How editing contributes to aesthetics in The Gold Rush and Do The Right Thing

Compare how editing contributes to the aesthetics of one film from the silent era and one film from 1961–90 that you have studied. Give detailed examples from both films. [35]

-The Gold Rush and Do The Right Thing

Editing is used in both Spike Lee's 1989 film 'Do The Right Thing' (DTRT) and Charles Chaplin's 1925 comedy 'The Gold Rush' to contribute to each film's stylised aesthetic relating to their tonal approaches, contexts, and explored themes: the hyperbolic, saturated, and politically charged aesthetics of DTRT reflected in its various conventional and unconventional editing techniques versus the traditional editing approaches of the Hollywood silent era to contribute to The Gold Rush's comedic tone. 

Spike Lee uses montage frequently in DTRT to convey tone and mood, evoke active responses from spectators, and convey socio-political ideas relating to the film's themes regarding race tensions in a diverse New York community. The most overt and hyperbolic example in the film occurs as characters representative of each ethnic community shout racial slurs towards the camera, unconventionally breaking the fourth wall to stimulate active spectatorship. The camera moves towards each character into a close-up as an example of match-on-action, each situated centre frame, to create a rhythmic pattern and thus create the impression that each character is cemented in their own racial prejudice, juxtaposition created as they are simultaneously brought together in this sequence through the matched cuts despite being positioned as opposed to one another in their dialogue. The mise-en-scene is reflective of each character's background such as the police officer's uniform and car, the Italian-American Pino's pizzeria - ironically calling black people as 'gold-chain wearing' though he wears two himself -, and the Korean shop owner foregrounding his store; Lee, in this example of an Overtonal montage (an Eisenstein theory), shows that despite being such a tight-knit community, as established earlier in the film as protagonist Mookie walks to work (the lack of editing as the camera tracks his journey in a kinetic parallel to his and the community's activity), it is layered with a racial tension that is active and thus potentially violent, foreshadowing the later conflict in the film between Buggin Out/Radio Raheem, and Sal. The editing for this climax is incredibly rapid and arranged in extreme high versus low angles in shot-reverse-shots to establish the continuity of rising tension against Buggin'/Raheem and Sal to construct their opposing viewpoints, with repeated cutbacks to the peripheral characters as they all shout for the conflict to cease or encourage it, the sound layered into one chaotic melting-pot of racial tension in the use of sound bridges. Lee also uses montage earlier in the film to establish the intense 100-degree heat, contributing to the similarly reflected saturated aesthetics of heat in a consistently warm palette encoding tension and claustrophobia (a Stuart Hall theory), heat lamps placed under cameras, and habitual canted angles to echo the tension of heat. Succeeding this aesthetic establishment, Lee includes a both tonal and rhythmic montage of cooling down; a slow-motion close-up of someone underneath a shower head, Tina plunging herself in iced water, the camera panning over newspapers recording the heat, and a group of Peurto-Ricans drinking beer. The un-sensationalised and relatively long duration of each shot emphasises the tonal effects of cooling down, a contrast to the turbulent effects of heat as exampled in the film's climax. 

The Gold Rush contrastingly, as an example of a film made in cinema's relative infancy, uses conventional Hollywood approaches to communicate its light-hearted comedy against the aesthetic backdrop of icy Alaskan mountains. In The Tramp's introduction, Chaplin walks across the edge of an icy cliff, this sequence juxtaposed against the montage of establishing shots of prospectors climbing up mountains in search of gold to isolate Chaplin's character as an impractical and comedic outsider, this being the overarching tonal aesthetic of the film. In the conventional continuity editing, the 180 degree rule unbroken to establish setting, the timing of shots is crucial for comedy to be conveyed. For example, after two shots of the Tramp's journey across the cliff, his character exposited to the spectator through performance, costume, and situation, dramatic irony is constructed as a bear walks into frame, the camera capturing this in a further two shots before the bear walks into a cave as The Tramp turns around in perfect comedic timing. This serves to contribute to the thematic ideas of the film and construct a nuanced character; without the editing drawing the pace out for this irony to work, the narrative and characterisation of Chaplin - recurringly escaping fatal danger - would not be as successfully communicated to the spectator. Thus, in juxtaposition to Lee's use of montage to convey aesthetic and tone, disrupting convention to communicate the film's discourse, Chaplin uses editing to conventionally construct narrative and the comedic tone rather than craft an atmospheric and intellectual aesthetic as is the case in DTRT. 

