When looking at continuity in film making and its progression throughout the twentieth century, it's important to look at first why the continuity of films increased. In the article it says that at one point in time a film would have 500-700 shots, while now an average film has at least 3-4000 shots, all with an average shot length of 3-6 seconds. So first it's important to ask what caused this. During the mid to late 1900's, the United States was in a constant state of panic as a result of the foreign relations with Russia. In addition to this, earlier, near the beginning of these significant changes, the United States was in the great depression and had just been part of the conclusion to WWII. Like the anti-hero, people began to connect to film as a medium through which their resentment and frustration with their society and their government could be channelled. During this early time period the film industry needed to adapt to the demands of its people who were rapidly becoming restless and needed excitement to distract them from the terrible state the country was it, out of this was born.
From this birth of faster cutting experimentation quickly became demand. It started with "actions films tended to be edited more briskly than other types, but musicals, dramas, romance, and comedies didn't necessarily favor longer shots". After the incorporatino easily of quick cutting into action films it became rapidly populor as it touched on the people's desire for excitement. As a result of this the film industry began to adapt to the new interest of the people and began incoporating these quickly cut shots in to all forms of film. Onc this pheomena had grown substancially, it quickly became less of an interest in film and more a necessity. This narrowed the scope of film interpretation consideribly by almost imedialety eliminating a sense of realism from modern films. 'More important, no film is one long action sequence.' Withou this sequence of a single shot portraying a single scene with multiple meanings, a sense of realism cannot be trly obained. Always now it has to stand that each individual shot must be dynamic and portray some idea or message which cannot necessarily be controlled so easily in one continuous and unedted scene.
This sense of intensity that was created through cutting in order to satisfy the peoples' changing interests when looking at films, was soon accompanied by many other changes that increased emotion and intesnsity. An example of this is the use of framing. In older movies it was very often the case that a very weide shot, possibly a horizon shot or one of an entire room was taken showing all the actions of all the subjects all the time. While this may help to clearly illustrate the ideas of the scene to the audience it tends to lack a sense of emoiton. In newer films, countless shots are taken in order to provide every ossible angle so that when time for editing arrives, the most dynamic, thought provokning and emotional shots can be evaluated and incorporated into the final piece. Through the use of these close ups it is very easy for someone to recognize the facial expresssions of a character giving emotion to the scene and adding an 'intense' moment where only the individual character is focused on. This is also negative though because "most important, pressure toward closer views has narrowed the expressive recources abailable to preformers". While it is true that a face and its expressions can portray numerous amounts of information, the language that a whole body can portray hold endless value. Because these shots limit to simply a close-up, we lose the hints, emotions, and ideas that are portrayed through body language like weight shifts or finger tapping.
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