Blog #3: Relationship Between Shots

For this assignment I chose a scene that takes place near the end of one of my favorite all-time films “The Last of the Mohicans.” It plays out in roughly a minute and thirty seconds and I counted a total of 51 shots altogether. The scene has a lot of forward movement, matched action and build up where one of the film’s protagonist’s Chingachgook confronts the villain Magua in a classic fight to the death sequence overlooking the Adirondacks.

This scene or sequence of shots is not a montage, but rather follows in accordance to continuity editing protocols. It starts off with a low angle, wide/long shot of our two heroes Chingachgook and Hawkeye running up the trail of the mountain, from the left side of the screen. They cut to the first enemy they engage with right of screen who turns to face them. Hawkeye fires a musket and kills the enemy. There’s an immediate cut to the lead trailblazer, our villain Magua who turns and the audience gets a POV/over the shoulder shot of his reaction to the gunfire.

I also noticed the creative choices the director and editor both used where certain shots were close up and medium close up shots on the graphic effects of the fight scene i.e. the man’s face being smashed by the axe handle, Magua’s elbow breaking, or the spike that ultimately kills him in the end. These choices intensifies the sequence.

There was however a delay in two earlier cuts in the scene that I noticed where Hawkeye kills two enemy combatants with two muskets at the same time. It may be nothing, but I caught a 2 to 3 second delay in the follow-up/reaction shots of the bad guys being shot and then falling to the ground.

The eye line matches and 180-degree rule are pretty much spot on as our heroes are running from the left of the screen and their enemies on the right side of the screen face them in the opposite direction. There’s also the beautiful master shot between Chingachgook and Magua before the axe spins and stabs him, followed by a camera set up on the ground filming the reaction of Magua’s death.

Though this is the final part of a much extended sequence I think Michael Mann who directed this film did a great job of setting up the scene and made the right choices in post-production ending the film in this epic showdown.