On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, Renata Jackson wrote: > to the gentleman who recalled a "jump cut" in the Odessa Steps sequence of > POTEMKIN -- in the print i have on tape, there is no such sequence of images: > what we see is two shots (with slight change of angle and shot distance; the > second is an extreme close-up) of a cossack raising his sword repeatedly -- > cut-- close-up of the woman in the pince-nez, now shattered and her face > bloody. this is one very good example of Eisenstein's thesis v antithesis = > synthesis: the idea of violence/oppression is implied by (what he would have > called) the "collision" of shot 1 (the cossack) with shot 2 (the woman); the > violent act isn't shown but is conjured up in our minds. of course this > whole sequence is built upon these kinds of spatial disjunctions, but why i > wouldn't call them "jump cuts" is because the term jump cut refers to a > purposeful break in space-time continuity, whereas this kind of dialectical > montage, despite its being constructed, as i said, upon an *actual* spatial > disjunction in shooting, it is cut together to create an *apparent* > continuity. anyway, earlier we did see this same woman in close-up as she > watches the baby carriage bump down the steps (again, this narrative link is > assumed by the editorial structure: baby carriage -- woman looking horrified > -- baby carriage). in this sequence of shots i noticed that there *is* a jump > cut in the shot of the woman, but my sense is that this resulted from a tear > and subsequent repair of the film, rather than an intentional break in > continuity. > -- [log in to unmask] (Renata Jackson, NYU Cinema Studies) In addition to the unity which grows out of the synthesis of the apparent disjunctions, there is also a symbolic synthesis in that the cracked eyeglass is both a reference back to the formal unity found in the first half of the Odessa sequence, represented by circular imagery and now synthesized through the disjunction of the *perfect* circle of the eyeglass and the imperfection of the crack caused by the cossack. [log in to unmask] (Ron Hoffman, NKU Media Services) > ---- > To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L > in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask] > ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]