Over and over and over again

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Dave Watterson
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Over and over and over again

Post by Dave Watterson »

No, I am not talking about discussions of HD formats!

I have recently seen a few non-commercial films in which part of the action is repeated with tiny differences. Though the commercial movie Groundhog Day made use of this notion, the best commercial example I know is Lola Runs. In that film the heroine has to get from her flat to a meeting point across the city in a very short time. The action is partly surreal to start with. Her leaving the flat, racing downstairs and out into the street is cartoonish in its speeded-up action. Thereafter it becomes a group of scenes showing her running through streets. The shots are very similar but with different incidents each time. Thankfully each repetition is shorter than the previous one which stops the effect becoming tedious. Some of the incidents are witty and funny in themselves.

The n-c examples I have seen do much the same - and do it very well.

I enjoy the fun, the sense of discovery and the reminder that nothing ever goes quite as planned. But it is a reminder that the audience is watching a film and not observing reality. It breaks the spell that is clumsily called "suspension of disbelief". It is a bit like having a character turn from the drama to camera and talking directly to the audience.

It is certainly not a device that could be used very often, but it does appeal to me.

Is this just another of my kinks? What do you think of such tricks?

Dave
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Willy
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Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 10:42 pm
Location: Antwerp Belgium

Re: Over and over and over again

Post by Willy »

Dave Watterson wrote:No, I am not talking about discussions of HD formats!
Thereafter it becomes a group of scenes showing her running through streets. The shots are very similar but with different incidents each time.
Dave
It makes me think of Werner Haegemans' film "Life is Thrilling" in which a young girl rushes from shop to shop to steal something (thread : new generation breaks through) all this to make her life more thrilling. The incidents are slightly different. Yes, I like that kind of film. Of course there must be different incidents each time.

However, in many films made by n-c-filmmakers you can see people running, walking etc... and it has no sense to show these actions in the film. They are not useful. On the contrary. They can make the film boring. They can easily be deleted. By doing this the film becomes shorter and stronger. An excellent suggestion given by one of my friends some time ago. I'm very grateful to him for it. I watched the film that I was editing again. I cut all those unuseful running and walking scenes and yes ... he was right ... the film was 2 minutes shorter and better !

In one scene I was hesitating. The actress in the film is in love. Her eyes are twinkling (close up face) when looking at a boy. She is wiggling her hips a bit while walking away and leaving him (long shot). This makes the impression stronger that she is in love with him. So, I didn't delete that shot.
Willy Van der Linden
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