Space Between the Scenes: in pursuit of the hidden art of cinematic scene transitions

Space Between the Scenes: in pursuit of the hidden art of cinematic scene transitions.

Submitted by: JEFFREY MICHAEL BAYS Bachelor of Arts

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

School of Communication, Arts and Critical Enquiry Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences La Trobe University Bundoora, Victoria 3086 Australia

June 2011

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CONTENTS Title Page

1

Contents

2

Acknowledgements

3

Summary

4

Statement of Authorship

5

List of Figures

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INTRODUCTION

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I: Montage and Scene Boundaries 1.1 Macro-montage 1.2 Collision of Scenes 1.3 Collision with Binary Oppositions 1.4 Linkage of Scenes and the Hook 1.5 Linkage of Multiple Plots 1.6 Rhythm and Fragmentation of Scenes

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II: Transports: Geographic movement of Character 2.1 Syuzhet Rise 2.2 Transports 2.3 Single Protagonist Geographic Syuzhet Expression 2.4 Expression of Antagonist Syuzhet Added 2.5 Binaries Opposing Forces

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III: Scenery: The flowing river of Context 3.1 Context and its Rippling Effect 3.2 Fabula Flow 3.3 Mood and Director Attitude 3.4 Objective and Subjective Scenery Expression 3.5 Music and Transitions

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IV: Ellipses and Time Expression 4.1 Ellipses 4.2 Styles of Basic Ellipses 4.3 Collage and Aronofsky’s Hip-Hop Montage 4.4 Temporal Objects and Ornamentals

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CONCLUSION

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Appendix: Glossary of Junction Styles

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Filmography

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Works Cited

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A number of people were invaluable in helping me complete this thesis. I am indebted to my supervisor, Anna Dzenis, for giving me the courage to climb the mountain of research and for keeping me on schedule. Thanks to my thesis coordinator, Gabrielle Murray, and all the Cinema Studies lecturers at La Trobe who inspired me to think outside the box. I’d also like to thank the staff of the La Trobe University library – especially Ross Schnioffsky, who was always helpful in finding the sources needed. A special thank you to all of my good friends that took the time to proofread this work and suggest sources: Bailey Smith, Morgan McLeod, Foti Vrionis, Luke Zimbler, and Eleanor Colla. And a heartfelt thanks to William Shirriffs for making me laugh during the tough times. This thesis would not have been possible without composer Spike Suradi who introduced me to many great films during my time in Melbourne, provided encouragement, and was always available to discuss the theories of music scoring. My love and thanks to my family for nourishing my passion for film, and letting me set sail on this journey.

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SUMMARY

Modern feature films contain on average 30 to 50 scene transitions. Even while filmmakers Stephen Gaghan, Ron Howard, and Walter Murch, have recently championed their artistic importance, established discourse on scene transitions seems only precursory. If these filmmakers are to be believed, scene transitions represent something wholly essential but not fully understood. Is there a hidden cinematic art which we are only beginning to uncover? Modern epic films in excess of three hours do not include intermission yet the viewer is expected to remain captivated through the duration. Keeping a balance between sustaining momentum and providing relief from sensory fatigue requires creativity on the part of the filmmaker. While a great deal of the emotional content of the story is expressed through the scene transitions, little is known about this craft. It is my hope in this thesis to uncover the complexities of this hidden art by examining the region where the scenes join within a film, with an emphasis on the stylistic choices made by filmmakers at the moment of scene transition. It will also reach further into the territory on either side of the junction, as well as the overarching contextual influences within a given work. I will examine scene transitions through the lenses of montage and narrative theorists with a focus on collision, linkage, rhythm, plot intensity, contextual flow, and time manipulation. I will also define the role of transport scenes in the geographic movement of character, the expression of scenery and music, as well as the collage with a look at Darren Aronofsky’s Hip-Hop-Montage. With this thesis I hope to shed light on the choices which directors make at every scene junction.

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution.

JEFFREY BAYS

DATE: _____ /_____ /___________

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LIST OF FIGURES

Chapter One Figure 1.1 - Collision at scene junction Figure 1.2 - Connecting two unrelated plotlines

Chapter Two Figure 2.1 - Scene Junction with a transport Figure 2.2 - Basic model of antagonist syuzhet added

Chapter Three Figure 3.1 - New model of on-screen fabula expression at scene junction

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INTRODUCTION Modern feature films contain on average 30 to 50 scenes, each dramatizing a single story event as part of an overall chain of events (Bordwell 2008). We aren’t surprised when seeing a dissolve from one scene to the next, and are conditioned to accept the conventional norms of scene transitions to such an extent they are, for all intents and purposes, invisible. The established discourse on scene transitions resides in editing manuals, Hollywood how-to books, or is briefly mentioned in scholarly writings about other topics. Recently, however, American film scholar David Bordwell pushed the discussion further with an article for his website, The Hook: Scene Transitions in Classical Cinema in 2008, which described the ways in which scenes are connected by storytelling devices he called ‘hooks’ to generate cohesion between scenes. Bordwell acknowledged that his article was ‘merely a first effort to pick out the possibilities’ in outlining basic patterns of audio and visual transitions, but he made the point that there is much to be learned. Bordwell observed an instinctual ability in filmmakers – an unspoken, ‘tacit knowledge’ about how to employ scene transitions. This tacit knowledge has been recently expressed by American filmmakers Stephen Gaghan, Ron Howard, and Walter Murch as they championed the importance of transitions. Editor Walter Murch discussed his beliefs with FilmSound.org in 2004 in which he proclaimed: ‘for both practical and aesthetic reasons, cinema could not exist without transitions.’ He said scene transitions are essential because they represent change, and that ‘without change there is no perception’ (Ganti 2004). While his interview sheds some light on the editor’s perspective, Gaghan and Howard reveal a director’s thought processes. Gaghan, in his 2006 interview with Creative Screenwriting Magazine, referred to scene transitions as the ‘unsung hero,’ saying that their role in

8 cinematic storytelling is even more important than plot or character. Gaghan’s proclamation that ‘transitions are everything in movies’ emphasizes his belief that cinematic storytelling thrives on the juxtaposition of locations. His process for writing Syriana (2005), a film which crosscuts between multiple settings, began by arranging the random ‘moments’ and then noting where transitions started to ‘emerge’ as a result of their combination (Goldsmith 2006). Likewise, Howard’s process as a director involves making notes in the margins of his screenplay as to how he would create the transitions. In his 2007 discussion with USC film students, he explained that he often finds ideas for scene transitions while on location scouts by imagining whether a scene, for example, could use a wide shot, or whether the sound of footsteps on a marble floor would be more dramatic (Howard 2007). If these editors, directors, and film scholars are to be believed, scene transitions represent something wholly essential but not fully understood. Is there a hidden cinematic art which we are only beginning to uncover? Missing in the discussion is a broader examination of the art of cinematic scene transitions. Exploring this could shed light on other aspects of the cinema. As Murch said, ‘it is frequently at the edges of things that we learn the most about the middle.’ In his 1992 presentation to AFTRS, Murch explained this further: ‘Napoleon claimed that the greatest battles were waged at the margins of the army’s logistical maps, and this is true for film: it is the transitions between sequences where the soul of the film is frequently most revealed’ (Murch 1992, p.86).

In television and radio, modern audiences instinctively anticipate that a commercial break is imminent following an increase in plot intensity, and stage plays employ long scene breaks as a technical necessity while props and furniture are being moved. Cinema has taken this rather mechanical and often necessary function and

9 turned it into an art form, hiding its pauses to ensure a forward stream of momentum. It is an act of trickery, because on the one hand the filmmaker does not want to generate fatigue in the viewer, but at the same time wants to convey a sense of continuum and perpetuity not inherent in the novel or play. Modern epic films in excess of three hours do not include intermission; the viewer is expected to remain captivated through the duration. Keeping this balance between forward momentum and relief requires creativity on the part of the director. Like any artist, it is perhaps out of necessity that directors break away from instinct and find craft. A director who sits down with a new screenplay and plans his shot lists has nowhere to turn to learn a craft of scene transitions. Indeed, Hollywood how-to books and editing manuals have lists of some of the common technical transitions. Daniel Arijon’s Grammar of the Film Language in 1976, for example, had an entire chapter on what he called ‘punctuations,’ an encyclopedia of various uses of dissolves and shot combinations. And, where editors have mentioned their thoughts on transitions in interview books, the discussion often doesn’t go beyond a debate about whether to use a cut or a dissolve. As a director myself, I can recall the frustration sitting in the editing room realizing that I hadn’t planned enough for scene transitions. Granted, I instinctively knew that the story needed sunny-cityscape to provide some relief after an anxious, dark sequence, for example. But I think, as Bordwell points out, a lot of directors rely on that sort of instinct. Scene transitions are one of the few elements that the director must create in isolation, often without the help of the screenplay. The decisions rely heavily on the overall rhythms of the film and what the viewer needs to feel at any given time. It seems that a great deal of the emotional content of the story is expressed through the scene transitions, and yet little is known about this craft.

10 It is my hope in this thesis to go exploring, to dig with my proverbial shovel in the hopes of uncovering the complexities of this hidden art of cinematic scene transitions. My research will be covering the following areas: 1.

Macro-montage and scene boundaries

2.

Transports: geographic movement of character

3.

Scenery and Music: the flowing river of context

4.

Ellipses and time expression

This thesis will examine the region where the scenes join within a film, with an emphasis on the stylistic choices made by filmmakers at the moment of scene transition. It will also reach further into the territory on either side of the junction, as well as the overarching contextual influences within a given work. I will examine scene transitions through the lenses of montage and narrative theorists, applying Eisenstein’s collisions and Pudovkin’s linkages to the interactions between scene boundaries, along with LeviStrauss’ binary oppositions in their aesthetic properties. To further examine the plot intensity and contextual flow at the scene junctions, I will formulate a new model for syuzhet and fabula to define the role of transport scenes, as well as the expression of scenery and music. Finally, I will examine the role of ellipses and time manipulation, and discover the styles that are employed to express the passage of time, both within and outside the narrative. Through this journey it will be necessary to create new terms such as synchronicity node, temporal objects, and ornamentals, as well as to expand the common definitions of syuzhet, fabula, and transports to assist in describing features of the scene transition that have yet to be explored. I will look closely at examples from epic films like Titanic (1997), Crash (2004), Gladiator (2001), and The Fugitive (1993), independent works like Miller’s Crossing (1990), Garden State (2004), The Fountain (2006), Good Will Hunting (1997), and Requiem for a Dream (2000), as well as comedies like Christmas Vacation (1989), Eurotrip (2004), and Waitress (2007). Along the way

11 you’ll hear from editors like Walter Murch and Emily Paine, with directors like David Lynch and Edward Dmytryk providing a voice for the artform as I attempt to define it. For the purposes of this analysis, I use the standard definition of scene as: an event which occurs in a single location (an exception to this would be a phone conversation, for example, that converges two locations into one single event). Each of the scenes in a film form a boundary defined by its combined edges with the scene next to it. Scene A is an event which transpires at a single location, comes to an end as the plot intensifies, and then exits through the boundary into Scene B to the next event. Scene B either has similar aesthetic attributes, or it is markedly different in time, place, tone, or subject. It is this region of activity between the two scenes that this thesis will address. A quick note on terminology: from this point forward, I have elected to use Roger Crittenden’s (1981) term ‘scene junction’ instead of ‘scene transition’ in order to avoid confusion with other transitions in cinema, e.g. transitional moments of characters in a narrative context, or transition from one era to another in film history. As will soon be clear, junction is an apt description of the location where two or more scenes meet, whereas transition is just one of many things happening at the junction. With this thesis I hope to shed light on the choices which directors make at every scene junction. While I won’t be spending too much time on technical considerations already described in editing manuals, I will provide a thorough analysis of the art behind them. My thesis will examine the artistic palette directors have at their disposal to manipulate scene junctions toward the expression of story content, as well as formulate underlying narrative processes which guide this usage.

