Over the last few decades, we have seen a dramatic change in American cinema. This has been because of the effect of editors using ‘intensified continuity’ to construct the shots in films. David Bordwell suggests in his paper on ‘Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film (2002)’ that there are different components that intensified continuity use, which are not really seen in earlier classical Hollywood films. Contemporary films generally move at a much faster pace, up to the point where if you turn away for a second, you may miss something important because of the rapid editing that is now used. These modern films are being labelled as ‘post classical films’ although, as David Bordwell argues, “today’s films generally adhere to the principles of classical film making” (2002, p.16). One film in particular that stood out for me that is relevant to the concept of ‘intensified continuity’ is the film Taken (Pierre Morel, 2008), an action film which involves a ‘retired’ CIA agent, Bryan Mills, who travels across Europe to rescue his daughter at any cost who has been kidnapped in Paris. Throughout this essay, I shall examine and analyse the factors that David Bordwell argues make up ‘intensified continuity’, using Taken (2008) for examples to show how these factors are used successfully to create exciting and intense scenes. Furthermore, I shall assess the extent to whether films that use intensified continuity are generally based on the ideas of classical continuity as Bordwell suggests, and whether or not the use of intensified continuity is actually a positive aspect in a film. It is apparent that Bordwell suggests that contemporary Hollywood cinema is still a variant of classical Hollywood, “Intensified continuity constitutes a selection and elaboration of options already on the classical filmmaking menu” (2002, p.24). This includes techniques such as establishing shots, whereby the audience gets to know where everything is in relation to everything else. This is used in contemporary films so that intensified continuity is understandable. An example of this can be found in Taken, when ‘Kim’ is in the bathroom of the house where she is staying and there is a point of view shot to the other side of the house where she sees her friend ‘Amanda’ dancing. This shows us that ‘Kim’ is on the opposite side of the house. 1. Establishing shot of Kim’s point of view from the other side of the house 2. Medium shot of Kim looking out of the window towards the other side of the house (as above) 3. Back to Kim’s point of view seeing Amanda being taken. Bordwell sees intensified continuity as a hyperbolic development of classical filmmaking, which can be seen as excessive, but also exciting for the viewer. Bordwell suggests that there are ‘four tactics of camerawork and editing’ (2002, p.16) that are key to intensified continuity. The first is that there