A Visualization of a Trivial Word
The “jump cut” is, in truth, a cinematic device
invented by the French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. Our Indian connoisseurs of
cinema have never really studied this device with any depth. Yet, even without
knowing it, the name has lodged in memory, repeated from ear to ear. When one
hears the phrase jump cut, the feeling evoked is not so much one of gravity,
but rather of a sudden, playful lightness. No wonder the wise critics often
call Godard a loquacious filmmaker!
And yet, in our everyday lives, such jump cuts keep occurring relentlessly. That day, I was traveling by train from a suburban outpost in South Kolkata to Sealdah. As I passed through the narrow lane of platform number fourteen, a flood of nearly a quarter-thousand passengers poured out in a rush from a Lakshmikantapur train. Pressed by the crowd, the multitude advanced one step forward, two steps back.
In front of me walked a middle-aged, solemn man, clad in the old-fashioned style of dhoti and panjabi. He belonged, unmistakably, to the educated classes, though, I suspected, not a native of Lakshmikantapur. His bearing betrayed vanity. In his hand he carried a blue bag. Certainly a college professor, or else tied to some respectable profession. His hair was almost entirely white. All of us swayed and staggered forward in the jostle of the crowd.
Then, suddenly, the jump cut arrived in the gentleman’s life. With a cry—“My bag! My bag!”—he broke out. His measured pace, his bodily composure, his gestures—all at once transformed into something out of a Chaplin comedy. Shattering the crowd’s order, he darted now forward, now back, running wildly along the platform. It was as if he were performing in a play, while the people around him, more impassive than before, stood by to watch his act without expression.
Before my eyes, the man’s bewildered panic, set against the blank indifference of the crowd, became edited—by the invisible magic of a jump cut—into the climactic scene of Breathless. The wounded hero, with exaggerated gestures, staggers toward his last breath. But where the blue bag vanished—whether it was swept away through the hands of the station crowd—the artist-director’s non-commercial camera did not bother to follow. Nor did it record the professor running minutes later into the police station adjoining the platform.
At that very moment, in the station square, a young woman unclasped a silver chain from her neck and flung it toward a man beside her—then, with dramatic gestures, fled into the crowd. The camera swung instantly in her direction, in search of another jump cut.
Set the lens of a jump-cut-hungry camera in the focus of an ordinary eye, and every moment in this city births a thousand Breathless—only to burst like bubbles and vanish. From such fleeting images, a few films are composed. The filmmaker arranges a handful of these images into a calculated pattern, smears them with color and sound, and thus a motion picture is born.
In the darkened cinema hall, where one cannot glimpse the face of the person seated beside, the endless whir of reels unfolds like the eternal rhythm of life itself. In that darkness, we forget our own existence, our masks of living. The viewer discovers himself upon the screen. From the infinite flood of images, from the ceaseless panorama of life, the filmmaker selects and arranges a few. With jump cuts he strings them into the grand tale of human destiny.
Then, at last, the lights flare up. With the music of the end titles, the viewer regains composure. The spectator of images is transformed into an image himself. At that moment bursts forth helpless laughter. Out of profound sorrow and its deception, the stage of life is set. And as the vast mystery is revealed, the viewer too becomes a mystery.
In one final jump cut, the camera lifts above the professor’s head, who has lost his bag. Just as men laugh at the trembling of terrified ants, so too does some unseen divine witness laugh at the strange performances of human life. This old professor—learned, eloquent, of grave and serious nature—yet frightened into such desperate running! Ha—ha—what a histrionic creature is man!
And yet, in our everyday lives, such jump cuts keep occurring relentlessly. That day, I was traveling by train from a suburban outpost in South Kolkata to Sealdah. As I passed through the narrow lane of platform number fourteen, a flood of nearly a quarter-thousand passengers poured out in a rush from a Lakshmikantapur train. Pressed by the crowd, the multitude advanced one step forward, two steps back.
In front of me walked a middle-aged, solemn man, clad in the old-fashioned style of dhoti and panjabi. He belonged, unmistakably, to the educated classes, though, I suspected, not a native of Lakshmikantapur. His bearing betrayed vanity. In his hand he carried a blue bag. Certainly a college professor, or else tied to some respectable profession. His hair was almost entirely white. All of us swayed and staggered forward in the jostle of the crowd.
Then, suddenly, the jump cut arrived in the gentleman’s life. With a cry—“My bag! My bag!”—he broke out. His measured pace, his bodily composure, his gestures—all at once transformed into something out of a Chaplin comedy. Shattering the crowd’s order, he darted now forward, now back, running wildly along the platform. It was as if he were performing in a play, while the people around him, more impassive than before, stood by to watch his act without expression.
Before my eyes, the man’s bewildered panic, set against the blank indifference of the crowd, became edited—by the invisible magic of a jump cut—into the climactic scene of Breathless. The wounded hero, with exaggerated gestures, staggers toward his last breath. But where the blue bag vanished—whether it was swept away through the hands of the station crowd—the artist-director’s non-commercial camera did not bother to follow. Nor did it record the professor running minutes later into the police station adjoining the platform.
At that very moment, in the station square, a young woman unclasped a silver chain from her neck and flung it toward a man beside her—then, with dramatic gestures, fled into the crowd. The camera swung instantly in her direction, in search of another jump cut.
Set the lens of a jump-cut-hungry camera in the focus of an ordinary eye, and every moment in this city births a thousand Breathless—only to burst like bubbles and vanish. From such fleeting images, a few films are composed. The filmmaker arranges a handful of these images into a calculated pattern, smears them with color and sound, and thus a motion picture is born.
In the darkened cinema hall, where one cannot glimpse the face of the person seated beside, the endless whir of reels unfolds like the eternal rhythm of life itself. In that darkness, we forget our own existence, our masks of living. The viewer discovers himself upon the screen. From the infinite flood of images, from the ceaseless panorama of life, the filmmaker selects and arranges a few. With jump cuts he strings them into the grand tale of human destiny.
Then, at last, the lights flare up. With the music of the end titles, the viewer regains composure. The spectator of images is transformed into an image himself. At that moment bursts forth helpless laughter. Out of profound sorrow and its deception, the stage of life is set. And as the vast mystery is revealed, the viewer too becomes a mystery.
In one final jump cut, the camera lifts above the professor’s head, who has lost his bag. Just as men laugh at the trembling of terrified ants, so too does some unseen divine witness laugh at the strange performances of human life. This old professor—learned, eloquent, of grave and serious nature—yet frightened into such desperate running! Ha—ha—what a histrionic creature is man!
Comments
Post a Comment