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CHAPTER ONE Scene Montage and Boundaries

When directors sit down and plan the visual look of their films, they are faced with an endless array of choices in connecting their scenes. In this chapter I will examine the boundaries formed when two scenes are placed together, and apply montage theory from a shot level toward the macro level to examine the range of comparative, linkage, and rhythmic functions between scenes and sequences. Plus, in order to make sense of combinations of plotlines in newer network narratives, I will propose the term synchronicity node1 as a narrative linking device. Scene junctions can be hidden or overt. American film editor Walter Murch advocated a disorienting function of the junction, to purposefully prod the viewer’s attention: ‘In fact it is the editor’s job to make sure that the audience is conscious of the transition from one scene to the next, otherwise there will be confusion… The more alert the audience is at those moments of transition, the greater the opportunity we have to reveal things to them… This way, for a second or so you do not know where you are, but you know that a transition has happened, and this makes you think about things’ (Ganti 2009).2

In this chapter, I’ll begin to explore ways that scene junctions fulfill this disorienting function. As I examine montage theory in relation to the placement of scenes among

1 2

I have provided a full glossary of scene junction styles at the end of this thesis as Appendix A. This entire interview with Walter Murch about scene transitions is available on filmsound.org

14 each other, there are opposing trends that fall along the lines of either being overt or covert. As we will see with all choices made at the junctions, it is the degree of intensity of the usage that makes up the true cinematic art. 1.1 Macro-montage In my exploration of scene junctions, a natural starting point is to first examine the aesthetic properties of the scenes and how they interact. Montage theory provides us with a useful model to examine this interaction. Bordwell in more than one instance used the term macro-montage (1993, p.184; 2008) in describing the placement of scenes together, a term from Sergei Eisenstein in 1937 (Aumont 1979, p.155) and mentioned by Lev Kuleshov as early as 1935 as one part of the practice of montage. Kuleshov and the Russian Formalists had been analyzing the reasons for the success of the American films and concluded that it was due in part to their greater number of scenes. Montage to Kuleshov was the ‘organisation of cinematic material’ which included the joining and alternation of scenes among themselves…’ (Kuleshov 1935, p.189). Though macromontage is mentioned, the focus of montage discussion is generally on the level of shots within a scene, rather than between the scenes themselves. In order to examine the role of macro-montage among scene junctions, I shall draw upon ‘montage proper’ (Bordwell 1993, p.184) theory and apply it to the macro. While the theory of montage has been debated and has held different attributed meanings, it can be safely described as serving three distinct purposes. Firstly, it is a ‘collision’ of ideas; this term was used by the original Russian Formalists, Kuleshov and Eisenstein, and supported by Pearlman3 (2009), Aumont et al. (1982), and Bordwell (1972), as two ideas being juxtaposed and generating a synthesis of meaning not inherent in either of the two parts. Applied to a scene level, it will be useful to examine It should be noted that Pearlman’s usage of the term montage is only one aspect of editing of which linkage and montage coexist as equal choices of a larger assembly. For our purposes, linkage is one function of a broader concept of montage proper. 3

15 the boundaries created with this collision and call upon the theory of binary opposition as it relates to aesthetic differences between Scenes A and B. Secondly, as Australian film scholar Karen Pearlman (2009, p.163) points out, montage can be a ‘linkage’ of similar ideas. Here we can call upon Bordwell’s hook as a causal device linking the scenes (2008). Thirdly, montage can generate rhythm within the temporal flow through fragmentation. On a macro level this can apply to scene duration and intensity, as well as tension generated when multiple plotlines are crosscut. Rhythm is also essential in the use of collage (which I will examine further in Chapter 4). 1.2 Collision of Scenes When two scenes are placed next to one another, inherently a boundary forms. According to the montage theorists, this ‘dissonant juxtaposition’ is part of a ‘tensionbased assembly’ (Bordwell 1993, p.121) in which drama is excised from the ‘friction’ between them. At a scene level it is like Earth’s tectonic plate boundaries generating earthquakes, or, as if when two magnets are forced together they either repel or attract – the implication being that where drama exists the boundaries are charged. While films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) and Lifeboat (1944) may seem to be the exception in that they take place in entirely one location,4 it can be argued that the action in those films does include a level of demarcation within it; Rope includes cuts on moments of important emphasis as well as ellipses generated by zooming into a character’s back, or onto an object. The boundaries within Rope are therefore subtle shifts in perspective within the same space, whereas likewise, Lifeboat includes differences between night and day, and changes in weather – both serving the purpose of demarcating a dramatic boundary.

The setting of Lifeboat is confined entirely within a small boat in the Atlantic ocean, and Rope is set within a Manhattan apartment, both of which were filmed on a sound stage. 4

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SCENE A

SCENE B

Figure 1.1 Collision at Scene Junction

In my model, Scene A and Scene B are those scenes which surround a scene junction. The characteristics of the boundary can be described as either aesthetically harsh or soft. The Coen Brothers brought a harsh physicality to the scene junctions in Miller’s Crossing (1990), creating a sense of real boundaries existing within the story space, imposing closed doors at nearly every movement from Scenes A to B. Door knocking in Miller’s Crossing is utilized as a means of permission to enter a space at the beginning of scenes, and door slamming as a means of punishment. Characters frequently slam doors when they leave and arrive, creating a harsh boundary aesthetic. The boundary is being used as an intimidation device between characters, and the corresponding sound serves as metaphorical gunshot to unsettle the viewer. For example, when Bernie (John Turturro) knocks on the door to Verna’s (Marcia Gay Harden) apartment at the beginning of Scene B, she opens it and then slams it in his face. He knocks again, and this time she lets him in. Later, Tom (Gabriel Byrne) knocks on Verna’s door, and they both struggle with the wooden door before he pushes his way in. Subsequently she knocks to enter his apartment later in the film. Breaking through doors to begin a scene is another common device in Miller’s Crossing at the beginnings of Scenes B, as Tom bursts through double doors to speak to Verna, announcing ‘watch out ladies I’m coming through.’ The same double door opening device is repeated in reverse as Tom is escorted into the warehouse by thugs. In a prominent suspense scene toward the end of the film Verna is being followed; in Scene A she is shown first exiting the door of the Sullivan’s Gym from the distant point of view of the spies. Scene B immediately cuts in with a close-up of a shoe kicking in her door, as they storm into her apartment.

17 The scene boundary can create an ‘aesthetic shock’ to serve as punctuation (Aumont et al. 1983, p.47) to emphasize an important moment. Tom slams the wooden door to the mobster Leo’s (Albert Finney) office as he leaves the first Scene A, and the harsh slamming sound effect adds punctuation to his line. At the end of another Scene B Tom and Verna are speaking in the bedroom and she throws a shoe at him, missing him and hitting the door instead with a loud bang. This harsh sound mimics a gunshot, followed by the line ‘you’re a son of a bitch, Tom,’ effectively ending the scene. The sudden juxtaposition from Scene A to B also punctuates the last moments of Scene A. In James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) early scene junctions utilize this bombardment of punctuation through juxtaposition. For example, old Rose (Gloria Stuart) proclaims ‘the woman in the picture is me’ at the end of Scene A, and immediately Cameron cuts to Scene B with a swell of music as a helicopter flies into frame over an endless blue ocean. The punctuation effect causes her line to echo in the viewers mind. Similarly, Cameron utilizes the loud, shocking sound of the ship’s foghorn to introduce a Scene B, simultaneously punctuating a final line from Scene A. We will see more of this technique in Chapter 2. Softer boundaries are used in Miller’s Crossing to coincide with the romance between Tom and Verna. Open windows serve as a transitional device as the camera pans toward a window with curtains blowing. Soft boundaries like the ones in Mike Figgis’ Time Code (2000) and Joel Schumacher’s Phone Booth (2002), where the scenes are divided on the frame simultaneously, serve to blur or even erase the traditional boundaries of scene junctions5. While they are aesthetically soft in comparison to Miller’s Crossing, they tend to call more attention to their presence, whereas Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain (2006) generates an ambiguous soft boundary between its

In Time Code the screen is divided into four equal parts displaying four separate locations in apparent real time, while the audio is mixed to manipulate viewer attention. Phone Booth utilises various sized inserts of various shots within the screen composition to show both sides of a phone call simultaneously. 5

18 three distinctly separate locations. The Fountain follows a protagonist, Tom (Hugh Jackman), who apparently exists in three different time periods, thousands of years apart. The boundaries between these time periods are vague; in one instance Aronofsky cuts from a close-up of Tom in the future time period in Scene A to a Scene B reaction shot of Isabel (Rachel Wiesz) in the present time period, then cuts back to his reaction in the present time period. Aronofsky masks the time boundaries with sequences of reaction shots in which the surroundings, hairstyles, and clothing changes in various ways from shot to shot around the junction, conveying a sense that this is all happening in Tom’s mind. Those differences between the locations are a key factor, because they lead us to a further examination of binary oppositions. 1.3 Collision with Binary Oppositions The juxtaposition of two scenes inherently prompts the viewer to compare the two (Bordwell 1972), a natural process that Alan Dundes, in relation to shot-level montage, described as ‘comparativism’ (Dundes 1997, p.41). This comparison would imply a synthesis of meaning between the two parts. Film scholar David Cook noted the similarities of this comparative function of montage to binary opposition, a term from French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss adopted by Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (Cook 1975), in which myths are commonly categorized into pairs of opposites for ease of interpretation. According to Saussure, and supported by American film scholar Arthur Asa Berger, the mind makes sense of a concept by comparing it against what it is not. As Saussure is often quoted: ‘concepts are… defined… negatively by their relations with other terms of the system. Their most precise characteristic is in being what others are not’ (Wright 1975).

In Berger’s words, ‘we make sense of it by recognizing, on some level, that it is not its opposite’ (Berger 1997, p.31). The underlying implication is that storytellers are best

19 served using oppositions for the sake of clarity; one thing is defined against another. This was echoed by French director Jean-Luc Godard when he said that cinema is ‘an art of contrast’ (Godard 1972, p.25), and American director David Lynch when he said he likes to ‘play with contrasts’ (Tirard 2002, p.130). Applied to the macro level of feature films, we would expect to find oppositions from one scene to the next, e.g., day to night, indoor to outdoor, city to country, close-up to wide, solitude to crowd, quiet to loud, etc. These sets of oppositions would also be necessary to create dramatic lines of demarcation around scenes, as well as to perform Murch’s disorienting function at the change to Scene B. Indeed, directors commonly employ this device. For an example of this, Paul Haggis utilizes oppositions almost exclusively in the scene junctions of Crash (2004), a film about the racial rifts in a contemporary American city. Haggis switches between outdoor and indoor at nearly every junction, and on exceptions where he goes from indoor to another indoor, the lighting is significantly different, e.g., dark to light. As well, he often juxtaposes scenes along the lines of upper class vs. lower class, authority vs. criminal, minority vs. white etc. In The Fountain Tom’s head is bald in the future time period, contrasted against long hair with beard in the ancient past; both are contrasted with his present-day hair. These contrasts of aesthetic from Scene A to Scene B mutually help to define each locale against its opposite, and thus generate a meaning not inherent in the two. We internalize the race boundaries, for instance, in Crash due to the emphasis, just like we internalize the class boundaries in Titanic when Cameron juxtaposes scenes from upper and lower decks. We internalize Tom’s poor health in The Fountain’s future against the present, whereas we notice Tom’s primitive ignorance in the past timeline because it counterpoints his struggle to use his scientific intellect in the present. Further, a scene is given emphasis through its sudden absence. When Scene A disappears we are prompted to consider what it once was, and we define the new

