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“what's more probable is that "jump cut" is being used in (at least) two
ways, to refer (narrowly) to discontinuity created by the editing of an
originally continuous "film" (whether physical or other)….”
Robin, this is the classical understanding of the term (from its origination
in the Russian formalist techniques of early 20-century cinema), and the one
I hold to exclusively.
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What do you mean by "the classical understanding of the term," Jeffrey? Do
you mean that you think this is the correct way that it should be used? Or
the way that it is most commonly used? Or the way that it was originally
used? Or what?
"(from its origination in the Russian formalist techniques of early
20-century cinema)" -- the term doesn't originate there at all. It first
appears in the late forties, and in none of the early examples of its use is
there any reference, either direct or indirect, to Russian formalism.
Further, of the first 20 (of 369) google hits for <"jump cut" russian
formalism>, none of them make this link (the terms simply occur
independently in the same text). Two of the twenty, however, *do link "jump
cut" to the work of Godard, which would suggest that Alison is correct that
there's currently a fairly strong link between Godard and how the term has
come to be used. Perhaps somewhere in the remaining 349 hits, someone links
it to Russian formalism. I suppose I could glumly carry on ploughing my way
through trying to find some evidence for your assertion of the centrality of
the link, but frankly, as it's your assertion, "the one I hold to
exclusively," I think it's up to you to substantiate it.
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“….and (by extension) discontinuity which results from the juxtaposition of
different shots. I was already thinking in that direction, so your
examples, if nothing else, suggest that I'm on the right track.}”
This falls under another term’s province, that of “montage”, whereby two
shots (shot separately at different times) are edited together to produce
this effect.
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Oh well, as for "montage" and "jump cut" (and the extension of the term to
literature):
"Part of film montage is the jump cut, best known as practised and theorised
by Eisenstein. There too, the sequence of images creates a connection in
our mind: we connect the dots. The unifying factor is the film as a whole.
Charles Bernstein practises the textual equivalent of jump cuts in his
placement of line-breaks. He calls it syntactic scissoring ..."
-- Suzanne Speidel, "Film Form and Narrative", in _ Introduction to Film
Studies_ (4th Ed., Routledge, 2007)
( http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415409285/about/sample.pdf )
... for what that's worth.
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This may be where the confusion lies.
>>
It certainly lies somewhere, and doesn't show any signs of dissipating.
My own feeling is that it is a result of your strongly held conviction that
there is only one (correct) meaning for the term "jump cut", and that this
meaning is so commonplace that it doesn't seem to need substantiating. (And
so you feel free to assert the connection between "jump cut" and Russian
formalism -- a term I associate with *literary criticism, not film
studies -- without providing any evidence for this assertion.)
Oh well, back to trying to work out just what range of meanings "jump cut"
currently possesses. At least the digression into Russian formalism did
provide some confirmation of Alison's sense of how the term is used in
relation to Godard.
Robin
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