In this blog post, I would like to continue my argument about the post-cinematic phenomenon where old classical aesthetic style and new post-modern aesthetic style can coexist harmoniously. First, I’d like to compare these two different fight scenes from the film, one of which demonstrates the classical Kung Fu films-inspired style and the other of which demonstrates the influence of post-continuity style.

This Kung Fu fight scene explicitly adopts characteristics of classic martial arts films that flourished in the 1990s. This scene appears to make a lot of effort to depict coherent space and time in contrast to modern Hollywood action films, which feature the use of techniques like fast cuts and unusual camera angles and motions to intensify dramatic action scenes and create “a never-ending crescendo of flair, spectacle, excess, self-indulgence” (Stork, 2012). In this clip, from 2:00 to 2:18, a camera zone-in in conjunction with a focus change makes it evident how Waymond Wang and the security are situated in relation to one another. Following this shot, the majority of the subsequent shots are medium and wide shots, allowing actions and reactions to be captured in the same frame without frequent cuts, creating a sense of coherent, smooth and more realistic feelings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9XB-Tt8X9I

This combat sequence between Evelyn and the villain Jobu Tupaki, who is also Evelyn’s beloved daughter Joy, is established on a totally different continuity style from the fight scene previously stated. The surroundings in which they battle and the costumes they wear change frequently, revealing their hops across the multiverse even if their battling against one another seems coherent. It is not a typical editing style for films; instead, this kind of style is more frequently seen in music videos. Fast cuts between other universes intensify the characters’ activities and produce a previously unseen visual style that leads the audience into the “space of flows.” A building hall, mountain, beach, club, airport, forest, outer space, court, prison, etc—It doesn’t matter what surrounding the fight is taking place in.

The protagonists’ actions are still depicted in a sequential and cohesive manner, nevertheless. This film’s deliberate use of the post-continuity style to construct “the structure of feelings” is demonstrated by the promiscuous blending of linear and non-linear kinds of material. This promiscuous mixture of linear and non-linear styles of footage clearly shows how this film strategically uses the post-continuity style to build “the structure of feelings”

Therefore, in this particular scene, since the “pace and time themselves have become relativized or unhinged”, post-continuity rules are opportunistically and occasionally applied (Shaviro, 2016). However, it is not that the post-continuity films entirely “dispense with the concerns of classical continuity” and narrative, but they inherit the classical continuity rules and “move beyond” them and create a new post-continuity form.

Interestingly, the post-continuity aesthetics works well with the sci-fi idea of the multiverse and the film’s attempt to address fundamental philosophical themes such as existentialism, nihilism and absurdism. Modern movies frequently have themes that touch on family dramas, love, everyday life, as well as the universe. However, when combined in a single movie, they work to provide a novel and unconventional “structure of feelings”. This movie’s post-continuity structure, in my opinion, is still closely tied to and determined by the narrative. Only when the story requires them are post-continuity rules applied. Nevertheless, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a successful example of an experimental attempt to apply a combination of the classical continuity style and the post-continuity style to discuss modern themes that are closely related to every one of us who live in modern society.

Reference:

Stork, dir. M. (2012). Chaos Cinema. https://vimeo.com/metafilm

Shaviro, S., & Åkervall, L. (2016). Post-Continuity: An introduction’. In Screen (London) (Vol. 59, Issue 1, pp. 51–64). REFRAME Books, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjy008

Shaviro, S. (n.d.). Post-Cinematic Affect: On Grace Jones, Boarding Gate and Southland Tales. Film-Philosophy, 14(1), 1–102. https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2010.0001

Ruiting Yang
8 November 2022