20 presence of Scene B first by the mere fact that it is not Scene A. This effect is made most explicit in the common practice of cutting to black at the end of films. Miller’s Crossing, for example, cuts to black forcing the viewer to contemplate the meaning of what was. If the scene had continued, the viewer would still be contemplating what is, perhaps anticipating more action. As demonstrated earlier, this effect is often used as punctuation when a line from the end of Scene A echoes in the viewer’s mind simply because the source of the line (the actor) is no longer present on the screen. The two extremes of binary oppositions would be black screen vs. white screen, whereas black screen represents removal of story content, as in the case of the death by gunshot in Miller’s Crossing, and white represents an overload of story, e.g., a spiritual transcendence in The Fountain. 1.4 Linkage of Scenes and the Hook A second, and less discussed purpose of montage is what Russian filmmaker and theorist Vsevolod Pudovkin called ‘linkage’ (Pearlman 2009, p.165), which corresponds nicely to the Aumont et al. (1983, p.51) concept of a ‘formal liason’ of shots ‘reinforcing a continuity.’ Linkage is essentially the opposite of collision, in that instead of creating an ‘aesthetic shock’ the director edits the shots in a way that allows them to join for a unified purpose. Pearlman referred to linkage as a ‘smooth train of images’ (Pearlman 2009, p.165). Linkage adapted to a macro level for our purposes becomes the antithesis of binary oppositions in that two scenes are placed together with similar aesthetics: day to day, desert to desert, close-up to close-up, etc. Godard’s Vivre sa vie (1962) exemplifies this sort of homogenous collection of similar locations. Australian film scholar Adrian Martin explained Godard’s scene construction as ‘deliberately choosing for his locations a string of bars and cafes that strongly resemble each other, so that, within this overall pattern of sameness, striking differences of design, brightness of

21 shade can emerge…’ (Martin 2009, p.46). This is similar to our examples of Rope and Lifeboat mentioned earlier, in which the films use entirely one location. Even scenes with binary oppositional aesthetics can utilize linkage with what Bordwell called the hook in order to smooth their association. Bordwell defined the hook as an audiovisual device linking scenes through chains of cause and effect, in which a device at the end of Scene A (cause) is connected to a device at the beginning of Scene B (effect). These hooks can be variations of audio or visual material, connecting both sides of the scene junction in a causal way, much like a suture holds together two pieces of fabric. The absence of the second half of the device pair in Scene B fails to complete the hook and is called the dangling cause, purposefully leaving the viewer guessing (Bordwell 2008). Commonly, the hook raises a question through a lingering line of dialogue and provides an answer either visually or through a connecting line of dialogue. Or, action is promised, and then the follow through is shown in progress. Two images can be hooked together like Stanley Kubrick’s infamous scene junction in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) cutting from a flying wood log in Scene A to a flying space station in Scene B, bridging thousands of years by hooking similarly shaped objects performing similar motions. Bordwell (2008) said the hook can be ‘ironic or nugatory, metaphorical or misleading,’ in order to provoke the viewer, but pointed out that the overall advantage of using it is to create tight cohesion and unity through the film.6 James Cameron utilized the hook quite frequently in his epic Titanic (1997), a film about a modern day treasure hunter looking for a lost diamond worn by Rose Bukater (Kate Winslet) the last surviving passenger on the sunken ship. In one example the older Rose (Gloria Stuart) arrives via helicopter along with her fish bowl full of goldfish, then Cameron cuts to the next scene inside the ship – a close-up of the fish bowl now sitting on a dresser. The presence of the fish bowl at the end of Scene A and the

6

Bordwell goes into much more detail in his article on www. davidbordwell.net (Bordwell 2008).

22 beginning of Scene B, especially with it being in a different location, serves as a visual hook between the junction. Cameron is also able to provide a hook between the contrasting upper deck and the lower decks in an instance where Jack invites Rose below. At the end of Scene A Jack asks, ‘so you want to go to a real party?’ The question is answered as Cameron immediately cuts to Scene B: the lower deck alive with Irish music and dancing, in which Rose is taking part. Titanic includes notable visual hooks between the present and the past, bridging a span of eighty years. Near the beginning, Rose is describing her experiences aboard the ship as the camera pans toward a video monitor showing the sunken Titanic from the submersible. Cameron dissolves smoothly from the bow of the rotting ship to an exactly matching, freshly painted bow in 1912. Later he brings us back to the present in the same way, just as the young Rose and Jack (Leonardo DeCaprio) embrace on the bow of the ship, the scene dissolves seamlessly to the matching bow of the sunken shipwreck. The same device is repeated throughout Titanic to give the sensation of a timeless link between old and new. Midway through the film, Cameron brings us back to present day through a notorious close-up of young Rose’s eye as it transforms to her aged one (from Kate Winslet to Gloria Stuart). 1.5 Linkage of Multiple Plots Linkage becomes even more essential when connecting two plotlines that are seemingly unrelated, but put together to serve a comparative function (Martin 2009, p.37). In fact, multiple plotlines, known as network narratives (Peters 2008), draw from the concept of finding a metaphorical or even physical link between unrelated plots. Commonly their multiple plotlines are linked by what can be called a synchronicity node: an object, location, or moment which links two or more separate plotlines by random coincidence. The synchronicity node encompasses a broad range of narrative devices; the term ‘node’ being borrowed from computer networking as a point where two pathways intersect (Oxford 2011), and ‘synchronicity’ defined as ‘the simultaneous occurrence of events

23 which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection’ (Oxford 2011). Figure 1.2 - Connecting two unrelated plotlines

PLOTLINE 1 Synchronicity Node

PLOTLINE 2

The rifle in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel (2006), the small statue in Haggis’ Crash, the bowling ball in Greg Marcks’ 11:14 (2003), are all examples of transitional objects7 as synchronicity nodes which connect each film’s multiple plotlines. A single location through which more than one plotline passes, such as the school corridor in Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003) or the highway bridge in 11:14, can also be a synchronicity node. These nodes act as a memory prompt to help the viewer piece together the linkage of the complex web of characters, and in the case of Elephant and 11:14 cue the viewer that time is being repeated from an alternate point of view. Chance meetings by characters from two different plotlines are another common node, such as the LAPD cop John Ryan (Matt Dillon) saving Elizabeth’s (Karina Arroyave) life in Crash, or the teenagers (Colin Hanks, Stark Sands, and Ben Foster) crashing their van into Cheri (Rachael Leigh Cook) in 11:14. These chance encounters set up causal events which alter the course of the plot, compounding the meaning of each. 1.6 Rhythm and Fragmentation of Scenes In my application of montage theory to the macro level, creation of rhythm is the third major purpose (Aumont et al. 1982, p.45). Rhythm at this level is created from the lengths of the scenes and sequences being put together, as well as how they can be

British film scholar Annette Kuhn’s (2005) transitional object is a term which she has borrowed from psychoanalysis, to define an object in a film which links the viewer with the inner story world with a ‘feeling of being, or becoming, at one with a work of art.’ 7

24 fragmented in order to generate tension or further cohesion. Fragmentation of two or more scenes by cutting them up into shorter segments and mixing them together in a new alternating sequence is commonly known as crosscutting. It connects the events, generates tension between them, and creates a sense of ‘temporal simultaneity’ (Bordwell & Thompson 2001, p.275). It also gives the viewer a vantage point greater than that inherent in each scene alone – a vantage point from which to discern meaning. Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000) exemplifies an extreme form of crosscutting through its climax sequence in which five scenes are being juxtaposed in rapid succession. First, Harry (Jared Leto) is dying in the hospital; second, his mother Sara (Ellen Burstyn) is having radical weight loss treatment; third, his girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) is having an affair at a sex party; fourth, the television audience from the show Sara has been watching is cheering on Marion; fifth, Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) is mopping the floor in prison. These five scenes could be shown separately; however, through tension, Aronofsky’s use of fragmentation creates another form of scene collision as the fragments grow increasingly shorter and faster. This also allows a heightened comparative function as parallels between each scene are drawn – in this case, the frenzy of obsession. Figgis’ Time Code takes this a step further by splitting the frame into four segments and playing four scenes simultaneously. In this way, the fragmentation occurs within the composition of the frame rather than editing the scenes together in temporal succession. The varied lengths of each scene play a large role in the rhythm of an entire film. Godard would plan out his films’ macro rhythm first, deciding how long each sequence would last before adding the content, resulting in what Adrian Martin called ‘formal pleasure’ (Martin 2009, p.46). This ‘formal pleasure’ is a primary concern of editors and directors. Murch said:

25 ‘A film with a satisfying flow of scenes is more successful than a film which, while individual scenes may be well-edited, does not flow together to create a satisfying whole’ (Murch 1992, p.87).

American editor Geoff Bartz talked about the ‘relationship between moods’ of scenes and the need for ‘balancing things so that there are contrasts and relief.’ For instance, he would place a comedic scene after a tragic scene (Oldham 1992, p.109). I will look more at the flow of moods in relation to the fabula in Chapter 3, and Chapter 4 will focus more on the rhythmic element of ellipses as it relates to the stylistic choices of transitional effects along the temporal flow, including collage. In summary, the scene boundaries formed by placing them together create dramatic energy. Directors make critical choices at each scene junction as to whether to collide them aesthetically with harsh boundaries like the doors in Miller’s Crossing, or to soften them ambiguously like The Fountain. Choices are made in locations, shot choices, and scene aesthetic as to whether the junction will be divided into binary oppositions like in Crash, or linked through hooks or synchronicity nodes, as in Titanic and Crash respectively. In Chapter 2, I will expand this exploration of the scene boundary toward the geographic movement of the characters from Scene A to Scene B.

26

27

CHAPTER TWO Transports: Geographic Movement of Character

After examining the interactions of scenes and the boundaries formed between them, I will now turn to the movement of the characters through those junctions. A significant choice a director has at every scene junction is whether to show a character’s journey from Scene A to Scene B, or to imply it. Two scenes are sometimes bridged by a transport scene, serving to express the emotions of the protagonist travelling through geography. In order to establish a model for the flow line of plot intensity rising at the end of every Scene A, it will be necessary to expand the definition of the Russian syuzhet to include an emotional charge. For the purposes of this thesis, my discussion of character will focus primarily on the protagonist and antagonist. Scene junctions are, according to Jean-Luc Godard, ‘superimposition of the description of character on that of the plot’ (Godard 1972, p.39). At the scene junction, the movement of character is a vital expression of the emotional components of plot. American film scholar Robert McKee described the symbiotic nature between character and the events embedded into the structure of the film: ‘Structure and character are interlocked. The event structure of a story is created out of the choices that characters make under pressure and the actions they choose to take, while characters are the creatures who are revealed and changed by how they choose to act under pressure. If you change one, you change the other’ (McKee 1997, p.375).

Every scene ends with a rise in plot intensity, a combination of plot revelation and character reaction which propels the drama forward through the junction into the next

28 scene. If a flow line was drawn of the level of plot intensity through a scene, it would tend to rise sharply at the end of the scene. I will call upon the work of McKee and his model of value charges to demonstrate the narrative reasons behind this tendency. 2.1 Syuzhet Rise As advocated by Murch (1992, p.24), film is, at its core, an emotional release of information. And as McKee states, the characters and their narrative structure exist to dramatically express that information so the viewer can internalize it. Yet, co-existing with scene structure is a cinematic manifestation of mental ‘interpretation’ (Walsh 2001, p.605) which can be categorized into two levels. All information to be gained or experienced in a film can be separated along the lines of plot and non-plot. I will be using the narrative terms syuzhet and fabula from Russian Formalism to anchor this claim, in order to examine the tendency for a rise in plot intensity at the end of all scenes. Syuzhet, roughly translated to English as ‘plot,’ and its counterpart fabula, ‘nonplot’ or ‘story,’ have held varied definitions since their inception by Shklovsky. Bordwell placed syuzhet as the screen chronology of events which may differ from the chronology of the broader fabula (Bordwell 1985, p.50). British film scholar Richard Walsh sees this chronological distinction as problematic, and instead describes the contemporary viewpoint as a ‘duality’ between the specific narrative and the orienting reference surrounding it (Walsh 2001, p.594). An easy way of stating it is that the fabula is the overall story, and the syuzhet is the precise telling of it. But, Bordwell also described it as a ‘process’ in which the ‘organized set of cues prompt us to infer and assemble story information’ (Bordwell 1985, p.52); syuzhet creates fabula. Walsh further defines fabula as the ‘by-product of the interpretive process’ by which the viewer takes the syuzhet and draws an overall understanding. American film scholar Peter Brooks emphasizes this ‘active, shaping function’ (Brooks 2002, p.130) of the viewer, which Walsh describes as an ‘ongoing’ process through the film. It is therefore my proposal that both the syuzhet

