MovieChat Forums > Point Blank (1967) Discussion > Intercutting / Editing

Intercutting / Editing

posted 19 years ago by trevor-148
7 replies | jump to latest

I loved the intercutting editing montage style of Point Blank.

For example, the beginning of the film--cutting freely between Lee Marvin's face in the prison cell and the heist, etc. As well as the rest of the flashbacks throughout the film.

I usually accredit this style of editing to Nicolas Roeg, and I was suprised to see that this film was made 6 years before Roeg directed his first film, Walkabout. Other films that utilize this style: Easy Rider, Straw Dogs, and any Nicolas Roeg film.

I know Breathless used jump cuts, but I'm talking more about the temporal shifts in time, intercutting between two different scenes.

MY QUESTION IS:

1. Who is the first director to use this sort of intercutting montage editing?

2. Who is the first mainstream director to use this sort of editing?

Thanks!!!
Trevor

[–] lartrak 18 years ago

I guess I'm not too helpful, but considering the age of this post... I'd suggest looking in the French new wave. I can't think of the names off the top of my head, but I've seen some 60s French new wave films that had similar editing...

[–] trevor-148 16 years ago

hey lartrak,

You're probably right about the French New Wave. I know Arthur Penn's ending montage to Bonnie & Clyde was a nod to the French New Wave.

Another film I found was "The Pawnbroker" (1964) by Sidney Lumet. That's the earliest film I could find with this style of editing.

[–] TheCineSinge 12 years ago

I've not watched a lot of Nouvelle Vague films but it certainly reminded me a lot of Hiroshima, Mon Amour with the edits and certainly with the soundtrack.

[–] sictransit1 15 years ago

Alan Resnais's Hiroshima Mon Amour uses the montage editing like you described it. I believe that he is the first to do it, a little before French New Wave.

[–] polysicsarebest 15 years ago

Walkabout came out in 1971. He did Performance with Cammel in 1968, 3 years earlier. Cammel and Roeg definitely did some radical things with this style but the first director to do it? Well, experimental cinema of the 20's and 30's played with space and time and editing a great deal but 1959's 'Breathless' bY Godard is probably the most popular example of a populoar director doing this type of stuff..

And Godard was doing stuff like this to a more extreme degree in Week End, Pierrot Le Fou, 2 or 3 Things, Made in USA, etc, made before this film. I'd say he was the first to popularize it, though examples of this have probably existed since film existed, if you look hard enough. TOSHIO MATSUMOTO probably made the best use of it in FUNERLA PROCESSION OF ROSES.

As far as directors who have done it since, there's too many to mention, but one director who seems to have been greatly inspired by point Blank is Takeshi Kitano. Check out Sonatine or Hana-Bi, it seems to share Point Blank's tone, pacing, mod atmosphere, style, and editing choices... combining elements of film noir with stylistic touches of the European nouvelle vague, many of Kitano's best films -- as well as Point Blank -- feature fractured time-lines, disconcerting narrative rhythms (long slow passages contrasted with sudden outbursts of violence) and a carefully calculated use of film space (stylized compositions of concrete riverbeds, sweeping bridges, empty prison cells)...

enjoy.

-
pre·ten·tious: characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.

[–] timmy_501 12 years ago

Roeg was obviously influenced by Resnais as someone else has pointed out. The real answer to your question is Soviet Montage though, check out some silent Russian films like Battleship Potemkin or Strike. Not sure who brought this into the mainstream, guess it depends what you mean with the term.

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[–] nutsberryfarm 12 years ago

great for the mood.

A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.