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NARRATIVE
FILMS/STYLES
of special interest to editors
are many and varied. The following is a short list of moments within
narrative films placed in categories that I find useful for myself
as an editor. Click below to download. For Mac, Option+Click to download
as Word file; for PC, right click. Download as "text file with
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Download
Narrative Films/Styles as Word file
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Narrative Films/Styles as Text with line breaks file
NARRATIVE
FILM EXAMPLES FOR EDITORS
CONTENTS
ACTION
SEQUENCES
BLACK & WHITE WITH COLOR
COMEDY
CUTAWAYS
DIALOGUE
DREAM SEQUENCES
DYNAMIC ARTICULATIONS
EDITING ISSUES
FILMING IN SMALL SPACE
IMPROVISATION
JUMPCUTS
LCUTS
LOVE SCENES
MASTER SHOTS
MATCHES
METAPHORS
MONTAGE SEQUENCES
MOVING/STATIONARY IMAGE
MUSIC
NARRATION
NARRATIVE: NON-CHRONOLOGICAL
OFFSCREEN SPACE
PACING
PARALLEL EDITING & CROSSCUTTING
PATRIARCHIAL POV
POINT OF VIEW
SEPARATION OF CHARACTERS
SEQUENCE STYLE CHANGE
SOUND
SOUND DESIGN
TAKES: LONG & SHORT
TIME: EXPANSION & COMPRESSION
TITLES AS CHAPTER HEADINGS
UNDERSTATEMENT
VALUES VERSUS MATCHES
BLACK & WHITE WITH
COLOR
HIGH AND LOW
2 shots of pink smoke coming out of smokestack
NIGHT AND FOG
color = present, b&w = past.
WINGS OF DESIRE
UNSTRUNG HEROES
mix of home movie footage
MALCOLM X
mix of b/w 16mm newsfootage with "actual" event in color.
COMEDY
RAISING ARIZONA
SOME LIKE IT HOT
DIALOGUE
CHINATOWN, V9375
2 characters: Mrs. Mulwray goes to JJ’s office to hire him.
DAMAGE, Louis Malle
2 characters: Irons meets Binoche at party. MCU’s with minimal
dialogue, but held together with intense mutual gaze. Notice man approaching
out of focus and /cut/approaching farther out than the continuity
would suggest.
3 characters: Anna, Peter
& Irons in Anna’s apartment.
FORCE OF EVIL, Abraham Polonsky
Dialogue as vehicle for dramatic action and as musically organized
sound.
2 characters: Dialogue filled
with alliterations, dissonant rhythmes and rhythmical effects serving
as a relay for sound effects as when knocks on a door repeat the rhythm
and timbre of the preceeding dialogue.
HIS GIRL FRIDAY, Howard
Hawks, 1940.
3 characters: overlapping dialogue during dinner scene at bar. Gestures.
LOWER DEPTHS, Kurosawa
Multiple characters: Card playing scene where the dialogue is "orchestrated"
musically.
LOVE AFFAIR, Leo McCarey.
"Looks" between Boyer and Dunne coming after their
spoken lines because they are in reaction to their own words.
This forces the editor to stay on the CU after the words
are delivered. This is highly unusual. The scene’s strength comes
entirely on the ‘looks" as opposed to what is said.
GOODFELLAS, Scorcese.
Joe Pesci’s baiting of hero in restaurant.
"DREAM" SEQUENCES
Diagetic time and space
are radically altered by a move into the interior space of a character.
BUFFALO 66
Bar scene in which hero approaches the place kicker and enacts killing
him and then changes his mind and walks out.
THE CELEBRATION
Scene when Christian falls to floor and his dead sisters appears to
him.
THE SHINING
little boy asking mirror what will happen at the Hotel, then blood
runs from elevators
BARCELONA, by Still Whitman.
Man leaves hospital room to meet woman he expects to see and projects
that reality with accompanying music and then meets a different woman.
TV COMMERCIALS
in general
CLOCKWORK ORANGE
kid in prison
EDITING ISSUES
ACTION
SEQUENCES
AMERICAN FRIEND
FRENCH CONNECTION
NAKED CITY, Jules Dassin,
edited by Waxworth
See Reisz, pps.
NORTH BY NORTHWEST
STAGE COACH
CUTAWAYS
PROVIDENCE, V6727
Cutaways to telephone without motivation during scene in bedroom with
son, mother, and soccer playing son. After second cutaway, narrator
understands the possibility of the cutaway and "uses’ it.
