Editing technique · used in 9 films
Moving between scenes with an inventive device, such as a blackout, seasonal change, sound bridge or imaginative link. The transition itself carries meaning or mood.
Examples
Alfred Hitchcock · 1935
Hitchcock lets the maid discover the murder victim. As she opens her mouth to scream, the scream turns into the whistle of a train. The cut throws you straight onto the Flying Scotsman with Hannay.
Where to see it: The maid's scream. The maid finds the body in Hannay's flat and screams, and the sound becomes the train whistle as Hannay heads north.
François Truffaut · 1970
Truffaut uses an iris shutter to end scenes, as if the film were a silent picture. The circle closes on Victor, and the boy seems to move in and out of darkness. It gives the film a quiet, old-fashioned tone.
Where to see it: The scene endings. The picture closes in a circle on Victor, who slips back into darkness.
Ingmar Bergman · 1972
Scenes fade out through saturated red and the next fades in from it. The red links every scene together and makes the cut feel like a pulse. It reminds you that the whole film lives inside one feeling.
Where to see it: Scene transitions: the film regularly fades in and out through deep red.
Terry Gilliam · 1981
The map's holes in time act as doors between worlds. The gang falls through one and arrives somewhere new with no warning. The cut itself is part of the joke and the thrill.
Where to see it: The portal in Kevin's room. The dwarfs lead him down a long corridor to a portal, and he follows them into another time.
Francis Ford Coppola · 1986
Peggy Sue faints onstage when she is crowned reunion queen and wakes up as a senior in 1960. The jump happens as she faints, so it feels like part of her experience, and the film stays focused on how she feels.
Where to see it: The reunion. She is crowned queen, faints and wakes up as a high school senior.
Russell Mulcahy · 1986
Mulcahy links 1985 New York and the old Highlands with visual matches. He treats the cut as a trick of the eye, so the past always feels like it sits right under the present. For an immortal, that is exactly how time works.
Where to see it: The garage to Scotland shift. The camera rises through the parking garage, and the horizontal line of the ceiling turns into the plains of Scotland.
Alfonso Cuarón · 2004
Cuarón keeps cutting back to the Whomping Willow, the violent tree on the school grounds. It sheds its leaves in autumn and stands in the snow in winter. The tree works as the film's calendar.
Where to see it: The Whomping Willow interludes. The tree shakes its branches and drops its leaves as the school year moves into winter.
Terry Gilliam · 2009
The mirror works as a cut from the dusty traveling stage into a painted dream. One step takes you from the real world into a different color and scale. The jump itself tells you the rules have changed.
Where to see it: The mirror crossing. A customer steps through the glass and the film moves from the troupe's wagon into the Imaginarium.
Steven Spielberg · 2011
Haddock tells a sea battle story in the desert, and the sand dunes turn into waves as he talks. The camera merges his memory with what is around him. It tells you how vividly he sees it.
Where to see it: The ancestor's story: Haddock recounts the battle of an ancestor, and the desert shifts into ocean waves and ships.
Questions