Film studies: Mise en scene, Long Takes, Deep focus, montage, editing, continuity editing, cross cutting, 180 Degree Rule, 30 Degree Rule, Jump Cut

(taken from Studying Film)

M I S E EN S C E N E

This term originally developed in relation to theatre and literally translates as 'putting on the stage'. For our purposes it refers to 'placing within the shot'. A significant part of the meaning produced by a film comes from the visual content - this is to a large extent how the story is told. What a shot consists of is therefore crucially important. As James Monaco writes, '[b]ecause we read the shot, we are actively involved with it. The codes of mise en scene are the tools with which the filmmaker alters and modifies our reading of the shot'. The elements covered by mise en scene are: setting, props, costume, performance, lighting and colour. But in addition to choosing what is to be included in a shot, someone also has to decide how the elements are to be arranged. In other words, composition is also central to mise en scene. A director needs to make a number of decisions when deciding on shot content and arrangement. It needs to be recognized, however, that though the director is the person ultimately responsible for such matters, film conventions established over time can also play a large part in shaping mise en scene. Genre films tend to require particular elements, thus restricting the director's freedom. We also need to be aware that while we may try to determine the meanings produced by a shot, it

is very likely that other spectators will interpret differently, especially when viewing from a different cultural perspective. In other words shots can be polysemic; they can have many meanings.

Long Take

If shot sizes tend to be large at the beginnings of films and scenes, an equivalent characteristic can be noted for shot duration or the length of a take. The average duration of a shot is approximately 6 seconds, but introductory shots are often at least twice this length. Again, the pace tends to be slower in order to allow the viewer more time to become acquainted with characters and locations. If we look at 2 minutes from near the beginning of Cinema Paradiso (1989) we find only five shots. Within this time we are introduced to the main character Salvatore and his wife, who informs him that an old friend, Alfredo, has died. This leads into a flashback to his youth which goes on to provide his

childhood memories, which constitute the bulk of the film. If we then look at a 2-minute period from the climactic section of the film, when Salvatore saves Alfredo from a fire in the village cinema, we find 52 shots. The narrative a//ows short takes because we know the location and characters well, and the narrative also requires short takes because the scene involves action and panic. Imagine the effect if we reversed the shot durations: 52 shots in 2 minutes to introduce characters and only five shots to cover 2 minutes of fastmoving action. There can be other reasons for long takes in a film. Orson Welles famously, and Jean-Luc Godard infamously, have used long takes. In Godard's Weekend (1968) one shot lasts 8 minutes and gradually reveals to us a long line of cars in a traffic jam. As well as also helping to ensure that the film is 'alternative', which was no doubt part of the director's intention, the shot also helps make one of Godard's points about cultural life and consumerism in 1960s France - the point being that while the trend of going away for the weekend grew, it increasingly resulted in people spending the weekend in traffic jams. Welles began Touch of Evil (1953) with a shot that lasts over 3 minutes. It begins with a close up of a bomb being planted in a car. The camera then rises to give us a bird's eye view of the situation, including the car driving off. The camera tracks to catch up with the car, then drops down to enable us to hear a banal conversation between a border guard, a woman and a man. This technique builds suspense as we are expecting an explosion, which soon follows and brings the shot to a close. Being the exception to the rule begs the question: why use a long take instead of editing together several shots covering the same action? It could be argued that in this instance we are given an overview of what is happening in adjacent locations simultaneously as a way of providing us with the bigger picture. However, if this is the intention, then why is the technique not used more frequently? Alternatively it could be argued that such a shot was motivated more by style than by the requirements of the narrative, which is not necessarily undesirable. For now it is sufficient to note that it is a technically impressive shot with incredibly complex timing which has certainly gained a place within the study of film. As Richard Maltby notes: [V]isual style is not usually so conspicuous an element in a movie's performance. In Touch of Evil we notice the emphasis on the camera as an active agent in the manipulation of the audience precisely because we are used to the more anonymous and self-effacing strategies associated with Hollywood camerawork. Long takes or extravagant camera gestures stress the existence of an instrumental, manipulative presence. Having suggested that the long take at the beginning of Touch of Evil may be more to do with style than with content, it would be wrong to assume that this is always the case. T/7a/' regularly uses takes throughout the film of almost a minute's duration. However, the length of the takes is not particularly noticeable because they seem to suit the narrative. The film is set in a small, rural community in Africa. The pace of life is slow and the story is not action driven. The cause-effect processes within the film develop gradually. The narrative requires long takes. What is also noticeable is the lack of camera movement in many of these long takes. The camera allows the narrative to unfold in front of it without trying to add meaning through movement. A further reason for these long takes, which often tend to be long shots too, is the location of the film. The village is surrounded by wide open spaces; there is little to interrupt the vast horizons. Director Idrissa Ouedraogo allows events to unravel against this backdrop of uninterrupted space with a minimum of interference, whereas within the more enclosed confines of most film locations, there is a need to switch to different camera angles and shot sizes, if only to cover all the action. Hitchcock took the long take one stage further in Rope (1948). A reel of film normally lasts no longer than 10 minutes and Hitchcock filmed so that each reel was one complete take. What is more, he began and ended each reel with someone or something passing close to the camera lens so that the screen went dark. At these points the reels were edited together so that the whole film appears to be one long continuous take lasting 80 minutes. The camera continually tracks around the apartment in which the film takes place, following characters and actions to give a variety of perspectives.

