Découpage: The Not So Easy Argument

Découpage, as described in the "Translator's Notes to pages 40-45" cannot be qualified by one specific writer. The word is a valuable piece of art with infinite meanings. In reading furthermore about Découpage, the conclusions I am beginning to come to are the following (and I will elaborate on each).

1. Découpage does have to do with not the actually editing itself, rather the process of figuring out how each image places next to each other creates meaning.
2. Découpage encompasses both the preproduction and post production.
3. Découpage has as much to do with the mise-en-scene in the frame as the actual events taking place in the scene
4. Découpage embodies multiple definitions, because a lot like movies, perception changes over time, giving words, especially this word, a different meaning depending on who is using it when.

Lets tackle issue number one and two. The actual word I do believe concerns itself with the process of figuring out juxtaposition. In writing, an author places events, props, characters, next to each other to create meaning. Likewise, in films, the images are the words, and the director and the screenwriter do the same thing as an author, purposely placing different chapters next to each other, scenes next to each other, different images next to each other. Découpage concerns itself with the void in between two images. Although as a view we never see a void, there is an invisible void, and that void is defined, in my opinion, as to how much ‘sense’ the two images together conjure. The void is almost nonexistent if the director puts a shot of a man walking up to a house next to a shot of the man knocking on the door. In and out of context this makes sense. The Découpage was the process of not only figuring out that those two images next to each other make sense but, moreover, that because those two images are together the void dissipates. Conversely but similarly, take Memento. Out of context, the scenes juxtaposed to each other make no sense, but in relation to the whole film, a void does not exist because the movie as a whole concerns itself with Découpage. Découpage ultimately provides the director, editor, sound designer, and many more filmic jobs with the task of creating meaning or ambivalent meaning when two images are places next to each other. Either way the process must be intentional.

In discussing number 3, my point is short. I think that Découpage at a deeper level has to do with no only the two images that are places side by side but the content of those images. If there is a frame of red materials next to a frame with green materials then quickly back to red, what does, as the viewer, that mean? What does Hitchcock mean when at the end of North By Northwest, they are on a train, and there is a train going through a tunnel? The two images juxtaposed were the two kissing then the train sequence. Obviously we know that this is a sexual innuendo, but the fact that both images had valuable content and had to be placed next to each other to make filmic sense is an example of the process of closing the invisible void — or Découpage.

Point four is less theoretical and has more to do with film theory itself. Godard’s feelings toward the usage of Découpage is going to be heavily influenced by France in the late 50s when he joined and became a big part in the CCQL and Cinémathèque. He spoke French, therefore what he comprehends about the word will be different. I will add that the choice not to translate it was a wise one. As for a personal example, there are some words in Hebrew that have absolute no translation value because they represent an idea, an intangible piece of thought that can be comprehended by the native. Découpage is this exact problem. The semantic problem lays in the difference of experiences that each film critic grew up in, each having a slight different definition on the word. We only can comprehend what our experiences has taught us; thus, Découpage will be a word of which we can ponder the value but it will never be a word that we can use other words to describe.