Books by Karen Pearlman
2nd edition of 'Cutting Rhythms, Shaping the Film Edit' (Focal Press, 2009)
Journal Articles by Karen Pearlman
Media Practice and Education, 2023
This article focuses on methods by which editors shape character in editing. Given that editors’ ... more This article focuses on methods by which editors shape character in editing. Given that editors’ choices of shot, take, and timing augment and vary actors’ performances and directors’ instructions, and that these choices shape the audience perception of film characters, we ask: what components of editors’ expertise are activated in shaping material to create characters that viewers can invest in emotionally? Editors’ expertise is generally referred to as ‘intuitive’, which is a shorthand for knowledge and experience that informs decision making at a pre-conscious level. This article argues that ‘intuitive’ is not incorrect, however, drawing on the authors’ extensive editing practice and building on existing editing theory as well as ideas from science and film studies, we seek more specific identification and articulation of editors’ expertise. This article offers an original editing taxonomy in relation to editing character. The taxonomy includes explicit articulations of kinaesthetic empathy and implicit knowledge such as laws of physics, reflex reactions, and cultural conditioning. Awareness of these pervasive but often unrecognised forms of knowledge, we argue, can enhance editors’ ability to develop multifaceted characters through editing, clarify discussions between collaborators, and even enhance understanding of the art of editing more generally.
Feminist Media Histories
A general misapprehension of what filmmakers do and how films are made has obscured the creative ... more A general misapprehension of what filmmakers do and how films are made has obscured the creative and cognitive complexity of the work women have been doing in film for over one hundred years. Using clips from the multi-award-winning short documentary I Want to Make a Film about Women (Pearlman et al. 2020), the video essay Distributed Authorship: An et al. Proposal of Creative Practice, Cognition, and Feminist Film Histories argues that filmmaking is an instance of “distributed cognition” and offers a provocation about the mythologizing of film authors. It then proposes a small, very small, but significant, very significant, adjustment to the stories we tell about filmmakers. I call this adjustment “et al.” and suggest that these five characters and a space are shorthand for an urgently needed change to understandings of collaboration, creativity, and cognition.
Textual Practice
ABSTRACT Given that cinema is a movement-based art form, this article proposes that a director’s ... more ABSTRACT Given that cinema is a movement-based art form, this article proposes that a director’s work is more analogous to that of a choreographer than that of an author. From there, it considers others involved in choreographing a film’s movement and focusses on the film editor. The case study for revealing how directing and editing shape cinematic movement is The Cool World (1963), a radical and insufficiently recognised film directed and edited by Shirley Clarke. My analysis looks closely at a specific passage in the film to identify how its movement-phrases, as shaped in editing, convey or create experiences of community, space, and subtext – experiences that cannot be created on paper or even in shots until the shots are edited. Through this case study of a director-editor, I demonstrate that editing is a process of authoring the movement-phrases that move the spectator. Having considered editing as an intrinsic part of Clarke’s directorial agency, I conclude with brief consideration of the question: if we understand a film to be at least in part ‘authored’ in editing when the director and editor are one person, what happens when they are not?
[in] Transition, a Media Commons Project, 2019
Apparatus, 2018
The film editor Elizaveta Svilova (1900-1975), wife, and lifelong collaborator of the filmmaker D... more The film editor Elizaveta Svilova (1900-1975), wife, and lifelong collaborator of the filmmaker Dziga Vertov (1896-1954), lingers to the side of scholarship on her famous husband’s films, hidden behind the historical neglect of both of women and of editors. This article addresses the silence surrounding Svilova by applying research in film history, cognitive philosophy, and creative practice to her montage filmmaking collaboration with Vertov. We aim to recuperate Svilova’s position as creative contributor to what are known as Vertov’s works of genius by showing that editing processes are the expert work of a distributed cognitive system. Using the distributed cognitive framework, which understands the work of mind to be the integrated work of brains, bodies and the world (Clark and Chalmers 1998), we analyse a particular instance of Svilova at work. This framework for analysis reveals her editing as an embodied form of expertise. The intended outcome of this approach is to ground a fresh model of creativity in film in empirical evidence that is uniquely available in the works and documents of the Svilova-Vertov collaboration. We propose that understanding editing as an instance of distributed cognition provides insight into editing expertise and its creative contribution to films. We conclude that this understanding of editing as the work of distributed cognitive systems may have profound implications for the re-evaluation of the work of otherwise invisible women and editors.
