Robin…..point by point:


1) "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?"

Robin, I mean the way it is most commonly used and employed as a technique. Alison is correct, Godard uses it in 'Breathless', as does Hitchcock in 'The Birds'. The technique is clearly (and famously) used in Eisenstein’s 'The Battleship Potemkin' made in 1925, well before Godard’s Breathless was made in 1959. As to when the term “jump-cut” was first used to describe the technique, I have no idea. But this is a minor point, as we are discussing what the term describes rather than its origination as a label.


2) “(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."

Again, you are talking about the term’s origination. I’m only concerned with what it describes. The term may have first appeared in the late forties, but the technique it describes predates this by at least 20 years.


3) “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).”

You are right, Robin. I should have used the term “Russian montage” instead of Russian formalism—I’m writing an article on Shklovsky, and absentmindedly confused the terms.


4) “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.”

As I said above, Godard did use the technique. But I have to stress, the origination of the term is not important.


5) “….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.}”

You may have been thinking it, but I don't recall you mentioning it.


6) "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."

I have already mentioned Eisenstein's connection to the jump-cut in several previous posts, so have no argument with you here.


7) "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 ..."

I don’t see how this is particularly relevant. I would not deny that Bernstein may use a version of what he sees as a jump-cut. My argument is that it is unlikely that poetry pre-dating the invention of film would use it. That would be like a poem from the 16th Century mentioning the Internet!