The Making of a Man in British Films How Masculinity Is Constructed in the Editing Room Wieland Schwanebeck (TU Dresden)
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The Making of a Man in British Films How Masculinity is Constructed in the Editing Room Wieland Schwanebeck (TU Dresden) Introduction often only comes together in the editing room, where the film finds its rhythm: n order to define what distinguishes think of the precisely choreographed Icinema as an art-form, one probably fight sequences in the films of Matthew thinks of the elementary techniques that Vaughn or Guy Ritchie, or the way in are at its disposal: the mobile camera which Danny Boyle will pace his scenes that records images, the combination according to the music he has chosen. of image and sound, and, of course, the cut, which arranges individual shots ut editing was not always the to build a sequence over time. Some Bundisputed essence of cinematic theorists go so far as to say that editing storytelling, particularly not in Great is the soul of cinema and that it is in the Britain, which for many years failed editing room that a film is truly created. to catch up with the international This means that the creative control of competition and thus earned a horrid the director should extend all the way reputation in the early 20th century. into the editing room. In fact, some of Critics would later quip that the British the most celebrated auteurs working in were genetically unable to produce great cinema today (like Alfonso Cuarón, a cinema, with François Truffaut going so multiple Oscar winner and one of today’s far as to say that the terms ‘cinema’ and most inventive mainstream directors) ‘Britain’ were incompatible, something edit their films themselves, while others that he blamed on stereotypical are known to collaborate extensively signifiers of Britishness like “the English with their editors. Either way, the countryside, the subdued way of life”, characteristic syntax of their story-telling and “the weather” (Truffaut 124). When Page 32 Hard Times 102 (2/2018) Wieland Schwanebeck it came to exploring the possibilities of Michael Balcon later commented that the medium in the early decades of the early British filmmakers were “mentally 20th century, some British filmmakers ‘stagebound’” (qtd. in Ryall 69). in fact were content to record theatre performances and otherwise left it to the ot only British cinema has come Americans to conquer the British market. Nvery far since that time, and few people today would voice the idea that he British discussion surrounding editing destroys man (neither in the Tthe cinema and especially the universal nor in the gendered sense). benefits of editing was frequently Quite the contrary, the history of cinema dominated by high-minded intellectuals suggests that montage techniques have who felt blasé about what they saw as often contributed to the making of yet another Vaudeville attraction for the a man on screen – in fact, what is the labouring classes, and who thought that famous Kuleshov experiment if not anyone seeking a career in the world of the first successful demonstration that the Keystone cops and Mickey Mouse editing, rather than performance, is the was a sell-out, not an artist. The same most effective tool when it comes to intellectuals continued to compare displaying male emotion on screen? Lev cinema unfavourably to the theatre and Kuleshov, a contemporary of Eisenstein, were opposed to the very idea of editing. famously placed the same image of a Sergei Eisenstein, for one, remembers man looking straight ahead next to a that the first montage experiments series of other images (a plate of soup, came under fire for allegedly destroying a dead child, a beautiful woman), each the very idea of man by reducing him time asking his audience to rate the to a fragmented appearance. Looking actor’s performance. In each case, the back at the early days of filmmaking, audience confirmed that the actor had Eisenstein remembers that too many shown the appropriate reaction, and they filmmakers insisted on presenting man interpreted his blank expression as hunger, “only in long uncut dramatic scenes” mourning, and sexual desire, depending (59). In 1926, the year after Eisenstein’s on the respective context (fig. 1). groundbreaking filmBattleship Potemkin premiered in Moscow, English film critic n the basis of the Kuleshov Iris Barry took the nation’s filmmakers Oexperiment, filmmakers would to task over this issue, accusing them argue that editing (rather than the of “using the screen as though it were a performance itself) was the key to stage with exits left and right” (qtd. in conveying emotion and to triggering Barr 11); on a similar note, the producer audience responses. In a wider sense, editing, and montage sequences in Page 33 Hard Times 102 (2/2018) The Making of a Man in British Films The Kuleshov effect particular, are instrumental when it comes individual shots into