1 00:01:02,370 --> 00:01:03,496 Move. 2 00:01:26,461 --> 00:01:29,123 What makes a movie a movie is the editing. 3 00:01:34,869 --> 00:01:37,929 I've been in the business for, I don't know, 37 years, I think. 4 00:01:38,006 --> 00:01:39,268 Something like that. 5 00:01:39,341 --> 00:01:43,368 I did not really realize what editing was until I was in the editing room myself. 6 00:01:47,349 --> 00:01:51,149 There's magic to editing. Magic is a discovery... 7 00:01:51,519 --> 00:01:55,353 of something new that wasn't intended that works for the movie. 8 00:02:00,295 --> 00:02:03,526 Once you start to realize that film is the sum of editing... 9 00:02:03,598 --> 00:02:06,533 then editing is the thing you're always looking at. 10 00:02:19,381 --> 00:02:20,780 Showtime, folks. 11 00:02:20,849 --> 00:02:23,147 I think great editing skill... 12 00:02:23,218 --> 00:02:26,415 will protect a director from suicide. 13 00:02:50,378 --> 00:02:54,781 The first filmmakers simply photographed what interested or amused them. 14 00:02:59,754 --> 00:03:03,952 They held a shot until they got bored or the film ran out. 15 00:03:04,993 --> 00:03:08,258 The fathers of cinema, Edison in the United States... 16 00:03:08,329 --> 00:03:10,297 and the Lumičre brothers in France... 17 00:03:10,365 --> 00:03:13,562 were very pessimistic about the future of cinema. 18 00:03:13,635 --> 00:03:16,195 There was probably a worldwide interest... 19 00:03:16,271 --> 00:03:19,297 in seeing these images move... 20 00:03:19,441 --> 00:03:22,899 but once you'd seen somebody playing a joke with a hose... 21 00:03:23,278 --> 00:03:28,011 why pay money to see something that you can see for real out in the street? 22 00:03:28,817 --> 00:03:32,150 In fact, Auguste Lumičre went as far as to say... 23 00:03:32,220 --> 00:03:35,189 that cinema was an invention without a future. 24 00:03:35,890 --> 00:03:39,382 But Edwin Porter, one of Thomas Edison's employees... 25 00:03:39,461 --> 00:03:40,985 proved him wrong. 26 00:03:41,062 --> 00:03:44,088 Porter discovered that cutting separate shots together... 27 00:03:44,165 --> 00:03:45,826 could create a story. 28 00:03:45,900 --> 00:03:49,392 Edwin S. Porter really was the one with The Life of an American Fireman... 29 00:03:49,471 --> 00:03:52,599 I think, that started intercutting... 30 00:03:52,674 --> 00:03:55,939 and creating an emotional impact on the audience... 31 00:03:56,711 --> 00:03:59,976 by intercutting two shots that are not related to each other. 32 00:04:00,682 --> 00:04:02,980 One scene is going on at one place... 33 00:04:03,051 --> 00:04:07,385 basically, the firemen rushing to a fire with their horse-drawn wagons... 34 00:04:07,522 --> 00:04:10,013 and the other scene is the fire, miles away. 35 00:04:10,091 --> 00:04:13,583 You intercut the two and you understand, psychologically and emotionally... 36 00:04:13,661 --> 00:04:15,561 that these people's lives are in danger... 37 00:04:15,630 --> 00:04:17,564 and these people are coming to rescue them... 38 00:04:17,632 --> 00:04:20,863 and you're rooting, all of a sudden, for that to happen... 39 00:04:20,935 --> 00:04:23,301 and you're hoping they save the people. 40 00:04:24,639 --> 00:04:27,472 I often think about what it must have been like to be there... 41 00:04:27,542 --> 00:04:29,510 to create the art form as it was happening... 42 00:04:29,577 --> 00:04:32,375 and say, "Why don't we try this?" "That doesn't make sense." 43 00:04:32,447 --> 00:04:33,846 We do it in the editing room now. 44 00:04:33,915 --> 00:04:36,076 We cut to something and say, "That doesn't work." 45 00:04:36,151 --> 00:04:38,346 Imagine what they must have said in 1904. 46 00:04:38,720 --> 00:04:41,655 The Great Train Robbery was Porter's next film. 47 00:04:41,723 --> 00:04:45,625 That's when you really begin to see the possibilities. 48 00:04:46,728 --> 00:04:50,926 I'm not saying this because I'm an editor, but the invention of editing... 49 00:04:50,999 --> 00:04:54,230 is the thing that allowed film to take off. 50 00:04:54,936 --> 00:04:57,700 It's the equivalent of the invention of flight. 51 00:04:57,772 --> 00:05:01,538 Both human-powered flight and motion-picture editing... 52 00:05:01,609 --> 00:05:05,602 were invented in the same year, and they have similar kinds of effects. 53 00:05:06,214 --> 00:05:10,674 The invention of editing gave birth to a new art and a new language... 54 00:05:11,352 --> 00:05:14,287 a language that can transport us in the blink of an eye... 55 00:05:14,355 --> 00:05:18,519 from the vastness of the desert to the mysteries of the human face. 56 00:05:22,630 --> 00:05:27,590 A cut can bridge millions of years, connecting the prehistoric past... 57 00:05:30,071 --> 00:05:32,301 to an imaginary future. 58 00:05:35,009 --> 00:05:37,534 Editing can slow down time... 59 00:05:39,581 --> 00:05:41,481 or speed it up. 60 00:05:45,153 --> 00:05:48,145 The timing of a cut can startle audiences... 61 00:05:52,227 --> 00:05:53,751 or amuse them. 62 00:05:53,828 --> 00:05:57,662 ...with a long knife trailing after me. I am in great danger. 63 00:06:02,103 --> 00:06:04,970 I'll never let go. I promise. 64 00:06:07,008 --> 00:06:08,873 The choice and length of shots... 65 00:06:08,943 --> 00:06:12,379 shape our response to everything we see on the screen. 66 00:06:13,414 --> 00:06:16,474 And editing is why people like movies. 67 00:06:16,918 --> 00:06:21,480 Because in the end, wouldn't we like to edit our own lives? 68 00:06:23,324 --> 00:06:24,621 I think we would. 69 00:06:24,692 --> 00:06:27,786 I think everybody would like to take out the bad parts... 70 00:06:27,862 --> 00:06:32,128 take out the slow parts, and look deeper into the good parts. 71 00:06:34,469 --> 00:06:38,371 I started working on what used to be called... 72 00:06:38,439 --> 00:06:42,239 the upright Moviola, which is an editing machine... 73 00:06:42,310 --> 00:06:46,371 that looks something like a green sewing machine on legs. 74 00:06:46,714 --> 00:06:50,150 I switched to computer editing in the mid '90s. 75 00:06:51,085 --> 00:06:56,045 The editor is sort of the ombudsman for the audience. 76 00:06:58,326 --> 00:07:03,025 As an editor, you only see what is on the screen... 77 00:07:03,431 --> 00:07:07,367 not what was going on at the time of shooting... 78 00:07:07,435 --> 00:07:09,630 and that's how it's gonna look to the audience. 79 00:07:09,704 --> 00:07:13,663 I make it a principle not to go on the set... 80 00:07:14,208 --> 00:07:17,041 not to see the actors out of costume... 81 00:07:17,211 --> 00:07:21,477 not to see anything other than... 82 00:07:21,549 --> 00:07:25,007 the images that come to me from location. 83 00:07:27,956 --> 00:07:32,154 A major Hollywood production shoots almost 200 hours of film. 84 00:07:32,460 --> 00:07:35,793 Unspooled, the film would stretch from L.A. To Vegas. 85 00:07:36,664 --> 00:07:39,531 An editor may work for months, even years... 86 00:07:39,600 --> 00:07:42,501 crafting this footage into a two-hour movie. 87 00:07:43,471 --> 00:07:46,565 The finished film will contain thousands of shots... 88 00:07:46,641 --> 00:07:50,042 each measured in frames of one-twenty-fourth of a second. 89 00:07:50,878 --> 00:07:53,005 For a writer, it's a word. 90 00:07:53,715 --> 00:07:57,014 For a composer or a musician, it's a note. 91 00:07:57,085 --> 00:08:00,179 For an editor and a filmmaker, it's the frames. 92 00:08:00,788 --> 00:08:04,884 The one frame off or two frames added... 93 00:08:04,959 --> 00:08:06,551 or two frames less... 94 00:08:06,627 --> 00:08:11,257 is the difference between a sour note and a sweet note... 95 00:08:11,332 --> 00:08:13,493 is the difference between... 96 00:08:14,235 --> 00:08:15,998 clunky, clumsy crap... 97 00:08:16,738 --> 00:08:19,206 and orgasmic rhythm. 98 00:08:22,010 --> 00:08:24,774 Verna Fields made many good contributions to Jaws. 99 00:08:24,846 --> 00:08:27,474 We all refer to Verna Fields as Mother Cutter... 100 00:08:27,548 --> 00:08:30,915 because she was very earthy and very maternal. 101 00:08:30,985 --> 00:08:34,079 She cut her films at her house, in her pool house... 102 00:08:34,155 --> 00:08:35,417 in the San Fernando Valley... 103 00:08:35,490 --> 00:08:39,153 and it was a very haimish kind of a workplace. 104 00:08:39,227 --> 00:08:41,718 The shark didn't work as well... 105 00:08:41,796 --> 00:08:45,926 or as often as it was supposed to work according to the screenplay. 106 00:08:47,435 --> 00:08:48,459 That's the spot. 107 00:08:48,536 --> 00:08:51,903 We had a contest where Verna would stop the Moviola on a frame... 108 00:08:51,973 --> 00:08:55,170 where she wanted to make the cut, and I'd stop it where I wanted it. 109 00:08:55,243 --> 00:08:57,143 If ever we stopped it on the same frame... 110 00:08:57,245 --> 00:08:59,736 that had already been marked with a grease-pencil "X"... 111 00:08:59,814 --> 00:09:03,045 we knew that was the right frame on certain things where we didn't agree. 112 00:09:03,117 --> 00:09:06,848 All of our disagreements always happened with that darn shark. 113 00:09:09,057 --> 00:09:12,493 Verna was always in favor of making less to be more. 114 00:09:12,560 --> 00:09:14,755 And I was trying to squeeze that one more... 115 00:09:14,829 --> 00:09:18,196 'Cause it took me days to get the one shot. So I'm going back to... 116 00:09:18,266 --> 00:09:21,463 I'm on a barge for two days trying to get the shark to look real... 117 00:09:21,536 --> 00:09:23,197 and the sad fact was... 118 00:09:23,271 --> 00:09:26,672 the shark would only look real in 36 frames, not 38 frames. 119 00:09:26,741 --> 00:09:28,709 And that two-frame difference... 120 00:09:28,776 --> 00:09:31,609 was the difference between something really scary... 121 00:09:31,679 --> 00:09:34,580 and something that looked like a great white floating turd. 122 00:09:34,649 --> 00:09:36,173 Out of my way. 123 00:09:37,852 --> 00:09:40,377 Well, I got so desperate on Terminator 2... 124 00:09:40,455 --> 00:09:43,652 trying to shorten that film to a manageable length... 125 00:09:43,724 --> 00:09:45,851 as we all understand that to be... 126 00:09:45,927 --> 00:09:48,555 that I said, "Wait a minute, do we need all these frames? 127 00:09:48,629 --> 00:09:52,065 "If we just took out one frame every second for the entire film... 128 00:09:52,133 --> 00:09:54,328 "we'd shorten the film by a couple of minutes. 129 00:09:54,402 --> 00:09:55,892 "Let's just do it as a test. 130 00:09:55,970 --> 00:09:59,269 "We'll take a reel and we'll take out one frame in every 24." 131 00:09:59,340 --> 00:10:01,467 And the editors looked at me like I was nuts. 132 00:10:01,542 --> 00:10:04,010 "Let's just try it. Come on. Nobody's ever done this." 133 00:10:04,078 --> 00:10:06,842 We took out one frame in every 24, and it was a mess. 134 00:10:06,914 --> 00:10:10,441 There were jerks, there were things, there were cuts in the wrong places. 