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There are many different cuts and transitions used in the 1946 film, The Best Years of Our Lives. The director, William Wyler , edit’s the film in a very particular way, “edited images may leap from one location to another or one time to another and may show different perspectives on the same event.” (Corrigan, Timothy 143). This film uses many different cuts to gain the actors, or characters understanding of the emotion that is happening in the movie. The Best Years of Our Lives also uses fade-in and fade-outs to switch to different scenes. Another tool the director used in this film is a dissolve between the different scenes. These different methods help the viewer get the full effect of the film The Best Years of Our Lives.
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Cuts are, “the break and the common border that separates two shots from two different pieces of film” (Corrigan, Timothy 143). The cuts are very important to the film, The Best Years of Our Lives. The cuts allow the audience to view the many different actors and their emotions in one scene. In the Timothy Corrigan text there is a passage about The Best Years of Our Lives, in which it explains the importance of the scene cuts in the film. “After the characters on the right shifts his attention to the character in the background, we are presented with a cut isolated them” (Corrigan, Timothy 144). The cuts are used in that fashion to grab the audience attention and throw it towards what the camera is putting its attention on. Then the Corrigan text also says that “the use of a cut usually follows a particular logic, in this case emphasizing the significance of an action” (Corrigan, Timothy 145). The cuts are used to grab the audiences attention.
http://irkedmagazine.com/wanderingagoraphobe/leah/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/best_years_of_our_lives_01_bar.jpgThere are also a few other transitional methods that William Wyler has used. For example the fade-ins and fade-outs between each scene. Fade- outs are not really used throughout The Best Years of Our Lives, only at a few certain scenes. Fades -outs are, “A gradual disappearance of an image or sound, as in cinema, television, or radio” ("Fade-outs - Definition of Fade-outs by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia"). But at many points fade-ins occur. Fade-ins are, “an optical effect in which a shot appears gradually out of darkness” ("Fade-ins - Definition of Fade-ins by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia"). In the beginning of the film, it was completely faded-in. Fade-ins are usually used for, “a more visible break.” Fade-ins and fade-outs are mostly used when cutting scene to scene.
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Dissolves are also used in The Best Year of Our Lives, to cut scene to scene. Dissolves are used, “In film editing, a dissolve is a gradual transition from one image to another. In film, this effect is created by controlled double exposure from frame to frame; transitioning from the end of one clip to the beginning of another”("Dissolve (filmmaking) - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia"). When they are dissolving to a different scene its usually between two different sets of characters. Dissolving is better used when then cuts because they are more of a cleaner cut. “The cut and the dissolve are used differently. A camera cut changes the perspective from which a scene is portrayed. It's as if the viewer suddenly and instantly moved to a different place, and could see the scene from another angle. Obvious hard cuts may startle the viewer. For that reason, a dissolve is often used in continuity editing to "soften up" jump cuts or similar problematic cuts” ("Dissolve (filmmaking) - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia"). Dissolves are used in this film to make the cuts cleaner.
There are many different cuts and transitions used in the 1946 film, The Best Years of Our Lives. Each of these cuts are used for a distinct reason. This reason is the audience gets to see what is important to the director. Fade-ins and Fade-outs are also used in the film to switch to different cuts. Dissolves are also used to jump into different scenes in a cleaner fashion. Each one of these techniques are used to appease the viewer.
Works Cited
The Best Years of Our Lives. Dir. William Wyler. Prod. Samuel Goldwyn. By Robert E. Sherwood. Perf. Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, Cathy O'Donnell, Hoagy Carmichael, and Harold Russell. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., 1946.
"Continuity Editing - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia." Main Page - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 16 Apr. 2010.
Corrigan, Timothy, and Patricia Barry. The Film Experience: an Introduction. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. Print.
"Dissolve (filmmaking) - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia." Main Page - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 16 Apr. 2010.
"Fade-ins - Definition of Fade-ins by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia." Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary. Web. 16 Apr. 2010.
"Fade-outs - Definition of Fade-outs by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia." Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary. Web. 16 Apr. 2010.
