Jump cut
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A jump cut is a cut in film editing that breaks continuity in time. This produces a startling effect as the smooth movement of the film appears to jump from one position to another during the cut.
Jump cuts are generally either a technical flaw, or done for an artistic special effect — most normal cuts in film editing occur between dissimilar scenes or significantly different views of the same scene to avoid the appearance of a jump. Classical continuity editing would view a jump cut as an error.
After Eisenstein, the jump cut has sometimes served a political use in film. It is one of the cuts used in intellectual montage. It is used as an alienating Brechtian technique that made the audience aware of the unreality of the film experience. This could be used to focus their attention on the political message of a film rather than the drama or emotion of the narrative. Eisenstein used the jump cut in some segments of Battleship Potemkin.
Godard and other filmmakers of the Nouvelle vague also made use of the jump cut, although the extent is typically overstated in critical literature. Most did not use it in an explicitly political manner.
It was an uncommon technique for televison until shows like Homicide: Life on the Street popularized it on the small screen in the 1990s.