Examining the Reflection of "Time" in "The Piano"

Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993) explores the make-up of sexuality for the time in which it was set, the 19th Century in New Zealand. The film surrounds Ada, a mute Scotswoman who was married off by her father to a man in a different country without even having a say. Again, we are not even a full minute into the movie and the differentiation between our time and the early 19th Century is being demonstrated. These relations are often addressed throughout the film in one form or another. Many things are realized in this short period of viewing, the fact that she has a daughter, and the director never gives us a true explanation as to where or what happened to her father. The director leaves these questions unanswered and leaves us to purely speculate what happened to the girl’s father. Also, the girl not having a father has an effect on the man to which her mother is now married to and this plays a large part in the lack of development for a relationship between the mother and the now father.
The relationship status between Ada and her new husband never truly develops either and this leads to sexual tension between Ada and Baines. She has needs and although she shows resistance in reaction to the deal Baines offers her in order to get her piano back. Her reluctance eventually turns to desire, but she is a woman and both genders have sexual needs. Ada also doesn’t feel fully compelled to commit to her marriage because it was not her choice, so she may feel like she has more freedom to do what she wants to, even though she technically does not. Since the sexual tension between Ada and Baines starts to build, her husband begins to become suspicious to the fact that she is visiting Baines after the fact that he gave her piano back. This leads to jealousy and he boards Ada up in the house. Shortly after, Ada tries to have a sensual relationship with her husband, but only with her committing acts and not having him involved. He did not appreciate this approach and turned her away, showing how he always has to have a sense of control over everything. When Ada finally makes an attempt to send a piano key to Baines when her husband let’s her go, her daughter brings it to the husband instead. This leads to craziness among jealousy and leads to Ada getting her finger cut off and a confrontation in which her husband confronts Baines in his house with a loaded gun while he is sleeping. This is a sort of cowardly approach, but also an understandable one too.
Irony strikes on their way back to Scotland, as Ada demands that the piano be thrown overboard. After a long argument, it is agreed that the piano be thrown over the side of the boat, but as it falls it hooks on to her leg. There was irony in the fact that it was difficult for her to untie her legs as a result to her finger being cut off. All of these events tied together. However, she was able to kick her shoe off and swim to the top, and this moment was not a predictable one and had me on the edge of my seat. All in all, this film explores many options and did a fantastic job corresponding with the time frame that it was dealt.

Sounds of Cinema

"The cinema is an audiovisual medium, one that saturates our contemporary media experience" (The Film Experience: An Introduction pp.186). Most of the visual technology that we use everyday, also is a sound technology. Examples include: television, video games, computers, mp3 players, along with many more. Sound is used as a compliment to aid the visuals and amuse the audience. In film, sound affects the way the viewer feels, in the sense the sounds control the emotion of the audience. Certain music in horror films can make the audience suspenseful, while certain music in comedies can keep the audience entertained. In animation, sounds are often used to exaggerate an action of a character, especially in classic cartoons such as Looney Tunes (1929).



Sound is pivotal to any film and any genre. Even some silent films include sound, but not peoples voices. They include music among other miscellaneous sound effects. Now a days, a movie can be followed strictly through the communication of listening to it. The dialogue is often so deep that the story is practically narrated by the characters acting it out. Some directors even go so far as to make the screen go black for a short period of time, all the while keeping the characters talking, forcing the audience to follow along through sound.

Sound, unlike images, cannot be distinguished from its original when it is edited. "With images, we readily recognize that we see only a two-dimensional copy of the original" (The Film Experience: An Introduction pp.191). Sound is much easier to incorporate into a film than the editing of images, but this was not always the case. A perfect example would be old Asian movies. Often times the sound would not match up with the movement of the characters mouth, and the character would often finish speaking before the sentence was completed. Sound editing has come a long way since sound was first included in cinema. One area in particular where sound has flourished is in musicals. Westside Story (1961) is one of the most popular musicals of all time, and one of the first musicals to be a cinema success. Incorporating sound into film has brought some of Broadway's finest work to a much larger audience who wouldn't otherwise have a chance to see one.

Sound is an afterthought for most viewers, even for most filmmakers. Since film is meant to be dominated by visual, sound is not the main focus. Sound recording is something that takes place in the development of every film. "When the slate is filmed at the beginning of each take, the clapboard is snapped; this recorded sound is used to synchronize sound recordings and camera images" (The Film Experience: An Introduction pp.196). Microphones may also be placed around the set or on the actors to help the sound quality.

Relating Images: Editing

Editing is everywhere. It happens in the film industry, in the television industry and especially in the magazine industry. Editing can be seen "in store windows, on highway billboards, or on television when we channel surf" (The Film Experience: An Introduction pp.136). A director of a film only lets us see the things that he wants us to see. Therefore, he can edit out any of the things that he believes have little to no meaning during the juncture of his film. Also, images are linked together from different periods of time; however, this is not something we ever see in everyday life. "Thus we find that a film consisting of eight hundred or more images makes sense" (The Film Experience: An Introduction pp.136).



There are many ways in which editing is used in film. Some of these ways include: establishing continuity in a film, emphasizing particular patterns or graphics, organizing images as being meaningful, and edited certain images in which they are based on a break in the film. Personally, when I watch a film I notice "the cut and other transitions". This is an important process because it leads the audience onto the next scene with what is a usually smooth transition. "The earliest films consisted of a single shot, which could run only as long as the reel of film in the camera lasted" (The Film Experience: An Introduction pp.143). Technology has obviously been largely enhanced since this was what now seems to be a pre-historic time. Another method, well the only method, of editing during earlier years required the camera man to pause the reel. The stage workers would then rearrange the scene and proceed with the filming of the movie. Filming a movie using this method would obviously be a complicating thing, so new methods had to be constructed.

What is known as the cut is the foundation on which film editing is based upon. The cut "describes the break and the common border that separate two shots from two different pieces of film" (The Film Experience: An Introduction pp.143). This is used in mostly every scene in a movie and goes unrecognized because the viewers have become so adapted to it. Also, using this particular method gives multiple perspectives and viewpoints to the audience.



Edits can also be used to identify with the personality of a film. Certain ways can be used to have an adverse effect on our reactions, such as fading out, fading in, and in an older fashion, dissolving. According to film editor, Walter Murch, there are six main criteria for evaluating a cut. This is called the "Rule of Six". Here is his list in descending order of importance: 1) Emotion 2) Story 3) Rhythm 4) Eye-Trace 5) Two-Dimensional Plane of Screen 6) Three-Dimensional Space of Action.

•Emotion — Does the cut reflect what the editor believes the audience should be feeling at that moment?

•Story — Does the cut advance the story?

•Rhythm — Does the cut occur "at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and 'right'"

•Eye-trace — Does the cut pay respect to "the location and movement of the audience's focus of interest within the frame"

•Two-dimensional plane of the screen — Does the cut respect the 180 degree rule?

•Three-dimensional space of action — Is the cut true to the physical/spatial relationships within the diegesis?

Editing is one of the most important facets in a film. The director uses editing to control the emotions of the audience and keep a story line fresh. This can make or break a film.


WORKS CITED

"How to Edit" introtoediting.com. Web. 10 Apr. 2010
"Film Editing" wikipedia.org. Web. 10 Apr. 2010