The technique of film editing (1958)

one would cut back to the medium shot as Hardy crashes on to the pavement. Both cuts would be very smooth and the audience would laugh as Hardy fell, but they would not be getting the biggest laugh possible out of the scene. The answer lies in a very old comedy maxim : Tell them what you're going to do. Do it. Tell them you've done it. In other words the scene should be cut like this : 1. Medium-shot of Laurel and Hardy running along the street. 2. Close-up of banana skin lying on pavement. (You have told your audience what you are going to do and they will start to laugh.) 3. Medium-shot of Laurel and Hardy still running. (The audience will laugh still more.) Hold the shot on for several seconds of running before Hardy finally crashes to the pavement. (The odds are that the audience will reward you with a belly laugh. Having told them what you are going to do, and having done it, how do you tell them you've done it ?) 4. A close-up of Laurel making an inane gesture of despair. (The audience will laugh again.)1 Why is it that the second, edited version will get so much greater response than the first ? Pleasure and amusement at other people's (especially fat comedians') discomfort or loss of dignity seems to be a universal reaction. It is not the only source of humour but it is one potent one. Realising that the spectator will be amused by Hardy's misfortune, the editor deliberately sets out to stress Hardy's helplessness. Shot 2 is simply an announcement of what is going to happen : it puts the spectator, as it were, one jump ahead of the victim and gives him a feeling of amused superiority. Clearly, this foreknowledge makes Hardy look even sillier because the spectator is aware of the banana skin, while Hardy (Poor fool !) is not. This feeling of superiority sharpens the enjoyment of the joke and can therefore be further exploited : the few seconds of anticipation at the beginning of shot 3 give another opportunity to savour the joke to the full. After this, cutting to Laurel's inane gesture (4) evokes a sort of I-could-have-told-you-so reaction which is just what is needed. The continuity of shots, as David Lean stresses, is by no means ideal if we are thinking in terms of smooth cutting. The important thing in the three cuts is that they each make a separate humorous point in that each shows a new — and funnier — aspect of the same situation. The fact that the cuts may be visually slightly objectionable becomes irrelevant. The editing of this incident can be considered as a working model of every banana-slipping, custard-pie-throwing joke that has ever been well made. It demonstrates a simple but highly 1 Working for the Films. Edited by Oswell Blakeston. Focal Press, 1947, p. 29. The quotation is from an article on Film Direction by David Lean. 104