Which films use braided thread motif?

Nashville (1975), Magnolia (1999), Amores Perros (2000), The Hours (2002), Your Name (2016), Little Women (2019).

What kind of technique is braided thread motif?

It is a editing technique. Related editing techniques include Three-Thread Parallel Cutting.

Editing technique · used in 6 films

Braided Thread Motif

Returning to a woven cord, thread or rope as a symbol of connection and fate. The repeated image links separate storylines and shows how the characters' lives are woven together.

Examples

6 films that use it

Nashville
Robert Altman · 1975
The presidential campaign's slogans and the Hal Phillip Walker rally run through every storyline as a repeating thread. Politics and music are pretty much always there in the background. By the end, country music and the campaign turn out to be the same project of building a national myth.
Where to see it: The campaign van playing Hal Phillip Walker's speeches through a loudspeaker around town. The political voice runs through scenes that seem to be about something else entirely.
Magnolia
Paul Thomas Anderson · 1999
The number 82, the rain of frogs, the quiz-show questions and the word 'forgive' all come back across the storylines. The coincidences feel tied together by a hidden moral cause, so none of them seem random.
Where to see it: The shared hymn 'Wise Up'. All 9 characters sing at the same time without knowing each other, and you can hear the separate stories joined together.
Amores Perros
Alejandro González Iñárritu · 2000
The car crash is the point where the film's 3 stories are braided together. Each story either leads toward it or comes out of it. Through the accident, 3 unconnected lives briefly touch. After that, they separate back into their private tragedies.
Where to see it: The crash itself. It's the moment where all 3 storylines meet in a single event. The separate threads of the story get pulled violently together.
The Hours
Stephen Daldry · 2002
Flowers run through all 3 storylines. They get bought, arranged, given and mourned. They keep coming back as a symbol of how beautiful life is and how that beauty relates to death.
Where to see it: Clarissa Vaughan buying flowers in 2001 New York. She acts out the first line of Mrs. Dalloway, the book Virginia is writing in 1923 and Laura is reading in 1951.
Your Name
Makoto Shinkai · 2016
The braided kumihimo cord that Mitsuha makes is the film's central symbol. It stands for musubi, the Shinto word for both braiding and the ties of fate. The cord passes between the characters across time. When Taki holds it in his hand, it is proof of a connection that time has tried to erase.
Where to see it: Taki finding the cord on his wrist. It is physical proof of a connection his memory has lost.
Little Women
Greta Gerwig · 2019
Writing and making things run through both timelines: Jo's manuscripts, Alcott's published pages, Amy's art. The motif keeps coming back to show the sisters' need to make something that will last.
Where to see it: Amy burning Jo's manuscript in the past, then Jo watching her own book being printed and bound in the present. Pages appear in both timelines, and they carry the opposite feeling each time.

Questions

Quick answers

What is braided thread motif in film?: Returning to a woven cord, thread or rope as a symbol of connection and fate. The repeated image links separate storylines and shows how the characters' lives are woven together.
Which films use braided thread motif?: Nashville (1975), Magnolia (1999), Amores Perros (2000), The Hours (2002), Your Name (2016), Little Women (2019).
What kind of technique is braided thread motif?: It is a editing technique. Related editing techniques include Three-Thread Parallel Cutting.

Keep exploring

6 films that use it

Nashville

Magnolia

Amores Perros

The Hours

Your Name

Little Women

Quick answers

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