29 and the fabula can be represented by flow lines of intensity, whereas the fabula is an underground constant, and the syuzhet rises sharply at the scene junction. While contemporary definitions of the two terms rely heavily on viewer access to plot information and the logical interpretation of it, I will be adding the emotional component. Fig 2.1 - Scene junction with a transport

Syuzhet Rise

SCENE A

Transport

SCENE B

Fabula

In order to fully understand the rise in syuzhet, it is essential to add the emotional reaction of character. McKee refers to value charges at the end of every scene corresponding to the emotional state of the protagonist. In McKee’s model, the protagonist chooses an action which results in a ‘gap between expectation and result’ turning the protagoinst’s inner and outer life into turmoil. Scene A will always ‘cause change in a minor, albeit significant way’ to the protagonist, and will end on a charge of emotion – either positive or negative. The value charges at the ends of scenes, sequences, and acts are the result of a change toward a positive or a negative value charge (McKee 1997, p.234) or a change in degree of one existing value charge. These turning points also include setups and payoffs planted throughout the narrative for the benefit of the viewer as a release of information in a ‘rush of insight’ not always known by the protagonist (McKee 1997, p.240). The protagonist at the end of Scene A, then, has ‘rendered the precise experience necessary to cause an emotion, and then takes that audience through the experience’ creating insight and a ‘dynamics of emotion.’ In order for these value charges and payoffs to elicit emotion in the viewer, the viewer must have (1) empathy for character, (2) knowledge of the character’s desire, and (3)

30 understanding of the value at stake. A change in values then ‘moves our emotions’ (McKee 1997, p.243). It is therefore necessary to expand the definition of syuzhet to include McKee’s emotional value charges, thus redefining the syuzhet as: the varied flow of emotionally charged mental intensity by the viewer as it processes fresh plot information. When applied to the scene junction, it can be simplified as: PLOT INTENSITY + CHARGE = SYUZHET The fabula, then, is: the more passive, objective contemplation in the absence of fresh plot information (which I will examine more closely in Chapter 3). Both are active throughout, but the syuzhet overshadows the fabula during heightened moments. Therefore, specific to my analysis of the scene junctions, the syuzhet rise is the moment at the end of Scene A where the plot thickens, the character reacts, and the viewer’s mind is fully engaged and aware of the plot. It then dissipates and falls back into the fabula, such that the beginning of Scene B allows the viewer to relax and ponder the overall story and context without focusing on plot detail. The fabula is the underground constant which is interrupted only by moments of heightened syuzhet. A distinction should be made here against stylistic subjectivity vs. objectivity. While syuzhet rises may correspond to moments of subjective involvement in the character through stylistic means (close-ups, tracking shots), they may not always be in sync. The viewer may still be fully absorbing syuzhet info with intensity even as the director switches to a stylistically objective viewpoint of camera and music. A further discussion of objectivity at the scene junction will continue in Chapter 3. 2.2 Transports When characters react emotionally to plot revelation, they tend to move. It is found even in single location films such as Sidney Lumet’s Twelve Angry Men (1957), and both

31 Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) and Lifeboat (1944) – characters reposition themselves within the confined space for dramatic effect. Often the movement of the protagonist through geographic space is a means of dramatic expression. Bridging scenes, which I refer to as transports added between Scene A and B, show this movement, often characterized by an echoed resonance of new plot information. I have borrowed the term transports from Carlos Chamberlain (2006) and Tom Cohen (2005, p.13), both of whom have used it in their film analyses of Dziga Vertov and Alfred Hitchcock respectively. Transports are scenes of geographic movement which tend to utilize vehicles to carry the protagonist safely from Scene A to Scene B. According to Cohen (2005, p.14), they ‘cancel the site of departure, home, while providing, in its acceleration of rushing frames, no arrival or even present…’ Thus they become an omnipresent state of subjective character examination, in which the viewer is fully involved in a ‘hyperbolism of cognitive accelerations’ (Cohen 2005, p.15). It is a function of syuzhet rise in which the viewer is fully engaged at the scene junction. Garden State (2004) is a clear example of the use of transports as a recurring motif, as director Zach Braff puts his protagonist on a sidecar motorcycle during moments of character expression. The first instance occurs after an encounter with his father, second when he falls in love, and third when he rides through his childhood neighborhood seeing it with new eyes. In Scene A of the first instance, the last words of his father were a venomous insult, prompting the protagonist, Andrew (Zach Braff), to exit the doorway to his father’s home office without saying a word. The syuzhet rises as we internalize the severity of the anger between father and son echoed in that last line. As he walks out of frame in Scene A, Andrew walks through a door into the garage, and up to the motorcycle, swiftly whipping the cover away from it in an emotional release. With a close-up of contemplation, the imagination of Andrew is clear on his grin as he decides he will have a good time riding this bike. The proceeding shots are of the protagonist speeding down the empty suburban streets at night, as the motorcycle

32 carries him away from the depression of his mother’s funeral and his father’s rudeness. The journey here is a clear expression of a character trying to escape an unfair world. No sooner than the journey begins, a policeman catches him speeding, blazing after him with flashing lights, bringing him back under oppression once again. As the two vehicles roll to a stop, we enter Scene B, syuzhet forgotten, as we wait to experience the meaningful dialogue between Andrew and the policeman. This transport between Scene A and B was used dramatically as an emotional expression of character, and thus an expression of McKee’s value charge. The next instance the motorcycle is used in Garden State, a different emotion is resonated in the transport – a sense of freedom after a doctor tells him he should stop taking antidepressants. On the third motorcycle journey, two friends are riding with him on a more retrospective transport through his childhood neighborhood, resonating the emotion of acceptance. Each usage of the transport motif carries a different value charge and expression. 2.3 Single Protagonist Geographic Syuzhet Expression Since every scene junction inherently contains a syuzhet rise corresponding with the reactions of the protagonist, the director chooses the degree of dramatic intensity needed at each junction through stylistic means, whether abbreviated or a drawn out transport over a course of minutes. The minimalist choice to not express character in a scene junction is just as important as the choice to do so. This is because the lack of expression in surrounding junctions creates an emphasis on the ones that do. Garden State contains a single protagonist appearing in every scene, meaning that each scene junction of the film must feature Andrew exiting Scenes A and entering Scenes B. McKee’s Law of Diminishing Returns (1997, p.244) applies, in that each time a narrative device is used, it is half as effective. In other words: repetition generates fatigue. American editors such as Dede Allen, Alan Heim, and Roger Crittenden have stressed the importance of this decision in the editing room, Heim stating that ‘showing people

33 getting out of cars and going through doors is boring stuff’ (LaBrutto 1991, p.151). While Allen echoes that ‘It’s boring to see someone walk from one place to another…’ (LaBrutto 1991, p.84), Crittenden cautions that ‘the very essence of a particular sequence can be contained in the pause at the end’ (Crittenden 1981, p.79). More essentially, if the syuzhet revelation in Scene A was profound enough, lingering on it may be necessary for the viewer to internalize it. Braff is selective about which junctions should express character in Garden State, often immediately cutting into Scene B without such expressionary dramatic interlude. For instance, Braff chose not to give us film space to follow Andrew’s journey from his friend’s house to the neurologist’s office, choosing instead to cut immediately from the house to Braff entering the doors of the clinic. Andrew looks at the clock and realizes he is late for a doctor appointment, rushes out of Scene A and immediately appears in Scene B. Another director perhaps could have chosen to follow the protagonist through the streets in a rushed panic, hoping not to miss the doctor appointment. Or the director may have chosen to go back to the motorcycle motif and show the protagonist enjoying the escape he missed earlier. Other examples of this minimalism occur during the opening moments of the film – after just learning of his mother’s death, Braff whisks us away from a Los Angeles Vietnamese restaurant immediately to a public restroom in a New Jersey airport, with only the sound of a jet to bridge the locations. At the end of Scene A, he walks away from the table after being insulted by customers; then as the jet sound flies by, cuts to Scene B in which he is already in New Jersey. Andrew frequently enters and leaves locations as if in real time – an editorial manifestation of his dazed mental state. In the other extreme, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000) contains a complex transport sequence lasting eight minutes, containing a series of multiple plot twists and emotional charges. Geographic movement of the protagonist in Gladiator serves an

34 essential function of the story in which his geographic displacement creates the drama surrounding his elusive return and unveiling to the antagonist. Early in the film, the antagonist, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), kills his emperor to assume the throne, subsequently sentencing the protagonist, Maximus (Russell Crowe), the rightful heir, to death. On the rise of syuzhet following this execution order, as Maximus is stricken on the back with the blunt of a sword, Scott cuts in the flash of impact from night to day, to a flashback, and follows the protagonist as a prisoner on his way to be executed. Maximus then escapes execution and rides on horseback through the Roman countryside, discovers his family has been slain, and is captured by slave traders and taken to a camp in Zucchabar. In this sequence, we essentially have Scene A – the sentencing by antagonist, and Scene B – the protagonist’s arrival at the provincial slave camp. In between there is an eight minute transport sequence linking the two locations, and a continued syuzhet rise and twist. With Maximus’ failed execution, the syuzhet rises in a twist as he escapes. Scott follows Maximus in a series of wide shots and close-ups as he rides on horseback, first through the forest, then through an open field; a thunderstorm bolts out a lightning strike just as he passes through center frame. A full moon takes the screen, the protagonist sits at a campfire, and then we are treated to a wide tracking shot of the scenery as dawn approaches while a voiceover reveals the protagonist’s inner thoughts. Cut to a continued horseback ride, and then simultaneously Scott crosscuts to military troops arriving at Maximus’ farm to execute his family. A look of sudden realization crosses his face as he changes direction and heads home to save them. The syuzhet rises even higher with this new twist. Crosscutting continues as his young son greets the troops with a smile, just before he is toppled violently. Maximus races home, but his horse collapses, forcing him to continue on foot. The syuzhet propelled by each roadblock, rises higher. The protagonist arrives but is too late; he collapses in pain and anguish as he sees his dead wife and son hanging in the garden. Scott cuts to black with

35 the sound of a sword, as the slave traders pick up his sleeping body. We view a sunset in rapid progression as clouds swirl past; cut to black; cut to protagonist’s sleeping face being carried over a rocky terrain. Scott flashes to a hand-through-wheat motif, and a collage of manic glimpses of his captors, the rocks moving below, clouds rapidly wisping through the sky, mixed with flashbacks of his family, sounds of screams, etc. We get fuller fragments of reality as the protagonist slowly awakens, and extreme wide shots panning the desert landscape as the camel caravan arrives at the camp. The syuzhet finally falls, and we wait for the next set of information after an ebb of downtime. While another director may have simply cut to the slave camp as he wakes up, Scott has turned the journey into a vivid cinematic expression of the protagonist’s madness. With each roadblock and syuzhet twist, the viewer’s empathy grows deeper. 2.4 Expression of Antagonist Syuzhet Added Gladiator is a useful model to examine the movement of equally dominant antagonist scenes intercut with the protagonist scenes. In a film structured in this way, we shall label Scenes A and B for the protagonist transition, and Scenes X and Y for the antagonist. While the protagonist is favored with more journeys of expression through the scene junctions, the movement of the antagonist is equally expressive, albeit inverse. In Gladiator, while the protagonist rises with the syuzhet at the end of Scenes A and into Scenes B, the antagonist seems to ride full syuzhet strength at the beginning of Scenes X, rarely or never crossing into a Scene Y. In other words, Scott joins the antagonist, Commodus, in medias res in which he is reacting to a bit of news already found out or assumed. Scene Y, if it exists at all, is merely an extension of Scene X with very little character transformation at the junction. In fact it may be a result of crosscutting to a Scene A/B series and then back to Scene Y; in effect the sequence flows X, A, B, Y. This is a direct counterpoint to the trend we have been following with protagonists, e.g., Garden State, in which we join Scenes A in dramatic ebb, being forced to wait until the end of the