DTRT, like The Gold Rush, uses conventional editing techniques to construct character, though with a definite focus on conveying the film's cultural and socio-political tone. Sound is manipulated in J and L cuts as Mookie discusses Pino's racial prejudices to him: by cutting mid-sentence in accordance with a single reverse shot on each character, the effect is created that though they are conventionally positioned together through the shot-reverse-shots, they are not truly listening because the spectator's focus is drawn to each character's reaction of denial and disagreement rather than to what they are saying: this contributes to the whole tone of the film as yet another example of a conversation left unfinished and unresolved, adding to the melting-pot of misunderstanding and rising tension. This scene is also edited directly before the episodic racial slur montage, this jump-cut contributing to the hyperbolic, direct, and socio-politically charged aesthetic through its sudden and unexpected nature. Lee also uses editing to canonically contribute to the subsequently turbulent and stylised visual effects. This is anchored in the film's opening credits, where an example of another Overtonal montage is used, through its combination of a saturated, stylised, and provocative tone in the mise-en-scene and breaking of the fourth wall as Tina dances provocatively to the music. To start this sequence, a multitude of silhouetted poses are rapidly edited across the screen to the beat of the music to stimulate active spectatorship with an episodic cutting between different sets, time, locations, and costumes reflecting the episodic narrative of the film. Match-on-action is used to establish continuity between shots as Tina dances parallel to the canonical saturated colouring of red and blue connoting police sirens, encoded (Hall) urban motifs like graffiti and Brooklyn streets, and stylised performance, though conventions such as the 180 degree rule are broken in different angles to create a turbulent visual style.

Like the Gold Rush, such short takes draw out a focused theme or idea and create a rhythmic energy for characters. For example, continuity editing is used by Chaplin to contribute to the film's tonal comedy, though with an underlying level of poignancy to position sympathy for the Tramp, this level of pathos throughout the majority of the film used to create a nuanced character that audiences generally respond well to as a preferred reading (a Stuart Hall theory). For example, as The Tramp visits the dance hall, he perceives that the Proppian Princess Georgia has made eye contact with him and moves to introduce herself. By not breaking the 180 degree rule and arranging shots with matched eyeline between Georgia and The Tramp, an impression is created that they are positioned together despite Georgia actually spotting a friend, and the spectator is positioned alongside the Tramp through obscuring this detail and manipulating continuity editing conventions to setup comedy. Chaplin draws this scene out in repeated cutbacks between the two to emphasise the Tramp's situation, and like DTRT - though less explicit - this editing conveys socio-political ideas relating to class; the Tramp's poverty makes him unrespectable in the eyes of Georgia, whose higher status affords her social popularity and admiration against the Tramp's isolation, this juxtaposition crafted in the opposition of each character, evident in their differing costumes. This sentiment is echoed again as he is left alone on News Years eve: cross cutting is used between single shots of the Tramp and the various group shots of the dance hall, juxtaposed to another, creating the Kuleshov effect of sympathy, constructing the Tramp's loneliness and melancholy, the pathos of his character directly exposed to the spectator as a preferred reading.  

Therefore, the use of editing in each film is used to construct narrative, character, and contribute to each film's aesthetic tone and thematic ideas. Both manipulate the conventions of continuity editing to convey the poignant comedy of Chaplin and the expressionistically hyperbolic thematic discourse in DTRT.