DYNAMIC
ARTICULATIONS
OTHELLO
Static shots alternating with extremely rapid tracking shots.
JUMPCUTS
HUSBANDS AND WIVES, dir.
Woody Allen, editor: Susan E. Morse
Allen does not let cast know the whole story.
handheld camera, wildly panning. This style forces jumpcuts.
Editor must decide how important the content is, then use jumpcut.
First scene: we are clued early that jumpcuts will be used.
Interviews: used as pacing device, and as camera as therapy device.
DAMAGE, editor John Bloom
Jumpcuts during first love scene.
L-CUTS
THE PLAYER, Altman, 1970,
V9729
Extended Lcut after Robbins kills the writer and camera dollies in
to the body in the alley and we hear pre-meeting business chit chat
for 22 seconds ahead of the next scene.
MASTER
SHOTS
CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS,
edited by Susan Morse.
Beginning of film: establishing shot, lots of space.
Difference between shots in the medical wing and Dolores’ apartment.
Dolores screws up the line and the editor felt it to be convincing
so she left it in.
THE VERDICT
Entire telephone scene in office shot as Master shot:
45 minutes into film: lawyer takes telephone call to plea bargain.
There is a lot of psychological action.
Speculation: Paul Newman is carrying scene off emotionally. So editor
must ask yourself: do I break into this scene through editing?
MATCHES
OTHELLO
Actor begins movement/cut/actor has already completed movement.
Actor motionless/cut/actor completes movement.
MONTAGE
SEQUENCES
ALL THAT JAZZ
DAYS OF HEAVEN
harvesting scenes
HUSTLER, THE 1961
PERSONA V6237
Beginning sequence
WITNESS
barn building
GHOSTBUSTERS II
City preparing for ghostbuster team
GOODFELLAS
Montage sequence of wives and girlfriends of wife at party.
PERSONA V6237
PARALLEL
EDITING & CROSS-CUTTING
DON’T LOOK NOW
cross-cutting
EDVARD MUNCH, Peter Watkins
multple space/time audio and visual cuts
GODFATHER
Parallel cuts at baptism/killings)
KILLING, THE Kubrick
What each member of the gang did, going backwards in chronological
time.
MALCOLM X
cutting of X’s speech, X watching his own speech, CIA listening
in, etc.
PAWNBROKER
parallel cutting between Jesus + girlfriend & Broker + Jewish
woman.
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
last scenes in two separate houses. Suspense
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, V6250
Parallel cutting on feet approaching train.
SEPARATION
OF CHARACTERS
CASABLANCA, V6249
When Lisa and Rick meet for the first time in Rick’s club. 27
second CU of Lisa, etc. Two lovers kept separate for 50 seconds.
TAKES:
LONG & SHORT
LONG
RULES OF THE GAME
Early days of deep focus.
Long takes force your hand in terms of editing.
Bazin: democratizing the view of the audience.
Crab dolly.: goes in and out, and laterally, and up and down.
how do the two men get to the couch?
A BIGGER SPLASH
Kasmim waiting for Hockney at beginning of film.
Mo sitting at table doing nothing, with vo.
RED SORGHUM
camera at ground level looking at sorghum, then it is leveled by workers
driven by Japanese as the camera rises and perceives what has happened
to the entire surrounding countryside.
SEQUENCE
STYLE CHANGE
EAST OF EDEN
Raymond Massey and James Dean in father —son argument.
Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the viewer is presented with matching
side slanted CU’s. Apparently unmotivated tilts. (If you must
use symbols, make them clear).
TIME:
EXPANSION & COMPRESSION
PSYCHO, V6015
shower scene, 50 shots in 2 minutes, Close ups focus on a detail of
the preceeding fuller shot of Marion Crane. Increase the sense of
shock by showing subjective view of murder weapon.coming down at the
camera. XCU and subjective camera.
KING LEAR, Peter Brook,
V7378
Death of Lear at the end: he slowly arcs backward while film crosscuts
to others talking. Time greatly expanded through editing.
RAGING BULL, Scorcese V6422
LaMotta meeting Vicki at the fence at the pool. Time gently expanded.
THE GRADUATE
Benji turns around when Mrs. Robinson enters the room naked.
CARNAL KNOWLEDGE: V6003
When woman is lowering herself to give Jack a blowjob and the background
wallpaper continues to slide by her as if she were lowering herself
30 feet instead of 3. Metaphor for his sinking morally.
