A look into the witch and how it uses off screen space, parallel editing and alternation. A royal holloway powerpoint.

1. I Am Not Your
Negro
Raoul Peck, 2016
To celebrate Black History Month, the first Media
Arts Student Social of the term will be a screening of
Raoul Peck’s Oscar nominated, BAFTA winning
documentary exploring racism and the civil rights
movement in the USA. Based on an unfinished book
by the great black American novelist James Baldwin,
this is film that, as the New York Times reviewer
wrote, “speaks to the present moment with…clarity
and force, insisting on uncomfortable truths and
drawing stark lessons from the shadows of history”.
Arts Lecture Theatre 1
Wednesday 24 October
18:00-22:00
Craft Beer and Real Pizza as usual
Guests welcome.

2. MA1052 CRITICAL THEORY AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS SESSION 3
PARALLEL EDITING, ALTERNATION AND OFF-SCREEN SPACE
The Lonedale Operator (1911, D. W. Griffith, USA)
The Witch (2015, Robert Eggers, USA)

3. D.W. Griffith
Sergei Eisenstein

4. This was the montage whose foundations
had been laid by American film-culture, but
whose full, completed, conscious use and
world recognition was established by our
films. Montage, the rise of which will be
forever linked with the name of Griffith.
Montage, which played a most vital role in
the creative work of Griffith and brought
him his most glorious successes.
Griffith arrived at it through the
method of parallel action…. (Eisenstein
1963: 204-5)
Source: Eisenstein, Sergei (1963) ‘Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today’,
Film Form, London: Dennis Dobson, 195-255. Written 1944.

5. We have before us a typical and, for
Griffith, a model of parallel montage of
two story lines, where one (the waiting
gentlemen) emotionally heightens the
tension and drama of the other (the
capture of Oliver). It is in ‘rescuers’
rushing along to save the ‘suffering
heroine’ that Griffith has, with the aid of
parallel montage, earned his most
glorious laurels! (Eisenstein 1963: 223)
Source: Eisenstein, Sergei (1963) ‘Dickens, Griffith, and the Film
Today’, Film Form, London: Dennis Dobson, 195-255. Written 1944.

6. shot 1

7. shot 2

8. shot 3

9. shot 4

10. shots 72-75 shots 76-79 shots 80-83 shots 84-87

11. The Bourne Ultimatum (2007, Paul Greengrass, USA/Germany)

12. Titanic (1997, James Cameron, USA)

13. Unstoppable (2010, Tony Scott, USA)

14. Gravity (2013, Alfonso Cuarón, USA) The Martian (2015, Ridley Scott, USA)

15. Inception
(2010, Christopher Nolan, USA)

16. Interstellar (2014, Christopher Nolan, USA)

17. Dunkirk (2017, Christopher Nolan, USA)

18. shot 1

19. shot 2

20. shot 3

21. shot 4

22. shot 5

23. shot 6

24. shot 7

25. shot 8

26. shot 9

27. shot 10

28. shot 11

29. shot 12

30. shot 13

31. Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg, USA) Alien (1979, Ridley Scott, USA)

32. It Follows
(2015, David Robert Mitchell)
It Comes at Night
(2017, Trey Edward Shults)

34. During the single-reel era, cutting within a single space, overlapping or
intrascene cutting [also known as: scene analysis or analytic editing],
remained relatively underdeveloped compared with patterns of alternation
across distant or proximate spaces [also known as: parallel editing]. The
emergence of intrascene cutting as the dominant form of editing marks the
end of the single-reel era. Increased emphasis on character psychology,
which the facial close-up supplies by highlighting expressions and
reactions, motivates this change. This increased focus on characters
naturalises filmic narration – anthropomorphises it – by directing viewer
attention toward human emotions rather than formal systems. The new
mode of facial close-ups also anchored cutting more closely to interaction
between characters, giving rise to shot/countershot editing as the means
of expressing a conversation or/and exchange of glances between
characters. In contrast to the more character-based cutting of the later
period, during the single-reel era space took priority over character.
(Gunning 2004: 30-31)
Source: Gunning, Tom (2004) ‘Systematizing the Electric Message: Narrative Form, Gender and Modernity in The Lonedale Operator’ in Charlie
Keil and Shelley Stamps (eds.) American Cinema’s Transitional Era: Audiences, Institutions, Practices, Berkeley: University of California Press, 15-
50.

37. The text of [The Lonedale Operator] goes
on dividing, joining up and redividing its
elements through a succession of varied
alternations over 96 shots, until the final
joining up which shows us in a single last
shot the majority of the elements involved:
she, he, the other driver and the thieves.
Thus it is absolutely clear that
already in Griffith’s first films alternation
plays a primary role among the procedures
used to construct and elaborate the
cinematographic form. (Bellour in
Bergstrom 1979: 79)
Source: Janet Bergstrom (1979) ‘Alternation, Segmentation, Hypnosis: Interview with
Raymond Bellour’ Camera Obscura 3, pp.70-103.
See also: Raymond Bellour (2000) ‘To Alternate/To Narrate (on The Lonedale
Operator)’, The Analysis of Film, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 262-277. Also
available in Thomas Elsaesser (ed.) (1990) Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative.
London: BFI, 360-372.

38. Shots 12-15: Thomasin/woodpile/Thomasin/woodpile (close/distant/close/distant)
Shots 1-4: William/barn/William/barn (close/distant/close/distant)
Shots 5-11: William/goat/William/goat/William/goat/William

39. Shot 16: Thomasin walks to
William thereby closing the gap
established in the alternation 1-4.
Her mother then grabs her hair,
opening up a new sequence.