I just reread my previous post on Continuity vs Montage Editing and thought that I undervalued continuity editing and concentrated too much on the montage end of the spectrum. I just want to rebalance the equation a little bit.

Continuity editing is very much Hollywood in that directors wanted to tell stories that were relatively easy to follow for anyone who came to see the films. Whereas montage editing came from a much more artistic background where the appreciation of art was elitist in concept, continuity editing was designed to make following cinematic stories accessible to anyone and heavily linked to the business of filmmaking. If your punters cannot understand or follow your films then they are unlikely to come back to the cinema and spend their hard earned cash.

So, a new grammar of film was born to make popular films or movies that would entice a large audience to watch them. The elements of continuity editing contained a reliance on chronology. Generally, actions happened in actual time sequence even if the time was shortened or lengthened for dramatic effect. One action leads to a consequential action. This was occasionally interrupted when directors began to use flashbacks to add depth and understanding to stories.

Secondly, two adjacent scenes were usually linked in some way. It could be one of a number of ways. The same location, the same people. There was usually at least one constant in both scenes. There was also the technique of the dialogue of the second scene coming in before the visuals of the second scene – a linking mechanism. Vice versa the dialogue of the first scene foreshadows the location or persons of the next scene before you actually see it. That way, the audience can see how the scenes are joined and prevents them having to think too much about the progression of the story. They are  merely being swept along with the director’s vision and narrative of the film. It’s like the director is whispering in the collective ear of the audience explaining what is going on. In a purely montage film, the director is more like an reclusive artist who says to the audience make of it what you will. There may be a message hidden in there but you have to actively work to find it.

If it wasn’t for continuity editing then cinema would be very elitist and cinemas would be like art galleries today. It made the cinema open to everyone, young and old, rich or poor, educated or uneducated. It allowed the audience to be entertained and formed the bedrock for current popular cinema.