A Look Into Pudovkin's Five Master Edits As Depicted in Hollywood

Once learning about Pudovkin's Five Master Edits, I soon realized that if you look hard enough, leitmotif, contrast, symbolism, simultaneity, and parallelism can be found right before your eyes! Here are some examples as shown in Hollywood films:

Leitmotif: With it being a musical, Hercules is notorious for its classic songs. One song in particular is Hercules' number with Go The Distance. This song acts as the character's leitmotif as it perfectly encapsulates everything about the character and his place in the movie. Surprisingly enough, I realized that most Disney movies have this concept of a leitmotif that describes each movie and main character. For example, Aladdin's Whole New World, Lion King's Circle of Life, and Tarzan's Two Worlds. Shown below is a brief clip from Hercules' number.

I had trouble uploading this video, so I have linked the YouTube video here.

Contrast: This video from 2001's Space Odyssey contrasts a bone being thrown up in the air with a space ship falling down. This comparison works, because the two sizes are very similar to one another and therefore a contrasting effect is established when the camera cuts from the bone in the air to a shot of the space ship in the air.

Here is a link to this scene from Space Odyssey

Symbolism: The epilogue of Breaking Dawn: Part II depicts multiple scenes occurring from throughout the series fades from one to another.

Here is a link to the scene in Breaking Dawn Part II

Simultaneity: In this shot from The Godfather, tensions rise when the camera is shot back and forth between two scenes. The camera cuts between Michael Cerlone at a christening and a gory death. This establishes an odd juxtaposition within the film, illustrating purity and gore occurring at the exact same moment.

Here is a link to the scene in the Godfather

Parallelism: In The Silence of the Lambs, the audience can see the FBI raiding a house that they believe belongs to a character called "Buffalo Bill." Following this, the audience sees Buffalo Bill reacting to a bell in a dungeon. The bell in the dungeon directly correlates to the FBI agent ringing the bell in the paralleled scene.

Here is a link to The Silence of the Lambs, which depicts parallelism.