36 scene for a syuzhet rise. Likewise, the protagonist in Gladiator makes his geographic journeys at the end of Scenes A in reaction to the contents of the scene, whereas on at least two occasions the antagonist makes his expressionary journey at the opening of Scenes X, where instead of reacting, he is forcing a new action. The crosscutting becomes even more abbreviated in the second half of the film, in which Scott moves alternately from A and X creating an interplay between the two, building tension toward climax. Figure 2.2 - Basic model of Antagonist syuzhet added

Syuzhet Rise

[Antagonist Acts] [Protagonist Reacts]

SCENE X

SCENE A

[Antagonist Reacts] [Protagonist Acts]

SCENE B

SCENE Y

The antagonist’s journeys in Gladiator both occur at the beginnings of Scenes X, and are perpetual expressions of actions which cause a reaction. Where the protagonist is oppressed, the antagonist is first doing the oppressing. Chase films such as Andrew Davis’ The Fugitive (1993) by their very nature use geographic movement through a multiplicity of locations, and use transport linking scenes almost exclusively. The Fugitive is a story about a doctor, Richard (Harrison Ford), who is falsely accused, convicted, and soon to be executed for his wife’s death. Upon escaping a prison bus, he embarks on a journey to prove his innocence while simultaneously running from his antagonist, Samuel (Tommy Lee Jones) the US Marshall. Despite its heavy chase structure, Davis still uses dramatic expression from each location through variations on this repeatable pattern: (1) Richard finds evidence at a location that will help him, (2) he is found, and (3) he escapes just in time not to get caught by Samuel; then, while he is travelling to a new location (4) Samuel learns the new evidence. Unlike Gladiator, the antagonist in The Fugitive is slowly treated

37 progressively as a moral equal to the protagonist, and is therefore given an increasing amount of syuzhet moments at the ends of Scenes X rather than the beginnings. Whereas Gladiator cuts to an antagonist reacting in medias res, Davis allows the viewer to experience the antagonist’s transformation as a building process through the scene just as is done with the protagonist. This equal time allows the expression of Samuel’s feelings to be just as prominent as Richard’s. By the end of the film, they are dual protagonists merging into a single narrative force. 2.5 Binaries Opposing Forces Another essential aspect of character in relation to scene boundaries is the continued or heightened essence or presence of either the protagonist or antagonist even when one is absent from the scene. This effect is generated by the binary opposition (see Chapter 1) of one character being defined against the other when cutting between their two worlds. In Gladiator, as Scott cuts from Scenes A into Scenes X, the presence of the protagonist is still felt throughout Scene X as it echoes from Scene A. In The Fugitive, as the antagonist decides to do something in Scene X, the reaction is felt viscerally as we see protagonist running in Scene A, even though the protagonist doesn’t yet have this new information. Through every action the antagonist takes against the protagonist, we imagine how this will effect the protagonist, and we measure it as if he is in the same room. Likewise, the antagonist is felt as present in Scenes A in which he is absent from the scene but previously has been seen in a preceding Scene X. The protagonist is reacting to what has been dealt upon him, and every reaction is measured against what we know the antagonist did in the previous Scene X. This discussion ignores the scenes in which both protagonist and antagonist occupy the same scene, but our examination sheds some light on the directors’ creation of tension between them using their geographic separation and rhythmic juxtaposition. This usage is also seen in more complex network narratives with multiple protagonists and antagonists, where the viewer realizes the

38 introduction of a new character by the fact that it isn’t one of the characters previously seen. In summary, since the protagonist in each film is a function of narrative structure, the timed release of information through emotional expression is dependent on the viewer’s response to the protagonist. Directors make critical choices at the scene junctions surrounding whether to abbreviate protagonist movement through geography, or to dramatize this movement on screen based on how the director feels the viewer needs to experience each moment of syuzhet. The director’s use of transport scenes linking Scenes A and B can be as complex as the exile sequence in Gladiator, or a simple cut, abbreviating a journey from Los Angeles to New Jersey by a simple sound effect, i.e. Garden State. In more complex narratives, the protagonist movements are pitted dramatically against the antagonist. Chase films such as The Fugitive are exclusively made up of expressionary geographic movements by both the protagonist and the antagonist. Without movement through space, the character has very little means of expression. In the next chapter, I will further examine the emotions contained at the scene junction, but from the perspective of the fabula, which contains larger overall moods expressed by scenery and music.

39

CHAPTER THREE Scenery: The Flowing River of Context

In Chapter 2 I looked at primarily what happens at the end of scenes in terms of character movement through the scene junction. In this chapter I will turn my focus to the beginning of scenes in relation to its junction with the scene before it, with a focus on the rhythmic ebb manifested through establishment scenery and music. This state of relief after a period of plot intensity brings the viewer to a state of objective contemplation that I’ve labeled fabula. Here I will further clarify a workable definition of fabula to coincide with my new definition of syuzhet in the previous chapter. Every scene begins with a process of discovery. The viewer must first determine which characters are in the scene, where they are in relation to each other and the setting, and how that relates to the previous scene. In my model, Scene A and Scene B are those scenes which surround a scene junction, sometimes joined by a transport scene. The beginning of all Scenes B are microcosms of the opening scene, as they lure the viewer from an objective contextual place into a more subjective one. The common fragmented skylines and cityscapes mixed with the opening credits of a film begin painting the emotional context of the story and cueing genre elements. This function of context was on the top of Steven Gaghan’s list of the most essential aspects of filmmaking – even more important than plot or character – and is an essential partner with transitions (Goldsmith 2006).

40 3.1 Context and its Rippling Effect All films begin and end with context. The concept of context is comprised of varied uses: (1) intra-textual, where the surrounding text ‘clarifies the meaning’ (Oxford 2011); (2) the container, where the ‘ambient systems of reference’ (Stam et al. 1992, p.16) such as setting and atmosphere clarify the meaning; (3) extra-textual,8 where other works and cultural codes help to define meaning (Barthes 1977, p.54); and (4) the viewer’s shifting perspective through a work. The viewer’s shifting perspective is continually cued by the film text. German literary scholar Wolfgang Iser proposed what he called theme and horizon as ‘constantly shifting viewpoints’ of the reader throughout a text. Since the reader cannot focus on all things at once, it finds commonalities surrounding a theme. The horizon, then, is all possible viewpoints of a particular plot event: what was done prior on previous events, what the narrator viewpoint is, what each characters’ viewpoints are, etc. As the ‘timeflow’ progresses, the reader’s perspective on the theme and horizon is constantly updated to a different vantage point in what Iser calls a ‘constantly shifting constellation of views’ (Iser 1978, p.97). Iser further explained: ‘…the structure of theme and horizon allows all positions to be observed, expanded, and changed. Our attitude toward each theme is influenced by the horizon of past themes, and as each theme itself becomes part of the horizon during the time-flow of our reading, so it, too, exerts an influence on subsequent themes’ (Iser 1978, p.99).

The result is that the context is never fully realized until the final moments when the reader reaches a ‘transcendental vantage point from which he can see through all the positions that have been formulated’ (Iser 1978, p.99).

For this exploration of scene junctions, I will exclude the extra-textual in order to limit the focus to only what exists within a film’s story world. 8

41 Cinematic context, then, can be described as a temporal process by which any moment within a film space is defined by everything that has happened before it, and subsequently defines moments that follow. The result is a flowing process which generally moves in one direction. Contextual flow is of great importance to filmmakers because it effects every creative decision on an emotional level. American editor and film scholar Roger Crittenden (1981, p.77) wrote about a ‘rippling effect’ in which the feeling of a sequence is profoundly tainted by one small change made before it. German director Wim Wenders (Tirard 2002, p.73) compares it to a river in that the viewer is carried along by the current. He said ‘the story is like a river and if you dared to set sail on it, and if you trusted the river, then the boat would be carried along toward something magical.’ Director David Lynch used a musical analogy: ‘I think film has that power because, unlike most other art forms, it uses time as a part of its process…You start somewhere, and then, note by note, you slowly build up until you reach a particular note that creates a strong emotion. But it works only because of all the notes that came before it’ (Tirard 2002, p.127).

3.2 Fabula Flow Scene junctions are often a shifting of context, as new plot information changes the viewer’s vantage point along the fabula. To continue the discussion from the previous chapter, syuzhet and fabula represent plot and non-plot, where the artifice of syuzhet cues the viewer to actively piece together the broader fabula. Both Richard Walsh and David Bordwell described the fabula as the resulting product of the viewer’s mental work. Bordwell (1985, p.49) asserted that fabula is never present on the screen, rather it is created by a set of ‘assumptions and inferences’ as the plot unfolds. It is, in essence, an overall story which gradually takes shape as the plot unfolds regardless of the chronology of plot sequence; it is the puzzle only fully recognizable in the film’s

42 concluding moments. Walsh’s model goes even further in saying that fabula is always created by syuzhet exclusively, never being independently cued in other ways (Walsh 2001, p.604). While these debates are useful in a narrative sense, they abandon the possibility of fabula content being present on the screen, or being generated by something other than plot information.9 I propose that fabula can manifest as non-plot cues such as scenery and music – emotional expressions entirely independent of the syuzhet. In other words, fabula is a combination of plot context and emotional cues, simplified to: CONTEXT + MOOD = FABULA Therefore my definition of fabula needs to be expanded to coincide with the new definition of syuzhet in Chapter 2, to include the emotional viewer. Film is an emotional release of information, and the fabula as a contextual signifier must play a role in transmitting the broader emotional feelings which exist in a work. The fabula is a flowing river of emotionally tinted story context expressed through scenery and music.

Scenery & Music

SCENE A

SCENE B Fabula (Context + Mood)

3.1 New model of on-screen fabula expression at scene junction

Where the syuzhet is the strongest at the end of Scenes A, the fabula is an underground constant, dominant primarily at the beginning of Scenes B. While the syuzhet is propelled primarily by the emotional value charges at the end of Scenes A generated by the reactions of the characters to plot events, the presence of the fabula is felt as a result of the syuzhet’s absence. In short, the fabula is characterized by a lack of plot intensity.

Bordwell does acknowledge that the director’s style of cinematography and mise-en-scène can create fabula alongside the syuzhet, but in his model the fabula itself is still off-screen (Bordwell 1985, p.52). 9

43 Their turbulent combination at scene junctions lay at the foundation of cinematic storytelling because the syuzhet rises from within emotional moods generated by the fabula. Without the fabula the syuzhet has no energy. Both intertwine to propel emotion through the scene junction. 3.3 Mood and Director Attitude Emotion at the fabula level is different to the intense reaction gained from the revelation of plot information. It is a more subtle feeling comprised of the attitude of the director toward the material and the mood he generates through aesthetic means. Mood is essentially emotion without a narrative object (Tan 1996, p.204). As defined by American film scholar Greg Smith mood is ‘a low-level emotional state [with an] orienting function’ (Smith 1999, p.113), but Dutch film scholar Ed Tan (1996, p.204) acknowledges that mood can still be of varied intensities. Moods in film serve an orienting function which position the viewer to perceive ‘emotional cues’ which support the mood and enhance the arrival of a stronger emotion. It ‘gives coherence to events’ (Smith 1999, p.114). It is a broader emotion lasting through a longer period of time which has the effect of unifying viewers from varied cultural backgrounds (ThomasJones 2008, p.124) in preparation for plot-driven emotional stimuli (Smith 1999, p.114). Documentary editor Geof Bartz spoke about the juxtaposition of moods and balancing the emotional macro-structure of a film with ‘contrasts’ between intensity and relief (Oldham 1992, p.109). This flowing, rhythmic process of moodal shifts seems to be an essential part of the cinema’s artistic palette. Bartz theorized that the mood of one sequence grows out of the moods of the previous sequences and that this ‘relationship between moods’ is essential. In a scene which ends on a sad note, for instance, the next scene should ‘echo a little of the feeling of the previous scene, then begin to take you away from it, or radically contrast with it’ (Oldham 1992, p.112). Tan (1996, p. 199) implied that phasic emotions are the smaller unit on a scene level (as discussed in