135 00:10:10,518 --> 00:10:12,816 You totally saw it and it just didn't work. 136 00:10:12,887 --> 00:10:15,378 Every one of those individual frames was important. 137 00:10:15,456 --> 00:10:18,482 Once you know that as an editor, now you get scared for a while. 138 00:10:18,559 --> 00:10:21,722 It's like, "Jeez, am I cutting here or am I cutting here?" 139 00:10:21,796 --> 00:10:25,789 But then after a while, you start to realize that there's great power in that, too. 140 00:10:29,537 --> 00:10:32,472 D.W. Griffith was the first great filmmaker... 141 00:10:32,540 --> 00:10:35,475 to understand the psychological importance of editing. 142 00:10:36,777 --> 00:10:40,543 Working a decade after Porter, he did more than anyone else... 143 00:10:40,615 --> 00:10:44,142 to advance the storytelling tools Porter had developed. 144 00:10:45,753 --> 00:10:48,415 Griffith invented and popularized techniques... 145 00:10:48,489 --> 00:10:51,322 that established the basic grammar of film. 146 00:10:53,194 --> 00:10:56,425 His melodramas were the first to draw audiences... 147 00:10:56,497 --> 00:10:59,330 into the emotional world of his characters. 148 00:10:59,867 --> 00:11:03,826 He certainly was the first man to use the close-up in a big way. 149 00:11:04,205 --> 00:11:08,232 It was so revolutionary that the producers, when they saw this, were aghast. 150 00:11:08,309 --> 00:11:10,869 They thought, "You can't put this picture out like this. 151 00:11:10,945 --> 00:11:13,345 "You can't cut to this big, ugly shot of somebody. 152 00:11:13,414 --> 00:11:16,815 "We're paying for this actor, this actress. We wanna see their whole body. 153 00:11:16,884 --> 00:11:18,579 "We don't wanna just see their face. 154 00:11:18,653 --> 00:11:21,554 "Second of all, the audiences won't know what to respond to. 155 00:11:21,622 --> 00:11:23,180 "They're gonna be all confused." 156 00:11:23,257 --> 00:11:25,885 Well, the proof is in the pudding and the reality is... 157 00:11:25,960 --> 00:11:27,928 that the audiences were not confused at all. 158 00:11:27,995 --> 00:11:31,761 Griffith brought it together in one magnificent film, The Birth of a Nation... 159 00:11:31,832 --> 00:11:36,030 and we saw the accumulation of 10 years of editing knowledge... 160 00:11:36,103 --> 00:11:37,536 put into a movie. 161 00:11:37,605 --> 00:11:40,802 And all of a sudden, you not only had close-ups... 162 00:11:42,510 --> 00:11:44,501 but you had flashbacks... 163 00:11:48,649 --> 00:11:50,674 parallel action... 164 00:11:51,452 --> 00:11:55,218 and you had all sorts of things being used to make the audience... 165 00:11:55,690 --> 00:11:58,716 keep attention focused on a certain part of the frame. 166 00:11:58,793 --> 00:12:02,627 D.W. Griffith established the tenets of classical film editing. 167 00:12:02,930 --> 00:12:06,388 And classical film editing relied on the concept of the invisible cut... 168 00:12:06,467 --> 00:12:10,267 in which action would always be continuous and fluid and moving. 169 00:12:11,172 --> 00:12:14,801 The goal was to mask the cut so the audience wouldn't notice... 170 00:12:14,875 --> 00:12:17,935 and could forget that they were watching a movie. 171 00:12:18,813 --> 00:12:20,781 Let's take another look. 172 00:12:21,282 --> 00:12:24,843 Notice how the gesture matches from one shot to the next? 173 00:12:26,821 --> 00:12:30,279 Griffith's seamless editing is still practiced today... 174 00:12:30,524 --> 00:12:34,460 and was the dominant editing style in Hollywood movies for decades. 175 00:12:34,528 --> 00:12:35,756 At last. 176 00:12:36,163 --> 00:12:40,361 Look again. The cut is so smooth that it's barely noticeable. 177 00:12:40,468 --> 00:12:42,800 It's all for telling the story. 178 00:12:42,937 --> 00:12:46,998 And all you wanna do is get the person emotionally invested in the story. 179 00:12:47,074 --> 00:12:48,974 So it becomes this invisible craft. 180 00:12:49,043 --> 00:12:52,479 We call it "the invisible art." And, indeed, it is. 181 00:12:52,546 --> 00:12:55,743 I mean, the more invisible we are, the better we're doing our job. 182 00:12:56,284 --> 00:12:59,685 Unfortunately, the invisible style of editing... 183 00:12:59,754 --> 00:13:02,917 kept editors invisible and unappreciated as well. 184 00:13:04,859 --> 00:13:08,659 For years they have been the best-kept secret of the movies. 185 00:13:10,131 --> 00:13:13,191 The first cutters were considered hands for hire... 186 00:13:13,267 --> 00:13:16,828 rather than creative partners in the filmmaking process. 187 00:13:18,506 --> 00:13:22,340 They looked at the images by holding the film up to the light. 188 00:13:23,377 --> 00:13:26,778 Then they would check their work by running it through a projector... 189 00:13:26,847 --> 00:13:29,441 and making the necessary adjustments. 190 00:13:30,885 --> 00:13:34,218 Griffith's main cutter was Jimmy Edward Smith... 191 00:13:34,288 --> 00:13:36,779 who virtually lived with him at the studio... 192 00:13:36,857 --> 00:13:41,385 where they worked far into the night running the film shot during the day. 193 00:13:43,631 --> 00:13:46,964 Later, Smith's wife Rose joined the editing team. 194 00:13:47,034 --> 00:13:50,697 The Smiths married during the cutting of lntolerance. 195 00:13:50,771 --> 00:13:54,468 For their honeymoon, Griffith allowed them the weekend off. 196 00:13:55,543 --> 00:13:58,273 - Lights. - Needs about 20 minutes out of it. 197 00:13:58,346 --> 00:14:02,214 The Kazan film The Last Tycoon had a wonderful scene. 198 00:14:02,283 --> 00:14:05,548 It was obviously the story of Irving Thalberg. 199 00:14:05,619 --> 00:14:08,782 And I always took that as a wonderful metaphor... 200 00:14:09,590 --> 00:14:11,751 about the editing process. 201 00:14:12,993 --> 00:14:15,962 It's silent, it's anonymous. 202 00:14:16,697 --> 00:14:18,528 What's Eddie, asleep? 203 00:14:19,433 --> 00:14:22,266 The goddamn movie even puts the editor to sleep. 204 00:14:25,439 --> 00:14:27,566 He's not asleep, Mr. Brady. 205 00:14:29,977 --> 00:14:32,411 What do you mean he's not asleep? 206 00:14:32,980 --> 00:14:34,845 He's dead, Mr. Brady. 207 00:14:35,316 --> 00:14:36,408 Dead? 208 00:14:36,851 --> 00:14:38,876 What do you mean he's dead? 209 00:14:39,019 --> 00:14:40,145 He must have died... 210 00:14:40,221 --> 00:14:43,088 How can he be dead? We were just watching the rough cut. 211 00:14:43,858 --> 00:14:46,520 Jesus, I didn't hear anything. Did you hear anything? 212 00:14:46,594 --> 00:14:47,993 Not a thing. 213 00:14:49,196 --> 00:14:50,458 Eddie... 214 00:14:51,298 --> 00:14:54,597 he probably didn't want to disturb the screening, Mr. Brady. 215 00:14:56,737 --> 00:14:59,638 Today, not only is the editor still alive... 216 00:14:59,707 --> 00:15:02,904 but he has become the director's key collaborator. 217 00:15:03,277 --> 00:15:04,801 No other crew member... 218 00:15:04,879 --> 00:15:08,178 spends as much time working alone with the director. 219 00:15:08,682 --> 00:15:10,843 Finding the relationship with the editor... 220 00:15:10,918 --> 00:15:14,649 is like trying to decide whether or not to get married. 221 00:15:15,723 --> 00:15:19,420 Because if the marriage isn't a good one, it's gonna be a sticky divorce. 222 00:15:19,493 --> 00:15:21,256 When I was doing my first movie... 223 00:15:21,328 --> 00:15:24,388 the only thing I knew is I wanted a female editor. 224 00:15:24,465 --> 00:15:28,959 'Cause I just felt a female editor would be more nurturing... 225 00:15:29,370 --> 00:15:31,600 to the movie and to me. 226 00:15:31,672 --> 00:15:36,166 They wouldn't try to be winning their way just to win their way. 227 00:15:36,243 --> 00:15:39,804 They wouldn't be trying to shove their agenda or win their battles with me. 228 00:15:39,880 --> 00:15:43,179 They would be nurturing me through this process. 229 00:15:43,517 --> 00:15:45,712 - Give me your hand! - She killed me, man. 230 00:15:45,853 --> 00:15:47,650 Who would've fucking thought that? 231 00:15:48,556 --> 00:15:53,323 I think editors play a big role with directors in giving them support... 232 00:15:53,561 --> 00:15:55,256 making them feel... 233 00:15:55,329 --> 00:16:00,062 like they can look at something that may have trouble or problems... 234 00:16:00,301 --> 00:16:04,499 and be comfortable enough so that they can approach those problems. 235 00:16:07,374 --> 00:16:09,399 Hi, Vincent. I'm getting dressed. 236 00:16:09,477 --> 00:16:11,741 In the beginning, he really doesn't guide me... 237 00:16:11,812 --> 00:16:15,270 and then I put together what I think he wants. 238 00:16:15,449 --> 00:16:19,852 And pretty much, we've worked together so long, I can judge what he would want. 239 00:16:20,287 --> 00:16:24,451 - What the fuck is this place? - This is Jack Rabbit Slim's. 240 00:16:25,893 --> 00:16:28,088 An Elvis man should love it. 241 00:16:28,162 --> 00:16:32,292 - Come on, man, let's go get a steak. - You can get a steak here, Daddy-O. 242 00:16:32,466 --> 00:16:33,990 Don't be a... 243 00:16:35,469 --> 00:16:37,460 After you, kitty cat. 244 00:16:37,538 --> 00:16:39,403 Initially, I had it really long. 245 00:16:39,473 --> 00:16:42,169 It was like a date in real time. 246 00:16:43,143 --> 00:16:46,670 And it was Sally's job to kind of, you know... 247 00:16:46,981 --> 00:16:51,042 little by little, convince me to bring it down... 248 00:16:51,118 --> 00:16:52,710 and it still could be funny. 249 00:16:52,786 --> 00:16:56,449 You'd still have what I'm talking about, but maybe it wouldn't be so painful. 250 00:17:02,429 --> 00:17:05,421 He did want it to feel very much like a date... 251 00:17:05,499 --> 00:17:07,729 and it was very long at first... 252 00:17:07,801 --> 00:17:11,259 and we just had to kind of live with it for a while. 253 00:17:17,545 --> 00:17:20,241 Just like, you know, letting me live with it long enough... 254 00:17:20,314 --> 00:17:23,647 so I could eventually, "I've had it enough. I've seen that enough. 255 00:17:23,717 --> 00:17:25,241 "Maybe now I can lose this part. 256 00:17:25,319 --> 00:17:28,720 "Okay, so it was like here, and now it's like here." 257 00:17:28,789 --> 00:17:32,452 Finally, we bring it down, and then I brought it too far down... 258 00:17:32,526 --> 00:17:34,619 and then he said, "We gotta bring it back up." 259 00:17:34,695 --> 00:17:38,131 "That's it. No more. This is not a video." 260 00:17:38,198 --> 00:17:42,294 We do that for eight months, so intense. 261 00:17:42,369 --> 00:17:44,098 I see him more than my husband. 262 00:17:44,171 --> 00:17:48,232 And sometimes I get annoyed with her for not reading my mind 100%. 263 00:17:49,410 --> 00:17:53,346 It's not good enough that she reads it 80% of the time, all right. 264 00:17:54,348 --> 00:17:56,145 We work very intensely together... 265 00:17:56,216 --> 00:17:59,049 and it's kind of amazing that we still like each other. 