Projections: the Journal of Movies and Mind, 2017
This article proposes that inquiry into the cognitive complexity of film editing processes could ... more This article proposes that inquiry into the cognitive complexity of film editing processes could provide insight into how edits affect audiences beyond convincing them of temporal and spatial continuity. Application of two influential theories in cognitive studies of the moving image to this inquiry suggests that editors make some decisions to maximize the smooth transference of their own attention and some in response to their own embodied simulation. However, edited sequences that do not conform precisely to the principles of maximum attentional efficiency or that significantly reshape the cinematographer’s “kinematics” (Gallese and Guerra 2012) reveal other cognitive expertise at work. Sequences generated by editors’ feeling for rhythmic phrases of movement, tension, and release create unique expressive forms in film. They require artistry of a higher order, rather than following the relatively straightforward rules of continuity cutting, and may have distinctive affective or cognitive impact on audiences.
Projections
We investigated physical changes over three versions in the production of the short historical dr... more We investigated physical changes over three versions in the production of the short historical drama, Woman with an Editing Bench (2016, The Physical TV Company). Pearlman, the film’s director and editor, had also written about the work that editors do to create rhythms in film (Pearlman 2016), and, through the use of computational techniques employed previously (Cutting et al. 2018), we found that those descriptions of the editing process had parallels in the physical changes of the film as it progressed from its first assembled form, through a fine cut, to the released film. Basically, the rhythms of the released film are not unlike the rhythms of heartbeats, breathing, and footfalls—they share the property of “fractality.” That is, as Pearlman shaped a story and its emotional dynamics over successive revisions, she also (without consciously intending to do so) fashioned several dimensions of the film— shot duration, motion, luminance, chroma, and clutter—so as to make them more f...
Apparatus: Film, Media and Digital Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe, 2018
Editor's Introduction to special journal issue: Women at the Editing Table: Revising Soviet Film... more Editor's Introduction to special journal issue: Women at the Editing Table: Revising Soviet Film History of the 1920s and 1930s
Media Practice and Education
In the past few years, Studies in Australasian Cinema has both witnessed and facilitated rigorous... more In the past few years, Studies in Australasian Cinema has both witnessed and facilitated rigorous critical scholarship with respect to film production. This illuminating and invigorating aspect of contemporary screen studies necessarily foregrounds an explicitly theoretical awareness in filmmaking and specific production practices. At the same time, this nexus awakens historical figures, production roles, and stylistic developments that offer new, creative and politicised responses to the ways in which film history is documented and understood. Karen Pearlman’s short filmWoman with an Editing Bench, first exhibited in 2016, celebrates the lesser known and even less acknowledged editing style and oeuvre of Elizaveta Svilova (who edited Vertov’s iconic 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera and many others), whilst exploring her relationship with Vertov against Stalin’s censorship of cinema in the late 1920s. What follows is an interview with Pearlman, who wrote, directed and edited the film.
Studies in Australasian Cinema , 2017
Anthony Lambert and Karen Pearlman talk through the the themes of
Pearlman's award-winning film ... more Anthony Lambert and Karen Pearlman talk through the the themes of
Pearlman's award-winning film Woman with an Editing Bench (2016)
Book Chapters by Karen Pearlman
Women and New Hollywood Gender, Creative Labor, and 1970s American Cinema, 2023
Some examples of significant passages of films shaped by women editors of New Hollywood are then ... more Some examples of significant passages of films shaped by women editors of New Hollywood are then analyzed, briefly, to substantiate the argument that their work is creative and intellectual participation in the generation of films and to provide some detail of their specific strategies and actions in making the films on which they worked. In conclusion, I propose that an understanding of the actual work of editors allows us to see a finished film not as an expression of one man’s mind but as the distributed creative cognizing of a community of practice, in this case the community of women editors who may have, by saving various movies, actually “saved Hollywood.”
A Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value, 2022
Filmmaking is one of the most complexly layered forms of artistic production. It is a deeply inte... more Filmmaking is one of the most complexly layered forms of artistic production. It is a deeply interactive process, socially, culturally, and technologically. Yet the bulk of popular and academic discussion of filmmaking continues to attribute creative authorship of films to directors. Texts refer to ‘a Scorsese film’, not a film by ‘Scorsese et al.’. We argue that this kind of attribution of sole creative responsibility to film directors is a misapprehension of most filmmaking processes, based in part on dubious individualist assumptions about creative minds. Such a misapprehension is effacing the public value that a more inclusive and accurate understanding of filmmaking offers. By treating motion picture production as a model case of distributed creativity, we can more accurately identify the public value of filmmaking processes. We can do justice to the unique roles of highly skilled individuals, and offer some insights into creative collaboration. This approach has theoretical, descriptive and normative benefits. A more robust understanding of how films are ‘made’ serves as a model for a richer understanding of distributed creativity and cognition. By considering filmmaking as a “‘trans-corporeal’ enterprise, not simply bound by the skull or the body, but as actively mediated through artifacts, tools, and social-communicative processes” (Theiner and Drain 2016: 7), we enrich understanding of collaboration. A more accurate description of the work of women that has been historically effaced by focus on individual, mostly male, directors has intrinsic social and political value. These results and insights carry clear implications for how aesthetic credit should be assigned and demonstrate the benefits and value of gender parity.
The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of film and motion pictures, 2019
Philosophical discussions of film are divided in their treatment of the subject rhythm in film ed... more Philosophical discussions of film are divided in their treatment of the subject rhythm in film editing. Analytic philosophers tend to avoid discussion of it, while continental philosophers give it expansive consideration. This chapter aims to bridge these two traditions by analytically articulating what rhythm is, how it is shaped, and what it is for, while still respecting that it is, in both a film editor’s and an audience’s experience, a felt phenomenon. In order to do this, consideration is given both to the first-hand perspective of experienced editors and the articulations of philosophers. This synthesis of practice and theory reveals how an understanding of the editor’s embodied cognitions, affective responses, and expert actions in shaping rhythm can shed light on rhythm’s effect on audiences. The article finds that rhythm in film editing is time, energy, and movement shaped by timing, pacing, and trajectory phrasing for the purpose of creating cycles of tension and release.
Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film, 2018
This chapter aims to reveal, from a cognitive perspective, what docu- mentary editing is and how ... more This chapter aims to reveal, from a cognitive perspective, what docu- mentary editing is and how it works as a creative action in filmmaking. It proposes that the editing of documentary film is a cognitive process of perceiving or imagining potential structure and rhythm in a mass of unscripted material and then shaping that material into a significant form.1 Further, in this process, editors, directors and the raw, uncut filmed material are all contributors to the generation of ideas. Shaping raw material into a coherent documentary film, this chapter will argue, is not work done solely in the brain; rather, it is the work of an “extended mind” (Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2008) and requires a complementary activation of brain, body and the “film objects” (Vertov 1984) themselves.
This 1998 book chapter in 'Body Shows' (Rodopi, 'Australian Playwrights' Series) draws on theorie... more This 1998 book chapter in 'Body Shows' (Rodopi, 'Australian Playwrights' Series) draws on theories of mind proposed by Susan Buck-Morss and Simon Penny to argue that the brain is not the location of the mind, rather the whole body is the 'location' of the mind and it is the interaction of the body (including the brain) with the world which is the mind. Written from the perspective of a highly trained and experienced dancer the chapter notes that “A conventional definition of 'thinking' would probably describe what I'm doing when I'm dancing not as thinking, but as feeling. I am not thinking 'thoughts' I am thinking action through time, space and energy … My body thinks; it makes judgments about the world and its place in it constantly.”
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Books by Karen Pearlman
Journal Articles by Karen Pearlman
Pearlman's award-winning film Woman with an Editing Bench (2016)
Book Chapters by Karen Pearlman
Pearlman's award-winning film Woman with an Editing Bench (2016)
Published in Abolishing Prague, Essays & Interventions,
ISBN: 978-80-7308-532-2
December, 2014
17 pages, with illustrations
Abstract
Historically, in literature, criticism and art, women are drastically underrepresented. In the Jewish Museum of Prague, one woman artist, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, has a small exhibition, but not for her own paintings, rather for the paintings she elicited from children held in concentration camps during the Holocaust. ‘I return to Prague’ is a creative non-fiction response to the positioning of one of the very few women artists visible in this ancient city. The essay asks: what cultural habits and written histories are at work in the marginalization of women’s creativity and could these be disrupted by a creative blend of memoir, biography and thesis about aesthetic judgment of gendered cultural production?
