C. Scott Combs
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231163477
- eISBN:
- 9780231538039
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231163477.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines posthumous motion as a staple for the movie death scene. Posthumous motion may be defined as the use of the cutaway to another image—usually one that reframes the body or else ...
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This chapter examines posthumous motion as a staple for the movie death scene. Posthumous motion may be defined as the use of the cutaway to another image—usually one that reframes the body or else infuses part of the environment—to extend the scene after the death moment has apparently occurred, that is, after registration. Whether or not the camera is itself moving, the image is. Seen in various forms throughout American film history, the posthumous shot has become one of the more interpretive shots in genre films, often indicating the solemn passage of time. This chapter discusses the posthumous markings found in the early narrative film and how the techniques of narrative film portend an emergent cinematics around the death shot—or the image of apparent loss of embodied vitality. Focusing on films such as Behind the Scenes, The Mothering Heart, The Birth of a Nation, and The Country Doctor, it discusses the ways that narrative editing “performs on the material of the film the operations that death performs on life”.Less
This chapter examines posthumous motion as a staple for the movie death scene. Posthumous motion may be defined as the use of the cutaway to another image—usually one that reframes the body or else infuses part of the environment—to extend the scene after the death moment has apparently occurred, that is, after registration. Whether or not the camera is itself moving, the image is. Seen in various forms throughout American film history, the posthumous shot has become one of the more interpretive shots in genre films, often indicating the solemn passage of time. This chapter discusses the posthumous markings found in the early narrative film and how the techniques of narrative film portend an emergent cinematics around the death shot—or the image of apparent loss of embodied vitality. Focusing on films such as Behind the Scenes, The Mothering Heart, The Birth of a Nation, and The Country Doctor, it discusses the ways that narrative editing “performs on the material of the film the operations that death performs on life”.
Andrew deWaard and R. Colin Tait
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231165518
- eISBN:
- 9780231850391
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231165518.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter identifies the broad resurgence of Hollywood crime films during the 1990s as the ‘New Crime Wave’, as well as Soderbergh's unique ‘anticrime’ iteration within it. A close reading of Out ...
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This chapter identifies the broad resurgence of Hollywood crime films during the 1990s as the ‘New Crime Wave’, as well as Soderbergh's unique ‘anticrime’ iteration within it. A close reading of Out of Sight (1998) illustrates the alternative values system that Soderbergh proffers with his criminal characters. The film employs the presence of both the narratives of a charming criminal and the detective chasing after him, coupled with uniquely Soderberghian aesthetic signature stylistics, the characters' ethical impulse, and Soderbergh's slickly edited narrative — the latter of which is used as a method of restricting and revealing the range and depth of character information so as to complicate the viewer's understanding of the central relationship. It is more than just ‘likable criminals’ that distinguishes Soderbergh's films from others in the 1990s crime wave, however; it is that his criminal protagonists are set against larger, more nefarious institutions.Less
This chapter identifies the broad resurgence of Hollywood crime films during the 1990s as the ‘New Crime Wave’, as well as Soderbergh's unique ‘anticrime’ iteration within it. A close reading of Out of Sight (1998) illustrates the alternative values system that Soderbergh proffers with his criminal characters. The film employs the presence of both the narratives of a charming criminal and the detective chasing after him, coupled with uniquely Soderberghian aesthetic signature stylistics, the characters' ethical impulse, and Soderbergh's slickly edited narrative — the latter of which is used as a method of restricting and revealing the range and depth of character information so as to complicate the viewer's understanding of the central relationship. It is more than just ‘likable criminals’ that distinguishes Soderbergh's films from others in the 1990s crime wave, however; it is that his criminal protagonists are set against larger, more nefarious institutions.
