Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Temporal Editing in Slumdog

The best modern example of temporal editing has to be the 2008 Oscar-winning film, Slumdog Millionaire. The film weaves seemingly irrelevant flashbacks of the main character’s (Jamal Malik) life into the body of the film to help make sense of its present events. The life experiences of Malik that the film flashes back to explain his ability to answer the tough questions on the popular game show, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” which (in the film) he is currently a contestant of. The insertion of the flashbacks creates depth and meaning in the plot and draws an emotional response from the audience. With such a heavy presence in the film, the production element, temporal editing, is central to the audience’s comprehension of the storyline of Slumdog Millionaire.


Unfortunately, the best video clip that I could find of temporal editing at work in the movie is the trailer. The way that it displays an equal share of clips from the movie’s flashbacks as well to its current moments reveals just how important the production element is in the overall effect of the movie.

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