266 00:17:59,119 --> 00:18:02,680 If I was with my husband that long, I don't think I'd like him that much. 267 00:18:03,991 --> 00:18:07,324 By the time I've thought of an idea, written it... 268 00:18:08,062 --> 00:18:11,930 found the financing, cast the film, directed it... 269 00:18:13,934 --> 00:18:17,267 I get to the cutting room and it's like I've washed up on shore. 270 00:18:17,338 --> 00:18:19,806 I'm so happy to be there, 'cause then I think: 271 00:18:19,873 --> 00:18:21,670 "Now we can start making the film." 272 00:18:22,076 --> 00:18:25,876 It's so hard to be a director, and it's hard on the set. 273 00:18:25,946 --> 00:18:28,779 By the time they come into the cutting room the first week... 274 00:18:28,849 --> 00:18:32,307 they're usually half the people they were when they started out. 275 00:18:32,386 --> 00:18:34,820 They're shells of the people they were. 276 00:18:35,923 --> 00:18:40,826 And at least in my cutting room, I try to make it very easygoing... 277 00:18:40,928 --> 00:18:45,194 and try to heal them back into shape so that they can get to work on the movie. 278 00:18:45,265 --> 00:18:49,929 When Matthew Broderick is busted from having thrown the election... 279 00:18:50,004 --> 00:18:51,995 in Election... 280 00:18:52,072 --> 00:18:54,506 he enters the principal's office... 281 00:18:54,575 --> 00:18:58,568 and sees all the people gathered there who know he's guilty. 282 00:18:59,747 --> 00:19:02,682 Mr. McAllister, I hope you can help us clear something up. 283 00:19:02,750 --> 00:19:06,584 He wanted to cut it like the end sequence of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly... 284 00:19:06,654 --> 00:19:10,181 with holding on the faces for a really long time with the swelling music. 285 00:19:29,009 --> 00:19:33,412 And I was like, "No, let's cut it really fast and build to a climax." 286 00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:34,742 And I didn't wanna do that. 287 00:19:34,815 --> 00:19:37,443 It was cheesy and would call too much attention to itself. 288 00:19:37,518 --> 00:19:39,179 And he just wouldn't wanna do it. 289 00:19:39,253 --> 00:19:41,346 He wouldn't wanna put it in the movie like that. 290 00:19:41,422 --> 00:19:43,583 So finally, I said, "I'll pay you $25." 291 00:19:43,657 --> 00:19:45,682 And I said, "No, let's not do that." 292 00:19:45,759 --> 00:19:48,193 - I go, "Okay, $50." - And I said, "No." 293 00:19:48,362 --> 00:19:49,829 He's like, "No." 294 00:19:49,897 --> 00:19:52,764 And I said, "$75." 295 00:19:53,233 --> 00:19:57,932 So he even gave me an invoice, and it says that I owe him $75. 296 00:19:58,005 --> 00:20:02,237 So I paid him $75 to cut it in. And that's how it is now. 297 00:20:17,624 --> 00:20:19,717 I think successful editors... 298 00:20:21,328 --> 00:20:24,786 are really sly politicians. 299 00:20:33,073 --> 00:20:37,169 The Russian Revolution sparked a revolution in film editing as well. 300 00:20:38,312 --> 00:20:41,213 The crazy Russians start fucking around with images... 301 00:20:41,281 --> 00:20:44,512 and juxtaposing them and creating different emotional effects. 302 00:20:45,352 --> 00:20:48,048 Lenin saw film as the perfect medium... 303 00:20:48,122 --> 00:20:52,582 to inspire his largely illiterate nation to join the Revolution. 304 00:20:53,026 --> 00:20:55,620 They took these films out in the middle of the farmlands... 305 00:20:55,696 --> 00:20:57,596 and showed them to the farmers and peasants. 306 00:20:57,664 --> 00:20:58,926 They began to understand... 307 00:20:58,999 --> 00:21:01,934 that they could get a certain emotional, psychological effect... 308 00:21:02,002 --> 00:21:04,937 by a certain type of cutting from one image to the next. 309 00:21:05,005 --> 00:21:09,499 And that became a manipulation of what the audience was feeling. 310 00:21:11,044 --> 00:21:12,534 The Russian filmmakers... 311 00:21:12,613 --> 00:21:17,107 rejected the bourgeois stories and seamless editing practiced by Griffith. 312 00:21:17,417 --> 00:21:20,580 Instead of melodrama, they offered real life. 313 00:21:22,022 --> 00:21:24,582 To make the film Man with a Movie Camera... 314 00:21:24,658 --> 00:21:27,957 documentary filmmaker Dziga Vertov and his team... 315 00:21:28,162 --> 00:21:32,826 took his cameras into the streets to record a typical day in Moscow. 316 00:21:33,734 --> 00:21:36,862 It's constantly reminding me that I'm watching a movie. 317 00:21:38,772 --> 00:21:41,138 There were scenes inside an editing room. 318 00:21:41,208 --> 00:21:44,006 You see how they edited movies back in 1929. 319 00:21:47,447 --> 00:21:50,348 They were engaged in a pure explosion of creative activity... 320 00:21:50,417 --> 00:21:52,612 in manipulating these images. 321 00:21:56,256 --> 00:21:59,692 Every modern editing convention that we know of... 322 00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:02,251 is demonstrated in Man with a Movie Camera. 323 00:22:03,964 --> 00:22:06,694 The film celebrated not just the Revolution... 324 00:22:06,767 --> 00:22:10,760 but the role of the cameraman and the editor in helping to create it. 325 00:22:12,973 --> 00:22:17,410 Vertov and his wife Elizaveta cut their documentaries and newsreels... 326 00:22:17,477 --> 00:22:20,742 in dark basements with rats scuttling underfoot. 327 00:22:21,682 --> 00:22:23,081 But in this film... 328 00:22:23,150 --> 00:22:27,644 he made the editor as important as any other worker in the Revolution. 329 00:22:30,524 --> 00:22:35,018 The theoretician Lev Kuleshov also experimented with film editing. 330 00:22:36,964 --> 00:22:38,795 In his most famous study... 331 00:22:38,866 --> 00:22:43,667 he took a shot of a Russian actor and intercut it with three different objects. ; 332 00:22:44,605 --> 00:22:46,402 a bowl of hot soup... 333 00:22:47,207 --> 00:22:50,734 a distraught woman draped across her husband's coffin... 334 00:22:51,111 --> 00:22:54,046 and a little girl playing with a teddy bear. 335 00:22:54,648 --> 00:22:58,914 When audiences saw the film, they raved about the actor's performance. ; 336 00:23:02,356 --> 00:23:04,847 how hungrily he looked at the soup... 337 00:23:08,862 --> 00:23:11,592 how sorrowfully he gazed at the woman... 338 00:23:12,933 --> 00:23:15,834 and how tenderly he watched the little girl. 339 00:23:17,304 --> 00:23:19,636 But, actually, it was the same expression each time. 340 00:23:19,706 --> 00:23:23,005 Now this demonstrates the power of juxtaposition... 341 00:23:23,777 --> 00:23:25,677 the power of montage... 342 00:23:26,046 --> 00:23:29,846 by taking one shot and another shot to give it a third meaning. 343 00:23:30,284 --> 00:23:34,778 And the third meaning is, in effect, an emotion that's much greater... 344 00:23:34,855 --> 00:23:38,655 than the sum total of the two parts that put it together in the first place. 345 00:23:38,725 --> 00:23:41,888 And this is the basis of all editing, by the way. 346 00:23:42,362 --> 00:23:46,298 One of Kuleshov's contemporaries, Sergei Eisenstein... 347 00:23:46,366 --> 00:23:49,767 combined these experiments with Marxist ideology... 348 00:23:49,870 --> 00:23:52,805 to create films of revolutionary fervor. 349 00:23:54,207 --> 00:23:58,940 He saw editing, like history, as a clash of images and ideas. 350 00:24:00,247 --> 00:24:03,705 The meaning of the film was not in the shots themselves... 351 00:24:03,784 --> 00:24:05,684 but in their collision. 352 00:24:07,154 --> 00:24:09,884 "When two elements are in conflict," he argued... 353 00:24:09,957 --> 00:24:13,324 "their collision sparks a new meaning of higher order." 354 00:24:16,029 --> 00:24:20,557 Where Griffith tried to hide his cuts, Eisenstein reveled in them. 355 00:24:21,335 --> 00:24:24,202 He wanted the audience to feel the frame... 356 00:24:24,271 --> 00:24:27,502 to know that this is a movie, not life. 357 00:24:28,408 --> 00:24:32,139 Eisenstein is the first real director. 358 00:24:32,612 --> 00:24:34,512 He killed himself in his staging... 359 00:24:34,581 --> 00:24:37,072 he killed himself with his camerawork and everything... 360 00:24:37,150 --> 00:24:39,550 but it was all at the service of the scissors... 361 00:24:39,619 --> 00:24:41,814 every little, single, solitary bit of it. 362 00:24:44,524 --> 00:24:47,516 I got a movie projector when I was 11... 363 00:24:47,961 --> 00:24:50,930 and one of the first movies I got was The Battleship Potemkin. 364 00:24:50,998 --> 00:24:53,626 I just ran that Odessa Steps sequence over and over again. 365 00:24:53,700 --> 00:24:55,634 I couldn't believe what I was seeing. 366 00:24:56,403 --> 00:24:59,668 One of the things that makes it incredible is the editing... 367 00:24:59,740 --> 00:25:02,436 the incredible juxtaposition of images. 368 00:25:02,809 --> 00:25:07,473 What the Russians did was a response to what Griffith had done. 369 00:25:07,581 --> 00:25:11,381 Classical editing, and now, Eisensteinian montage... 370 00:25:11,718 --> 00:25:13,447 and you can take that further. 371 00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:17,718 The American cinema has absorbed all of that stuff from the Russians... 372 00:25:17,791 --> 00:25:19,816 and now it's in our film. 373 00:25:39,379 --> 00:25:42,974 The fact is that many of these techniques have been appropriated... 374 00:25:43,050 --> 00:25:46,816 into what we do every day as editors right here in Hollywood, California... 375 00:25:46,887 --> 00:25:48,411 making action pictures... 376 00:25:48,488 --> 00:25:51,548 because we are also trying to get a response from the audience. 377 00:25:51,625 --> 00:25:54,253 We're also trying to get them to rise out of their seats... 378 00:25:54,327 --> 00:25:55,760 out of their complacency... 379 00:25:55,829 --> 00:25:58,821 but not necessarily for revolutionary purposes... 380 00:25:58,899 --> 00:26:01,390 but just to really have a great time in the movies. 381 00:26:01,468 --> 00:26:02,799 Don't you fucking move! 382 00:26:02,869 --> 00:26:07,465 Editing techniques the Soviets used to convert their population to Communism... 383 00:26:07,541 --> 00:26:10,977 now drive Hollywood's action blockbusters. 384 00:26:11,745 --> 00:26:13,838 - Where's the shot? - What shot? 385 00:26:14,548 --> 00:26:16,914 - Who took out the shot? - Which shot is that? 386 00:26:16,983 --> 00:26:19,816 The money shot. Bus driver's head. 387 00:26:19,886 --> 00:26:23,049 The brains-on-the-window shot. The bits-are-on-the-visor shot. 388 00:26:23,123 --> 00:26:25,921 We thought we'd show it to you like this without all that... 389 00:26:25,992 --> 00:26:28,460 Put it back. Don't "show" me anything. 390 00:26:28,528 --> 00:26:31,395 You don't need it. You're not even giving it a chance. 391 00:26:31,465 --> 00:26:34,832 How's the rearview-mirror gag supposed to work without it? 392 00:26:36,403 --> 00:26:38,871 Am I the only one here who respects the writing? 393 00:26:42,409 --> 00:26:44,343 You've got suspense and you've got action. 