Jeffrey responding to Alison:
<<
2) “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”
At last, you are seeing my point. I just responded to Robin on some of this.
Yes, jump-cuts can’t be related to poetry, at least not poetry written
before modernism.
>>
The problem with this is that it assumes that the meaning of "jump cut",
even in the narrowest cinematographical context, is transparent. It's not.
Also, Jeffrey's agreement with Alison's proposed definition -- "editing
technique that cuts out bits of action so the flow judders unnervingly" --
runs counter to his own earlier definition of "jump cut".
In a previous post, Jeffrey asserted:
<<
Robin has mentioned various uses of ellipsis and elision in early poetic
works to argue for the presence of jump-cuts retrospectively. This is not a
strong position to insist on, in my view. Film theorists know precisely what
a jump-cut is, its origination and its specific uses.
>>
... and earlier:
<<
Would the instances you cite be applicable to the fairly explicit concept of
the jump-cut as used in cinema i.e. a split-second disjunctions in film
editing, so that two consecutive shots of the same subject are taken from
slightly varying camera positions? I think that this use of it has more in
common with Cubism than the two Shakespeare sonnets you mention.
>>
"Film theorists know precisely what a jump-cut is", "the fairly explicit
concept of the jump-cut as used in cinema" -- this is what might be called
the 'Everyone Knows' theory of linguistic definition. It would have been
helpful, if rather than simply asserting the validity of his definition of
"jump cut", Jeffrey had pointed us to some examples of this. I'm sure that
there is a context in which what seems to be an excessively narrow, even in
cinematographic terms, definition of the term is used in the way Jeffrey
suggests, "a split-second disjunctions in film editing, so that two
consecutive shots of the same subject are taken from slightly varying camera
positions," but this rather contradicts a solid body of evidence for the
term used in another and wider fashion.
Seriatim, the OED, the Random House Dictionary, and the American Heritage
Dictionary (4th edition):
_______________________
jump- -- the verb-stem used in Comb. [Points to]
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.
OED -- current online edition
_______________________
jump cut–noun
Movies.
an abrupt break in the continuity of a scene created by editing out part of
a shot or scene.
Origin: 1950–55
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.
_______________________
jump cut
n. A cut to later action from one filmed scene to the next, creating an
effect of discontinuity or acceleration.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
_______________________
I'm not saying these dictionary definitions are (necessarily) correct. They
do, however, run pretty much counter to the "transparent" meaning on which
Jeffrey, somewhat tendentiously, and without citing any evidence, bases his
argument.
I wish I'd thought to simply say, when asked what I meant by jump cut, that
I understand the term as the OED would have it:
"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."
It wouldn't be entirely true, and I'd have missed out on some interesting
discoveries, but at least it would demonstrate why I think there's a
legitimate sense in which the term "jump cut" applies to Shakespeare's
Sonnets.
Robin
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