Montage / Wong Kar Wai 1

7th May, 09

After spending the first half of the lesson finish watching "Blanche", Miss Wong started us on a new project, Montage editing.

We watched a short film on an editing skill called the Kuleshov effect, developed by the Russians. The film was narrated by Hitchcock (the film genius). First, he showed us of an old man, frowning, then slowly smiling, then continuously, a young woman playing with her son. What this short film told us was that this old man may be the gentle loving grandpa, full of love, kindness, and happiness in seeing his family so happy. Then the next clip, the self same man, then the self same frown, then later, the self same smile. The continuously, a woman wearing an bikini, sun bathing. What this clip told us of the character was that he was a pervy sick old man. I was really amazed at how the same expression could have such a different effect on us when different clips were edited together.

We also watched another similar one where a man holds an axe with a fixed glare at a certain point, then with different clips edited in, showing completely different stories.

Later, we watched several montages, one that was most vivid to me was the one about religion. At first, it has shown religion in a scary eerie light, then as the montage builds up, the person who made the montage suddenly added "HOORAY!" to it, making me slightly confused, but nevertheless, enjoying the montage, and later understanding that the maker was mocking religion. Another one that I remembered the most was the one about the fate of a baby pram during a war. As the war builds up, the pram edges slowly, millimetre by millimetre closer to the edge of a long flight of stairs, then there are massive crowds marching, guns firing, people screaming, shouting, and back to the baby pram. It's amazing how discontinuity can build up tension so quickly and in so many different ways.

Later, we proceeded to analysing why don't we "get" Wong Kar Wai films. What the class thought was exactly the same as what I thought. We thought:
-the film is weird
-story is disjointed
-what seems to be the main characters just randomly appears or dissapears from the movie
-we feel alienated
-we ask "WHY? what is that guy doing!!??" sometimes

We later learnt that WKW wants to make his films non-generic, and they are never cliche. He makes odd-ball images during his film to get the audience really thinking deeply about what he is trying to convey to the audience instead of just watching a film. Same reason why there are parts of the film where he uses fish eye lenses and makes the film disjointed and jumpy.

At the end, Ms Wong set us a task to write a short (less than five pages) script in Wong Kar Wai style. It would be very challenging, because I still cannot properly grasp the idea and style of WKW. I'm also slightly dissapointed, because I would rather do a Montage task.

Problems and Difficulties:
-I can't seem to find the differences between metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal and intellectual montage.
-I think it would still take me a long long time before I can learn to properly enjoy Wong Kar Wai films without saying "what on earth is he trying to say!?"

IB Learner Profile:
-Enquirers: we learnt about Montage editing skills and the style and reasoning behind WKW films.