Space and time in modern cinema: some staging procedures

Summary

The theories that consider editing the basis of film narrative, tend to disregard that shot, the narrative unit which preserves the unities of time and space, has also been a formal element of film narrative from the origins of cinema. Modern cinema, from the writings of André Bazin and the experiences of Renoir, Welles, and Ophüls, reinstates the sequence shot as a more faithful representation of space and time in reality, as well as a stylistic possibility which eschews the rhetorical procedures of editing. Another of the stylistic procedures of contemporary cinema is the systematic use of 'off-screen space' with a narrative intention. Both spaces—the seen and the unseen—interact either to withhold information temporarily, to create a specific tension, or to elide the obvious or expected response. Both procedures, the 'off-screen shot' sequence and the use of space in "off" have been favored innovatively by some of the most prominent contemporary producers.