394 00:26:44,411 --> 00:26:47,676 I found a good combination in the two Terminator films... 395 00:26:47,747 --> 00:26:51,308 was to have a suspenseful build-up to an action release. 396 00:26:51,451 --> 00:26:52,679 In Terminator 2... 397 00:26:52,752 --> 00:26:56,347 you have a slow, tense build-up of these characters moving around... 398 00:26:56,423 --> 00:26:58,914 closing in on the young John Connor. 399 00:26:59,092 --> 00:27:04,052 Then he sees the Terminator for the first time and it's all in slow motion. 400 00:27:06,366 --> 00:27:08,926 I usually like to use the slow motion in the build-up... 401 00:27:09,002 --> 00:27:12,836 where it has this kind of protracted, dream-like or nightmarish quality... 402 00:27:12,906 --> 00:27:16,808 and then there's a cathartic break, and then it kicks into gear. 403 00:27:16,877 --> 00:27:17,901 Get down. 404 00:27:42,135 --> 00:27:46,868 In a chase, something is going right or something is going wrong. 405 00:27:47,174 --> 00:27:49,404 And you wanna accentuate that. 406 00:27:49,543 --> 00:27:52,137 Rhythm is one of the ways you do that. 407 00:27:52,312 --> 00:27:56,339 You also wanna create peaks and valleys in terms of rhythm. 408 00:27:56,449 --> 00:27:59,145 Chases are a wonderful thing to work on as an editor. 409 00:27:59,219 --> 00:28:01,380 I wouldn't want to do them as a steady diet... 410 00:28:01,454 --> 00:28:03,649 but every now and then, it's great fun. 411 00:28:03,723 --> 00:28:07,215 My favorite chase that I've ever worked on was the Canal Chase... 412 00:28:07,294 --> 00:28:09,819 as we called it, in Terminator 2. 413 00:28:13,900 --> 00:28:16,630 Our ancestors were survivors. Therefore, we're here. 414 00:28:16,703 --> 00:28:19,729 And so there's something plugged into our reptilian hindbrain... 415 00:28:19,806 --> 00:28:23,970 that makes us relate to the idea of being pursued and getting away. 416 00:28:24,110 --> 00:28:27,409 So we get to go through these kind of cathartic simulator runs... 417 00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:28,879 while we watch a movie... 418 00:28:28,949 --> 00:28:33,045 and we get to experience that heart-pounding fear of being chased. 419 00:28:33,220 --> 00:28:35,654 It's a natural form of excitement. 420 00:28:35,989 --> 00:28:38,753 Editing can hone that, sharpen that. 421 00:28:39,192 --> 00:28:43,219 The tempo of the cuts, the variety of shots that are used. 422 00:28:43,530 --> 00:28:47,557 The changing image sizes of the character's reactions, eyes. 423 00:28:47,834 --> 00:28:50,394 All these things are in the palette. 424 00:28:50,470 --> 00:28:52,961 By manipulation and juxtaposition... 425 00:28:53,607 --> 00:28:55,939 you can increase the excitement. 426 00:28:57,477 --> 00:29:00,344 This is the first thing: I'm standing up... 427 00:29:00,914 --> 00:29:05,283 which allows me a considerable amount of freedom of movement. 428 00:29:05,352 --> 00:29:09,254 And it also means that I'm "sprung." 429 00:29:09,322 --> 00:29:10,880 I guess that's the only word for it. 430 00:29:10,957 --> 00:29:13,790 And frequently, when I'm looking at the cut... 431 00:29:13,860 --> 00:29:15,885 I will stand here... 432 00:29:15,962 --> 00:29:19,398 with my hand on the controls almost like a gunslinger... 433 00:29:19,466 --> 00:29:22,594 and trying to hit the point of the cut... 434 00:29:23,036 --> 00:29:24,970 with my knees bent. 435 00:29:25,472 --> 00:29:27,372 And somehow, this is important for me... 436 00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:31,171 because it allows me to internalize the rhythms... 437 00:29:31,244 --> 00:29:33,872 the visual rhythms of what's happening. 438 00:29:34,047 --> 00:29:37,483 At this point, we've started with a blank slate. 439 00:29:37,550 --> 00:29:40,713 So, the question is, what are we gonna start with? 440 00:29:42,188 --> 00:29:46,022 That looks like a good possibility. It establishes things. 441 00:29:48,495 --> 00:29:52,488 So there's Anthony saying, "Action," and they start to come forward. 442 00:29:53,933 --> 00:29:55,833 We could begin it anywhere in here... 443 00:29:55,902 --> 00:29:58,962 but see, there now, somebody falls right here. 444 00:29:59,706 --> 00:30:02,106 And that's good. Falling is good. 445 00:30:02,375 --> 00:30:06,903 We will edit this shot into the timeline. 446 00:30:08,048 --> 00:30:09,640 There it is. 447 00:30:10,750 --> 00:30:15,210 In the end, there will be probably 5,000 shots in the film. 448 00:30:15,522 --> 00:30:17,490 And all of them... 449 00:30:17,957 --> 00:30:20,619 have to ultimately be the right shot... 450 00:30:20,694 --> 00:30:22,958 in the right place, for the right length of time. 451 00:30:28,702 --> 00:30:31,227 When I was watching Nosferatu when I was a kid... 452 00:30:31,304 --> 00:30:34,205 our main guy is up in the castle, and night has fallen... 453 00:30:34,274 --> 00:30:36,868 and we're very suspicious something's about to happen... 454 00:30:36,943 --> 00:30:39,503 and we see Nosferatu down the hall. 455 00:30:39,879 --> 00:30:42,404 That section is what scared me the most. 456 00:30:42,582 --> 00:30:46,848 And in terms of editing, it caught my attention because of this: 457 00:30:47,287 --> 00:30:50,188 We saw this vampire with pointy teeth and scary eyes... 458 00:30:50,256 --> 00:30:53,350 very far away down a hallway, and then we cut to our guy. 459 00:30:53,426 --> 00:30:56,953 He's very scared, and we cut back. He's six feet away from us. 460 00:30:57,030 --> 00:30:59,590 He's just on the other side of the door. 461 00:30:59,666 --> 00:31:02,294 Every time I saw it, I was very scared. 462 00:31:02,402 --> 00:31:07,362 And I remember waiting for that moment of being surprised. 463 00:31:09,042 --> 00:31:10,509 When people come into a theater... 464 00:31:10,577 --> 00:31:13,478 they're already keenly aware of their own fears. 465 00:31:13,546 --> 00:31:17,277 It's like, "Let's gather round the campfire and listen to the shaman talk." 466 00:31:18,518 --> 00:31:21,385 The screen being the fire. We'll sit in a circle. 467 00:31:21,454 --> 00:31:23,945 We'll be in the darkness. We'll be in a dreamlike state. 468 00:31:24,023 --> 00:31:25,490 We'll be connected to strangers... 469 00:31:25,558 --> 00:31:28,288 in a way that we're normally not in the rest of our culture. 470 00:31:28,361 --> 00:31:29,726 And we'll feel things in unison. 471 00:31:32,132 --> 00:31:35,158 The opening sequence of Scream is almost a film in itself. 472 00:31:35,235 --> 00:31:38,762 It is kind of whacking the audience upside the head in 15 minutes... 473 00:31:38,838 --> 00:31:42,433 where you introduce a character, develop her, endear her to the audience... 474 00:31:42,509 --> 00:31:44,443 and then kill her unexpectedly. 475 00:31:44,511 --> 00:31:48,345 That's a matter of yourself and your editor sitting there and thinking: 476 00:31:48,415 --> 00:31:50,576 "What is that audience, that phantom audience... 477 00:31:50,650 --> 00:31:53,278 "that you imagine in your mind, thinking?" 478 00:31:53,353 --> 00:31:55,913 It's all judgment calls. It's all about rhythm. 479 00:31:55,989 --> 00:31:58,116 It's all about getting that part of it right... 480 00:31:58,191 --> 00:32:00,659 so that there's no moment where they feel quite easy... 481 00:32:00,727 --> 00:32:04,527 no moment where they feel they can know exactly what's coming next. 482 00:32:36,262 --> 00:32:40,221 Hitchcock was one of the first directors I was aware of as a kid. 483 00:32:40,433 --> 00:32:44,460 When Psycho came out, it caused a buzz in the neighborhood among the parents. 484 00:32:44,537 --> 00:32:46,402 And I remember my mother saying: 485 00:32:46,473 --> 00:32:49,306 "It's this horrible old man, he makes these horrible movies." 486 00:32:49,375 --> 00:32:50,603 I just said, "Really?" 487 00:32:51,211 --> 00:32:55,944 But it was a sense of the totally forbidden and somebody who'd crossed the line. 488 00:33:00,086 --> 00:33:01,280 No! 489 00:33:05,925 --> 00:33:08,018 So later when I saw his films... 490 00:33:08,094 --> 00:33:11,757 it was kind of the delight of seeing this kind of savage wit, if you will... 491 00:33:11,831 --> 00:33:14,800 that beneath, in Hitchcock's case especially... 492 00:33:14,868 --> 00:33:18,565 the very urbane, sophisticated, civilized veneer... 493 00:33:18,638 --> 00:33:21,971 was this kind of feral, quick animal... 494 00:33:22,175 --> 00:33:24,075 that knew exactly where the jugular was... 495 00:33:24,143 --> 00:33:26,407 and kind of delighted in the taste of the blood. 496 00:33:32,619 --> 00:33:35,213 Hitchcock was the master of suspense. 497 00:33:38,124 --> 00:33:40,957 Jonathan Demme was devoted to Hitchcock... 498 00:33:41,027 --> 00:33:44,588 and his influence can clearly be seen in The Silence of the Lambs. 499 00:33:53,540 --> 00:33:56,168 Suspense is really an expression of fear. 500 00:33:56,242 --> 00:34:00,235 We can build that in our storytelling by withholding information. 501 00:34:00,313 --> 00:34:02,008 Frankly, it's a manipulation. 502 00:34:02,081 --> 00:34:06,381 But in using that manipulation, it also empowers the story. 503 00:34:08,755 --> 00:34:11,053 Not knowing where we're going to go next... 504 00:34:11,124 --> 00:34:14,184 is the thing that human beings hate the most. 505 00:34:18,431 --> 00:34:22,834 We'd all like to know where we're going, if it's gonna be all right. 506 00:34:36,950 --> 00:34:41,751 My editing process is an intuitive process. It's what feels truthful. 507 00:34:41,921 --> 00:34:45,721 It's what feels strong and it's what works. 508 00:34:45,892 --> 00:34:48,759 And you hear this from a lot of editors. 509 00:34:49,162 --> 00:34:52,859 Dede Allen always used to say to me, "I cut with my gut." 510 00:34:52,932 --> 00:34:54,365 And she's right. 511 00:35:01,874 --> 00:35:02,863 Cavalry! 512 00:35:03,309 --> 00:35:05,072 Three riders! 513 00:35:05,311 --> 00:35:06,869 Just over that hill! 514 00:35:06,946 --> 00:35:08,573 There's a mismatch here... 515 00:35:08,648 --> 00:35:13,483 and I'm gonna have to determine whether this is a problem or not... 516 00:35:13,753 --> 00:35:18,713 because Brown is looking toward camera... 517 00:35:18,925 --> 00:35:23,555 but when we cut, he's looking up off to the left. 518 00:35:24,430 --> 00:35:28,491 We can have Jeremy come in and cut... 519 00:35:28,568 --> 00:35:33,198 so that Jeremy's head is masking Brown's head... 520 00:35:34,140 --> 00:35:38,509 so that the mismatch is not seen. 521 00:35:38,945 --> 00:35:42,711 And now I'm going to mark this frame... 522 00:35:42,982 --> 00:35:45,542 and I'm gonna get rid of this area... 523 00:35:45,618 --> 00:35:48,485 which is three frames. 524 00:35:49,389 --> 00:35:53,519 And now I'm going to look at it in context and see how it looks. 525 00:35:53,593 --> 00:35:54,890 Three riders! 