Is it true that Bonnie and Clyde (1967) changed editing in Hollywood?

H

harmonica44

If you fast forward to to 6:25 in the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-FIAt50h8c

They say how that movie changed editing and they use the street corner scene as an example. They say that it cuts to what Bonnie is looking at, rather than just tilting the camera, towards what she is looking at. As if cutting instead of moving the camera, is something new. But their have been several movies to do this before Bonnie and Clyde.

I re-watched Goldfinger recently, which was 3 years before. When Q points to the switches in Bond's car, they cut to his hand pointing out the switches, and do not tilt down to his hand, then tilt back up to him, or pan over to Bond. They cut to the hand, then cut back to him or Bond.

In fact I don't ever recall seeing a movie that does a move like they were talking about in Bonnie and Clyde, and it seems like a complete avant garde move. Unless I am wrong, and this happened a lot in pre-1967 movies? But their is still Goldfinger and other movies off the top of my head that used cuts, so how is Bonnie and Clyde revolutionary?
 
A whole litany of films changed editing. Starting with the early 1900s films... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_an_American_Fireman
https://film110.pbworks.com/w/page/12610222/Georges Méliès

Hollywood had a series of changes. Closeups (which pissed off the studio heads who had paid for the actor and wanted to see the whole actor they'd purchased), then bigger rigs for camera movement, then jump cuts brought from Eisenstein and company. Stylistic changes from the German expressionists fleeing the Nazis. The influx of cheap 16mm film cameras at the end of the war in the late 40s. The advent of the super8mm cameras in the 60s along with the drug culture of the 60s. The rise of the film degree kids in the 70s and their disregard for the rules the Hollywood had settled into. The 80s undercurrents with the Reagan era pro-family cinema in the mainstream. The access to new foreign cinema styles (see the commentary track on the original Die Hard). The 90s move from analog film to digital non-linear editing.
 
Bonnie and Clyde used slow motion, cuts breaking the 30 degree "rule", repeated shots, glorified bloody violence... things considered to be "wrong" at the time. It pushed the envelope. It was a gamble... they won.

Part of the scene in question was specifically the size of the shots. Look to "breathless" by Jean-Luc Goddard for more examples of rules being broken (it was french, so it doesn't count into the "American" cinema thing other than referentially - but all film is referential as all filmmakers are driven by their love of film).
 
I get how it broke the rules when it comes to the violence and how they cut the shootout scene, but I don't get what they mean when they talk about the street corner scene. What do you mean by the size of the shot, and the 30 degree rule?
 
The 30 degree rule is a camera angle change that is less than 30 degrees away from the previous which is disconcerting to the audience and sticks out. Hollywood at this point was still focused on the "continuity" style of editing. Establishing shot, Wide shot, Two shot, OTS, Reverse. Starting wide and movign closer as the scene unfolds and the details of the interactions become clear.

In Bonnie and Clyde, this scene starts on a close up which doesn't allow the audience to get their bearings first (ignore the dialog about intent and freud, focus on the sequence of shots): http://artcinemalife.wordpress.com/tag/bonnie-and-clyde/

The shots are much more focused on the closeup than the scene as a whole. Moments rather than the overall scene. At that time, the style was a departure from the norm.
 
Oh okay. So how come filmmakers are still adamant about editing and shooting today? Like people say never to break the 180 degree rule, or to make sure one scene transitions into another rather than just having the scene start in the middle of a take, so jarringly?

If Bonnie and Clyde broke such rules and got away with it, aren't every other shooting and editing rule, up for grabs for breaking now?
 
Feel free... if you break the rules well, no one will care. If not - your audience will let you know. The current edit I'm working on had hard jump cuts for 2 revisions, then we removed them... they worked for the scene, but not within the story as a whole. We're on rough edit pass 10 or 12, just about ready to declare a picture lock. The story is presented in an entirely different order than the original script --- it's so much better than it was. Most of the time we stuck to the rules in this one - because they work and you don't have to figure out whether or not they work as they're tested. If you want to break the rules, you'll have to do so knowing that you may fail miserably .... or succeed perfectly as you expected. but you don't get to determine the success of your storytelling ability, that's your audiences job - and they have specific expectations.

Kubrick broke rules as well; The shining has line crossings in the bathroom scene that are used to show the instability of the main character. The rules were broken on purpose to serve the story. Same in Bonnie and Clyde, always to serve the story.
 
Not sure if it’s really a “good” example of line-crossing (because it’s even more blatant than The Shining), but it’s used to great effect in The Lord of the Rings, where Smeagol and Gollum converse. Being the same character, there’s no real reason for there to be any switch in camera position, yet the camera jumps from side to side, as if adhering to the 180-degree rule, making the one character appear to be in two separate bodies. It’s very clever stuff.
 
One thing I have been told about my editing so far is that when I transition from one scene to the next, it's too jarring. Like it literally jumps right in the middle of things, which I think is a good thing, but perhaps audiences find it too jarring. Are their any rules to follow with how the next sequence should start out as it cuts or how the previous one should end before the cut?

Like for example, if you watch the movie Valkyrie, their is the scene where Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh are walking down the mess hall, and they walk right of of frame, before the scene cuts. If it had cut while they were still walking with the camera tracking in front of them, it might have been too sudden which is why they waited for them to get out of frame.

That's one way but is their any other transition methods that should be followed to avoid looking sloppy?
 
Thanks.

What about eye continuity? Usually if actor A looks at actor B, we see his eyes shift over, then cut to actor B. If actor A decides to take his eyes off actor B and move his eyes to actor C, we will see the eyes shift to that person next.

But can I do a cut where we see actor a move his eyes to actor B. Then we cut to actor C after B, then cut back to A, and A is already looking at C, without seeing the eye move to C?

Here's an example of what I mean, at 1:43 into the clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kD54-q1uFM

The guy being hung, looks over to one guy, then they cut to that guy. But then they cut to the next guy he is looking at without showing him actually move his eyes towards the next guy. Then when it cuts back to the guy being hung, he has already turned his head. Will audiences usually find that too jarring in other types of scenes?
 
Depends on the scene, the moment you're constructing and the sound. One example doesn't necessarily inform any other instances. The material will tell you how it wants to be cut. Listen to the footage and the story (note that I didn't say the script) -- they will tell you what to do.
 
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