Editing (2)
John Ford, Stagecoach

Steven Shaviro
October 26, 2011

Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)

• John Ford (1894-1973)
• Started in silent era
• 1930s: historical dramas & art films
• 1940s & 1950s: Westerns
• The Western
• One of the oldest American movie genres
• Stagecoach brought it to mass popularity
• Golden age of Westerns: 1940s and 1950s
• Revisionist Westerns: 1960s and 1970s
• Afterlife of the Western

John Wayne (1907-1979)

• Westerns throughout 1930s
• Stagecoach first made him a star
• Known best for his Westerns
• Iconic figure
• Identified with America

Stagecoach: Narrative Structure

• Double Plot
• Action: Ringo's revenge
• Romance: Ringo & Dallas
• Subplots: Indian revolt; minor characters
• Narrative alternation:
• Scenes on the open road
• Stops along the way
• Rhythmic alternation of sequences:
• Landscape panoramas (Monument Valley)
• Intimate 2-shots and closeups in the coach

Stagecoach: Episodes & Characters

• Stops on the journey
• Tonto (starting point)
• Dry Fork (meeting about going on or not)
• Apache Wells (Mexican cantina)
• Lee's Ferry (found destroyed)
• Lordsburg (destination)
• Characters
• Buck and Curley
• Ringo and Dallas
• Lucy Mallory
• Chorus: Doc Boone, Gatewood, Peacock, Hatfield

Stagecoach: Style

• Genre conventions (expectations)
• Indian attack
• Rescue by US Cavalry
• Final shootout
• Characters defined by particular traits
• Musical cues
• Showing vs. Telling
• Economy of means: tell story as efficiently as possible

Continuity Editing in Stagecoach

• Social relations among characters
• Go on or turn back?
• Misunderstandings: Ringo and Dallas
• Characters seated around dining table
• Characters' shifting seating positions & looks
• Establishing shots <===> medium or two-shots
• Axis of action and 180-degree system

Editing and Space: Seating in the Stagecoach

Stagecoach: Stylistic Nuances

• Dramatic introduction of Ringo
• Expressive close-ups (glances between Ringo & Dallas)
• Elisions for surprise and special emphasis
• Effects precede causes (Peacock hit by arrow)
• Partly offscreen action (death of Hatfield)
• Hearing events before seeing them (Cavalry rescue)
• Final shootout (delay in finding out what happens)
• Shifts in perspective (pan reveals Indians on cliff)
• Variations of rhythm & perspective in Indian attack sequence

Stagecoach: Innovations

• Orson Welles says he watched Stagecoach 40 times before shooting Citizen Kane
• Use of deep focus (corridor in Apache Wells sequence)
• Sets with visible ceilings
• Articulation of action via movement toward and away from the camera (instead of just via editing)

Stagecoach: Ideology and Form

• Overall 1930s Liberalism
• Outcasts as good guys
• Satire of high society
• Gatewood, right-wing banker, as a crook
• Limitations: Race/Gender
• Indians presented as villains
• Ambivalent view of Mexicans
• Women confined to domestic roles
• Ford and the mythology of the Old West
• Form (continuity) <===> Content (myth)

Editing: The Hollywood Continuity System

• Editing used to ensure narrative continuity
• Creating a smooth flow from shot to shot
• Implicitly privileges storytelling over style (what is said or told takes precedence over how it is said or told)
• Ideology of the continuity system
• Assumptions of "realism"
• Need to comfort, rather than challenge, the audience
• Confirming, rather than opposing, the status quo
• Individual scenes are edited in accordance with continuity rules, even when the film as a whole is nonlinear or discontinuous (e.g., Pulp Fiction)

The Continuity System Aims and Effects

• Aims of Continuity Editing
• Systematize the procedures for editing a scene
• Establish coherence in relations of space and time
• Emulate the habits of "normal" perception
• Effects of Continuity Editing
• Analytical editing: the action is broken down in the service of narrative continuity and clarity
• Attention to what is photographed, rather than how it is photographed
• Suture: the different pieces of film are joined together
• We are given a fixed location in the world of the film, a place from which to look

Basic Rules of Continuity Editing

• Axis of action: defines 180-degree semicircle
• Editing Sequences
• Establishing Shot
• Shot/Reverse Shot pattern
• Re-establishing shot
• Eyeline matches
• Matches on action
• 30-degree rule

The 180-Degree Rule

Homogeneity of Space and Time

• Spatial consistency and continuity
• Graphic continuity
• Figures balanced and centered in frame
• Lighting is bright and even
• Rhythmic continuity
• The longer the shot, the longer its duration
• Quicken editing to dramatize action
• Temporal continuity: plot time = story time

Refinements of Continuity Editing

• Shifting the axis of action within a scene
• Crosscutting
• Point-of-view cutting
• Head-on and tail-on shots
• Occasional cheat cuts (all rules are made to be broken)

Continuity Editing: Some Examples

• Edward D. Wood, Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959): the failure to observe continuity rules becomes noticeable
• John Woo, The Killer (1989): action editing with strong continuity
• Katherine Bigelow, The Hurt Locker (2009): action editing with strong continuity
• Michael Bay, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (2009): action sequences in which continuity breaks down
• "Chaos cinema" video essay