526 00:35:54,961 --> 00:35:56,258 Just over that hill! 527 00:35:56,362 --> 00:35:57,488 Good. 528 00:35:57,563 --> 00:36:01,522 You have to have the personality that enjoys that... 529 00:36:02,368 --> 00:36:06,737 It's almost like making little pieces of jewelry. 530 00:36:06,806 --> 00:36:11,709 That patience of the individual shots and how they're crafted together... 531 00:36:11,778 --> 00:36:15,839 but at the same time, you have to have an appreciation for the larger picture... 532 00:36:15,915 --> 00:36:19,351 and how these shots fit into the larger picture of the scene... 533 00:36:19,419 --> 00:36:22,980 and then how the scene fits into the larger picture of the sequence... 534 00:36:23,056 --> 00:36:26,856 and how the sequence fits together with the larger picture of the whole work... 535 00:36:26,926 --> 00:36:29,793 and then how the work fits together with society. 536 00:36:29,862 --> 00:36:32,330 So it's boxes within boxes within boxes. 537 00:36:36,369 --> 00:36:40,237 In the 1930s, movies became an even bigger business. 538 00:36:41,507 --> 00:36:44,374 The movie studios introduced sound films... 539 00:36:44,444 --> 00:36:46,969 and radically reshaped moviemaking. 540 00:36:47,947 --> 00:36:52,350 Hollywood retooled itself on the model of the factory assembly line. 541 00:36:53,219 --> 00:36:56,416 The studios cranked out movies with almost the same speed... 542 00:36:56,489 --> 00:36:58,457 that Henry Ford mass-produced cars. 543 00:36:58,524 --> 00:37:00,355 Stay where you are, all of you. 544 00:37:01,961 --> 00:37:06,057 "I don't want it good," Jack Warner declared, "I want it Tuesday." 545 00:37:08,367 --> 00:37:11,996 You now needed an industrial system to make this all work. 546 00:37:12,538 --> 00:37:16,235 In the first 20, 25, 30 years of cinema... 547 00:37:16,309 --> 00:37:18,800 large numbers of editors were women. 548 00:37:18,878 --> 00:37:21,745 It was considered to be a woman's job... 549 00:37:21,814 --> 00:37:24,612 because it was something like knitting. 550 00:37:24,684 --> 00:37:27,949 It was something like tapestry, sewing... 551 00:37:28,020 --> 00:37:31,649 that you took these pieces of fabric, which is what films are... 552 00:37:31,724 --> 00:37:33,851 and you put them together. 553 00:37:33,926 --> 00:37:35,621 It was when sound came in... 554 00:37:35,695 --> 00:37:39,426 that the men began to infiltrate the ranks of the editors... 555 00:37:39,499 --> 00:37:42,662 because sound was somehow electrical. 556 00:37:42,735 --> 00:37:46,501 It was technical. It was no longer knitting. 557 00:37:50,877 --> 00:37:53,971 There is the soundtrack, which might be several tracks... 558 00:37:54,046 --> 00:37:55,513 and the image. 559 00:37:55,715 --> 00:37:58,309 And without the happy marriage of those two... 560 00:37:58,384 --> 00:38:03,151 you're not using every bit of potential that you possibly can in editing a movie. 561 00:38:05,925 --> 00:38:10,259 The scene in Horse Whisperer where Sam Neill and Kristin Scott Thomas... 562 00:38:10,563 --> 00:38:14,522 An argument results because she is gonna leave. 563 00:38:14,834 --> 00:38:18,235 The intent of the scene was to show that the marriage was foundering... 564 00:38:18,304 --> 00:38:22,434 and it was dialogue basically overlapping as they were speaking. 565 00:38:22,508 --> 00:38:24,237 So they were both miked. 566 00:38:24,310 --> 00:38:28,371 To make it even more dramatic, I even took out more air... 567 00:38:28,447 --> 00:38:30,608 and made the overlaps more intense. 568 00:38:30,683 --> 00:38:33,413 I could do that because I had separate tracks to work with. 569 00:38:33,486 --> 00:38:35,511 Are you a psychiatrist? He says it takes time. 570 00:38:35,588 --> 00:38:37,215 Well, I don't care what he says. 571 00:38:37,290 --> 00:38:40,157 I cannot sit here and pretend everything's gonna be all right. 572 00:38:40,226 --> 00:38:42,285 I am not pretending, I am trusting... 573 00:38:42,361 --> 00:38:45,660 We are losing. We are losing her! 574 00:38:46,098 --> 00:38:50,432 In effect, by taking out all the air in that particular dialogue scene... 575 00:38:50,503 --> 00:38:53,870 it did have kind of a suffocating effect because there was no respite... 576 00:38:53,940 --> 00:38:57,341 there was no air there. You couldn't draw a breath. 577 00:38:58,110 --> 00:39:00,840 And it became that much more intense because of it. 578 00:39:04,150 --> 00:39:06,118 To me, sound is very important. 579 00:39:06,185 --> 00:39:09,279 I create a sound template that is both with sound effects... 580 00:39:09,355 --> 00:39:12,688 and temporary music that evokes certain feelings. 581 00:39:12,758 --> 00:39:15,352 I've worked with Per Hallberg, who's a sound designer... 582 00:39:15,428 --> 00:39:17,123 and with Ridley Scott. 583 00:39:17,196 --> 00:39:19,130 For example, in Black Hawk Down... 584 00:39:19,198 --> 00:39:22,861 the incursion of the Black Hawks entering into Mogadishu. 585 00:39:23,469 --> 00:39:26,063 It was almost like a ballet, a science-fiction ballet... 586 00:39:26,138 --> 00:39:28,732 people landing on a different planet. 587 00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:38,246 I was not interested in hearing all the helicopters, only music. 588 00:39:38,317 --> 00:39:40,512 Showing it from a subjective point of view. 589 00:39:40,586 --> 00:39:45,023 So this idea of science fiction, when I was putting the scene together... 590 00:39:45,591 --> 00:39:49,493 just inspired me to use almost no sound. 591 00:39:50,529 --> 00:39:54,898 I remember that the real Black Hawk pilots wanted to see the footage. 592 00:39:54,967 --> 00:39:57,993 So, one day I just showed them an assembly. 593 00:39:58,070 --> 00:39:59,970 They were really moved. 594 00:40:03,809 --> 00:40:06,403 One guy, there was a tear in his eye, and he says... 595 00:40:06,479 --> 00:40:09,505 "I don't know. This looks great. I got goose bumps." 596 00:40:09,582 --> 00:40:12,244 These were the guys that were there... 597 00:40:14,387 --> 00:40:16,014 and it felt real to them. 598 00:40:20,993 --> 00:40:22,927 There was this scene in Dante's Peak... 599 00:40:22,995 --> 00:40:27,955 where Pierce Brosnan has to walk back through a long tunnel to his truck... 600 00:40:28,234 --> 00:40:30,668 and the tunnel is about to collapse. 601 00:40:30,770 --> 00:40:35,104 And you hear the sound, the little sound of sand... 602 00:40:35,174 --> 00:40:37,199 falling down the walls. 603 00:40:48,988 --> 00:40:52,355 So at one point, the music editor asked me for the scene... 604 00:40:52,425 --> 00:40:55,155 and she proceeded to put music on it... 605 00:40:55,661 --> 00:41:00,291 and I looked at it and I said, "That doesn't work at all." 606 00:41:10,343 --> 00:41:13,312 Because suddenly I'm hearing music... 607 00:41:13,379 --> 00:41:17,907 and I'm not hearing all that stuff, that tiny little sand thing... 608 00:41:17,984 --> 00:41:20,953 that makes me scared. 609 00:41:21,420 --> 00:41:26,323 If you were in a really dangerous situation, your ears would be so open... 610 00:41:26,392 --> 00:41:29,884 and hearing every little tiny, tiny sound. 611 00:41:29,962 --> 00:41:32,157 If it just has music smooshed over it... 612 00:41:32,231 --> 00:41:36,725 you know, it takes away that sense of listening with all your might. 613 00:41:37,069 --> 00:41:40,698 I mean, if I were the character, I'd say, "Turn that off! I can't hear." 614 00:41:42,908 --> 00:41:46,901 The advent of sound expanded the editor's role in Hollywood. 615 00:41:47,179 --> 00:41:48,908 During the '30s and '40s... 616 00:41:48,981 --> 00:41:51,916 directors rarely came into the cutting room. 617 00:41:52,818 --> 00:41:57,255 The editing was controlled by the studios and their supervising editors. 618 00:41:58,357 --> 00:42:01,326 One of the most powerful was Margaret Booth... 619 00:42:01,394 --> 00:42:04,420 supervising editor at MGM for 30 years. 620 00:42:05,965 --> 00:42:08,160 Mastering the transition to sound... 621 00:42:08,234 --> 00:42:11,897 she caught the attention of legendary producer Irving Thalberg... 622 00:42:11,971 --> 00:42:14,667 who was the first to call cutters "film editors"... 623 00:42:14,740 --> 00:42:16,901 starting with Booth herself. 624 00:42:17,209 --> 00:42:21,908 She oversaw all the production but had a say in almost every one. 625 00:42:22,448 --> 00:42:26,407 Maggie was probably the toughest and most feared woman at MGM. 626 00:42:27,219 --> 00:42:30,347 People would shudder when they'd hear that she was on the phone... 627 00:42:30,423 --> 00:42:32,288 or she'd bust into the editing room... 628 00:42:32,358 --> 00:42:35,987 or you'd get a call, "Come down to Room F," which is her room. 629 00:42:36,062 --> 00:42:38,326 You'd think, "God, what have I done now?" 630 00:42:38,397 --> 00:42:39,887 Margaret would tell the editors. ; 631 00:42:39,965 --> 00:42:42,399 "It's your responsibility for the pace of the movie. 632 00:42:42,468 --> 00:42:46,097 "It's your responsibility to get the best performances out of your actors. 633 00:42:46,172 --> 00:42:49,266 "It's your responsibility to make it as good as you can." 634 00:42:49,341 --> 00:42:51,434 Margaret Booth, she used to say: 635 00:42:51,510 --> 00:42:54,536 "If I feel there's a cut at a certain spot... 636 00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:57,212 "whether it matches or not, cut. 637 00:42:57,817 --> 00:43:00,251 "If you cut for the emotion... 638 00:43:00,319 --> 00:43:03,516 "you will get away with so much by doing that." 639 00:43:04,156 --> 00:43:07,785 And I would hear her really yell at different editors... 640 00:43:07,860 --> 00:43:12,229 who would say, "It doesn't match." She'd say, "I don't care. Cut." 641 00:43:13,999 --> 00:43:16,900 Booth, like other great studio editors of the era... 642 00:43:16,969 --> 00:43:20,837 helped create many of the stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. 643 00:43:25,511 --> 00:43:27,877 Editors today are still doing the same. 644 00:43:31,884 --> 00:43:36,321 We totally control the performance of an actor in the cutting room, actually. 645 00:43:36,388 --> 00:43:38,015 A lot of them won't admit that. 646 00:43:38,090 --> 00:43:41,958 Most actors learn early on that the editor is the one to make friends with... 647 00:43:42,027 --> 00:43:45,121 'cause their performance depends a great deal on the editor... 648 00:43:45,197 --> 00:43:47,131 and the taste and the talent of the editor. 649 00:43:47,199 --> 00:43:50,600 We'll see dailies, and Take 5 is spectacular. It is great. 650 00:43:50,669 --> 00:43:54,537 But there's also something wonderful in Take 7, and Take 4 and Take 3. 651 00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:58,667 Sometimes, an actor will see it onscreen and say: 652 00:43:58,744 --> 00:44:01,042 "That was terrific. You used Take 5." 653 00:44:01,113 --> 00:44:03,343 They don't know, they don't realize... 654 00:44:03,415 --> 00:44:06,350 that you are borrowing from every single performance... 655 00:44:06,418 --> 00:44:10,514 and the editor is the person who is responsible... 