Date: Sun, 16 Jul 1995 15:15:52 +0000
From: Jay_Craig-AT-BAYLOR.EDU
Subject: Short Cuts


Back to Altman...

Malgosia wrote: "The credit sequence of Short Cuts uses the med-fly spraying 
motif to establish an overarching link between the disparate threads.  The 
spraying image plays the role of an establishing shot, but differently; it is 
not _we_ who are permitted to see the spatial relationship between the threads.  
Instead, we are shown an image of _others_ who presumably see the relationship, 
and see it from sort of military perspective....The threads are linked through 
the _sky_, rather than the earth, and a very instrumentalized sky, at that; a 
panopticon."

I agree that the med-fly sequence takes the form of an establishing shot.  
However, I think the "establishment" taking place is causal, rather than 
epistemic.  Though the military imagery is there (low flying copters, "war on 
the med-fly" declared over the news, people panicking and taking cover), I don't 
perceive the helicopters (or "instumentalized" sky) as knowing.  I guess--in 
Deleuzian terms--I'd say the helicopters (and sky) lack faceicity.  They seem 
neither reflexive nor intensive.  In fact, one of the helicopter pilots is 
merely another character established in the sequence.  Though there is certainly 
an expression of limited omniscience (limited, because we don't clearly broach 
the "private" subjective), I would say that it derives from the 
third-person--the auteur/audience--rather than from an internal second-person--a 
pilot, deployment of technology, or animistic nature.

Like I said, I think the establishment is causal.  We have a set of characters 
whose lives/stories overlap and interconnect.  Whereas in many traditional 
narratives (i.e., an SAS'), a character may enter, confront in active duality, 
resulting in an altered situation, this rarely happens in Altman.  Rather, 
intentional or even accidental acts take on significance and effect change to 
extents relative to a set of local characters whose constituency is always in 
flux.  In other words, it takes _a lot_ to affect "everyone."  In Short Cuts, we 
open with med-flys, a natural force which has causally impinged on everyone 
(thus serving as a motif for establishing the character set).  The film closes 
with the earthquake, another "global" cause which intrudes on the character set.

The rest of the film, however, is filled with provisional, temporary, and 
accidental causes.  As Malgosia wrote, "a marginal character of the current 
episode is permitted to distract the film and become the focus of the next 
episode or shot."  Though this clearly happens with characters, who vacillate 
from primary to secondary importance (see C1, 206-9 on Altman), it also happens 
with "causes."  A hard-working baker who gets shafted makes taunting 
phone-calls--a minor, even justifiable, thing.  To the parents of the dying 
child, however, it is cruel, shameful, tormenting.  When the waitress hits the 
child, she thinks no damage has been done; the child then dies, apparently by a 
callous hit-and-run.  The characters meet, not because of some shared 
background, but because of the multiplicity of possible human relations: 
familial, emploment contracts, seating arrangement at concerts or in clubs, in 
public restaurants, in the street, on TV, etc.  There is nothing novel in the 
way causation is treated in the film.  To use common terms, narrative causation 
is determined by a "but for" cause (i.e., the effect would not have occurred, 
"but for" this particular cause), which must also be proximate (in order to 
exclude extraneous, remote, or narratively insignificant causes).  Altman merely 
widens the scope of acceptability for "proximity" of cause; he is willing to 
follow the unconsciousness of the limo patron, to the chauffer getting coffee in 
the interim, to his seeing the fishermen taunt his wife, to her impatient 
reaction and rush to get home, to the running down of the child, to the suicide 
of the cellist,....  This, of course, results in a more fragmented and wandering 
narrative.  (Following chaos theory, any film striving to detail a complete 
tracing of cause, absent restrictions based on relevance or proximity, would 
demand an infinite reel of film, directorial omniscience and omnipotence.)  
Tracing the remote repercussions of an accidental or chance cause has been done 
before, both in literature and film (e.g., Bradbury or "Brazil").  And Altman 
doesn't really question the traditional notion of causality, as does Resnais at 
times.  However, the accidental and shifting, local, perspectival nature of 
causality throughout Short Cuts is "bookended" by instances of more global 
causes.  The effect of this montage, I suppose, is to show the "smallness" and 
unpredicatability of individual action.  I'm not sure it would take most people 
three hours to get that point across, but Altman is no stranger to accusations 
of tediousness.

