Match cut

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Match Cut ( to match (engl.) "Zugenau / -fügen", cut "describes a technique of film montage in which a movement is cut and this is continued in another image motif. It is the connection of two settings that correspond to different units of action, i.e. are separated in time or space, through the staging of analogous, corresponding elements within the picture frame. The parallel use of shapes, movements or other components creates continuity, since human perception understands similar, successive impressions as belonging together. With the match cut, the viewer is often led to believe that there is a connection where there is actually none.

Types of match cuts

  • Two objects are positioned in successive scenes in the image in such a way that the objects from the end of the last scene and the beginning of the following scene of a transformation seem to merge seamlessly or the object of the second scene continues the movement of the first. (Not to be confused with morphing , which is the process of turning one object into another.)
  • Similar objects are shown in different shots at different locations (e.g. scene 1: the car drives away; scene 2: a braking tire belonging to another car).
  • Matching noises from different scenes or noises in scene 2 that match the image content from scene 1 result in a match cut (e.g .: scene 1: you see a church; scene 2: you hear the bells of one at the other end of the world other church).
  • In a broader sense, similar lighting moods can also create a match cut.
  • Closely related to the match cut is the parallel montage , which often uses match cuts as "binders" for changing between scenes.

Effect on the viewer

Since the viewer suspects a connection between two shots, he usually believes at the beginning that the scene is still playing in the same place at the same time. The fact that this is not the case creates an aha moment and attention. Therefore, match cuts are often followed by explanatory longer shots in which the viewer realizes that he is in a different place at a different time. While a scene change is traditionally initiated by a long shot , which is intended to give the audience an overview of the new location, a match cut precedes such an orientation setting in order to achieve the effect typical of this cutting technique.

Well-known match cuts

  • Probably the most famous match cut in film history can be found in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey from 1968: A great ape throws a bone into the air that it has just used to kill a fellow member. This swirls up out of the picture. The movement is interrupted by the "match cut" and a huge time span of four million years is skipped, in that the next image shows a satellite in orbit that appears to "continue" the flight of the bone. This cut, which identifies the bone (a weapon) with the satellite, is an extremely laconic and effective commentary on the whole of human history, although the cut is not precisely executed. The bone is already below the position of the spaceship within the frame and is already rotated by 90 degrees (if the two images were to be faded out). Furthermore, the bone is in rotation, the spaceship, on the other hand, is static, so the basic requirements for a precise match cut are actually only very inadequately met here. This cut can best be compared to an impure rhyme.
  • A match cut that is similar in form and content to the one in 2001 can already be found in A Canterbury Tale by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger , published in 1944 . In the prologue of the film, pilgrims travel to Canterbury during the Middle Ages , a falconer makes a bird of prey fly in the air. A match cut is made here and several hundred years are skipped, the bird of prey has become a military aircraft in World War II.
  • Another well-known match cut can be found in the final scene of Alfred Hitchcock's The Invisible Third (1959). Leading actor Roger O. Thornill ( Cary Grant ) pulls his lover Eve Kendall ( Eva Marie Saint ) out of the abyss on Mount Rushmore with one hand and puts her in the upper bunk of a sleeping car. The film ends with the train that has just been faded in disappearing into the tunnel.
  • As early as 1931, Fritz Lang used M Match Cuts in the film M Match Cuts for a parallel montage, which switches back and forth between the briefings of a hoodlum syndicate and the police in order to illustrate their “common” goal of rendering the child murderer harmless. The ongoing plot stands in stark contrast to the changing backdrop - a shabby back room with drawn curtains in contrast to an official conference room. The match cut has always been a popular tool for Lang. Even his silent films (such as spies ) work with taking up the content of the previous scene in the following one. In addition to M , another good example of match cuts in a sound film is Lang's Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse .
  • In the film Highlander , a lot of scenes are cross-faded with a match cut. It affects practically every change of scene between the past and present of the plot.
  • The surrealist war satire Catch-22 also makes extensive use of match cuts of various shapes.
  • Japanese animation artist Satoshi Kon made extensive use of the match cut. Sometimes the match cut is seen as the signature of the director. For example, the match cut is used in Millennium Actress to connect the different levels of action. Kon uses the special feature of the animation film to be able to manipulate the image structure and the montage precisely in order to carry out very complex match cuts.

literature

  • Oliver Keutzer, Sebastian Lauritz, Claudia Mehlinger, Peter Moormann: Film analysis. Springer, Wiesbaden 2014, ISBN 978-3658020996 , pp. 170-172.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Seel: The arts of the cinema. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-071012-3 , p. 200.
  2. ↑ Tony Zhou: Satoshi Kon - Editing Space & Time , accessed November 1, 2014

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