This historical and personal essay contributes challenges to the cultural discourse that informs the evaluation of art, gender and genius. It raises questions about the proscribed value of the work of a particular woman artist and contributes knowledge from a first-person perspective about possible social and cultural prejudices against creativity of women. Modes of writing, including poetic, academic and speculative, are blended to reflect on a woman whose contributions are not classifiable in the standard forms for writing art histories. Using a hybrid of personal reflection and researched biography offers creative methods for valuation of women’s creative contributions.
‘I return to Prague’ reached an international readership as part of the Abolishing Prague, Essays & Interventions collection edited by Louis Armand, and published by the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory’s press, Litteraria Pragensia. Litteraria Pragensia is associated with Charles University, Prague, and has published the work of internationally recognised authors such as Georges Bataille, Slavoj Zizek, Helene Cixous, Gayatri Spivak and Stephen Greenblatt.
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naturalist form of expression rather than an abstract or excessive mode in these 'places' where laws of physics and being are metaphoric rather than demonstrable. Inventive, rhythmic and abstractly gestural dance happens in these
spaces in the way that walking or talking happens in the 'real' world. This conceit allows for exploration of the metaphysical ideas with physical ideas – characterising the timeless, and physics-less 'places' outside of the perceptual lived reality through the shaping of movement, time, space and juxtaposition. When we say that our production company, Physical TV, makes “stories told by the body”, we are often referring to this conceit, within which the act of dancing has a logic inside the rules of the story world being created.
Aesthetic and philosophical questions arose when we were offered the opportunity to engage the digital interactive virtual world platform of Second Life with dance, literature, film and philosophy. What ideas, themes, or stories does the possibility of intertwining real world with virtual world to create a “mixed reality” ask for? As a platform, Second Life offers two particular attractions or perhaps obstructions within a contemporary aesthetic and a metaphysical philosophy. The first is its 'lite', colourful, cartoon-like aesthetic – how can this be understood and worked with artistically in a mode other than ironically? The second question arises from the possibility of a portal from the “real” world to the “virtual” world - what does this possibility ask for? Entanglement Theory, the film made with a mix of real life and Second Life dancing, (available to Academia.edu users through the link below) is not the answer to these questions but the result of asking them. Within the film, the two questions respond to each other – the playful aesthetic question requires a philosophical response, the philosophical ideas raised by a portal to the virtual is given a playful artistic response.
This paper reflects on the mash-up of Vedic spiritual philosophical ideas of multiple states of consciousness, different forms of body, and multi-dimensional realities, along with science fiction-like theories of quantum particle entanglement, that are explored with this mix of media in the 10 minute film Entanglement Theory.
Praised by the Dendy Awards judges at the Sydney Film Festival for its “masterful mix of forms”, 'I want to make a film about women' was longlisted for an Oscar, nominated for an Australian Academy Award, and won of 21 other competitive international awards. The Special Jury Prize citation from the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival reads: "a film of innovative brilliance, celebrating the inexhaustible, essential tenacity of suppressed artists everywhere".
A film by Richard James Allen, Karen Pearlman and Gary Hayes
10 minutes duration
1. Research Background
When hybridizing expertise in dance and film with the culture and practice of interactive media forms, technological issues can dominate the collaborative discourse, pulling focus from aesthetic and philosophical concerns that inform creative practice. Within this context the production of Entanglement Theory aimed to prioritize the philosophical questions of time, perception and reality raised by the mix of real life dance with virtual world ’Second Life’ avatar dancing. The process and production investigates what ideas, themes, or stories the possibility of intertwining real world with virtual world to create a “mixed reality” ask for.
2. Research Contribution
Entanglement Theory innovates by looking at the aesthetic and ontological questions raised by the online virtual world platform ‘Second Life’ through the lens of Vedic spiritual philosophy, particularly the notions of play and multiple levels of embodiment articulated within this tradition. It contributes new knowledge to multi-modal arts practice research by addressing the new technologies through the principles of ancient philosophies.
3. Research Significance
Entanglement Theory research was supported by Ausdance NSW and by Critical Path, NSW, through a special grant from the Australia Council. Since 2009, Entanglement Theory has had over 20 festival screenings in Australia and overseas, including the NY Dance on Camera Festival where it was favorably reviewed in The New York Times. Entanglement Theory was purchased for broadcast on ABC-TV and has screened nationally three times. The researchers on Entanglement Theory have also produced conference papers on the project, for the SEAM Symposium at Critical Path and the time, transcendence and performance conference at Monash University. The film’s study guide, published by ATOM, supports its use in educational contexts.