How OCEAN'S 12 Uses a Match Cut to Stitch Two Very Different Scenes
I (Mel) wanted to talk about the cool match cut (1:14-1:18), but then I looked at it in context and realised how well it works to segue between two wildly different sequences on either side of it . . . so let’s look at all that!
Setup
The sequence before is dark with beautiful saturated-colour highlights, camera moving and zooming and rack focusing through several short clips strung together with music and movement, edited into quick-flowing story, until we reach the
Match Cut
The transition is a closeup of a rifle trigger pull cutting into the legs of man running through a medium shot, which smoothly hands us off into a wide shot of the same man running the same direction.
The colours switch hard, and the cut takes us from night to day, crafty theft to corporate halls.
The sound mixing adds so much; splitting the difference between a bullet and a running-man’s-dress-shoe-hitting-the-corporate-carpeted-hallway-floors, then when the shot goes wide fading even further to signify how sterile the environment is as opposed to the rousing soundscape during the heist prep.
Contrast
After the match cut comes a scene completely unlike the setup; a long, sloooooow track/pan following Running Man — now Stately Walking Man — through a brightly lit room full of people sitting quite still.
One reason Soderbergh can get away with this is Catherine Zeta Jones’s voice. It’s not merely sultry and wonderful, it’s recognisable, teasing us with “you know who this is, and you like it! let her deliver some exposition before we finally reveal her face.”
Even once we see her, the speech goes on and on (and on), Stately Man clearly antsy behind her, before he interrupts at the perfect Dramatically Ironic Moment. Because we understand the rules of comedy (and have seen the first third of the film), we don’t need to hear him to know he’s saying something related to her speech’s subject.
“Whoooooaaaht!?” she gasps, and the scene holds just a beat longer than would make it a (somewhat expected, tbh) smash cut, before cutting to her in a car with schematics, clearly going after the master thief.
Takeaways
Much of the reason this scene works contrast; quick pace, upbeat score, and inky colours set us up for a long take, measured exposition, and broad daylight.
The match cut isn’t just ‘cool,’ it inextricably links the two scenes, inviting us to connect and contrast them.