fanciful musings

You know that famous scene in 2001:A Space Odyssey where the ape throws the bone up into the air and then there’s a quick cut to the bone-shaped space station? Stanley Kubrick was well known for being a perfectionist who made sure every tiny detail was just so. I wonder then why didn’t it bug him that the bone and the space station were not lying at the same angle when it cuts from one to the other? It’s bugged me for many years and it continues to rankle me every time I see the scene. Well, maybe not bugged and rankled so much as niggled me a little bit.

Aside from the technical difficulties involved, I think it would have been less effective, actually the match cut had both objects in the precise same orientation.

As a point of comparison, here’s one where the graphic match is a little more mathmatically geometrical.

Then, of course, there’s this one:

I agree with Matt Parks that it would have been less effective in 2001. Sometimes a thing can be made too obvious. Great still from Psycho, too! My personal favorite jump-cut is Peter O’Toole blowing out the match – cut to sunrise in the desert.