Best Match Cuts

[StanleyK]

It's time for a thread on the forum namer.

Going to get the two big ones out of the way:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/01/2001_match_cut.jpg

http://chud.com/articles/content_images/5/arabia.gif

Another one I like is in the opening of Schindler's List, when the smoke the from the candle becomes steam from the train engine.

Now on to more esoteric choices!

[Dukefrukem]

Google seems to be fucked right now, but the first one that comes to my mind is...

Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Spock's Funeral (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grcOV3xPd0k)... sending his body into space around the planet which turns into a sun rise. I love that fucking scene.

[number8]

Final Destination 3. Tanning beds into coffins.

[Dukefrukem]

Tommy Boy; When Tom Sr. suffers a heart attack during the wedding reception and dies. Everyone runs over and looks down at the Tom with the camera on the floor, when they step back, they're at the funeral.

[Yxklyx]

Catch-22 is a thesis on the Cut. Every scene is connected to the following scene by an audio, visual or thematic motif.

[Yxklyx]

I love the missing footage followed by a cut to:

http://images.tweaktown.com/imagebank/PlanetTerrorBD4_full.JPG

in Planet Terror.

[[ETM]]

While it's actually not a cut, the very first scene of Boyle's Sunshine comes to mind... as it seems we're getting closer to a bright dot, the Sun, it grows and there's an increasingly loud noise... as it fills out the screen, we suddenly see it's actually the ship's golden thermal shield. The camera goes behind it and makes a 180 degree turn, and we see the actual sun, infinitely larger, brighter and scarier. One of my favorite sequences, ever. Does a switcheroo like that loosely qualify as a match "cut"?

But yeah, even if it doesn't, it's bloody brilliant.

[baby doll]

Is the clip from Lawrence of Arabia a match cut? It's not a graphic match, but rather an instance of associational editing.

Anyway, how 'bout this one from L'Année dernière Ã* Marienbad?

[B-side]

Is the clip from Lawrence of Arabia a match cut? It's not a graphic match, but rather an instance of associational editing.

Yeah, I was gonna say...

[origami_mustache]

Me Myself and Irene: when he squats on the neighbors lawn to take a shit and it cuts to chocolate ice cream being dispensed from a machine.

[Sycophant]

Me Myself and Irene: when he squats on the neighbors lawn to take a shit and it cuts to chocolate ice cream being dispensed from a machine.

Oh, man. There are like 3 or 4 really incredible cuts like this in a sequence in Stephen Chow/Vincent Kok's Forbidden City Cop. I'll look later to see if I can find it online or maybe even upload it myself.

[StanleyK]

Is the clip from Lawrence of Arabia a match cut? It's not a graphic match, but rather an instance of associational editing.

The way I remembered it, the sun rose from the exact same spot as the match. I guess I should look at gifs more thoroughly.

[balmakboor]

Almost every cut in an Ozu film is a match cut in one or more senses. Within a scene, every cut is a match on action -- with is related to the kind of cuts discussed here. But he also constantly matches his cuts on objects in the frame such and Saki bottles, teapots, clocks, character's faces, and objects of the same color such as a red lampshade to a red shirt hanging on a clothes line in Good Morning.

The example from Lawrence of Arabia really isn't a match cut, but it certainly is a cut from a match. That must be worth something.

[Raiders]

The instance from Lawrence of Arabia is certainly a match cut. The term isn't only used for similarly composed shots or mise-en-scene within the shot, but to provide a smooth transition between disparately edited together spaces and/or times by linking an object from one shot to the next. Cutting from the match to the rising sun achieves this exact effect.

[balmakboor]

I thought I'd look up the definition of "match cut," but ended up finding it one of the most flexibly defined terms ever. While what I was thinking of as a "match cut" seems to be most often considered a "graphic match cut," it seems that any sort of cut other than a "jump cut" can be and has been considered a "match cut." It doesn't even seem to require the transition to be a "cut" as I always thought. I see things that are dissolves referred to as "match cuts" all over the place.

So, yeah, the cut from Lawrence of Arabia is a "match cut." Or, whatever one calls it, it is certainly a great transition.

By the way, there is a wonderful "match cut" in the 2001: ASO sense early in A Canterbury Tale. There is also a terrific series of cuts matching both picture and sound during the letter reading sequence in The Color Purple.

[Ezee E]

Just saw an awesome one:

Point of view from the werewolf, he's climbing up the escalator, the werewolf is about to eat his next victim.

MATCH CUT TO:

Lion roaring the next morning.

[BuffaloWilder]

Too many from Coppola's Dracula to list come to mind.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Lost's "The Constant" has four or five fantastic match-cuts that follow protagonist Desmond perfectly. That's probably the most notable recent example I can offer. Another classic is the aural "match-cut" (does that count?) of the woman screaming to the train whistling in Hitchcock's Blackmail.

[Amnesiac]

The cut in Jurassic Park: The Lost World from the mother's screaming reaction at finding her daughter being attacked by Compys to this:

http://www.agonyboothmedia.com/images/articles/The_Lost_World__Jurassic_Park_ 1997/ian_yawn.jpg

Not nearly as great as the 2001 example of course, but still amusingly effective.