656 00:44:10,589 --> 00:44:13,353 for finding those moments in each performance. 657 00:44:13,425 --> 00:44:16,792 You talk about Basic Instinct, I think, to a large degree... 658 00:44:16,862 --> 00:44:19,922 that the great performance that Sharon is giving there... 659 00:44:19,999 --> 00:44:22,559 is also constructed... 660 00:44:22,701 --> 00:44:24,999 by Frank. 661 00:44:25,504 --> 00:44:28,337 He spent an enormous amount of time... 662 00:44:28,407 --> 00:44:31,399 in selecting every part of every take... 663 00:44:31,477 --> 00:44:34,640 that he felt was important. 664 00:44:35,581 --> 00:44:37,947 In cutting the interrogation sequence... 665 00:44:38,017 --> 00:44:42,215 using the basic scenes that were back and forth from the dialogue... 666 00:44:42,655 --> 00:44:44,987 the scene would be fairly dull. 667 00:44:45,057 --> 00:44:47,992 I had to create her looks and his looks. 668 00:44:48,627 --> 00:44:51,824 They were manufactured. They weren't really shot that way. 669 00:44:51,897 --> 00:44:53,387 I would take a piece... 670 00:44:53,465 --> 00:44:56,400 of Michael looking at her from a different part of the scene... 671 00:44:56,468 --> 00:44:59,869 and a piece of her looking at him from a different part of the scene. 672 00:45:00,072 --> 00:45:03,269 I don't make any rules, Nick. I go with the flow. 673 00:45:04,843 --> 00:45:07,812 Sharon asked if she could see it, and I said, "Yeah, it's done." 674 00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:11,714 And Sharon came upstairs and said, "You must remove that scene." 675 00:45:12,418 --> 00:45:14,852 And I said, "What scene?" 676 00:45:16,021 --> 00:45:19,047 And she says, "You know the scene. In the interrogation." 677 00:45:19,124 --> 00:45:23,652 But they were all afraid, I think, that these shots would hurt her performance. 678 00:45:23,829 --> 00:45:25,797 And even Sharon, I think, still thinks now... 679 00:45:25,864 --> 00:45:29,027 that she lost the Oscar nomination because of these shots. 680 00:45:29,101 --> 00:45:33,231 And I said, "Sharon, that scene is gonna make you a star." 681 00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:36,904 And Paul said to her: 682 00:45:36,976 --> 00:45:39,240 "You shot it. You know what I was doing... 683 00:45:39,311 --> 00:45:41,745 "and basically, I like it. And it works." 684 00:45:42,448 --> 00:45:44,245 Then, you know, the rest is history. 685 00:45:44,316 --> 00:45:48,685 Most actors' idea of a well-edited movie... 686 00:45:48,787 --> 00:45:53,281 is a movie that has a lot of the actor in it, particularly in close-up. 687 00:45:55,661 --> 00:45:59,290 And that could cause me a lot of grief, but what the heck. 688 00:45:59,999 --> 00:46:03,992 I knew an actor who used to read a script basically this way: 689 00:46:04,069 --> 00:46:07,402 He would say, "Blah-blah-blah. My line." 690 00:46:07,473 --> 00:46:09,839 And he'd read it, "Blah-blah-blah." 691 00:46:10,976 --> 00:46:15,436 Steven Seagal was an action hero, who, on Under Siege 2... 692 00:46:15,648 --> 00:46:17,445 I felt would break me in half. 693 00:46:17,516 --> 00:46:20,974 He was allowed into the cutting room to cut the action sequences. 694 00:46:21,053 --> 00:46:23,021 I thought that's all he was gonna do. 695 00:46:23,088 --> 00:46:25,352 But his first time he came into the cutting room... 696 00:46:25,424 --> 00:46:27,051 he said, "Okay, put up reel one." 697 00:46:27,126 --> 00:46:29,458 He was gonna go through the whole movie. 698 00:46:29,528 --> 00:46:33,430 But there was a time when during one of the fight sequences... 699 00:46:33,499 --> 00:46:36,662 that I found myself with my arm behind my head... 700 00:46:36,735 --> 00:46:40,296 and Seagal was demonstrating on me what he did. 701 00:46:40,372 --> 00:46:43,535 And he's a big guy, plus he carries a gun. 702 00:46:43,609 --> 00:46:47,045 I think, ultimately, he did like his performances. 703 00:46:47,112 --> 00:46:50,309 But the fact that an actor came into the cutting room... 704 00:46:51,850 --> 00:46:55,616 created an antagonistic relationship with the director... 705 00:46:55,988 --> 00:46:58,923 and as editor, I was caught in the middle. 706 00:46:58,991 --> 00:47:00,515 I have a friend who did a picture... 707 00:47:00,592 --> 00:47:05,222 where there was a comedian in the film who had final cut over only his scenes. 708 00:47:05,731 --> 00:47:07,198 And he had decided recently... 709 00:47:07,266 --> 00:47:09,928 that he didn't want to be a knock-about comedian anymore. 710 00:47:10,002 --> 00:47:11,833 He wanted to be a Cary Grant-style comedian. 711 00:47:11,904 --> 00:47:15,101 So he came into the editing room and cut out all of the pratfalls... 712 00:47:15,174 --> 00:47:18,234 and all of the physical shtick that he had done in the picture... 713 00:47:18,310 --> 00:47:20,642 which obviously didn't help the movie any. 714 00:47:21,013 --> 00:47:24,540 I have never let an actor into the editing room to have feedback. 715 00:47:24,616 --> 00:47:28,882 I think, in general, this is how I feel as an actor. 716 00:47:29,555 --> 00:47:33,184 Even though I love the cutting room and nothing would make me happier... 717 00:47:33,258 --> 00:47:36,819 than to sit there and watch them do their stuff, I feel it's inappropriate. 718 00:47:36,895 --> 00:47:40,331 I feel like that's the time for the director to have with the editor. 719 00:47:40,399 --> 00:47:44,233 Home for the Holidays was about a mess, it was about a holiday mess... 720 00:47:44,303 --> 00:47:48,797 it was about a family that was a mess, about chaos and anarchy in the family. 721 00:47:48,874 --> 00:47:52,605 The centerpiece is this Thanksgiving dinner scene... 722 00:47:52,678 --> 00:47:55,169 and everybody's gathered around the table... 723 00:47:55,247 --> 00:47:57,977 and everybody's crazies are all over the place. 724 00:47:58,650 --> 00:48:03,280 Jodie Foster, of course, attracted the most wonderful bunch of actors... 725 00:48:03,355 --> 00:48:06,688 who, just working with her, they left their ego on the doorstep. 726 00:48:06,759 --> 00:48:08,021 Nothing makes us happier... 727 00:48:08,093 --> 00:48:10,960 than to walk into a scene where there's six different actors... 728 00:48:11,029 --> 00:48:13,190 they all have different styles of performance... 729 00:48:13,265 --> 00:48:15,324 maybe even different pacing... 730 00:48:15,401 --> 00:48:18,302 and somehow figure out a way to weave them all together. 731 00:48:18,370 --> 00:48:21,931 Lynzee and I will sit there and say, "What do you think she's thinking now? 732 00:48:22,007 --> 00:48:24,567 "Is she thinking, 'How do I get the hell out of here? ' 733 00:48:24,643 --> 00:48:27,612 "Or, 'I really like this guy and I'm kind of attracted to him. "' 734 00:48:27,679 --> 00:48:30,443 We'd get so into very obscure behavior. 735 00:48:30,516 --> 00:48:33,713 We'd see the deep meaning the actor had brought to the character... 736 00:48:33,786 --> 00:48:36,277 in terms of whether they picked up their fork... 737 00:48:36,355 --> 00:48:39,654 before or after the spoon was picked up. "Now what did that mean?" 738 00:48:39,725 --> 00:48:44,025 And, of course, each little meaningless gesture adds up to a full performance. 739 00:48:44,096 --> 00:48:45,461 When I got the dailies... 740 00:48:45,531 --> 00:48:47,624 I assumed that everything she shot... 741 00:48:47,699 --> 00:48:50,429 were things she intended to be on the screen. 742 00:48:50,502 --> 00:48:54,302 And I enjoy the challenge of that, of just trying to use everything. 743 00:48:54,373 --> 00:48:58,867 At one point, a turkey gets pushed and splashes on someone. 744 00:49:00,546 --> 00:49:03,413 Every time we looked at it, we would try it a different way. 745 00:49:03,482 --> 00:49:07,043 Now, you can have the guy who's doing it on his close-up... 746 00:49:07,119 --> 00:49:09,713 and then have the turkey splash... 747 00:49:09,788 --> 00:49:12,689 or the turkey splashes, you see the reaction shot. 748 00:49:12,758 --> 00:49:14,783 You can go a billion ways. 749 00:49:16,195 --> 00:49:17,662 Cocksucker! 750 00:49:17,996 --> 00:49:20,055 One of the things that I love about Lynzee... 751 00:49:20,132 --> 00:49:22,999 is that she's one of these people... 752 00:49:23,068 --> 00:49:26,799 who really sees that there is a beautiful and sunny place out there. 753 00:49:27,573 --> 00:49:30,167 If we could just get to it, it's there somewhere. 754 00:49:30,242 --> 00:49:34,736 There are periods within the editorial process that I will hand it over... 755 00:49:35,013 --> 00:49:36,981 not only to my editor... 756 00:49:37,316 --> 00:49:39,648 but, at times, to my lead actor. 757 00:49:39,885 --> 00:49:43,412 First of all, if you have Jack Nicholson starring in your movie... 758 00:49:43,489 --> 00:49:46,083 and you call somebody, an actor, up, and say: 759 00:49:46,158 --> 00:49:49,252 "Would you like to spend two days working with Mr. Nicholson... 760 00:49:49,328 --> 00:49:51,523 "or do you have something better to do?"... 761 00:49:51,597 --> 00:49:53,690 he usually gets a good response. 762 00:49:53,765 --> 00:49:58,202 When Jay and I feel that we've really got the picture in a great place... 763 00:49:58,270 --> 00:50:02,434 and it's particularly easy now that we're editing electronically... 764 00:50:02,774 --> 00:50:06,835 where I'll have Jack come into the editing room with Jay and I'll check out. 765 00:50:06,912 --> 00:50:10,575 And he'll bring Jack in and run the movie, even run outtakes... 766 00:50:10,649 --> 00:50:13,675 and talk about if there's a take that we didn't use. 767 00:50:13,752 --> 00:50:17,779 He did something interesting that he remembered, why didn't we use it? 768 00:50:17,856 --> 00:50:20,757 What Nicholson did at the end... 769 00:50:20,826 --> 00:50:23,624 was a Nicholsonian construct. 770 00:50:23,862 --> 00:50:26,831 The disjointed nature of the cutting is on purpose. 771 00:50:26,899 --> 00:50:31,427 You imagine this guy who's taken the only love... 772 00:50:31,670 --> 00:50:34,161 that had been possible in his life... 773 00:50:34,239 --> 00:50:39,176 and squandered it for what was his own personal obsession. 774 00:50:39,311 --> 00:50:43,247 If you've written it smartly, you have a smart actor playing it. 775 00:50:43,315 --> 00:50:48,184 And that actor, when it's Jack Nicholson, can be very helpful in the cutting room. 776 00:51:01,900 --> 00:51:04,801 I find that with the actors, in most of the pictures I made... 777 00:51:04,870 --> 00:51:08,328 we kind of nail it on the set, usually... 778 00:51:08,407 --> 00:51:12,867 and invariably, looking at rushes, I'll tell Thelma, "That's the take." 779 00:51:12,945 --> 00:51:15,413 Then she'll feel a certain thing for some other takes... 780 00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:16,913 and we line it up that way. 781 00:51:16,982 --> 00:51:20,884 Because we grew up in the cinéma vérité period of documentary filmmaking... 