Date: Wed, 19 Jul 95 17:12:16 EDT
From: ma-AT-dsd.camb.inmet.com (Malgosia Askanas)
Subject: Re: Straight Cuts


> I'd forgotten about that fade.  Why is it there?  I didn't mention those 
> particular dissolves because I imagine they were thrown together by some 
> editorial interns in post-production.  But presuming they weren't, 
> why might they be used at that point?

Well, I will gladly tell you how they seemed to _me_, but only if
it gets interpreted as how they seemed to _me_, rather than as being
connected to issues of "Altman's presumed greatness" or its lack, 
a topic which makes my eyes glaze over. 

> The traditional notion in editing is that straight cuts tend 
> to preserve a feeling of spatial and temporal continuity.  "Short Cuts" 
> uses almost exclusively straight cuts; "Short Cuts" seems to be 
> completely continuous in time.  Two alternatives (though not the only 
> ones) I proposed are: either Altman was using a traditional method to 
> evoke the traditional response, or he was using a traditional method 
> in an attempt to evoke an "untraditional" response.  

Ditto: response conditional upon getting away from "greatness".

> Useless and superficial?  In other words, you're saying careful analysis of 
> editing can tell us nothing meaningful about a film?  Editing certainly 
> isn't the only consideration, but to say it shouldn't be a consideration 
> at all seems a bit farfetched.

No, I wasn't saying that.  To the contrary, I was trying to argue
that saying all of the cuts were straight was _not_ a careful
enough analysis -- they may all be straight, but they vary in other
respects. 

>> It seems to me that more important is whether the
>> transition is soft or hard, a radical separation or a joining, suggestive
>> of contrast, parallelism, commonality, dissociation, or what not.  

> What is more important to me is *why* a transition appears hard or soft, a 
> separation or joining, etc.  And that seems, to me at least, to be 
> Deleuze's focus.  That's why, I assume, he talks about very concrete 
> things--particular scenes from particular movies, specific camera angles 
> and movements, certain rhythms and patterns of editing--in connection 
> with the spiritual realities from which they're inextricable.  

Yes.  And I want to talk about specificities of _Short Cuts_; but you
and I seem to differ so about its spiritual realities that I'm not sure 
we can communicate on the concretes.  This is sort of an interesting
problem; neither of us can accept the other's "data".


-malgosia 


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