A repeat cut is where, in an action scene, you might see the same sequence or shot repeated several times from different angles or perspectives. This is particularly popular with fight scenes and explosions, as the director tries to deliver the maximum visceral payoff to the audience, and use a longer cut section of the movie. In the 80s and 90s they were used so frequently in skater and fight-club movies that the repeat cut became a bit of a joke to the film industry, and for many years it has mainly been used in either serious contemporary films or comedy spoofs. Each repetition usually lasts only a second or two, sometimes less; the exact timing can vary slightly from cut to cut.

My personal favourite spoof film which uses this technique is Monty Python: The Holy Grail. The endless running joke is anti-humor, given the play on audience expectation by drawing out the anticipation only to have the scene continue as normal. You don’t know how long the running will go on for, or whether its a glitch in the screenplay, whether to laugh or be confused. This is just a spoof but it is very well done, with the same scene repeating over and over from only one perspective.

Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point

Zabriskie Point is a 1970 American film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Some of the film’s scenes were actually shot on location at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley. The film itself had a large political backlash and did not make much money at the time of its release, however over time it has gained some critical praise from contemporary creators, mostly for the beauty of its timely cinematography with telephoto lenses and its innovative musical soundtrack.

Antonioni was the sort of director who thought long and hard about how technical issues would have an impact on style, form and meaning. The most recognizable scene from the movie was the very end scene, where the character Daria vividly imagines and sees the illusion of the mountainous home being blown to smithereens, leading to one of the most experimental conclusions of any fiction film. The five minute sequence is marked by Sergei Einstein’s design of overlapping editing (the house explodes over and over again), a super slow motion cinematography, and the abstract properties of the telephoto lens. Singular artifacts (a fridge, a television set, furniture, food, laundry detergent, etc.) are transformed into kaleidoscopic colors and forms, accompanied by a manic/ psychedalic music score. The final item to be exploded is the library, with hundreds torn books flying toward the camera. Antonioni watches a mansion, carved into a rock outside Phoenix, explode from no fewer than a dozen different angles, a shot covered by seventeen cameras. This made a huge statement in studio at the time as it was a huge section of the films budget used up. However joining these scenes together one after the other, repeating the explosion over and over made great use of this sacrifice. The layers of the same shot are so dramatic and are suspending a destructive event in time, a 1 second shot suspended for many minutes straight in the film.