782 00:51:20,953 --> 00:51:23,854 it was a marked influence on how we work. 783 00:51:24,122 --> 00:51:26,647 For example, I found it extremely helpful... 784 00:51:26,725 --> 00:51:29,091 when Marty's doing heavy improvisational films... 785 00:51:29,161 --> 00:51:31,755 like Raging Bull or Goodfellas... 786 00:51:31,830 --> 00:51:35,197 that my years of trying to carve a story... 787 00:51:35,267 --> 00:51:37,963 out of a mass of documentary footage... 788 00:51:38,036 --> 00:51:41,870 helped me wade through miles of improvisation... 789 00:51:41,940 --> 00:51:44,408 and begin to find a way to shape it. 790 00:51:44,476 --> 00:51:46,376 Of course, in a film like Raging Bull... 791 00:51:46,445 --> 00:51:51,348 De Niro and Joe Pesci were remarkable to watch kicking off each other. 792 00:51:51,516 --> 00:51:56,385 I wanted to have a very open, honest approach to the imagery and the story... 793 00:51:56,788 --> 00:52:00,224 in the scenes that were not in the ring in Raging Bull... 794 00:52:00,292 --> 00:52:02,522 and that came a lot from a kind of wiping away... 795 00:52:02,594 --> 00:52:04,960 of all technique that I had thought about before... 796 00:52:05,030 --> 00:52:08,932 and going back to a sort of an impact that I had when I was about 5 or 6... 797 00:52:09,001 --> 00:52:11,936 having seen Italian neorealist films on TV: 798 00:52:12,137 --> 00:52:14,833 Paisŕ, Open City and The Bicycle Thief. 799 00:52:14,906 --> 00:52:18,205 You're supposed to be a manager, supposed to know what you're doing. 800 00:52:18,276 --> 00:52:19,538 I did what I wanted to do. 801 00:52:19,611 --> 00:52:22,409 - That's what I'm worried about, you... - You want a title shot? 802 00:52:22,481 --> 00:52:25,848 What are you talking... What am I, in a circus over here? 803 00:52:26,084 --> 00:52:28,985 I ask him, he's got more sense about this. What are you doing? 804 00:52:29,054 --> 00:52:31,488 You been killing yourself for three years now, right? 805 00:52:31,556 --> 00:52:34,992 There's nobody left for you to fight. Everybody's afraid to fight you. 806 00:52:35,060 --> 00:52:38,257 Okay. Along comes this kid, Janiro. He don't know any better. 807 00:52:38,330 --> 00:52:40,992 He's a young kid, up and coming. He'll fight anybody. 808 00:52:41,066 --> 00:52:44,524 Good. You fight him. Bust his hole. Tear him apart. Right? 809 00:52:44,603 --> 00:52:47,470 What's the biggest thing you got to worry about, your weight? 810 00:52:47,539 --> 00:52:49,302 - I'm worried about the weight. - The weight? 811 00:52:49,374 --> 00:52:51,365 What're we arguing for? I just said the weight. 812 00:52:51,443 --> 00:52:54,037 That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do... 813 00:52:54,112 --> 00:52:57,604 because I only had one camera on the actor at all times. 814 00:52:57,683 --> 00:53:02,245 So I didn't have the response, the immediate response of the actor... 815 00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:05,289 so it meant that I had to put it together like a jigsaw puzzle. 816 00:53:05,357 --> 00:53:07,723 It was a lot of fun, but it took a long time. 817 00:53:07,793 --> 00:53:11,923 Ultimately, what I think I need her to watch for me... 818 00:53:11,997 --> 00:53:14,898 is the emotional impact of the picture... 819 00:53:18,904 --> 00:53:21,873 keeping track, emotionally, of the characters. 820 00:53:22,174 --> 00:53:23,141 This is the key for me. 821 00:53:23,642 --> 00:53:26,770 I always find the editor has more objectivity than the director. 822 00:53:26,845 --> 00:53:30,372 'Cause the editor wasn't on the set. The editor didn't cast the movie. 823 00:53:30,449 --> 00:53:35,250 The editor didn't do the storyboards. The editor didn't inundate him or herself... 824 00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:37,948 with a year and a half of pre-production. 825 00:53:38,023 --> 00:53:42,551 So the editor has the most objective eye... 826 00:53:42,627 --> 00:53:44,492 in that creative environment. 827 00:53:51,336 --> 00:53:55,033 I remember one night, I go over to Steven's house in Poland. 828 00:53:55,607 --> 00:53:59,543 I said, "Steve, I want to run this scene for you." And he says: 829 00:54:01,379 --> 00:54:04,075 "Okay," and I run the scene. He looks at me. 830 00:54:04,483 --> 00:54:06,883 He says, "I'll see you in the morning." He walked out. 831 00:54:06,952 --> 00:54:09,420 He was so emotionally involved with the scene... 832 00:54:09,488 --> 00:54:12,616 he couldn't believe that he shot it, it was so real. 833 00:54:13,024 --> 00:54:15,390 We were all terribly affected by the film. 834 00:54:15,460 --> 00:54:18,190 There's something inside that takes over... 835 00:54:18,263 --> 00:54:21,027 when it's very emotional, when there are problems in people's lives. 836 00:54:21,099 --> 00:54:25,126 Something emotional takes over that's beyond your conscious mind. 837 00:54:25,403 --> 00:54:30,033 It seemed like an extreme example, but when you're editing that kind of film... 838 00:54:30,108 --> 00:54:32,838 you have to disassociate. 839 00:54:33,044 --> 00:54:37,037 You have to see each thing as a scene and you build a scene and do the best... 840 00:54:37,115 --> 00:54:41,950 you can with each scene. When it melds together that's when you get the full force. 841 00:54:42,387 --> 00:54:46,221 I think this scene in Schindler's List really illustrates the importance of... 842 00:54:46,291 --> 00:54:48,088 emotion through film editing. 843 00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:51,129 It's the scene where they have a drink together... 844 00:54:51,196 --> 00:54:54,962 the first drink they've shared because Stern has refused to drink with... 845 00:54:55,033 --> 00:54:56,864 Schindler until this moment. 846 00:54:56,935 --> 00:55:00,336 There is just a pacing that is so... 847 00:55:00,672 --> 00:55:03,766 emotional for me. So profoundly, deeply felt. 848 00:55:03,842 --> 00:55:05,173 Someday... 849 00:55:06,478 --> 00:55:08,810 this is all going to end, you know. 850 00:55:13,185 --> 00:55:15,449 I was going to say, we'll have a drink then. 851 00:55:19,991 --> 00:55:21,788 I think I'd better have it now. 852 00:55:23,495 --> 00:55:27,989 Mike Kahn's choices of how long to let the characters look at each other and... 853 00:55:28,066 --> 00:55:32,799 study each other, and think about how they're feeling, that was all done in... 854 00:55:32,871 --> 00:55:37,467 the editing room. It wasn't in the script and it wasn't on the floor the day I shot it. 855 00:55:37,542 --> 00:55:40,807 That whole emotional, kind of, meeting of the minds... 856 00:55:40,879 --> 00:55:44,440 between those two great men happened in the editing room. 857 00:55:45,383 --> 00:55:48,682 In dialogue scenes, I like people looking at each other. 858 00:55:48,753 --> 00:55:50,516 I like eyes to meet. 859 00:55:51,056 --> 00:55:53,889 And so they're getting into each other and you're connecting. 860 00:55:53,959 --> 00:55:56,223 For me, I'm always having problems... 861 00:55:56,294 --> 00:55:59,229 cutting long scenes where people talk to each other. 862 00:55:59,331 --> 00:56:00,821 'Cause you've got... 863 00:56:01,566 --> 00:56:04,330 an unlimited amount of choices and opportunities... 864 00:56:04,402 --> 00:56:06,302 when you just have two talking heads. 865 00:56:06,738 --> 00:56:11,232 The scene can go many different ways. The drama could become comedy. 866 00:56:11,877 --> 00:56:13,902 Pathos could become tragedy. 867 00:56:14,112 --> 00:56:17,047 It could become, you know, kind of like... 868 00:56:19,317 --> 00:56:21,478 a grilling session or a deposition... 869 00:56:21,553 --> 00:56:25,387 if you cut it really fast, or it can be very leisurely and introspective... 870 00:56:25,457 --> 00:56:29,291 if you used a lot of thought and a lot of the breaths and air and the pauses... 871 00:56:29,361 --> 00:56:34,128 not just the words. And that's where a great film editor can help a director. 872 00:56:36,968 --> 00:56:41,200 Another way of looking at film editing is that it's a dance of eyes. 873 00:56:45,577 --> 00:56:48,239 Philip Seymour Hoffman's eye is looking. 874 00:56:48,813 --> 00:56:51,008 That's a good thing. 875 00:56:51,616 --> 00:56:56,019 Now, let's cut to a close-up of Hoffman looking... 876 00:56:56,221 --> 00:56:58,155 and the close-up of Hoffman is here. 877 00:56:58,323 --> 00:57:00,348 We've never seen this angle before, so... 878 00:57:00,425 --> 00:57:04,759 the brain has to figure out what it's looking at and maybe why it's looking... 879 00:57:04,829 --> 00:57:07,764 at it. And to the degree that... 880 00:57:08,166 --> 00:57:09,793 you hold shots... 881 00:57:10,368 --> 00:57:14,464 a certain length, you allow a certain train of thoughts to happen. 882 00:57:14,539 --> 00:57:16,234 When you cut a shot off... 883 00:57:16,675 --> 00:57:19,576 you've also cut off the thinking about that shot. 884 00:57:20,712 --> 00:57:24,614 Now, we want to cut to what he sees because that's how we're going to... 885 00:57:24,683 --> 00:57:27,117 understand what he's thinking about. 886 00:57:30,455 --> 00:57:32,423 Now there you see him thinking and... 887 00:57:32,490 --> 00:57:36,859 then his eye goes down. So let's rerun that at speed. 888 00:57:37,429 --> 00:57:38,726 Flinch. 889 00:57:39,064 --> 00:57:40,588 Point of view. 890 00:57:42,867 --> 00:57:45,631 Thinking. Other co-conspirator. 891 00:57:46,571 --> 00:57:48,835 "Let's do it, now." 892 00:57:49,140 --> 00:57:53,042 "What?" "Let's go. Oops, something's up. Don't do it." 893 00:57:53,111 --> 00:57:54,305 And we go. 894 00:57:54,646 --> 00:57:58,514 There's something about film, because of its sensory completeness... 895 00:57:58,583 --> 00:58:02,280 the fact that it is sound and image... 896 00:58:02,354 --> 00:58:04,822 in this powerful fusion... 897 00:58:06,658 --> 00:58:09,286 that gets at something very deep within us. 898 00:58:12,897 --> 00:58:17,493 Filmmakers realized that sound and image didn't just stimulate emotions. 899 00:58:17,569 --> 00:58:20,003 They could also influence beliefs. 900 00:58:22,307 --> 00:58:25,674 During WWll, the U.S. Government enlisted Hollywood's best. 901 00:58:25,744 --> 00:58:29,475 Editors and directors brought with them the same techniques they had used... 902 00:58:29,547 --> 00:58:32,948 in fiction films to stir audiences across America. 903 00:58:40,458 --> 00:58:44,451 I pledge allegiance to the flag... 904 00:58:44,529 --> 00:58:47,293 of the United States of America. 905 00:58:47,732 --> 00:58:51,725 The Hollywood recruits applied their skill to American propaganda films... 906 00:58:51,803 --> 00:58:53,634 such as Why We Fight. 907 00:58:54,072 --> 00:58:56,836 Both German and American political leaders... 908 00:58:56,908 --> 00:59:01,709 recognized how powerfully sound and picture can manipulate audiences. 