Carrol, N 1979, ‘Toward a Theory of Editing’, Millennium Film Journal, vol. 0, no. 3, pp. 79- 99.
One thought on “Carrol, N 1979, ‘Toward a Theory of Editing’, Millennium Film Journal, vol. 0, no. 3, pp. 79- 99.”
Editing is a communication practice based upon cutting that promotes the spectator to infer the significance of this cut, or in many cases chain of cuts. Often this significance arises from earlier aspects of the film, conventions of editing, societal ideas or narrative implications. Carrol begins his discussion focusing upon how different conventions yield different responses within spectators in terms of narrative or character development. He then expands upon this idea of inference to more abstract examples. His discussion comes to a conclusion as he hypothesises how audiences are able to make sense of avant-garde films. A large part of this discussion situates film within a societal discourse as well as part of an established set of conventions that guide the spectator’s inference. One particularly interesting aspect of Carrol’s theorising is that the alternation from one shot to another is neither experienced or remembered by spectators but instead is an aspect of a progressive accumulation of knowledge process.
Editing is a communication practice based upon cutting that promotes the spectator to infer the significance of this cut, or in many cases chain of cuts. Often this significance arises from earlier aspects of the film, conventions of editing, societal ideas or narrative implications. Carrol begins his discussion focusing upon how different conventions yield different responses within spectators in terms of narrative or character development. He then expands upon this idea of inference to more abstract examples. His discussion comes to a conclusion as he hypothesises how audiences are able to make sense of avant-garde films. A large part of this discussion situates film within a societal discourse as well as part of an established set of conventions that guide the spectator’s inference. One particularly interesting aspect of Carrol’s theorising is that the alternation from one shot to another is neither experienced or remembered by spectators but instead is an aspect of a progressive accumulation of knowledge process.