Stagecoach: Narrative Structure

• Double Plot
• Action: Ringo's quest for justice
• Romance: Ringo and Dallas
• Subplots: Indian revolt; stories of minor characters
• Narrative alternation between:
• Scenes on the open road
• The various stops along the way (Tonto, Dry Fork, Apache Wells, Lee's Ferry, Lordsburg)
• Rhythmic alternation of sequences
• Broad, epic panoramas of the landscape (Monument Valley)
• Intimate 2-shots and closeups in the coach

Stagecoach: Overall Style

• Genre conventions: the expectations we bring to a Western
• Indian attack
• Rescue by US Cavalry
• Final shootout with the bad guys
• Indexical character development: traits that define the characters (think of Doc Boone, Hatfield, Buck, etc.)
• Musical cues
• Showing vs. Telling
• Economy of means: tell the story as efficiently as possible

Construction of Scenes and Sequences:

The Dry Fork Sequence

• Social relations among the characters
• Decision over whether to go on or to turn back
• Misunderstandings: Ringo and Dallas
• Characters seated around dining table
• Meanings conveyed by the characters' shifting positions around the table, and by the interchange of looks
• Movement between establishing shots, and medium or two-shots

Editing and Space:
Seating in the Stagecoach

Stagecoach: Stylistic Nuances

• Dramatic introduction of Ringo
• Close-ups for expressive details (e.g., glances between Ringo and Dallas)
• Elisions for surprise and special emphasis
• Effects precede causes (Peacock hit by arrow)
• Partly offscreen action (death of Hatfield)
• Hearing events before seeing them (Cavalry rides to the rescue)
• The final shootout (delay in finding out what happens)
• Shifts in perspective (pan reveals Indians on cliff)
• Variations of rhythm and perspective in Indian attack sequence

Stagecoach: Innovations

• Orson Welles says he watched Stagecoach 40 times before shooting Citizen Kane
• Use of deep focus (corridor in Apache Wells sequence)
• Sets with visible ceilings
• Articulation of action via movement toward and away from the camera, instead of via editing

Stagecoach: Ideology and Form

• Overall 1930s Liberalism
• Outcasts (Ringo, Dallas, Doc) as good guys
• Satire of `respectable' society
• Gatewood, right-wing banker, as crook and bad guy
• Limitations: Race and Gender
• Indians presented as villains
• Ambivalent view of Mexicans
• Women confined to domestic roles
• Ford and the mythology of the Old West
• Relation of form (continuity) and content

Editing: The Hollywood Continuity System

• Editing used to ensure narrative continuity
• Creating a smooth flow from shot to shot
• Implicitly privileges storytelling over style (what is said or told takes precedence over how it is said or told)
• Ideology of the continuity system
• Assumptions of "realism"
• Need to comfort, rather than challenge, the audience
• Confirming, rather than opposing, the status quo
• Individual scenes are edited in accordance with continuity rules, even when the film as a whole is nonlinear or discontinuous (e.g., Pulp Fiction)

The Continuity System: Aims and Effects

• Aims of Continuity Editing
• Systematize the procedures for editing a scene
• Establish coherence in relations of space and time
• Emulate the habits of "normal" perception
• Effects of Continuity Editing
• Analytical editing: the action is broken down in the service of narrative continuity and clarity
• Hiding the camera, focusing our attention upon what is photographed, rather than upon how it is photographed
• Suture: the different pieces of film are joined together
• We are given a fixed location in the world of the film, a place from which to look

Basic Rules of Continuity Editing

• Axis of action: defines 180-degree semicircle
• Editing Sequences
• Establishing Shot
• Shot/Reverse Shot pattern
• Re-establishing shot
• Eyeline matches
• Matches on action
• 30-degree rule

The 180-Degree Rule

Homogeneity of Space and Time

• Spatial consistency and continuity
• Graphic continuity
• Figures balanced and centered in frame
• Lighting is bright and even
• Rhythmic continuity
• The longer the shot, the longer its duration
• Quicken editing to dramatize action
• Temporal continuity: plot time = story time

Refinements of Continuity Editing

• Shifting the axis of action within a scene
• Crosscutting
• Point-of-view cutting
• Head-on and tail-on shots
• Occasional cheat cuts (all rules are made to be broken)