Fracture/Frame

October 9, 2009 2:11 PM

Split Screen is a blog about      |   From Edwin S. Porter's Life of an American Fireman
the eponymous film technique    |   to Andy Warhol's The Chelsea Girls to Michel Gondry's
and its alternatives, with many   |   Sugar Water (the BEST EVER, imo), split screens have
surprising, intriguing examples.  |   encouraged alternate and ideally unlimited perspecitves.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur (28 comments total)

And the award for Best Formatted Post EVAR! goes to....Ambrosia Voyeur!
posted by MrMoonPie at 2:13 PM on October 9, 2009 [3 favorites]

And the award for       | Ambrosia Voyeur!
Best Missed Opportunity |
To Take Advantage Of    |
The Pre Tag goes to     | (and your mom)

posted by davejay at 2:18 PM on October 9, 2009 [13 favorites]

what's a pre tag? I'm a FILM SCHOLAR NOT A DOCTOR, MAN!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:21 PM on October 9, 2009 [5 favorites]

It's an HTML tag that displays preformatted text in a monospaced font for perfect alignment. <pre></pre>
posted by davejay at 2:26 PM on October 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

And now that the derail is complete, I'm off to follow some of those awesome links
posted by davejay at 2:27 PM on October 9, 2009

I had no idea there was a version of "Ode to Joy" by Beaker. This absolutely made my Friday.
posted by avoision at 2:32 PM on October 9, 2009 [7 favorites]

I was obsessed with that Sugar Water video when I first saw it. I had to stop thinking about it when I realized that if I ever did anything that impressed and surprised myself that much, I would probably think my life was over.

I mean, yeah sure, magical French film directors have ideas like that all the time. But if I ever had an idea that good, I don't think I'd have any good-idea sauce left.
posted by dogwalker at 2:39 PM on October 9, 2009

...by MeFi's own shortfuse
posted by niles at 2:45 PM on October 9, 2009

Post Win!
posted by spiderskull at 3:14 PM on October 9, 2009

I'd like to give a special shout out to the Channel 4 series NY-LON, which, in it's effort to portray a romance between two people from major world cities (the NY and LON of the title) separated by timezones and the Atlantic ocean used a dizzying array of split screen effects, often going to 4 or 5 or 6 screens at once, so that the general experience was like watching a sit-com as a schizophrenic bee.
posted by Artw at 3:18 PM on October 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

Reminds me of that interesting concept, but badly executed film Timecode
posted by twine42 at 3:42 PM on October 9, 2009 [2 favorites]

Avoision: flagged as "fantastic"
posted by WPW at 4:03 PM on October 9, 2009

I'd like to recommend the film Conversations with Other Women, the entirety of which is splitscreen-- one half following each main character, even when they are in the same room or interacting or embracing.
posted by shakespeherian at 4:17 PM on October 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

I really enjoyed the use of splitscreen in Jonathan Caouette's All Tomorrow's Parties (website). Fantastic movie.
posted by oulipian at 4:30 PM on October 9, 2009

I enjoyed the two-people-meet-up split screen from The Rules Of Attraction myself, but I kept getting the feeling it was lifted from another movie I couldn't name. I wanna say something French.
posted by The Whelk at 4:30 PM on October 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

my favorite splitscreen has always been The Thomas Crown Affair.
posted by billyfleetwood at 4:33 PM on October 9, 2009

A woman on the moon is singing to the earth
posted by Eideteker at 4:39 PM on October 9, 2009

I love Cibo Matto. I've always thought the video for Sugar Water was brilliant.
posted by Eclipsante at 4:53 PM on October 9, 2009

I prefer bachelorette.
posted by fleacircus at 5:13 PM on October 9, 2009

You know, the great thing about that Beaker video is that it really dramatizes how the different lines of harmony fit together in that piece. Each Beaker is overselling his part so hard, gesturing and waving his head around and whatnot, that you really start to notice what each line is doing, and how independent they all are from each other.

(Damn muppets. For DECADES they've been tricking me into learning things!)
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:18 PM on October 9, 2009 [4 favorites]

The split screen scene in rules of attraction is pretty amazing.
posted by djduckie at 5:37 PM on October 9, 2009

oops i missed someone else mentioning it.
posted by djduckie at 5:40 PM on October 9, 2009

I've been trying unsuccessfully to find it online, but the split-screen segment from the "Cooperation" episode of Wonder Showzenis sublime: the puppet cast goes to war with cheap Chinese knockoffs of themselves from a bootleg imitation of the show, leading to a "peace deal" that sees the screen split 60/40 between the factions. From there each subshow bifurcates its programming into smaller and smaller sections, finally resulting in a shimmering cacaphony of tiny, demented segments barely larger than pixels all competing for the viewer's attention.
posted by contraption at 6:12 PM on October 9, 2009 [3 favorites]

The split screen episode of Coupling is also very good.
posted by Pendragon at 5:32 AM on October 10, 2009

Don't forget the Pillow Book! (link might be NSFW on account of the penis and flaying of Ewan MacGregor, as well as a pronounced case of biblio-fetishism).
posted by ikahime at 8:31 AM on October 10, 2009

contraption, Googling "wonder showzen" cooperation turns up this full-length version on MySpace Video.
posted by Rhaomi at 5:26 PM on October 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh hey, thanks Rhaomi! "MySpace Video" indeed. Fun starts at 15:45.
posted by contraption at 12:21 PM on October 11, 2009

please don't hate me
posted by contraption at 12:22 PM on October 11, 2009