44 Chapter 2 regarding the syuzhet rise), and tonic emotions are a larger unit which spread across scenes, thus his mood would be even broader still. For my purposes, I will use the more generic definition of mood to include Tan’s ‘tonic emotions.’ The director’s attitude, or point of view, toward the material is expressed through the stylistic use of all narrative devices (Thomas-Jones 2008, p127). American director Oliver Stone (Tirard 2002, p.137) said that the point of view of the director is an important function of the storytelling process. It’s the ‘thinking that went on behind the movie’ which drives the story. In other words, the presence of the director communicating something to the viewer is primary, whether it be himself or a fictional narrator. Spike Lee’s Inside Man (2006) is an example of a lucid narrator presence in which the flawed anti-hero, Dalton (Clive Owen), holds the viewer hostage in the opening moments, controlling how much the viewer knows until the film’s final moments. In his voice-over Owen directs the viewer to ‘pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully.’ While this fictional character serves as storyteller, the viewer also knows that Spike Lee is manipulating events. There is a clear dual presence which makes up the attitude of Inside Man. American film critic Seymour Chatman distinguished between the author and the narrator of the text in which the author is the ‘someone—person or presence—actually telling the story to an audience, no matter how minimally evoked…’ Chatman’s narrator, whether overt or absent, is the ‘demonstrable, recognizable entity,’ or person ‘currently telling’ the story within the narrative itself (Chatman 1978, p.33). Regardless of whether this ‘presence’ is fictional or actually the director (or in some cases a fictional personification of the director, e.g., Alfred Hitchcock, Mel Brooks), an attitude exists toward the material by its creator which is felt by the viewer. Mood is thus created with a combination of this attitude, and what Smith (1999, p.119) referred to as ‘emotional markers’ which cue a certain mood. These markers

45 generally do not provide new story information or effect the protagonist’s movement. This leads to the construction of fabula expression through scenery and music. 3.4 Objective and Subjective Scenery Expression The film’s director makes a rhythmic choice at each scene junction of A and B of whether to express the fabula (contextual mood) through scenery. Scenery is a cinematic construction of dramatic space in which an event can occur, where the surrounding is of more primary focus within the frame than the characters. In Serbian director Emir Kusturica’s words (Tirard 2002, p.179) ‘the face is always related to the world around it,’ and directing is primarily about deciding what to do with that space.10 All scenery is in some way indirectly or directly a function of the character’s journey. Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa has done a thorough examination of this in his book The Architecture of Image combining architectural theory with cinema, saying space is an ‘amplifier of specific emotions.’ He said an event is: ‘…an entirely different story depending on whether it takes place in a bedroom, library, elevator, or gazebo. An event obtains its particular meaning through the time of the day, illumination, weather and soundscape. In addition, every place has its history and symbolic connotations which merge into an incident’ (Pallasmaa 2001, p.20).

Scenery space can be expressed (1) objectively, (2) subjectively, or, according to American Editor Walter Murch, (3) ‘the mystery way’ (Ganti 2004). Objective scenery is distant from the subject, whereas subjective scenery is very close upon objects. In either instance, the viewer is given a special vantage point that even the characters may not have. Murch’s mystery way is a shot construction in which the space is withheld from the viewer, then gradually or suddenly revealed as the scene goes on.

Kusturica directed two Cannes Film Festival winners, Time of the Gypsies (1988) and Underground (1995) starring Johnny Depp (IMDB). 10

46 Rhythmically, the objective expression of scenery is used for relaxation or ‘necessary relief’ (Pallasmaa 2001, p.48) and the absence of it propels tension. Where syuzhet expression of character is more explicit, fabula expression of scenery is more implicit, defined by a lack of plot information. Scenery is an emotional expression of the mood and context which make up the fabula. If the director chooses to abbreviate the scene junction without expressing scenery, i.e., the ‘mystery way’ the result is a lack of relief for the viewer. Or, in the case of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960) an aerial shot of Paris provides aesthetic relief after a long extended interior scene. The film Crank (2006), directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, is an example of a film which propels tension through the withholding of necessary relief. While it does include subtle rhythmic ebbs and flows, the directors utilize a shaky-cam aesthetic and a frenzied plot intensity that never purely pauses for relaxation. Like most films, Good Will Hunting (1997), directed by Gus Van Sant, uses objective scenery expression. The film features many wide sweeping aerial shots above the city to begin Scenes B, to paint a context surrounding the protagonist (Matt Damon) who must face the entrapment of his world. This objective scenery – Boston city skylines, the MIT campus – is a means of relief from dramatic tension between scenes. In one example Damon is shown riding a train as an emotional transport, and then Van Sant cuts to aerial shots of Boston without the presence of Damon. Scene B begins here as Van Sant shows a baseball stadium, company logos, traffic below, making up the Boston night life. This lack of character and story information brings the viewer away from plot intensity, and thus becomes fabula expression. Van Sant’s later film Gerry (2003) went further in utilizing long protracted pans of the desert lasting many minutes as a transitional device with flowing clouds. Daniel Arijon (1976, p.601) mentioned this need for ‘narrative pause’ when he outlined editing techniques for scene junctions. He said emotional saturation from Scene A could spoil an emotional Scene B if a pause was not inserted to decrease viewer fatigue.

47 Objective Scenery can also have the effect of taking the viewer out of the narrative, perhaps by design, in what Canadian film scholar Martin Lefebvre calls ‘spectacular mode.’ This shift away from ‘narrative mode’ engulfs the viewer for a brief moment in pure landscape (Lefebvre 2006, p.29). Director Edward Dmytryk (1984) said the beginning of Scene B is the most natural place for scenery. Even in the case of no action happening on screen ‘the viewer, while reacting to the scene’s beauty, will also be anticipating some action pertaining to the film…thus again placing the scene into the context…’ (Dymytrk 1984, p.37). Wide landscapes and cityscapes can convey a feeling of ‘grandeur and scope,’ as comparison of scale toward a small insignificant character. American film scholar Marilyn Fabe said extreme long shots ‘in which a small human figure is dominated by the landscape, can make the characters seem vulnerable to larger forces beyond their control’ (Fabe 2004, p.4). Ridley Scott’s Gladiator utilizes landscape to relieve the viewer from heavy dialogue, and in the transition from the African desert to the antagonist’s arrival to Rome, Scott uses an extreme wide shot of the ancient cityscape, with the Coliseum in full view. Tiny birds cue a sense of scale. In a later transition Scott ends Scene A with a small model of the Coliseum and a hand reaching in, then cuts to an aerial shot of the real Coliseum to begin Scene B, further manipulating our sense of scale. An absence of this grandeur and scope can induce a claustrophobic feeling, as is the case in films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope or Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). In The Shining Kubrick’s intentional lack of windows creates an internal world devoid of the passing of time, and, thus he resorted to on-screen titles to indicate days passing. Conversely, the director can utilize a more subjective construction of Scene B establishment scenery with closer shots on objects. Still providing relief through lack of plot intensity, they create a sense of momentary disorientation for the viewer in order to convey the shift in time and space. Good Will Hunting begins close on dogs at a racetrack

48 before pulling back to show the broader locale. In one instance Van Sant begins Scene B with a medium shot of Matt Damon sitting in a chair speaking to someone. The viewer anticipates where Damon is and who he’s talking to, until the next shot reveals the psychologist (George Plimpton). In these instances the disorientation effect is a pleasant nudge, and has the effect of resetting the sand in our emotional hourglass, or to shake the Etch-A-Sketch as it were. It also allows for Smith’s ‘emotional cues’ to indicate a new mood for the beginnings of the new scene, either in contrast or in harmony with Scene A. This subjective usage paints the scenery more slowly, but is still an effective means of fabula expression. 3.5 Music and Transitions Music and scene junctions inhabit a symbiotic relationship. While one can exist without the other, more often than not film directors employ music at the junctions. The presence of music in film, is primarily a signifier of transformation to a new state – new scene, new location, new event, new mood, etc. Often it tends to accompany temporal manipulation such as collage, slow-motion, and flashback initiation (Gorbman 1987, p.55). Since scene junctions are such arbitrary technical shifts, music tends to ease the viewer through the change, perhaps by shifting rhythm or key. American film scholar Claudia Gorbman (1987) described the ‘pleasuring’ function of music to ‘hypnotise’ the viewer away from technical distraction, and also to ‘ward off the displeasure of the image’s potential ambiguity.’ Gorbman said: ‘Music removes barriers to belief; it bonds spectator to spectacle, it envelopes spectator and spectacle in a harmonious space. Like hypnosis, it silences the spectator’s censor. It is suggestive; if it’s working right, it makes us a little less critical and a little more prone to dream’ (Gorbman 1987, p.55).

49 Much like scenery, music is one way of expressing dramatic space through mood and attitude. It can also use a sort of ‘cultural coding’ to evoke historical geographic setting and atmosphere (Gorbman 1987, p.58), and it can ‘activate genre schemata’ (Smith, Jeff 1999, p.166). As American film scholar Jeff Smith states, music can ‘signify the emotional valence of a particular setting.’ He uses the example of Psycho (1960) in which the old house near the Bates Motel is turned into a ‘spooky old house’ through Bernard Hermann’s score. Likewise, the planet in Scott’s Alien (1979) is turned into something more ominous by the mood-setting effect of Jerry Goldsmith’s scratchy and howling score (Smith, Jeff 1999, p.158). In some cases, music ‘evokes a larger than life dimension which, rather than involving us in the narrative, places us in contemplation of it’ (Gorbman 1987, p.68). Likewise, Pallasmaa said: ‘Music usually has the role of reinforcing atmosphere and emotions in films, creating forebodings and surprises, strengthening a sense of reality or unreality, and mediating between different events and scenes in order to create a sense of continuity’ (Pallasmaa 2001, p.119).

Music is essentially a sonic expression of the fabula at the scene junction. It is ‘programmed to match the mood or feelings of the narrative scene of which it is a part, to bathe it in affect’ (Gorbman 1987, p.57). While it may seem as if music score is tied with syuzhet expression (it exists almost exclusively with the syuzhet rise at the junctions of scenes A and B) it cannot be described as a direct expression of syuzhet. As Jeff Smith states, music has a ‘lack of emotional specificity’ not inherently clear until it is combined with visuals (Smith, Jeff 1999, p.165). Music arises from the context, mood and tone of the film and thus is fabula material. While Smith says music does ‘signify character emotions’ (Smith, Jeff 1999, p.167) I point out that it does so by orienting the viewer along an emotional context, rather than simply emoting on the character’s behalf. An exception would be where the character plays the musical instrument, such as Freddie Highmore communicating with his family via music in Kirsten Sheridan’s August

50 Rush (2007). Annabel Cohen’s (2001, p.258) eight functions of music score11 can be synthesized into two major categories: (1) to clarify the specific telling of the narrative, and (2) to enhance the emotional impact of the telling. While clarifying narrative, music may masquerade as an expression of the narrative structure, but the process of narrative clarification is happening via the focusing of the vantage point along context. Furthermore, to enhance emotional impact, music directly calls upon contextual fabula elements by inducing mood, ‘increasing attention to the entire film context’ through heightening the viewer’s sense of reality toward the material, and adding to the aesthetic effect (Cohen 2001, p.258). Marvin Hamlisch’s use of music score in Robert Mulligan’s Same Time Next Year (1978) is an example of fabula expression through music. In the film, George (Alan Alda) and Doris (Ellen Burstyn) fall in love at a holiday retreat and agree to meet at the same day every year to rekindle their love affair. At the opening, a piano soothes the affect as the two arrive and are seated at separate dining tables at a restaurant, and when their eyes meet, the lyrics begin with word ‘hello.’ While the lyrics seem to be speaking for the characters, they are cleverly synchronised to set a context for the character’s actions. As the two mime jokes to each other across the room, lyrics continue ‘…the last time I felt like this I was falling in love’ as the song builds into a sweeping crescendo. Hamlisch’s score plays full through this encounter while Mulligan prevents us from hearing their dialogue; they talk intently through a collage in which they end up in the same hotel room in front of a fireplace. While the lyrics sometimes coincide with what’s happening on the screen, the score is orienting us into a contextual viewpoint for the events which are taking place. What visually is just two people having a conversation, we hear from the song that there is indeed a profound event of ‘falling in love’ taking

