always talked about so lovingly as some sort of throw back adult thriller. In reality it sucks. "Miami Vice" at least tried for something. "Heat" sticks close to the mainstream and is lauded for it. I'm done with this crap. One reader down.....
Meinert, you should watch the final fight scene in "Hellboy II" - it's pretty crazy.
And about Batman, if you were to see him take somebody down in person, do you think you'd be able to describe what happened? The way I picture Batman, he wouldn't let you.
I don't think "anti-human" properly describes TDK's visual editing style. Several key characters take up almost all of the shots, often with close-ups. Even during the action scenes, we know what's happening, and to whom, and we care because we care about the characters.
Even during the scenes involving crowds (boat, hospital) key individuals are the focus.
Explosions and effects are not the center of the shots at all, the characters are.
I wanted to find an example of mainstream cinema that countered this claim, but I couldn't one on my list of 2009 films. Then again, I have only seen a half dozen of the top 40 grossing films so maybe I just don't watch enough mainstream cinema.
Obviously Bordwell has discussed this at length in his ongoing writing about Intensified Continuity. Joshua S. wrote above that editing styles "ebb and flow" but as Bordwell has shown it's been a pretty steady trend towards more rapid editing and more reliance on close-ups, so I have to disagree.
What's most interesting to me though is the way in which international "art-house" cinema has responded by moving to the other extreme. Directors like Bela Tarr (and Gus van Sant after him), Albert Serra, Tsai ming-liang (to a lesser degree, people like Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, Cristian Porumbuoi, etc.) and many others now build their films out of shots that run more than a minute on average (perhaps not that long over the course of a film, but many shots are several minutes long.) Viewed from an industrial POV, it seems like more than an artistic choice but a way of differentiating product. You want long, slow shots in which almost nothing happens? We got 'em for you. step right up, you visual pleasure junkies!
I certainly have a strong preference for such films. I go to movies to _see_ things and to look at them. But over the last few years (and particularly at TIFF this year) I've come to realize that this style has also, in a way, become a bit of a formula. And when it's done poorly (as I saw in a few movies this year) it's every bit as much of a bummer as the hyper-edited material. After watching one such film at TIFF this year, I actually found myself looking forward to watching a silly, amped-up movie like "B*tch Slap" (I wound up not liking it though) for a change of pace.
Both extremes are pretty showy and anti-illusionistic, though I wonder if younger viewers who grew up on the Intensified aesthetic actually find it as showy as some of us older viewers might. I can't say either of them are wrong. I know what I prefer but it would be nice to find more of a classical middle ground, particularly in commercial cinema these days. Spielberg and Michael Kahn still inhabit that space but I don't think they have many close neighbors anymore.
JE: There have long been arguments over the aesthetic (and moral) merits of mise en scene vs. montage, and I've always felt the way you do. First of all, one of the great primal pleasures of watching a movie is being permission to stare, to examine. Second, a long take usually allows the viewer more room to notice things, while short shots tend to say, in effect, "Look at this! Now this! Now this!" Shorter and faster do not necessarily make for more engaging cinematic experiences. In fact, for me, they're too often like throwing up a wall of distraction that doesn't allow me into the movie. (One director who's great with framing -- though he's not known for exceptionally long takes -- is Todd Haynes. "Safe," one of the greatest American films of the 1990s for me, is a movie to really watch, to get drawn into...)
Andrew - yes, Hellboy ll was great fun, but I especially liked the swordplay at the beginning, introducing Prince Nuada. About Batman - perhaps he would not let us see his fighting style, but can the filmmaker at least let us in on some of his secrets?
This post brings to mind the quietude and composure of the shots of Kurosawa's climatic sequences in Seven Samurai. Similar to Mann's heist in Heat, the great sequences are about representing a state of mind. By deconstructing and recomposing the action shots in the last Bourne, Greengrasse's misconstrues the pulsating chaotic rhythm as the audience's rising heartbeat (yes that's the desired state, but does the moment deserve it?). If anything, the 'action' gets doused by the defusing of its vehicle, tension. And, as your postremarks correctly, the incoherence does not stand in service of anything intended.
