Doesn't the theory of errors bring more sharply into question and focus the 
problem of the "legitimate" and proper way of forming a narrative? Teachers 
are always correcting spelling, syntactical and punctuation errors and we 
permit certain errant ways of writing (ie. e.e. cummings) but we always 
qualify these deviant forms by promoting the idea that "we need to know the 
right way it's done so that we can better understand and appreciate why the 
author is doing it wrong."  The "wrongness" or errant form can only take 
legitimacy "as breaking the rules" when we first know the rules. If 
Eisenstein wants to "erroneously-on-purpose" mismatch eye-lines and confuse 
the normal syntax of point of view shots it is because it is serving some 
aesthetic/psychological principle, some "theme." The error is made at the 
service of some legitimate aesthetically "normal" theme. If that is the 
case, if the error is indeed serving some legitimate 
philosophical/aesthetic/psychological principles, if an error is made for 
the purpose of  traditional and very normal ideals, can it be really 
regarded as an "error"?   in cummings' poetry, the syntactical errors are 
not really finally subversive because they merely serve ultimately to 
legitimize very traditional narratives and very conservative critiques of 
modern civilization.  Can these "errors" be erroneous if they speak about 
the same truths posed by non-erroneously written narratives?  Ron


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Adrian Martin" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 5:53 PM
Subject: Re: theory of errors?


>A fascinating topic, thanks for raising it, Chuck!
>
> Indeed, film theory has had some important things to say about 'errors' - 
> especially given that the 'continuity system' of seamless editing, 
> image-sound synchronisation, etc, is one great artificial construction 
> imposed on cinema since its early days! That is a position roughly 
> attributable to Noel Burch, and so it is no surprise that his '60s text 
> THEORY OF FILM PRACTICE (really one of the essential film books, still 
> today) has a sustained theory of what the French call the 'faux raccord' - 
> the 'bad match' or 'mismatch' is continuity-editing terms. It becomes for 
> Burch one of the 'stylistic parameters' of cinema.
>
> Godard, of course, was and is a master of the faux raccord for expressive 
> as well as political purposes. There is a fascinating account in a book of 
> interviews with film editors (sorry, don't have the precise reference on 
> me) where Agnes Guillemot, Godard's great (and rather unsung) editor 
> throughout much of the '60s tells of how she invented a particular 
> 'editing error' in LES CARABINERS: cutting to a closer shot of a character 
> repeating the same gesture they performed in the previous shot. When 
> Godard saw it on the editing table, he was surprised, and asked her: 
> "Well, how are we going to justify that?" Her answer is great! (and I'll 
> leave the group members to discover it!) Godard then realised he would 
> have to spread the effect throughout the film to 'systematise' it - and 
> still today he uses it. Of course, the 'stutter' edit' or 'overlap' edit 
> of this kind invented by Guillemot is now a banal commonplace in ads, 
> music videos and mainstream cinema.
>
> Another form of 'overlap edit' which can still carry a jolt for viewers 
> involves sound more than image - Godard uses it frequently (and Harun 
> Farocki discusses it valuably in his Godard book with Kaja Silverman), but 
> I believe John Cassavetes (also a great editor) invented it in SHADOWS: 
> within a scene (not as a transition between scenes), he begins a shot by 
> repeating (from a different angle and different take) the final line of 
> dialogue in the previous shot (so that you hear, say 'so what you think 
> about it? - 'so, what do you think about it?'). If people ever noticed it, 
> they maybe put it down to Cassavetes' so-called 'improvisation' processes, 
> but it's a very systematic formal technique! (In Burchian terms, it 
> acknowledges and brings into the text the fact that most films are 
> comprised precisely of repetitions across different angles and takes.)
>
> Even the most classical Hollywood films, of course, 'trick' continuity in 
> a thousand different ways - seamless continuity is itself highly 
> artificial! Bordwell and Thompson note in FILM ART (I think) how the 
> positioning of actors, close to each other, would have to be adjusted in 
> 'real' space to allow the effect of continuity in 'optical' space. Every 
> filmmaker knows some of these tricks. De Palma uses 'forced perspective' 
> in his set design in SNAKE EYES, etc etc. Hitchcock used a thousand such 
> tricks - paradoxical instances of actual discontinuity that win the effect 
> of imaginary continuity!
>
> There is a lot more to be said on this topic!
>
> Adrian
>
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