VALUES
VERSUS MATCHES
MURDER MY SWEET, scene between Marlowe and Mullow in dark office
at night with flashing neon light. Dymetryk edited scene for values,
ignoring the incorrect pulsing of the neon.
FILMING IN SMALL SPACE
GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS
HIGH AND LOW by Kurosawa.
See Noel Burch on this film.
IMPROVISATION
SHADOWS by Cassavetes
WHERE IS MY FRIEND’S
HOUSE, Abas KIrostami
LOVE SCENES
DOUBLE INDEMNITY
One of the coldest love scenes ever filmed.
ANNIE HALL
Allen in bed with Shelly Duvall
THE GRADUATE,
Scene when Benji turns around when Mrs. Robinson enters the room.
BETTY BLUE
opening shot of lovers with slow track in. Frontal female & male
nudity throughout film. Oral sex. Over the top. Sensational, uninteresting.
French.
BOYS DON’T CRY
After the rape scene: "Hey, you ok?" Shower scene.
CARNAL KNOWLEDGE
When woman is lowering herself to give Jack a blowjob and the background
wallpaper continues to slide by her as if she were lowering heself
30 feet. Metaphor for his sinking, morally.
CLOCKWORK ORANGE
HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL
KILLER
Tilted video camera on floor as the killers run after woman.
DAMAGE by MALLE
Formal framing to safeguard modesty of stars.
FULL MONTE
Scene between couple: "Who wants to see this dance?"
LA JETEE
Eyeblink scene, man looking at woman’s neck scene.
LIQUID SKY, V6258
Alien vampire sucking life force from druggies.
SOLDIER GIRLS
Private Hall comforting black recruit
PERSONA
Self-Mutilation in bed
PAWNBROKER
pareallel cutting between Jesus + girlfriend & Broker + Jewish
woman.
PORNOGRAPHERS, THE
SILENCE, Bergman
Masturbation scene. Cold, desperate.
UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF
BEING
WINGS OF DESIRE
wOMAN IN THE DUNES
WORLD OF APO
METAPHORS
Motif
MARNI, color red
PSYCHO, eye motifs
Symbol
CITIZEN KANE, sled
CARNAL KNOWLEDGE: Mike Nichols,
1971, V6003
Woman is lowering herself to give Jack a blowjob and the background
wallpaper continues to slide by her as if she were lowering herself
30 feet. Metaphor for his "sinking", morally.
PORNOGRAPHERS, THE
Cutting to CU of fish, and filming through fishbowl.
Metaphor
OCTOBER
cut between herded workers and herd of cattle
DON’T LOOK NOW
Cuts between water/blood on slide and child’s drowning
Allegory
SEVENTH SEAL, figure of
death on the beach
Duration
and Placement metaphors
PAWNBROKER, THE
Black prostitute disrobes for Steiger, flashbacks to camp with increasing
rapidity.
MOVING/STATIONARY IMAGE
AX FIGHT
Middle section with stop-motion plus explanation.
LA JETEE
photographs plus one real time moving image
MUSIC
FILM SCORE EXAMPLES:
A married Woman, Godard
A Perfect Couple (out of
print)
Altered States
Asphalt Jungle, p. 58
Beast, The
Betty Blue, V9712, score
by Gabrial Yared, nouveau-Fellini.
Black Cat
Casanova (aka Fellini’s
Casanova)
Cobweb, The
Crucified Lovers, V8426
Damage, Zbigniew Preisner
cello/after 1st meeting, after Family meeting, after 1st
telephone call, after Anna explains how brother died.
Diva,
Double Indemnity, VD185,
V11045
Down by Law
Draightsman’s Contract
(out of print)
Escape from LA, CD231. Score:
Shirley Walker, raw, edgy, rock. Escape from New York
Falls, The (out of print)
Forbidden Planet
Goldfinger, Guy Hamilton
1964, music by John Barry
Green Mansions, Heitor Villa
Lobos
Halloween, V6136
Hamlet, directed by Grigori
Kozintsev
Handmaid’s Tale, The
Haunted Summer
Housekeeping, V7408
Hunger, The
Images, Robert Altman (out
of print)
King Kong, V6385
King Lear, by Peter Brook
V7378
Laura
Les Abysses
Liquid Sky, V6258
Living Desert
Long Riders, V6457
Magnificent Ambersons, The
p. 64, VD49
Man of Flowers
Nashville
Night Visitor
No Man’s Land, Alain
Tanner
North by Northwest, Bernard
Herrmann, V6416
Odds Against Tomorrow
Pather Panchali, Ravi Shankar,
V8103
Peeping Tom, VD357
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure,
Tim Burton
Pierrot le Fou, V10724,
VD116
Player, The, V9729, Thomas
Newman
Psycho, Bernard Herrmann,
V6015
Raising Arizona, Carter
Burwell
Runaway
Sea Hawk, The, Bernard Herrmann
Sheltering Sky, VD227
Star Trek, the Motion Picture
Star Wars, John Williams,
V6425
Stranger than Paradise,
V6957
Vertigo, p. 83, V6626
Vivre sa vie, V8192
Wait Until Dark
Welcome to LA, V7448, musicians
perform diagetic/non-d. score on film.