[Raiders]

The cut in Jurassic Park: The Lost World from the mother's screaming reaction at finding her daughter being attacked by Compys to this:

http://www.agonyboothmedia.com/images/articles/The_Lost_World__Jurassic_Park_ 1997/ian_yawn.jpg

Not nearly as great as the 2001 example of course, but still amusingly effective.

YES. I actually wanted to make mention of this upon reading the thread but forgot. One of my favorite cuts. It actually to me always made Goldblum look like a giant with that tree behind him. I don't even know how intentional it all was, but hilarious. Every time it is coming on, I watch up through that cut and then turn it off.

[trotchky]

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/1628/28314939.jpg
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8049/bn2.jpg

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/9823/mag1.jpg
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/7158/mag2w.jpg

[Yxklyx]

By the way, there is a wonderful "match cut" in the 2001: ASO sense early in A Canterbury Tale.

Medieval man looking up at the sky - cut to bird flying upwards - cut to airplane flying downwards - cut to modern soldier (same actor) looking up at the sky.

[balmakboor]

Medieval man looking up at the sky - cut to bird flying upwards - cut to airplane flying downwards - cut to modern soldier (same actor) looking up at the sky.

Yep. I was trying to google some screenshots earlier, but failed miserably.

[trotchky]

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/1628/28314939.jpg
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8049/bn2.jpg

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/9823/mag1.jpg
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/7158/mag2w.jpg

That first one is actually terrible, I'm not sure why I posted it.

The second one is pretty good though.

[StanleyK]

That first one is actually terrible, I'm not sure why I posted it.

The second one is pretty good though.

Why is it terrible? It's a pretty good transition to me; the doors close on Dirk's old life, and they open to his new one.

[Skitch]

Brotherhood of the Wolf is the winner. Monica Belluci bewbs into rolling hills.

[balmakboor]

That first one is actually terrible, I'm not sure why I posted it.

The second one is pretty good though.

Honestly, I have no idea what those are even from. They look P.T. Anderson-ish, but I'm not sure. It's hard to imagine what is being matched in the cuts as well. You should provide a brief commentary.

[StanleyK]

Honestly, I have no idea what those are even from. They look P.T. Anderson-ish, but I'm not sure. It's hard to imagine what is being matched in the cuts as well. You should provide a brief commentary.

The first one is from Boogie Nights. It occurs at a turning point in the film, where Dirk leaves home and fully embraces his new life as a porn star.

The second one is from Magnolia, and it's in the opening montage set to 'One' where we're introduced to all the characters. Stanley closes the car door in front of his house, and then it cuts to him opening the car door in front of his school.

[trotchky]

The first one is from Boogie Nights. It occurs at a turning point in the film, where Dirk leaves home and fully embraces his new life as a porn star.

The second one is from Magnolia, and it's in the opening montage set to 'One' where we're introduced to all the characters. Stanley closes the car door in front of his house, and then it cuts to him opening the car door in front of his school.
Yeah this. As for the second one, the shot is a deceptively simple, brilliant device that immediately communicates everything that's fucked in Stanley's relationship with his dad, and most of the other relationships in the film for that matter.

[Ezee E]

Brotherhood of the Wolf is the winner. Monica Belluci bewbs into rolling hills.
Haha. Wasn't that a fade though?

[StanleyK]

Another one I remembered, in Children of Men:

At the end of the long take in the car, the camera pans to the legs of the two dead soldiers. Match cut to the legs of the dead Julian as Miriam and Kee perform a burial ritual on her.

Not quite sure what it means, but it's great.

[Skitch]

Haha. Wasn't that a fade though?

Yeaaaah...I guess. Still makes me laugh everytime, tho. :)

[jamaul]

Not an example from anything anyone here has seen, but me and a friend of mine recently shot and cut together a short film - a short little action/chase film we produced in our area - and in the scene, Character A turns their back on Character B, whom he's contemplating killing. He is facing camera in a close-up with his back turned to CB. CA finally decides to kill CB, so he turns around and points the gun off camera, facing CB once again. Now, we cut the movement where he turns from his close up, to a Medium of him pointing the gun at CB. We would have certainly gone for a smooth match-cut (on the action of turning away from camera, back toward CB), but realized that if we repeat the movement of him turning in both shots, it was far more effective dramatically, and the audience doesn't notice that the actor has just turned around twice.

I can't think of an example of this in a movie off the top of my head, but I love subtle techniques like this that should, by all means, not work, but somehow do even though they completely break the rules of continuity.

[Sycophant]

Yeah, so long as you've got some kind of matching motion, it can obscure even great discontinuities. Editing is a beautiful thing.

[BuffaloWilder]

I'll go ahead and throw Happy Feet in here, because why not? Particularly, the transition from the Huddle, with Memphis and the egg, into the sunrise. And, even later on, the breaking of the ice into the cracking of the egg.

I'm sure there are more, but those are two that stand out in my mind, at the moment.