What Is The IMR?

The Institutional Mode of Representation means that parts within the process of a movie such as camera work, sound and editing is done and produced in the same way in the majority of films. This includes continuity editing. Continuity editing hides the process of editing and therefore makes it look as if time is flowing in a 'real' way. These cuts are done in a logical and in a chronological order. As previously stated, the majority of movies produce films in this way as it is easier to produce and easier for the audience to understand, especially if the plot of a film becomes detailed.

However, there are challenges to continuity, and one of these challenges is called a montage edit. This isn't done in the same style as continuity but will be mixed with it. Montage editing is produced by cutting backwards and forwards to different items or previously mentioned scenes for a symbolic reason. This can ruin the flow of continuity editing and therefore leaving the average audience confused, but giving a more in-depth meaning to the film. A good example of this is shown through the film adaption of 'Wuthering Heights'. Scenes cut to objects to symbolise relationships. One that expresses the relationship well is a cut to a rotting apple, which represents the rotting of the relationship. Another movie that shows montage editing is 'Battleship Potempkin' directed by Einsenstein in 1925. Many quick and jumpy cuts are used to give a more emotional response than a symbolic one. And finally, 'Psyco' ,directed by Hitchcock in 1950, shows montage editing within the scene when the woman gets stabbed. You never see the knife attack her, merely close to her body. This then goes to a graphic match of the plug hole of the shower, suggesting that her life is being drained away with the water then matching onto her eye which graphically matches linking her to the blood washing down the drain. All of this gives a symbolic or emotional point which continuity editing doesn't give as well.