Cohen’s eight functions of music are to (1) mask noises, (2) ‘provide continuity between shots,’ (3) direct attention to narrative objects, (4) communicate meaning, (5) aid in memory association for viewer, (6) induce mood, (7) heighten viewer’s sense of reality toward matieral, and (8) add to aesthetic affect. 11

51 place here. Another song, or even the absence of music, could have had an altering effect on the context, and thus our interpretation of the events. Rhythmically, music can be used as ‘necessary relief’ or as a propeller of tension through a scene junction. It is the emotional effect on the viewer that Murch focuses on in his model, describing two ways a music score is used as an emotional vehicle: (1) as a channeler, and (2) a generator. As a channeler music collects the emotion which already exists and then focuses it, but as a generator the music synthetically creates emotion where it didn’t exist (Ondaatje 2002, p.122). A channeler music score is used to echo the emotion created by the plot; it is a shifting effect of the syuzhet as it paints new fabula. Iser’s contextual story viewpoint is shifting as the music echoes the viewer’s shifting perspective of the screen content and new meaning arises. Channeling, according to Gorbman, also serves a manipulative function in that once the emotion is collected it is then shaped into a pattern of tension and relaxation (Gorbman 1987, p.57). Through the scene junction the musical tension rises to a peak, and then relaxes at the beginning of Scene B, much like an ocean wave receding from a beach. Music at the junction, as Gorbman described broadly, ‘punctuates a pause in narrative movement in order to externalize, make commentary on it’ and essentially evoke an objective distance to the characters (Gorbman 1987, p.68). Murch’s generator, then, is more independent; it is laying down the mood of the scene like a concrete mixer lays down wet cement to build a house foundation. Music can lay down any mood the director wants for a specific scene, be it comical or dramatic. Because of the rule of context however, the director is keenly aware that once a scene begins with a certain mood, e.g. comical, it will have Crittenden’s ‘rippling effect’ on everything that happens after it. The music score has the power to force a mood, and then change it, in a way that no other narrative element can.

52 In summary, the contextual flow of a film is an ever changing ‘constellation of views’ which calls upon moods expressed through scenery and music. Directors make critical choices at the scene junctions surrounding whether to abbreviate scenery expression, or to show the elements of the landscape in full glory based on whether the viewer needs necessary relief from dramatic tension, a sense of scale, or a shift to a new mood. A film like Gladiator maintains a sense of grandeur and scale with a fairly consistent use of objective scenery construction. Whereas most films, as exemplified by Good Will Hunting utilize many combinations of this objective or subjective fabula expression throughout the many scene junctions contained within. Without mood and attitude, the actions of the characters occur in a vacuum without a storyteller, and thus the viewer loses interest.

53

CHAPTER FOUR Ellipses and Time Expression

In previous chapters I examined the major styles of scene junctions ranging from the macro-montage of scenes, transports carrying protagonists through geography, to the use of scenery and music. These are all styles the director can use as an expression of story content. Now I shall look at the ways in which scene junctions compress and change the passage of time, and the stylistic means of time expression from the basic cut to the collage. More overt stylization of ellipses include the use of temporal objects and ornamentals – new terms which I will define further. All scene junctions are in some way a manipulation of time. What director Edward Dmytryk (1984, p.84) said about dissolves can be said about all junctions: they are the ‘filmmaker’s time machine, transporting the viewer instantly backward or forward in time and location at his will.’ American director David Lynch compared this power of time manipulation to a dream: ‘it works like a window through which you enter a different world…’ (Tirard 2002, p.127). Viewers expect only to see the important parts of a story, as director Alfred Hitchcock once said, cinema is ‘life with the dull bits cut out’ (Truffaut 1986). Thus, cinema is, at its best, abbreviation. 4.1 Ellipses After all, the most inherent function of scene junctions is ellipsis, to create a ‘sense of continuum’ by showing only those events which are necessary (Chatman 1978, p.30). According to film and literary scholars, ellipses are not just the abbreviation of material

54 to fit into a specified length, but are designed to actively prod the viewer to internalize events. American film critic Seymour Chatman refers to it as selection, in which the director chooses which events to be implied by their absence, and in turn the viewer is prompted to ‘fill in gaps’ through imagination. The viewer’s ability to ‘evoke a world of potential plot details’ is, Chatman said, ‘virtually limitless’ (Chatman 1978, p.29). German literary scholar Wolfgang Iser referred to it as the ‘illusion of a complete representation’ in his analysis of ellipses, or blanks, in literary text. Blanks, according to Iser, function as a ‘vital propellant’ from which the reader is prompted to make ‘connections’ in order to satisfy ‘indeterminacies’ created by the gap. Iser compared this to gestalt theory in psychology, in which missing elements trigger the imagination of the reader into ‘acts of consistency-building.’ Iser said: ‘The blanks break up the connectability of the schemata, and thus they marshal selected norms and perspective segments into a fragmented, counterfactual, contrastive or telescoped sequence, nullifying any expectation of good continuation. As a result the imagination is automatically mobilized…’ (Iser 1978, p,186).

In other words, viewers expect things to happen smoothly and when faced with a shocking gap in continuity, it sparks the imagination to search through a ‘network of possibilities’ to find a connection that fits. This provocation of the viewer to search for a missing piece in the puzzle engages them fully into the story (Iser 1978, p.196) at every scene junction. With rare exceptions, all films use ellipses, and as such there are an infinite number of ways they can be used to provoke the viewer’s imagination through omission. This method of telling the story by means of what isn’t there is contrasted by other forms of time manipulation which serve to fill in those gaps – analepses (flashbacks) and prolepses (flashforwards) (Chatman 1978, p.64). They serve the

55 function of revealing expository information through a subjective viewpoint, often through the dream-like state of the mind. Now common cinematic devices, their boundaries are often demarcated by their hyper-surreal aesthetic, using ‘vivid optical transition,’ or a ‘burst of sound’ to mark the junction (Bordwell 2006, p.90). Just like the junctions discussed in Chapter 1, anelepses and prolepses rely on binary oppositions to demarcate the boundaries between real and dream, as well as utilizing hooks to link them. The Hughes Brothers use analepses in From Hell (2001) as Inspector Abberline (Johnny Depp) drinks poison while bathing. The directors flash to a memory from the past with echoed voices and stylized lighting. Scene junctions here between the real world and the surrealistic mental world are aestheticised with flowing green and yellow particles. Conversely, in the case of Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, anelepses and prolepses become a fluid part of the story to such an extent the boundaries are ambiguous from shot to shot. While anelepses tend to be triggers of character memories, prolepses ‘announce an overt narration’ because it calls attention to non-diegetic information not possibly known by the character (Bordwell 2006, p.89). In Ridley Scott’s usage in Gladiator, however, they manifest the anticipation of the character toward the future. Scott makes use of prolepses in his eight-minute transport sequence between Rome and Zucchabar, in which Maximus seems to see that his family is being killed before he is able to arrive to save them. Later flashbacks of the family are used as prolepses to indicate that they are in the afterlife waiting for him. 4.2 Styles of Basic Ellipses Styles of ellipses range from the simple cut to complex collages minutes in length. Stylizing the ellipsis gives the director an ability to ‘sustain and intensify’ the viewer’s perception of events (Bordwell & Thompson 1991, p.315) to desired effect. The most basic form of ellipsis between two scenes is the straight cut or shock cut (Bordwell & Thompson 1991, p.315), which simply removes unnecessary story information in the

56 interim between two events. The resulting jolt serves Walter Murch’s disorienting function (described in Chapter 1), prodding the viewer to fully realize that time and space have changed. The effect is dependent on the intensity of the aesthetic differences between the two, whether it be a shift in sound volume or a ‘considerable graphic discontinuity’ (Bordwell & Thompson 1991, p.315). Ellipses make use of binary oppositions (as outlined in Chapter 1) between Scene A and Scene B to cue the viewer as to how much time has passed, e.g., night to day, rain to sun, etc. While it was thought to be too confusing in the early days of filmmaking, the cut at a scene junction is now considered to be standard. In the words of American editor Ralph Winters, ‘Audiences are smarter today; they’re wiser and accept things’ (LaBrutto 1991, p.42). The dissolve, once used for every scene junction and even considered by Dmytryk and Murch (Ganti 2009) as an overused fashion ‘chic’ of its time, is today saved for moments of emotional expression. It is an easy way for the director to ‘manipulate pace and mood’ (Dmytryk 1984, p.84). The dissolve is a soft boundary that minimizes collision, slows the macro-rhythm, and evokes a peaceful and reflective mood through its fluidity. It is used at moments when the director does not want the scene junction to be overt (Dmytryk 1984, p.85) but Murch cautioned that the style risks becoming ‘noise’ unless the screen compositions complement each other from the connecting frames of Scene A and B. Dissolves are used to release tension, or to help the viewer ‘let go of something’ emotionally, and can evoke a ‘hallucinatory state of mind’ (Ganti 2009). According to editor Emily Paine, the dissolve creates surrealism: ‘Dissolves can create tremendous romance and feeling because they’re surreal, I suppose. You’re making more of a painting instead of exposition, not just taking people from one place to another but creating a different mood or reality’ (Oldham 1992, p.36).

57 Other variations include the lap dissolve or wipe, which serve in moments when the junction needs to keep the ‘swiftness and action’ of a cut while retaining the fluid boundary of a dissolve (Dmytryk 1984, p.86). George Lucas is known for his use of wipes in the Star Wars (1977 – 2005) trilogies, by combining the screen composition of the connecting frames of Scene A and Scene B to create fluid motion for the eye to follow through the junction. Fading to black is another common ellipsis style which forms a sharp demarcation between events, effectively serving to halt the forward momentum in order to start fresh in Scene B. According to Dmytryk, the fade-to-black gives the viewer a ‘pause to catch breath and gather senses’ (1984, p.85). It also effectively renders any collision or linkage between Scene A and B useless, as they are no longer juxtaposed, deflating the montage effect. Formal titles are often used in the black space to label the beginning of a new chapter, as was done in Barry Levinson’s Sphere (1998) and Brian De Palma’s Mission to Mars (2000). 4.3 Collage and Aronofsky’s Hip-Hop Montage Collage is a form of time expression at the scene junction serving the purpose of linking Scene A to Scene B with a series of shortened scenes, usually to summarize a series of events. Also known by Dmytryk (1984, p.135) and Bordwell (1985, p.82) as the ‘Hollywood montage,’ in its primary function it is a summary of events. In Chatman’s words, ‘the discourse is briefer than the events depicted… a collection of shots showing aspects of an event or sequence usually integrated by continuous music’ (Chatman 1978, p.69). The Hughes Brothers style of a collage junction in From Hell is best exemplified just after a murder scene on the streets of London. We move from the murder in Scene A through a fluid time lapse which utilizes the same camera frame as hours pass from night to morning, until Inspector Abberline (Johnny Depp) arrives the next morning. This collage is comprised of brief moments: the cloaked murderer runs away, a

58 policeman arrives hours later, a second policeman arrives, a third, and then crowds begin to arrive as the sunlight flows in. All are connected by quick dissolves which create a fluid progression of events. Collage is not limited to story moments, sometimes taking the form of photographs, as is the case in Robert Mulligan’s Same Time, Next Year where the collages of historic events serve the dual purpose of painting cultural context, as well as indicating a passage of years. Often the collage takes the form of a music video, in which a lyrical song is accompanied by fragmented narrative imagery. This is quite common in opening sequences, in which the song helps introduce a mood with fragmented scenery while the opening credits are displayed. Collage also enables the director to use multiple scene collisions in fast succession with sound effects, creating a hyperventilated rhythm. Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz (2007) and Greg Marcks’ 11:14 both use this between scene junctions. This device, also known as the ‘hip-hop montage’ by Darren Aronofsky (2000), utilizes a rapid burst of split-second images along with hyper-present sound effects, propelling the tension forward. It serves as a form of fast-forward where time is compressed in order to rush to the next big event. Hot Fuzz protagonist Nicholas (Simon Pegg) is shown going through his routine as a policeman with a shock cut from his police car in Scene A to quick flashes – (1) his hand opening a locker (2) flipping over a page in his log (3) making an entry in his log (4) opening the locker again (5) hanging his uniform coat – then is cut immediately to Scene B at the police station. This example of the hip-hop montage lasts no more than a few seconds, and is a prominent junctional style throughout the film. In 11:14, a film which follows multiple plotlines all coinciding at the time 11:14pm, Marcks uses the hip-hop montage to rewind time as he switches from one plotline to another. In one example he moves from Scene A, cutting to white flashes of (1) the bowling ball lying in the cemetery grass, (2) Buzzy (Hillary Swank) in the back of a police car, (3) a dead body laying on the highway, (4) a view of the highway overpass before the body falls; cutting then to the establishing shot of Scene B in a previous time.

