The film Uncut Gems (2019) tells the story of a jeweler who acquires a raw gem and then keeps selling it at a high price by playing with multiple parties. So, it shows that the process of the protagonist’s constant games with various buyers in the film is full of danger and tension. Uncut Gems is more like a post-cinema action film because selling the gem is full of dangerous and violent action scenes, chases, and constant tension. As Shane and Julia (2016) claims action films in the post-cinema were different from the classic narratives of the past, where different shots were used to build up a complete story chain, and instead used post-continuity to connect each detail of the story. Uncut Gems is an excellent example of post-continuity, and the film also shows how the embodiment and affective of the emotional space created by post-continuity can help the film present the enormous energy of modern narratives.

The different elements for establishing the post continuity

The most notable feature created by Uncut Gems is the chaos, which involves the quick cut and fast camera moving of continuous spaces to support the narrative, while the viewer can perceive the hinge of details rather than passive receipt information in story. Thomas (2022) reviews that giving any one detail in the film a singular meaning is disrespectful to the film’s setting. At the first scene of Uncut Gems, the director connects the story from a grand gem digging site to the interior of the gem, and then with the change of scene, the cellular structure of the diamond moves to the protagonist’s body which is being examined by a doctor. This inter-dimensional spatial connection is also a distinctive feature of post-continuity, merging the background of the gems and the protagonist in a kind of hinged space.

According to post-continuity is to bring more dimensions to the emotional experience rather than following the story. (Shane and Julia, 2016) There are the close-up shots and noisy sound environments that keep appearing in the film, which show the amplification and reproduction of realistic scenes and reactions, allowing the audience to follow the protagonist to feel all the elements and details more than emphasizing the narrative rules by the classic montage editing.

Embodiment of affective atmosphere

The post-continuity feature that films display today is like the film embodying the affective atmosphere. Prokopic (2022) mentions that the film is like the camera filming the performing body, which all together builds the film as a new body, and the film is then able to present the body in such a way that the audience can visualize the perception of embodiment like the Uncut Gems showed up. All the elements in Uncut Gems make up the embodiment and constitute the affective atmosphere, which is why the film allows the audience to feel the protagonist’s anxiety and a tense atmosphere all the time. This is also the structure of feeling in the post-continuity constructed by the blocs hinged together in the film. Post-cinema allows the film to move beyond storytelling and closer to embodiment as an ontology or a continuous space, which can make people percept and resonance more.

References:

Shane. D. and Julia. L. (2016). ‘Post-Cinema: Theorizing 21st-Century Film’. Falmer: REFRAME Books.

Prokopic, P. (2022). ‘Affective atmosphere: embodiment and the film frame.’ Journal of Embodied Research. Open Library of the Humanities, 5 (1). doi: 10.16995/jer.8315.

Thomas M. (2022). ‘Not All Talk.’ Film International. Intellect, 20 (1), pp.177-180. doi: 10.1386/fint_00164

Wenyu Li 33831990