Montage in the frame: watch the scene where the doctor and painter are 
discussing her past adultery.  Altman frames the characters with paintings 
reflecting some aspect of the discussion.  The doctor is sitting next to a 
painting of himself locked in an expression between fury and uproarious 
laughter.  The painter moves from beside a painting of a nude woman with an 
obnoxiously forced smile to a set of three paintings--two men and a woman--when 
she confesses to the adultery.

Shot to shot: Obviously the editting was planned before the film was shot (i.e., 
Altman is a heavy-handed director or, if you prefer, "auteur").  In countless 
transitions marked by straight cuts, there is a continuity established by 
dialogue, an object, atmosphere, or motion.  The painter talking on the phone 
cuts to the cop's wife on the phone; the cop is warned not to let the dog out or 
he'll get run over, and then cut to the boy leaving the house to get run over; 
he gets hit and tells the woman tomorrow is his birthday, cut to pictures of 
birthday cakes in the bakery.  This takes place between most of the shots in the 
film.  What purpose does it serve?  I really don't know.  Since most of these 
mini-continuities are inserted between clear changes of local, characters, and 
lighting, I don't know what they're there for.  Obviously they excite critics 
and make Altman proud of himself, but perhaps there's some real reason beyond 
simple exhibitionism.

Sound:  Though Deleuze doesn't discuss sound editting much, there is a lot going 
on in Short Cuts.  Two, sometimes three, conversations will be going on at once, 
mixed up or down to direct the viewers' attention.  Conversations can be heard 
through closed windows and across streets or crowds.  Cacophony is orchestrated 
by overlaying children, dogs, birds (notice the same types and patterns of bird 
calls in the background throughout the movie; I guess they were short on stock 
bird calls), autos, and voices.  The background noise will drop to a murmur so 
characters can share a conversation without raising their voices (if dramatic 
effect demands).  Sounds will overlap from scene to scene.  (Notice how many 
consecutive scenes in diverse locales hear the same ambulance, at the same 
volume, with complete continuity; the ambulance sound originates from a video 
monitor at the TV station.  Or listen to the cellist play with complete 
continuity from her evening concert through a cut while the helicopters are 
landing in daylight.)  There's probably more to "listen" for in Short Cuts than 
there is to "look" for.

Straight Cuts:  I'd have to watch it again to make sure, but to my recollection, 
EVERY change from shot to shot was executed by a straight cut.  No fades, no 
wipes, no dissolves, no jump cuts.  Straight cuts are traditionally 
"intra-scenic" devices, used to maintain spatial and temporal continuity.  
Bunuel and Resnais, of course, used straight cuts between scenes or dream 
sequences, playing on the ambiguity created by the device (misleading 
continuity).  In Short Cuts, time passes, presumably--at least more than three 
hours.  However, the "lost" time is never signaled by traditional devices--a 
fade to black or dissolve.  That is to say, it feels as if everything happens 
sequentially and in complete continuity within the three hours.  You never get 
the impression that "Oh, it's much later in the evening now."  That is the 
natural effect of using only straight cuts between scenes.  Using only straight 
cuts is surely a decision Altman made.  (Those familiar with editing know that 
you don't "accidentally" edit a film that way.  To do so would be much like 
writing a paper without paragraph breaks or a musical composition without 
rests.)  Why?  Was he trying to create an impression of time, despite using 
devices typically used to establish continuity?  If so, I think he failed.  The 
only impression of time created was a long, continuous, rather fastidious 
three-hours (and a numbing of the buttocks).  What else could he have been up 
to?  Maybe he thought he'd make a sacrifice to narrative coherence by playing on 
the film's title.  If anyone has ideas on this, I'd like to hear them.  Maybe 
someone has seen or read an interview with Altman where he discusses this aspect 
of the film.

Zooms:  Instead of using the typical Altman tracking shot, this film is filled 
with literally "short" cuts.  There are no really long takes and no depth of 
field scenes.  Strangely, whenever there is a decision to be made between 
dollying and zooming, the latter is chosen.  Sometimes this is forced (e.g., 
when he is shooting through a window pane or at an extreme distance).  Usually 
it isn't.  Though the zoom can be very "analytic" (good for faceification), it 
is done so often and, at times, so clumsily (stuttering in mid-zoom, as if the 
motor has a bad belt; starting and stopping suddenly; leaving characters far 
enough from background objects that perspective is thrown out of kilter, etc.) 
in Short Cuts that there must be some reason for it.  Maybe the budget was too 
tight, so they couldn't get dollies or good cranes.  Why, why, why so many 
zooms?

Just a start.

JSC



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