Woman in the Dunes, V6541
Wuthering Heights, V6796
PETER’S COLLECTION:
FILM SCORES ON CDs
Barry, John (excerpts from):
High Road to China
Ipcress File
Mary Queen of Scots
Monte Walsh
The Knack
The Quiller Memorandum
The Scarlet Letter
Walkabout
Cooder, Ry
The End of Violence (complete)
Herrmann, Bernard
Citizen Kane
(Salammbo’s Aria)
North by
Northwest, (complete)
Vertigo, Bernard Herrmann.
83, V6626 (complete)
Korngold, Erich Wolfgang
King of the Kyber Rifles
(attack on mountain stronghold)
Sea Hawk (complete)
Elisabeth and Essex (Elizabeth’s
theme)
Newman, Thomas
The Player (complete)
Morricone, Ennio (excerpts
from):
Cinema Paradiso
Disclosure
In the Line of Fire
La Cage au Folles
Once Upon a Time In
America
Once Upon a Time in
the West
The Mission
Wolf
Rosza, Miklos
Julius Cesar main title
sequence
Knights of the Round Table
(Scherzo: hawks in flight)
Steiner, Max
Casablanca, (Caine Mutiny
march)
Now, Voyager (love scene
and finale
Gone with the Wind (polka)
Tiomkin, Dmitri
The Guns of Navarone
prelude
The Thing from Another
World suite
Waxman
Captain Blood overture
Objective, Burma! Parachute
drop
Peyton Place title sequence
Williams, John
Star Wars main title
FILM SCORES ON CD IN
COLUMBIA’S LIBRARY
THE LONGEST DAY: MUSIC FROM THE CLASSIC WAR FILMS, CD265
ESCAPE FROM LA, Shirley Walker, CD231
MUSIC EXAMPLES
AMISTAD
BIG CHILL
bad use of pop music overlays
BULLOCK: PHOTOGRAPHY, A
WAY OF LIFE
overdone music track
CHIKEMATSU MONAGATORI (CRUCIFIED
LOVERS)
structural use of sound/music throughout the film, esp. during fight
in bamboo grove.
HAIL MARY
use of onscreen string quartet
KING LEAR, by Peter Brook
use of silence at beginning.
KUNDUN
(overdone music track = excellent example of what not to do.
LA CONNECTION
Jerry Goldsmith (when they drive up at night and jump over a wall)
M
use of song motif sung by murderer
STRAW DOGS
lame use of classical music.
THE SHINING, V6297
direct quotes from Bartok, Penderezcki. Superb use of pre-composed
contemporary classical music.
TRANSEUROP EXPRESS
use of fragments of La Traviata
UNSTRUNG HEROES
use of neo balinese and rock music
NARRATION
BADLANDS
CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, V6003
two characters speak over titles
DAMAGE
End of the film: Iron’s narration
DAYS OF HEAVEN
DOUBLE INDEMNITY, VD185,
V11045
MEMORANDUM, V7197
Irony, exact choice of words, intonation.
NAKED CITY, THE
Irony, from on high, goading
TWO PORTRAITS
THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH, V6421
narration throughout the entire film, by voice og god narrator at
beginning, then by main character who speaks on camera.
UNIVERSAL HOTEL
NARRATIVE: NON-CHRONOLOGICAL
ROSHOMON, Kurasawa
PULP FICTION
RESERVOIR DOGS
THE KILLING, Kubrick
What each member of the gang did, going backwards in chronological
time.
THE LAST WALTZ by Scorscese
PACING
M. HULOT’S HOLLIDAY
alternating bursts of activity with boredom
LEAVING LAS VEGAS
POV main character getting prograssively drunker, shifts from car
to bar to prostitute house with disturbed or suppressed audio and
cuts to black.
Shot with cop held very long.
