Extending the Field of Editing A Study of the Problematic Form of Films

This paper consists in the proposition of a systematic extension of the domain of editing. On one hand, it puts forward some leads to link the local level (the film edited shot by shot) together with the global level (the film conceived as a whole). On the other hand, it presents the latter as a huge formal problem, which cannot be managed without studying editing with other dimensions: from frames to narration, until spectator’s whole interpretation activity demanded by the film. It is an analytic and synthetic approach, based on articulation and on comparison, in a semiotic and in a historic way – inspired by a certain formalist epistemology that put its mark on Art History. Finally, if editing is not a simple technique but a conceptual issue, it is a matter of taking terminology seriously. Thus, by means of some case studies, the paper discusses the difference between “scene” and “sequence”, “composition” and “montage”, “components” and “fragments”, “parts” and “details”…