59 In this usage collage tends to generate a feeling of manic, subjective presence on the screen instead of the traditional objective and reflective viewpoint. 4.4 Temporal Objects and Ornamentals The expression of time at the scene junction can go beyond rhythmic time manipulation and be manifested in more visually creative ways. Temporal objects and ornamentals are narrative devices designed to cue the viewer to recognize a passage of time. Temporal objects, also referred to as ‘time props’ by Daniel Arijon, can be defined as narrative objects having the sole purpose of indicating time has elapsed, such as clocks, calendars, burning candles, etc. Arijon put it simply: ‘The idea is to depict the ravage of time on an article that requires small spans of time to show marked changes in its appearance’ (Arijon 1976, p.581). The opposite of this creates, what Arijon calls, a ‘deceptive visual match’ in which a temporal object at the end of Scene A appears to also be a part of Scene B. The viewer is lulled into believing Scene A is still in progress, but small incongruities in setting or surrounding characters slowly reveal a great amount have time has passed while the object was the focus of attention (Arijon 1976, p.583). While temporal objects make use of items within the story world, ornamentals are extras added to a scene junction in order to make the presentation more overt. These ornamentals exist outside the story world and serve as a function of the narrator. An ornament is ‘a thing… serving to make something look more attractive but usually having no practical purpose’ (Oxford 2011). In Jeremiah Chechick’s holiday-themed comedy Christmas Vacation (1989) the passage of time at the ellipses is made overt by an Advent calendar with an unidentified hand reaching into the frame to uncover the next day. This device would appear to be completely unnecessary in Christmas Vacation, as the calendar makes no appearance in the context of the story or to the characters. It merely serves as thematic ornamentation to convey an aesthetic mood, similar to that of scenery. Jeff Schaffer’s travel comedy Eurotrip (2004) utilizes on-screen graphics to

60 indicate movement of characters across Europe. Surrounding the theme of travelling, Eurotrip opens with comic animations of in-flight passenger cards, and many of its subsequent scene junctions feature animated lines moving on a map, stylized with cutouts of cultural iconography of the location they are visiting. These ornamental graphics serve an aesthetic purpose brightening the mood with a few laughs, to accent the omitted time of their journey, and provide mental maps for viewers unfamiliar with the geography. Adrienne Shelly’s Waitress (2007) goes a step further in involving the protagonist in the junction, by way of a voice-over narration while we see her preparing various pies. At each junction, she demonstrates her newly invented flavours of pie which coincide with the mood she is feeling in the story. These pies as temporal objects are in fact a function of character, but are ornamental in this case because they are being used by the narrator outside the frame of the story world. In summary, temporal manipulation occurs at all scene junctions. It is the moment in which worlds, ideas, and characters shift through time. Directors make critical choices at the scene junctions surrounding how to omit time, add information through anelepses or prolepses, and how to stylize the transition. The director’s use of ellipses can be as simple as a cut, or as complex as the long transport collage in Gladiator. It can be a slow meaningful dissolve, or a flashy hip-hop montage like those in Hot Fuzz. Without time manipulation, the film treads too close to reality. It is the artifice of the ornamental, like those in Eurotrip, or the temporal objects in Christmas Vacation that make obvious the stylized narration of the feature film.

61

CONCLUSION In the opening of this thesis, I set out on a journey of exploration into the unknown, and as a result have uncovered the complexities of the craft of cinematic scene junctions. It is no longer a hidden art. I can now safely confirm the instincts of American film editor Walter Murch when he said transitions reveal the soul of a film. Through the examination of 36 feature films ranging from epic Hollywood blockbusters, sci-fi, drama and comedy, to the independent works of Godard and Aronofsky, I have determined that the craft runs deep through the territory on either side of the scene junction. It is so pervasive into the various elements of drama that it cannot be avoided. By combining the ideas of directors, editors, and film scholars, a united version of the phenomenon of scene transitions has been drafted. Let us now revisit that lonely director sitting in front of a new screenplay, tasked with a palette of creative choices. He or she has in front of them a mass of fifty scenes which must be pieced together into a feature film of around two hours, in a way that keeps the audience engaged but not fatigued. This director must make a decision at each of the fifty junctions as to how much expression is warranted at each key moment in the narrative. Perhaps two or three key junctions need transports to convey a character’s emotional reaction, half need scenery to add necessary relief to plot intensity, and a few could use a hook to keep things flowing. The remaining junctions could be straight cuts to keep the viewer provoked into thought with jumps in time, or a collision of binary oppositions. The combinations are endless, and thus, scene junctions are the modern cinematic art. It is where the director exerts the most influence. On the macro level I have determined, by applying montage theory, that the choices range from collisions and linkages between the locales, to the rhythmic considerations of scene length and tension created with scene fragmentation. It is a

62 delicate balance between using the binary oppositions of Levi-Strauss to create a harsh sense of bruxism, or applying Bordwell’s causal hooks, like Cameron’s Titanic, to smoothen and unite the scenes into a unified continuity. Scenes can be shortened as the film progresses to generate a quickening momentum, and can be combined into a complex crosscut like that of Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream. During a key moment of heightened plot intensity at the end of a scene, the protagonist, charged with a positive or negative emotion, will move through a transport scene to express that emotion. The further this character moves, the more the expression and the higher the experience of syuzhet rise for the viewer. Depending on what vehicle is used, the protagonist can either control his movements or be subordinate to, for instance, where the train takes him. The antagonist, with his own set of scenes, creates a condition of binary opposition against the protagonist, and is also given moments of expression. These moments may be more abbreviated or withheld, or, as in The Fugitive, may rise to the same emphasis as that of the protagonist. After these moments of heightened plot intensity, my research has determined that, more often than not, scenery and music take over, providing a sense of necessary relief with panoramic landscapes of spectacle. Rhythmically, the absence of plot information at the beginning of a scene provides a relaxing moment to pause and reflect on the fabula, with contextual cues providing a mood or conveying a particular attitude from the director/narrator. Finally, I have determined that all scene junctions are indeed, in some way, a manipulation of time. Dymytryk’s ‘time machine’ allows us to prod the viewer through an absence of story events, to convey a sense of peace with a dissolve, or to propel the pace with a jump cut. Anelepses and prolepses allow for a subjective filling-in of details, triggered by a character’s inner memories, desires, or fears. The director can make use

63 of ornamentals to help in the presentation of events with maps, non-diegetic thematic devices, or even temporal objects within the narrative indicating the passage of time. While this thesis has outlined the first steps toward a new craft of scene junctions, there is now more research to be done. Further attention could be paid toward the differences in the Act and sequence junctions – those broader and more epic plot shifts. Ample opportunity exists for cognitive theory in determining what the viewer does at the moment of transition, and for further analysis of how transitions create a sense of loss when one scene disappears in favor of the next. The door is open for music theory to expand the analysis, as music and sound are both such essential components of the emotions involved at transition. And, while this thesis focused on the movements of the protagonist and antagonist, there exists an interesting opportunity to explore the arrangement supporting characters and their subplots as well. Scene junctions are the modern cinematic art – only just beginning to be explored. As Stephen Gaghan said, they are ‘everything in movies,’ but now, hopefully with this thesis, they are slightly further away from being the ‘unsung hero.’

64

65 APPENDIX Glossary of Junction Styles 

Collision – junction with a stark contrast between the aesthetics of the scenes. Sometimes multiple scenes are crosscut together from scene fragments.



Collage / Hip-hop Montage – a quick selection of scene fragments, usually with a rhythmic or musical accompaniment in the soundtrack. Quickly summarizes a sequence of events.

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Crosscutting – two or more scenes are fragmented and mixed together in an alternating sequence, generating tension.

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Cut – the shortest form of junction, brings immediate shift in space and/or time.

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Diegetic News Media – news headlines from within the fictional story world: spinning newspaper headlines, TV and radio News reports, newsboys yelling ‘extra! extra!’

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Dissolve – extended junction which makes the junction aesthetically smooth over a graduated period of time.

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Ellipses – any junction which truncates or telescopes time in order to remove events in the story. Deleted material can provoke the viewer to think of what is missing.

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Flashback / Hyper-reality – a junction which moves in or out of a subjective or dream state, often with a different colour aesthetic or lens effects. This may also include found video footage contrasted against film.

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Linkage – a connective similarity between two scenes that fuse them together narratively at the junction.

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Music – provides relief or propels tension at the junction, expression of emotional moods, and provides orienting context to narrative objects.

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Optical Effects – includes wipes, iris ins/outs, page turns, animated maps.



Ornamental – an object or graphical element at the junction which is separate from the story or character

66 world, serving as a function of the narrator to generate a theme or mood. 

Scenery – provides ‘necessary relief’ in the form of landscapes, cityscapes in an objective wide shot, or portions of a locale from a more subjective viewpoint.



Sounds – a junction is linked by sound effects, often serving as either punctuation, or as a sonic representation of the shift in time and space, e.g., a ‘whoosh’.



Synchronicity Node – the moment when multiple plotlines are linked together through an object, location, or encounter by random chance.

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Temporal Objects – a passage of time is marked by an object which visually represents the passage: clock, burning candles, sun rising, etc.

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Titles and Captions – the simplest and most formal way to describe a change in time and space is to print it onto the screen, often white text on a black background.



Transport – character reacts to plot event by moving through geographic space, usually on a vehicle such as car, train, airplane, or on foot.

67 Filmography Alien (1979), Dir. Ridley Scott. Babel (2006), Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu. Breathless (1960), Dir. Jean-Luc Godard. Christmas Vacation (1989), Dir. Jeremiah Chechick. Crank (2006), Dir. Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor Crash (2004), Dir. Paul Haggis. Elephant (2003), Dir. Gus Van Sant. 11:14 (2003), Dir. Greg Marcks. Eurotrip (2004), Dir. Jeff Schaffer. The Fountain (2006), Dir. Darren Aronofsky. From Hell (2002), Dir. Hughes Brothers. The Fugitive (1993), Dir. Andrew Davis. Garden State (2004), Dir. Zach Braff. Gerry (2003), Dir. Gus Van Sant. Gladiator (2000), Dir. Ridley Scott. Good Will Hunting (1997), Dir. Gus Van Sant. Hot Fuzz (2007), Dir. Edgar Wright. Inside Man (2006), Dir. Spike Lee. Lifeboat (1944), Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Miller’s Crossing (1990), Dir. Coen Brothers. Mission to Mars (2000), Dir. Brian De Palma. Phone Booth (2002), Dir. Joel Schumacher. Psycho (1960), Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Requiem for a Dream (2000), Dir. Darren Aronofsky. Rope (1948), Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. The Shining (1980), Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Same Time, Next Year (1978), Dir. Robert Mulligan.

68 Sphere (1998), Dir. Barry Levinson. Star Wars trilogies (1977 – 2005), Dir. George Lucas. Syriana (2005), Dir. Steven Gaghan Time Code (2000), Dir. Mike Figgis. Titanic (1997), Dir. James Cameron. Twelve Angry Men (1957), Dir. Sidney Lumet. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Vivre sa vie (1962), Dir. Jean-Luc Godard. Waitress (2007), Dir. Adrienne Shelly

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