While film can encompass elements of many other art forms – music, performance, visual composition, etc. – some techniques like the match cut are solely the province of the medium. The match cut, a juxtaposition achieved by cutting from one object to another different, yet visually similar object, has been with us since the advent of the art form and remains a powerful tool for directors. In fact, a particularly audacious example featuring a certain part of the anatomy was one of the most talked about things at this year’s Cannes festival.
A video essay from Celia Gomez provides an overview of this technique through the years. Encompassing a wide range of genres the essay leans towards newer American films, but it does include some of the textbook examples from classic cinema. Hitchcock, a master of the technique, used it with a macabre sense of humor after the famous shower scene in “Psycho,” withholding visual detail through inventive camera work so that the audience sees Marion’s blood circling the drain before he finally confirms what’s happened with a spinning match cut to her lifeless eye. Yet an even more macabre example is the essay’s earliest addition, the famous eye-slicing scene from Dali and Bunuel’s intentionally provoking “Un Chien Andalou,” a cri-de-couer for the ability of film to shock and unsettle audiences.
By positioning some great directors alongside more typical ones, the audience can see what makes the great match cuts truly special. While some of the examples merely use the technique for narrative expediency or to just “look cool,” the greatest directors can embed an intellectual point in one simple cut. Perhaps the biggest conceptual leap comes from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” where Stanley Kubrick meticulously matches a bone thrown in the air by a primitive ape with a flying spaceship. In an instant, this cut collapses literal millennia of primates’ use of tools, setting the stage for the film’s mind-expanding exploration of human development.