If only modern day directors had to work with heavy clunky cameras and not fancy little nuggets that fit it pockets!
At least they wouldn't go around running wild with them (or at least the audience should have fun watching them try!).
(And let us not even try to conceive what a contemporary remake of The General would look like ... gasp!)
There's a rhythm to movies, put forth by technique in shooting, performance, and finally ... editing. Studios have forced a collaboration (it is their money, first and foremost) so they dictate how the movie is made, distinguishing any hint of auteur-ship. If a movie fails for me (if it has tremendous resources, a good budget, the best talent), I tend to thrust the blame on the studio, and not the filmmakers.
A studio green-lights a project with a base budget of $70mil with provisions - those include choice of talent, and a method to shooting. They demand all kinds of coverage - masters, mediums, close shots, and they want to see that coverage on the screen - it is as simple as that. No director wants to shoot take after take after take of a master, a medium, and close-ups. They'd much rather bottle the scene if they feel they got it right. If I have a gorgeous master shot with excellent performances and perfect blocking, I wouldn't want to break it up with additional shots, unless I saw a need for it, unless I wanted the audience to see more. See Polanski for this - he loves medium-wide master shots...
I don't blame MTV-style directors. Those guys have all kinds of oversight and they are ordered to produce a plethora of coverage for the sake of screenings. Execs sit in and watch the shoot, they view dailies so that they know how their money is being spent, and then they make recommendations for assemblages. This isn't some one-on-one collaboration between a director and his/her editor. I won't go so far as to say they're not influenced, at the very least, by commercial production (perhaps, as a benefit, because I believe commercials are invaluable tools for economical, structured storytelling).
Joshua S.
That is not necessarily true. Some of the principles of shot composition displayed in IB, and praised by this piece, have been around for a very long time. It's not as if QT just invented some new technique that Jim is championing. He's simply praising QT's use of something [almost] as old as cinema itself.
It's not a matter of trends.
We always talk about action movies/sequences when talking about this "snatch and grab" approach, but where I think it's most heavily over-used today is in dance sequences in musicals. There was a time, believe it or not, when dancers could actually perform a routine and you could get the impression that they were great dancers. Today we get snatches of limbs flailing, faces breathing heavily, truncated spins, feet shuffling, but nothing that coheres into an actual performance by someone who is uniquely talented. A number chopped into little pieces could be performed by most anyone with 2 left feet, one half-second cut at a time (except for that spinning on the head move break dancers do....that takes some work, I'm sure).
JE: I attribute a lot of that to the influence of "Flashdance" and early MTV hackwork. It's why I find so many of Michael Jackson's post-"Thriller" videos unwatchable. Of course, Fred Astaire insisted on full shots, long takes, so audiences weren't cheated of seeing the dancing. It's an interesting idea, creating dance in cinema -- through rhythmic cutting, composition, choreography -- to compose a dance that exists only on film. But I haven't seen many moviemakers who understand film and dance well enough to pull it off. You can see it done very well, however, in Bob Fosse's "Cabaret" (1972). And, come to think of it, Jean Renoir's magnifique "French Can-Can" (1954).
One of the things I've noticed more recently is that the use of a handheld camera often covers up for lack of real composition - this isn't true all of the time, and "District 9" is a welcome exception, as is "The Hurt Locker" - but, too many times, it just seems like the filmmakers are using the handheld as a kind of "visceral shorthand."
It's annoying. Whatever happened to "visual music," man?
JE: The D.I.Y. lo-fi approach isn't appropriate for all visual music, that's for sure.
I have only just now made the connection of Steve Boone with that superb video essay on THX-1138 from a ways back. (That video link needs to be updated, BTW). I've now bookmarked Big Media Vandalism.
JE: Thanks for the reminder. The video link is updated: http://bit.ly/W460x . Now I have to go back and do the same for ALL my own videos, since they disappeared without notice along with iklipz.com...
Do you mean your year-end videos? Because I've been trying to refer back to them from time to time and the video is no longer there. Hope to view them again.
JE: Yes, those and quite a few other video essays on close-ups, "Miller's Crossing," "Ways of Falling," and so on...