Mondo Knows Facts
The Kuleshov effect shows how editing makes meaning
The same face was cut against different images and read differently Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov cut shots of an actor's neutral expression against a bowl of soup, a coffin and a woman, and audiences reportedly praised the performance in each version. Whether the experiment ran exactly as described is disputed, but the idea that viewers build meaning between shots shaped film theory. It sits in Mondo's movies & tv collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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The 180 degree rule keeps screen space consistentCameras stay on one side of an imaginary line between two peopleThe bone to satellite cut spans millenniaKubrick cut from a thrown bone to an orbiting satellite in one frameBreathless used jump cuts to break continuityJean-Luc Godard cut inside scenes, making time appear to skipConversation scenes are built from opposing camera anglesShot and reverse shot are filmed separately and edited to look continuousMelies found the substitution splice by accidentA jammed camera turned a passing bus into a hearse, and he used itThe negative cutter assembles the original filmThey match the edit list to the camera negative and cement each shot in order
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Tags: editing, soviet-union, theory
The Kuleshov effect shows how editing makes meaning: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- The same face was cut against different images and read differently. The figure is taken from BFI, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a movies & tv fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Movies & TV shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.