One thing I've learned about visual poetry from a screening of Cutting Edge is that "editing is visual poetry." (George Lucas). Just like a poem, the editing has rhythm and beats.
Dziga Vertov was a soviet filmmaker that made the editor just as important as any other person during the revolution in Soviet Russia in his film Man With a Moving Camera.
He adds scenes specifically showing a film being cut and edited together. Specifically showing the importance of editing in film.
In an essay on film poetry, the author adds that "Vertov asks audience and filmmakers alike to see film making as an independent art form with its own language, a language that does not need to borrow from other arts to be meaningful." *
The idea of a visual poem structuring the film's sound and visuals in a way that it's told in the same way as that of a poem. There is no obvious beginning, middle and end. Only the explanation of a concept with the visual language and sound.
Where We Are (David Cho):
Where We Are is a short, 85 seconds long visual poem made by American filmmaker David Cho. It involves a long distant conversation between two lovers living apart form each other. In the director's words: "I have been interested in blending what characters see in their minds’ eye with reality and the present."** So, over the narration, the film shows moments of the two of them together that could have been real moments, or moments that they wished they had together.
Quite simply, it's a film about "separation, distance and memory". Analysis of the visual language can back this up. Whilst the narration consists of an intimate conversation, the visual components show the distance of the conversation.
Visual Components:
This shot of the fire shows two flames burning apart from each other. This is the first visual queue that tells us that the two people speaking are apart from each other. But, the fact that each flame is burning independent of each other and bright on its own indicates that each person has their own life; ones that exist without being together.
Editing:
The use of editing also shows how the two people in the long distance relationship feel. Throughout the short, the cuts always follow up with the next man following the woman or the woman after the man.
Also, when the two of them are apart, they always face one another after the cuts; even though they are not in the same room, though it's easy to think that they are.
In the moments when the two of them are in the room together, the duration of shots are longer. This contrasts to the scenes where they are both on their own, the shots are shorter and consist of more cuts. This formation of editing creates the implications the director wanted for the film, "blending what characters see in their minds’ eye with reality and the present." The longer shots with the two of them together and fewer cuts are the moments that they would like to have shared together in their "Minds' eye". The shots that are shorter and have more cuts are the reality of where the two of them are: apart.
Sound:
Sound is used as a juxtaposition to the visuals. When the two of them are together in the same shot, presumably happy together, The narration implies that the two of them are both thinking about each other and may not be happy with their lives apart from each other. The woman says "Do you wonder where I am?" At the same time, the two of them are holding hands and she smiles looking in the distance. The intention is to say that those moments play on their minds and even though they have lives of their own, it's hard for them not to forget about each other.
* - Ieropoulos, F (Year Unknown), Poetry-Film & The Film Poem: Some Clarifications, http://www.studycollection.co.uk/poetry.html [Accessed 02/05/17]
** - Cho, D (2014), David Cho Speaks Straight to the Yearning Heart in ‘Where We Are’, http://directorsnotes.com/2014/04/17/david-cho-where-we-are/ [Accessed 02/05/17]
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