French Impressionist Cinema: Film Culture, Film Theory, and Film Style (December 1974)

196 Quick rhythmic editing is one of the most distinct textural features of French Impressionist films. Whereas no non-Impressionist narrative film examined makes use of such editing, many Impressionist works utilise patterns built of several short shots. ©Usually, such editing is in accord with the subjectivity characteristic of other features of Impressionist style, though it is no longer a matter of optical’ subjectivity but rather of affective subjectivity; the editing suggests the pace of the experience as a character "feels" it. Bauaiy this is presented by an accelerated cutting rate: shots get steadily shorter and shorter in some fixed pattern of alternation, creating a measured, quickening tempo. The conveyance of psychological or physiological states by rhythmic editing emerges most clearly in scenes of affective’ 'stréess\ ‘In L!Imhumaine, for instance, Claire's confronting of Einar's corpse in his laboratory is shown in quick rhythmic close-ups of the record on the phonograph, the corpse's face, and her face; later in the same film, short shots of her performance of a song alternating with shots of a clock pendulum indicate her excitement. in L' Auberge Rouge; tension is conveyed by even more accen~ tuated accelerated editing, A young man is tempted to rob his sleeping companion and imagines himself stealing