Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 10:17:32 -0800 (PST)
From: Ken Nolley <knolley-AT-willamette.edu>
Subject: Re: Re: ft-l: Was Breathless "Avante Garde"?



> 	Godard actually made the jump-cut choice simply as a means of getting
> attention.  He knew there was little he could do with meaning, or theory that
> would make waves, so he just made the daring choice of jarring jump-cuts
> throughout.  

Actually, I think that looked at in the context of the French cinema, 
Godard's jump cuts were not all that revolutionary.  Jump cuts were 
relatively common in 30's French films, for example (have a look at the 
early section of GRAND ILLUSION for example), and it is apparent that the 
Hollywood pattern of using fades to mark larger temporal or spatial 
transitions did not become so dominant in French film as it did in 
Hollywood.  The Japanese cinema had developed wipes as a fairly 
traditional way of indicating spatial and temporal changes.  In short, 
different national traditions developed somewhat different markers in 
this regard, and the jump cut was not so alien in the French tradition as 
it was in the American tradition.

k



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