Oct 23 2007
Breaking rules 2.0
Shooting a western, so the story goes, John Ford was concerned about the amount of time a cowboy took to leave the saloon, get on his horse, and ride off.
As there was no other coverage, Ford asked the editor to jumpcut the sequence: “Get him on the darn horse”.
The Editor complained, Ford countered: “Sure it is a bad cut, but it only hurts for a second. The other way, it hurt for a lot longer…”
I imagine a similar conversation between Claude Lelouch and his editor when the mustang disconcertingly changes screen direction 30 seconds into this sequence from A Man and a Woman - a seminal movie for anyone interested in hand-held cinematography.