PAWNBROKER, THE, V6244
WILD BUNCH, V6462
THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER
KWAI V6782
Bridge scene at end.
WINTER LIGHT, V6675
THE BLACK STALLION V6155
THE CONFORMIST, VD373
RAISING ARIZONA, V9097
PERSONA V6237
CABARET, V6795
Boy sings song and is joined by other Germans.
TOUCH OF EVIL, V7057
Opening sequence.
PATRIARCHIAL POV
DAMAGE
Binoche’s dialogue about not wanting to wake up with lover at
breakfast.
End of film: love has not turned to hate.
PSYCHO
Marion gets punished for stepping into the "man’s"
domain of crime.
POINT OF VIEW
DUAL POV:
Badlands, V6431
Beginning of film
PLATOON, by Oliver Stone
V7162
(beginning scene)
HILLARY AND JACKIE
IMPLIED POV:
THE CONVERSATION
last 30 minutes
SINGLE POV:
DAYS OF HEAVEN, VD 176,
V6123
VO from Mallick’s POV
UNIVERSAL HOTEL
narration
SUBJECTIVE POV:
BUFFALO 66
Scene in which hero brings his new girlfriend home to meet his parents
and they sit around the dining room table with only three characters
viewable at any one time.
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, V6780
funeral of Yuri’s mother at beginning of film
RASHOMON VD046
HILLARY AND JACKIE
Jackie’s pov as she is losing her ability to play
MULTIPLE POV:
PLAYTIME, V6716
SOUND
APOCALYPSE Now
CHIKEMATSU MONAGATORI (CRUCIFIED
LOVERS)
CONVERSATION
CRIES AND WHISPERS
FRENCH CONNECTION
King Lear, Peter Brook (SILENCE)
LEAVING LAS VEGAS
POV main character getting prograssively drunker, shifts from car
to bar to prostitute house with disturbed or suppressed audio and
cuts to black.
Shot with cop held very long.
NASHVILLE
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE
WEST
PERSONA
UNIVERSAL HOTEL
SOUND: FROM NATURAL TO
ARTIFICIAL
ApocalypSe Now
Sound design goes artificial
as men loose contact with reality.
THE CONVERSATION by FF Coppola
Extended scene in Harry Caul’s loft.
Continuous glimpses of his inaccessibility as a human being.
His ego rises to the bait and he gets slammed.
Sound: diagetic music, then non-diagetic, then goes into cage with
diagetic.
Same dynamic at last half hour of the film.
SOUND: SELECTIVE HEARING
FRENCH CONNECTION
scene at bar with pop group singing, 2 cops at bar
UNIVERSAL HOTEL
sound between photographs
RAGING BULL
scenes in ring, ranging from crowd reality to bodily interiors.
LEAVING LAS VEGAS
POV main character getting progrEssively drunker, shifts from car
to bar to prostitute house with disturbed or suppressed audio and
cuts to black.
SILENCE
A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE
Scenes of discomfort
when no one knows how to react to Mabel.
ApocallypSE Now
Silence: as Chief dies,
and then as they make contact with Kurtz’ camp.
King Lear, Peter Brook,
V7378
Totally silent beginning,
then, finally, the sound of a door slamming shut begins the sound
within the film.
SOUND DESIGN
32 SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN
GOULD
APOCALYPSE NOW
CONVERSATION, THE
Mix of prerecorded audio and "real" audio as film progresses.
CRIES AND WHISPERS
DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES
NASHVILLE
OTHELLO
Long shots accompanied by close-miked dialogue, etc.
THE SHINING
Incorporation of pre-composed music and blocking actors to the music
(Bartok, Pendereczki, etc.)
JAGUAR, Jean Rouch
selective sounds from the environment
SPACE: OFFSCREEN
CARNAL KNOWLEDGE
Candace Bergen: occupies frame and reacts to the two men at either
side.
Jack Nickolson: occupies frame and reacts to the couple outside of
frame.
RESERVOIR DOGS
Ear cutting scene: pan to "Watch your Head".
TITLES AS CHAPTER HEADINGS
RESERVOIR DOGS
Mr. White, etc.
HILLARY AND JACKIE
"Hillary’s Story", "Jackie’s Story"
THE SHINING
Inverted pyramid of dramatic thrust: the interview, 6 months later,
1 week later, tuesday, friday, Monday morning, tuesday 8am.
UNDERSTATEMENT
UNSTRUNG HEROES
dir: Diane Keaton. Death scene at end.
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