Deep Focus

One last aspect of cinematography remains, this being depth of field. Depending on shutter speed, aperture and the amount of light available, a camera can focus on just a small part of what is in the frame or on the whole scene. Focusing on only part of a frame is known as shallow focus and is often used as a device for encouraging the audience to concentrate on a particular part of the scene. Conversely, seeing everything in focus, from foreground to background, is known as deep field photography or deep focus. This technique has probably never been shown more clearly than in the scene referred to earlier (p. 95) from Citizen Kane when Kane as a small boy is seen playing in the snow in the background while his mother and Thatcher talk in the foreground. The shot begins as an exterior shot of Kane. The camera then moves back through a window and past Kane's mother and Thatcher. The camera continues to track back through a doorway, at which point Mrs Kane and Thatcher move to sit in front of the camera. The shot was arranged and filmed by cinematographer Gregg Toland so as to be in focus from foreground to background. It is difficult not to suspect that the shot was contrived to illustrate deep focus; as with other techniques in Citizen Kane, such as use of low key lighting and extreme camera angles, the deep focus here is hardly subtle and can leave the viewer remembering the style of the film rather than its narrative. This is a criticism Robert McKee makes of Welles, claiming that Citizen Kane is all style and no content; in effect, style is the film's content, our eye stops at the screen and does not get through to the narrative. For McKee style should provide access to the narrative and strengthen it.

Montage

The best known example of discontinuity editing is montage, which was much used by Eisenstein, most famously in Battleship Potemkin (1925) in the Odessa Steps sequence (see also Chapter 14). Here the shots that are edited together do not flow smoothly; instead they clash: they conflict with each other. The sequence switches, in a spatially disorientating way, between views of the Tsar's advancing troops and views of the fleeing citizens. The troops are armed, menacing and inhuman; the citizens are unarmed, vulnerable and all too human. The juxtaposition of meanings between the shots results in new meanings, produced by the viewer on seeing the montage of shots that are pieced together. It is also possible for the pace of editing to create a rhythm which itself produces meaning. In the shower scene in Psycho there is no logical progression to the way in which the stabbing of Marion is visually presented; it is a montage of shots. The shots are short and are filmed from a variety of angles - a rhythm is set up by the editing which emphasizes the frenetic rhythm of the stabbings. The knife comes from different directions and these shots are intercut with short shots of Marion struggling. The effect of the sequence is to create a feeling of confusion, madness, panic. No doubt precisely what Hitchcock wanted.

E D I T I N G

After the completion of filming, the final stage is editing, the selection and piecing together of shots to form the completed film. Just as a range of choices exists for the cinematographer when manipulating light and using a camera, so editing offers many possibilities.

C o n t i n u i t y Editing

One of the key principles is continuity editing. Most films, in one way or another, attempt to have us fully engrossed in what we see. The intention is that we escape into the film for the duration of the screening. The concept of 'willing suspension of disbelief sums up the experience of much film-going. We know that what we see on the screen isn't real, in other words, we disbelieve it, but in order to fully engage with the film we willingly suspend that disbelief - we happily ignore our doubts about the authenticity of what we see. We allow ourselves to enter the world (the diegesis) of the film. In order that we can experience films in this way, it is important that we are not reminded that we are watching a film and that we are not confused by an incomprehensible  presentation of events in the narrative. Annette Kuhn writes: 'Continuity editing establishes spatial andtemporal relationships between shots in such a way as to permit the spectator to "read" a film without any conscious effort, precisely because the editing is "invisible".' (in Cook and Bernink, 1999, p. 40) For this to be possible, it is essential that the shots flow smoothly from one to another and that our attention is not drawn to the edit points. In effect, the shots support each other. One shot logically leads to the next and to a degree we expect the next shot: there is a continuity between one shot and the next. A number of techniques help make this possible.

C r o s s - c u t t i n g

Cross-cutting is an invaluable editing technique and is commonly used for building suspense. It consists of editing together shots of events in different locations which are expected eventually to coincide with each other. We shall look in Chapter 10 at the way omniscient narration can build suspense by providing an overview of different areas of action, and cross-cutting is the realization of such a narrative approach. At the end of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) we are aware that Tom is desperately trying to get rid of two shotguns which he believes are incriminating evidence. However, we then cut to a pub where his associates have just learned that the guns are worth a fortune. Suspense is built through editing between Tom trying to dump the guns into the Thames and his associates desperately trying to phone him to stop him getting rid of the guns. In one respect, cross-cutting breaks the film's continuity by suddenly jumping to another scene; however, the close linking together of the two scenes ensures coherence.

The 180 Degree Rule

There are a couple of important 'rules' associated with editing. The 180 degree rule specifies that the camera should not have 'crossed the line' of action when two shots are edited together. This is particularly important during a scene where two characters are interacting with each other in some way. We will have subconsciously noted that one character is on one side of the screen while the other is on the opposite side. The line of action is an imaginary line passing through the two characters. If the camera were to be placed on the other side of the action in the next shot, then the position of the characters would be reversed (see Figure 6.6). It could take the viewer a second or two to realize what had happened and this might interrupt involvement in the film. In reality audiences are fairly adept at quickly ascertaining what has happened in such an edit; indeed, it is increasingly common to see the line crossed. In the cafe scene when Jimmy and Henry meet towards the end of GoodFellas (1990), the camera crosses the line but our involvement is not dramatically disrupted. The two ways of safely crossing the line are to either track across the line in one continuous shot or have an intermediate shot on the line in between the two shots.

The 30 Degree Rule

The 30 degree rule (Figure 6.7) indicates that if two shots of the same location or action are edited together, then either the camera should move position by at least 30 degrees or the shot size should radically change. If this does not happen then the effect is a jump cut. The elements within the shot appear to jump slightly, producing a disconcerting effect on the viewer.

Jump cut

An edit between two shots which results in an abrupt and conspicuous change in the shot content
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