Robin….point by point:
1) “Alison did, you didn't. Alison backed up her original statement by consulting three Australian film makers, you simply carried on asserting. You, Senator, are no Jack Kennedy.”
I think most impartial followers of this discussion would acknowledge that both Alison and I have contributed to putting forwards the correct definition for “jump cut”. Alison was the first in this discussion to correctly quote a definition for the term on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 at 10:30, when she said:
“I thought a jump cut (which IS a film technique) was an editing technique that cuts out bits of action so the flow judders unnervingly, as in Godard or the final scene of Taxi Driver. You could perhaps shift it to poetry, but it's not going to be accurate, because the medium of words does other things with its linearity - the naturalism of film can represent a flow of action, say a man walking, in a way that's not possible in language.”
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1004&L=POETRYETC&D=0&X=0FD4B40DA1EF2DECE4&Y=argotist%40fsmail.net&P=635413
I had not produced a definition at this point as I thought hers would obviously be sufficient to settle the matter. About an hour later on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 at 11:28, you and I got into a discussion about the term. You said:
“Jeffrey, you're confusing two separate things (if not three) -- (i) the term applied to certain film techniques ("jump cut"), (ii) the techniques themselves, which pre-date the first use of the term, and (iii) the metaphorical extension of the term from its origins in cinematography to literature. The term is first used (see the OED) in 1953: 1953 K. REISZ Technique Film Editing 280 *Jump cut, cut which breaks continuity of time by jumping forward from one part of an action to another obviously separated from the first by an interval of time.”
To which I replied:
“The operative phrase here is “part of an action”. The interval of time is a second (as actions can’t last more than a few seconds) so as to produce a jilted or stuttered effect. There is no mention of a time interval spanning the periods you infer in a recent post. What your references have more in common with are “match-cuts”, famously used in Kubrick’s ‘2001”, where a shot of a bone flying through the air after being thrown by a caveman cuts to a shot thousands of years later of a space satellite following a similar trajectory to that of the bone.
A jump-cut is quite different, and can be seen in Eisenstein’s ‘The Battleship Potemkin’ where three shots of a stature consisting of three lions in different positions are jump-cutted so as to produce the effect that there is only one line making the movement. Other jump cuts can be seen in the French nouvelle vague films of the sixties— Truffaut, Godard etc. It also appears in some Cassavetes films in the seventies. All use the jump-cut to cause a second/s long disjunction. None use it to span days, weeks, months or years.”
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1004&L=POETRYETC&D=0&X=0FD4B40DA1EF2DECE4&Y=argotist%40fsmail.net&P=643015
Most will see that my response to you (although admittedly verbose) concords with Alison’s definition of the term. You didn’t produce the correct definition until Tue, 4 May 2010 at 21:49, when you quoted from Frank Eugene Beaver’s ‘Dictionary of Film Terms: The Aesthetic Companion To Film Art’:
“Jump-cut: The cutting together of two non-continuous shots within a scene so that the action seems to jump ahead or back in time. A jump-cut is the opposite of a matched cut, where action appears continuous.”
(From: Frank Eugene Beaver, _Dictionary of Film Terms: The Aesthetic Companion To Film Art_ (Peter Lang Publishing, 2006), p. 143)
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1005&L=POETRYETC&D=0&X=20C184670BC417491F&Y=argotist%40fsmail.net&P=104946
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2) “What definition? In the course of this thread, you've given several, few of them matching the previous one, and hardly any of them substantiated by any reference other than to your Special Knowledge.”
The definition I mean is not any quoted by me but the one Alison’s made (quoted above), and which, I stress again, you belatedly came to agree with, namely:
“I thought a jump cut (which IS a film technique) was an editing technique that cuts out bits of action so the flow judders unnervingly, as in Godard or the final scene of Taxi Driver. You could perhaps shift it to poetry, but it's not going to be accurate, because the medium of words does other things with its linearity - the naturalism of film can represent a flow of action, say a man walking, in a way that's not possible in language.”
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1004&L=POETRYETC&D=0&X=0FD4B40DA1EF2DECE4&Y=argotist%40fsmail.net&P=635413
As can be seen, her definition and the one you belatedly discovered, above, concord with each other. Here is that one again from Frank Eugene Beaver’s ‘Dictionary of Film Terms: The Aesthetic Companion To Film Art’:
“Jump-cut: The cutting together of two non-continuous shots within a scene so that the action seems to jump ahead or back in time. A jump-cut is the opposite of a matched cut, where action appears continuous.”
(From: Frank Eugene Beaver, _Dictionary of Film Terms: The Aesthetic Companion To Film Art_ (Peter Lang Publishing, 2006), p. 143)
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1005&L=POETRYETC&D=0&X=20C184670BC417491F&Y=argotist%40fsmail.net&P=104946
This was one of the two correct definitions you quoted in that post. The third was incorrect, which you acknowledged in the same post by saying:
“They are adequate to the extent that we have found by looking at them that one is incorrect. The incorrect one saying that a jump cut is a cut from one scene to another scene.”
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1005&L=POETRYETC&D=0&X=20C184670BC417491F&Y=argotist%40fsmail.net&P=104946
The incorrect one you are referring to is from Merriam-Webster Online. The other correct one (alongside Frank Eugene Beaver’s) is Webster’s Third New International Dictionary.
