Editing technique that breaks spatial logic — disparate, even contradictory locations montaged as if adjacent. Eisenstein and Godard detonated continuity with this.
You're in the edit suite and suddenly realize: the logic of the location no longer matters. The edit connects spaces that are geographically hundreds of kilometers apart as if they were neighbors. This is creative geography—an editing strategy that consciously ignores spatial continuity and instead creates emotional or narrative correspondences between disparate locations. The viewer accepts this because the rhythmic or thematic similarity is more convincing than geographical truth.
Eisenstein understood this early on: in his Soviet montage experiments, he cut together images that could not have been spatially possible but harmonized perfectly sensually. The method deliberately destroys the illusion of continuity that we know from classic Hollywood—that business of match cuts, the 180-degree rule, and spatial clarity. Instead, a new spatial logic emerges: not the location, but the visual or thematic resonance determines the editing decision. Godard radicalized this later by unashamedly juxtaposing spaces, forcing the viewer to build the bridge themselves.
In practice, you notice this during editing when you realize: these two shots don't fit geographically, but rhythmically they're golden. A busy city street in Tokyo next to an empty corridor in Berlin—both scenes are about loneliness, and suddenly the edit amplifies this statement more than if you set both in the same city. You use creative geography to make abstract concepts visible: parallels, contrasts, inner states. The place becomes a carrier of meaning, not a realistic location.
The tricky part: creative geography only works if your editing logic is consistent. If you jump arbitrarily between spaces, the viewer loses their footing. But if you use spatial jumps consciously and with purpose—for example, to show two characters in parallel situations—the geographical impossibility becomes an narrative force. This distinguishes it from mere carelessness.