a sequence), to constructing masculinity on screen. montage is more specifically a sequence that condenses a longer event into a What He Needs Is a Montage short time span, usually without words. It is a somewhat controversial technique, ne of the most well-known uses of because it runs the risk of alienating editing in narrative cinema is the O the viewer, deviating (as it does) from training or sports montage that occurs the rest of the film in terms of pacing in war and mercenary films, the sports and continuity. A montage amounts to film, or the adventure film. I am using cinema saying, “Look! I’m cinema!”, the term montage not synonymously and this contradicts the traditional with editing here, though this is done paradigm of Hollywood-style narrative in some textbook introductions to film editing, which tries to be as invisible studies. Unlike the very general concept and unobtrusive as possible in order to of editing (meaning the assembly of immerse the viewers in the story. Karel Page 34 Hard Times 102 (2/2018) Wieland Schwanebeck Reisz, one of the pioneers of the British least in mainstream genre films. After New Wave and the director of films like all, the sports training derives much of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning its pleasure from an extended look at (1960) and The French Lieutenant’s aestheticized male torsos. Laura Mulvey Woman (1981), strongly warns against famously wrote about the ‘male gaze’ montage in his own introduction to film that is at work in classic Hollywood editing. He argues that montage disrupts filmmaking, and its essential set-up the cinematic “harmony of form and is potentially threatened when a male content” by drawing attention to itself (rather than a female) body is objectified, (Reisz & Millar 122). But this has not which means that the training montage stopped montage from becoming a constantly has to work (in the most popular staple in male-dominated film literal sense of the word) against the stain genres that rely on a certain notion of effeminacy. It does so by subjecting of muscular, monolithic masculinity. the protagonist(s) to hard labour and suffering. As sweating male bodies are uch montages depict the customary seen to endure all kinds of exertion and, Sbuild-up of masculinity, as the hero in some cases, outright martyrdom, the prepares for the climactic battle and viewer gets to witness how isolated (and, gets into shape, often to the sound of in some cases, disenfranchised) men an emotionally charged, rousing theme are transformed into resilient fighting tune. Rocky (1976), Sylvester Stallone’s machines and outright alpha-males. The quintessential underdog tale, was an montage frequently plays out as a non- important film in that respect, providing verbal event that both fragments the a template that genre films (not just body (so that the viewers do not indulge Rocky’s very own sequels, all of which in too much uninterrupted gazing feature increasingly iconic and campy at particular anatomic details) and, training montages) would continue to paradoxically, makes it whole at the same riff on for years. Montage sequences in time. This is because montage is always the tradition of Rocky are used to restore more than just the sum of its parts and or even produce a particular type conveys an overall impression to the of normative masculinity within the viewers, even if this means manipulating confines of narrative cinema, speeding them. To quote a famous example, the up a strenuous, time-consuming process. audience is convinced that they see Janet Moreover, they draw attention to the Leigh’s body be mutilated in the shower spectacular sight of the muscular male montage in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho body while at the same time having (1960) but in fact, the knife only touches to keep homoerotic subtexts at bay, at the body for a split second. In the case of Page 35 Hard Times 102 (2/2018) The Making of a Man in British Films the training montage, they come away (Skyfall, 2012), and it is also an integral thinking that they have witnessed the part of the ‘male underdog’ comedy, hard work necessary to build masculinity which is brimming with intersectional up from scratch, even though they have and culture-specific themes. The Full actually only been shown a small excerpt Monty (1997) is a case in point: a hit from the actual training regime with a comedy about six unemployed men from few token beads of sweat. It is also worth Sheffield who decide to put on a striptease stressing that the use of montage in the show, the film has its protagonists try to context of ‘making men’ highlights that come to terms with self-consciousness, masculinity is not naturally given but homophobia, and male anxiety in the must be achieved by way of a strenuous face of what Mulvey calls “to-be-looked- labour process, one that cinema continues at-ness” (62), usually thought of as a to accelerate and manipulate at will.