Your acknowledging that one was incorrect, logically infers that the two others were correct. If we are to argue with any sense of purpose, then logic has to be taken into account. And you have, here, demonstrated that you agreed (or at least you did when you wrote that post) with Alison’s definition; as her definition matches Frank Eugene Beaver and Webster’s Third New International Dictionary.
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3) “As to Katz, I neither agreed nor disagreed, but simply put it forward. Something else entirely (and a distinction that you seem singularly unable to comprehend). As a starting point. If you feel happy with it, and feel that it somehow "proves" what you've said, so be it. The appeal to authority has a long tradition, though I've rarely seen it used so crudely as you do, in what is usually a relatively sophisticated intellectual environment.”
Robin, I was not referring to Katz. Your initial comments on him (in your post of Wed, 5 May 2010 at 20:36) can be read here:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1005&L=POETRYETC&D=0&1=POETRYETC&9=A&J=on&X=77BF2250BBB421D2E7&Y=argotist%40fsmail.net&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches&z=4&P=149024
No, I was not referring to him, but to the above quoted definition from Frank Eugene Beaver from your post of Tue, 4 May 2010 at 21:49, which you did unequivocally agree with.
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4) “Actually, I didn't say I'd found the correct definition. What I did was proffer a properly cited reference that I hoped would be acceptable to both sides of this argument. Actually, that's not true. I hoped it would provide a common ground between *Alison and myself. Frankly, you've done nothing to demonstrate that I should pay any attention to your contributions.”
I think my three responses, above, prove this to be not the case.
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5) “Gosh, so *that's what I was doing? And there I was, thinking I was simply trying to untease the meaning of a contested term.”
Yes, you were backtracking and using diversionary tactics.
In her post of Wed, 5 May 2010 at 08:28, Alison commented on your post of Tue, 4 May 2010 22:27, where you give the impression that your citing Beaver’s definition (which you now agreed was correct) was the first time a correct definition had been given by anyone in this discussion. (As we have seen, above, this was not the case.) Alison commented:
“But fwiw: yes,that's exactly what I was told by those ignorant and fascist film-makers, whose only desire is to limit the infinite freedom of poets. With the bonus of saying how they do it.”
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1005&L=POETRYETC&D=0&X=565B1E25CBE87B1922&Y=argotist%40fsmail.net&P=107535
I too, noticed that you were now agreeing with Alison, her film-making friends and myself, yet claiming that what you were saying was new to this discussion. On Tue, 4 May 2010, I said:
“Robin, how is this definition different from what Alison and I have been putting forward? It would appear to back-up our claim. I don’t think you’ve been following the discussion very closely.”
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1005&L=POETRYETC&D=0&X=565B1E25CBE87B1922&Y=argotist%40fsmail.net&P=106407
You didn’t reply to me, but to Alison. In your post of Wed, 5 May 2010 at 14:58 you said to her:
“Thanks for that response, Alison. It addresses my question with degree of precision. We now seem to have some sort of consensus that the form of words found in Ephraim Katz, _The Macmillan International Film Encyclopedia_ (New York, 1994), p. 714, is acceptable as a description of the use of the term "jump cut" in film.
(Well, to a degree -- it hasn't been challenged *yet. <g>)
I hate to say it, but this doesn't actually resolve the discussion.
Just for starters, I'm not sure that the terms "scene", "shot", and "cut" are entirely transparent, either in general use or (more pertinently, with regard to this discussion) in specific film terms.
But at least we have Katz confirmed as a use acceptable to Australian film makers (sic -- thanks, Alison, I'm glad someone else as well as me noticed that there was at points in this discussion a dubious elide between "film making" and "film studies") in the early part of the twenty first century.”
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1005&L=POETRYETC&D=0&X=565B1E25CBE87B1922&Y=argotist%40fsmail.net&P=127752
This is not a response to what Alison and I queried you about. Rather it is more like obfuscation. Phrases such as: “It addresses my question with degree of precision” (How can Alison and my questioning your claimed originality in finding a correct definition in any way be seen as addressing your “question with degree of precision”?) and “We now seem to have some sort of consensus that the form of words found in Ephraim Katz ….” (Again how is this a response to Alison’s and my comments?)
You then change tack, and begin to question the definitions of: scene", "shot", and "cut", saying they are not entirely transparent. Observations, which if accurate are not elaborated on by you, nor shown to have any relevance to the matter at hand. There only purpose seems to be to be diversionary.
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6) “Well, actually Victor Steinbock (on ADS-l) and myself (on poetryetc) independently posted to the same effect. I wouldn't like to take all the credit (and Victor was more skeptical than myself of a connection between forestry and film).”
Thanks for admitting this.
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7) “I don't know whether your misrepresentation of my position as demonstrated in this post of yours represents obtuseness or malice, but the end result is the same. However, as you point out, this material is archived, so anyone who wishes to judge between us is at liberty to see whether your description of what has occurred is correct.”
I am not being malicious. I am merley trying to pin you down on what your position in this discussion is. I still don’t know. You seem to be slipping and sliding all over the place to get out of giving a straight answer.
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