The Art (or Science) of Editing

A showing of The Cutting Edge, a 2004 documentary celebrating the centenary of development of editing, with contributions from directors and editors.


This morning in MAF we watched a 90 minute-ish film called The Cutting Edge, a 2004 documentary about the history of editing, from its inception in 1903.







The film was fascinating, and showed how actor's performances are far more reliant (than many of them would like to believe) on what happens in the cutting room, than what happens on set. A good performance can be made into an Oscar-winning one by how editors cut the images.



And presumably a good one can be made to look awful....



If I have one criticism of the interviewees, it is that many of them need to get out of the cutting room occasionally to get some perspective. Walter Murch may be a brilliant editor - and I was impressed by his focusing on eyes in the eyes of actors in Cold Mountain - but some of his analogies were wildly exaggerated or downright bizarre.

I particularly liked Election director Alexander Payne's description of editors as being like 'a sneaky politician.'

I can relate to that...