909 00:59:05,850 --> 00:59:09,843 One of the most infamous examples of film used for political propaganda... 910 00:59:09,921 --> 00:59:11,684 was Triumph of the Will. 911 00:59:13,425 --> 00:59:15,325 Director Leni Riefenstahl... 912 00:59:15,393 --> 00:59:18,487 used sound, music, and masterful editing... 913 00:59:18,663 --> 00:59:21,029 to make Adolf Hitler into a god. 914 00:59:32,811 --> 00:59:36,542 When the Allies went to war against Germany, British editor Charles Ridley... 915 00:59:36,614 --> 00:59:40,050 re-edited the same footage to turn Hitler into a fool. 916 00:59:51,229 --> 00:59:54,255 Whether used for propaganda or entertainment... 917 00:59:54,332 --> 00:59:58,928 these techniques showed how powerfully editing could shape hearts and minds. 918 01:00:03,341 --> 01:00:07,869 I'd seen the German propaganda in Holland when we were occupied. 919 01:00:08,313 --> 01:00:12,079 The methodology of the whole thing is, of course, to show... 920 01:00:12,150 --> 01:00:13,981 only one side of reality. 921 01:00:15,186 --> 01:00:18,849 Young people from all over the globe are joining up to fight for the future. 922 01:00:20,058 --> 01:00:21,116 I'm doing my part. 923 01:00:21,192 --> 01:00:22,284 I'm doing my part. 924 01:00:22,360 --> 01:00:23,759 I'm doing my part. 925 01:00:23,828 --> 01:00:25,455 I'm doing my part, too. 926 01:00:26,931 --> 01:00:30,958 You know, Starship Troopers is, style-wise, as a movie... 927 01:00:31,436 --> 01:00:34,303 has been influenced consciously by... 928 01:00:34,372 --> 01:00:36,340 Why We Fight in WWII... 929 01:00:36,808 --> 01:00:40,369 Triumph of the Will. I used the Leni Riefenstahl touch... 930 01:00:40,445 --> 01:00:45,007 just to tell the audience this group of people is not aware of the fact... 931 01:00:45,183 --> 01:00:47,344 that they are used by the government... 932 01:00:47,819 --> 01:00:49,980 to give their lives for goals that are... 933 01:00:50,054 --> 01:00:52,079 only interesting to the government. 934 01:00:52,557 --> 01:00:54,889 Fresh meat for the grinder? 935 01:00:56,394 --> 01:00:58,157 So, how'd you kids do? 936 01:00:58,396 --> 01:00:59,988 I'm going to be a pilot. 937 01:01:00,064 --> 01:01:03,500 Well, good for you. We need all the pilots we can get. 938 01:01:04,769 --> 01:01:06,760 I think the theme of the movie is: 939 01:01:06,838 --> 01:01:09,272 "Come on, it's great. Let's go to war and die." 940 01:01:09,474 --> 01:01:10,998 What about you, son? 941 01:01:11,509 --> 01:01:12,703 Infantry, sir. 942 01:01:12,877 --> 01:01:17,143 Good for you. Mobile infantry made me the man I am today. 943 01:01:17,815 --> 01:01:22,149 In editing, you can do the same trick. It's all trying to sell us something. 944 01:01:22,487 --> 01:01:24,648 Manipulation that's done by editing... 945 01:01:24,722 --> 01:01:27,555 manipulation done by the glamorous photography... 946 01:01:27,625 --> 01:01:30,753 and by a certain kind of music that makes you think... 947 01:01:30,828 --> 01:01:33,319 that you are going to Heaven or whatever. 948 01:01:33,665 --> 01:01:37,795 The manipulation of the elements within a film is a very powerful thing. 949 01:01:38,570 --> 01:01:42,267 It's almost a sacred thing, in a way, because you're creating effects... 950 01:01:42,340 --> 01:01:44,968 you're creating responses in the audience. 951 01:01:45,176 --> 01:01:47,144 Editing is manipulation. 952 01:01:47,745 --> 01:01:49,940 We're manipulating reality... 953 01:01:50,348 --> 01:01:54,216 as the audience sees it, 'cause you want the audience to respond in a certain way. 954 01:01:54,285 --> 01:01:57,015 Whether it's a laugh or a sigh... 955 01:01:58,590 --> 01:01:59,887 or a fright... 956 01:02:01,226 --> 01:02:03,251 everything's manipulated. 957 01:02:03,494 --> 01:02:06,691 Some people say, "This director, he's manipulated the audience." 958 01:02:06,764 --> 01:02:09,756 Well, that's so naive because that's all we do, is manipulate. 959 01:02:12,804 --> 01:02:16,968 After WWll, Hollywood continued to make movies the same way it had... 960 01:02:17,041 --> 01:02:18,565 before the war. 961 01:02:19,043 --> 01:02:21,341 Although editors were now unionized... 962 01:02:21,479 --> 01:02:25,279 they were viewed, for the most part, as highly skilled mechanics. 963 01:02:25,383 --> 01:02:27,283 There was a man named Owen Marks... 964 01:02:28,486 --> 01:02:31,455 he edited The Petrified Forest, Casablanca... 965 01:02:31,522 --> 01:02:33,922 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, East Of Eden. 966 01:02:33,992 --> 01:02:37,928 His films are immortal and the man is completely unknown. 967 01:02:38,529 --> 01:02:41,692 It's sort of symbolic of the way... 968 01:02:41,766 --> 01:02:43,757 editors have been ignored... 969 01:02:44,068 --> 01:02:45,467 in the... 970 01:02:46,804 --> 01:02:48,294 literature about Hollywood. 971 01:02:49,040 --> 01:02:51,304 Editors worked on Cutter's Row... 972 01:02:51,376 --> 01:02:55,312 and were expected to conform to the established rules of editing. 973 01:02:55,513 --> 01:02:58,311 If we were to think about the films that were being made... 974 01:02:58,383 --> 01:03:01,580 there was a certain film language that was very distinct. 975 01:03:01,653 --> 01:03:04,315 Certain kinds of coverage. Long shot. 976 01:03:06,024 --> 01:03:07,457 Two-shot. 977 01:03:10,094 --> 01:03:11,391 Single, single. 978 01:03:11,462 --> 01:03:14,898 There was almost a formulaic way of presenting films. 979 01:03:14,966 --> 01:03:16,957 This film language was very strict. 980 01:03:17,035 --> 01:03:19,469 And in editorial terms, there were rules... 981 01:03:19,537 --> 01:03:21,767 that one felt could not be broken. 982 01:03:22,307 --> 01:03:25,868 A master shot had to come first and then if you had an over-shoulder... 983 01:03:25,943 --> 01:03:29,242 you went to the over-shoulder. You never went to the close-up... 984 01:03:29,314 --> 01:03:32,181 till you'd done the whole dance, coming from far to close. 985 01:03:32,250 --> 01:03:36,209 For instance, if you were going to have a transition from one place to the next... 986 01:03:36,287 --> 01:03:38,084 it would be done with a dissolve. 987 01:03:38,623 --> 01:03:42,457 The next thing you've got to remember is that a gentleman you meet among... 988 01:03:42,527 --> 01:03:45,394 the cold cuts is simply not as attractive as one you meet... 989 01:03:45,463 --> 01:03:47,192 in the mink department at Bergdorf's. 990 01:03:47,265 --> 01:03:51,133 In the '40s and '50s, the audience would expect a character to drive up... 991 01:03:51,202 --> 01:03:54,933 you'd show him getting out of the car and he would walk up to the building. 992 01:03:55,006 --> 01:03:58,305 Then he would open the door and then the editor would match cut... 993 01:03:58,376 --> 01:04:01,368 the door opening on the other side. And he would walk in... 994 01:04:01,446 --> 01:04:02,913 and come over and sit down. 995 01:04:03,114 --> 01:04:04,741 - Pull up a chair. - Thanks. 996 01:04:04,949 --> 01:04:08,510 This seemed to me absolutely stupid that you had to show somebody coming... 997 01:04:08,586 --> 01:04:11,419 down the stairs and all the way across the road and up the other side. 998 01:04:11,489 --> 01:04:14,117 You knew that they were coming from here and they were going to there. 999 01:04:14,192 --> 01:04:15,591 Why couldn't you just cut directly? 1000 01:04:23,067 --> 01:04:26,525 In France, a group of film-critics- turned-directors also challenged... 1001 01:04:26,604 --> 01:04:30,404 the doctrine of invisible editing and launched a revolution among editors. 1002 01:04:31,309 --> 01:04:35,541 When I first saw the French Nouvelle Vague, I instantly loved it. 1003 01:04:35,680 --> 01:04:38,205 I loved the idea. I loved the way they edited... 1004 01:04:38,282 --> 01:04:40,477 and thought I would like to cut like that. 1005 01:04:51,362 --> 01:04:53,853 Godard used jump cuts because it was like, "Why not? 1006 01:04:53,931 --> 01:04:57,594 "Nothing interesting's happening in the middle part so let's go to a jump cut." 1007 01:04:57,668 --> 01:05:01,934 When I saw Breathless, I was staggered at Godard's brutality. 1008 01:05:02,106 --> 01:05:06,202 What they brought to editing was a breaking of the rules. 1009 01:05:06,444 --> 01:05:11,074 Whatever books that said, "This is how it had to be done," they burned them. 1010 01:05:11,582 --> 01:05:14,949 Breathless is too hip for me. I come from the Lower East Side. 1011 01:05:15,019 --> 01:05:18,477 I'm an Italian-American guy. It was, it's too beat, beatnik. 1012 01:05:18,556 --> 01:05:19,682 It's like, bohemian. 1013 01:05:19,757 --> 01:05:23,318 It's too cool. I liked it. I didn't know what the hell was happening in it. 1014 01:05:27,265 --> 01:05:30,598 You know, when I first saw Breathless in the '60s... 1015 01:05:30,668 --> 01:05:31,930 it's like, wow. 1016 01:05:32,003 --> 01:05:35,769 I mean, just in the first five-minute sequence in introducing... 1017 01:05:35,840 --> 01:05:38,673 Jean-Paul Belmondo's character as this petty thief... 1018 01:05:38,743 --> 01:05:42,839 every rule was violated in terms of how long to hold the shots... 1019 01:05:43,648 --> 01:05:48,312 the discontinuity of what was going on. Even screen directions were mixed. 1020 01:05:48,519 --> 01:05:52,751 And I thought, "Either this guy doesn't know what he's doing or he's... 1021 01:05:52,824 --> 01:05:57,557 "so confident that he has the grammar of film down, that he's trying to show us... 1022 01:05:57,628 --> 01:06:01,325 "a new way to use the material he has to tell the story." 1023 01:06:01,699 --> 01:06:05,396 There were some films that really changed our perception... 1024 01:06:05,903 --> 01:06:07,768 of what... 1025 01:06:08,239 --> 01:06:12,403 filmmaking was and certainly it affected what editing was. 1026 01:06:12,510 --> 01:06:16,844 I think one of those seminal films is certainly something like Bonnie and Clyde. 1027 01:06:16,914 --> 01:06:20,145 Some people say I broke those rules first. I certainly did not. 1028 01:06:20,218 --> 01:06:22,709 I mean, the Russians broke those rules... 1029 01:06:22,787 --> 01:06:26,223 and the Germans broke those rules. This was nothing new. 1030 01:06:26,591 --> 01:06:28,388 But it was new for Hollywood. 1031 01:06:28,893 --> 01:06:31,020 Several editors have had big impacts on me, have... 1032 01:06:33,564 --> 01:06:35,259 influenced my thinking. 1033 01:06:36,334 --> 01:06:39,826 Dede Allen certainly is one who has taught me that. ; "Don't be afraid to... 1034 01:06:39,904 --> 01:06:43,840 "take a chance on doing something that doesn't seem like it's going to work." 1035 01:06:44,108 --> 01:06:47,566 When Beatty and Faye Dunaway get to know each other, they're standing... 1036 01:06:47,645 --> 01:06:50,739 on a street corner and she says, "I don't believe you rob banks." 1037 01:06:50,815 --> 01:06:53,648 And he said, "Yes, I do, look at my gun," and pulls it out... 1038 01:06:53,718 --> 01:06:55,845 and holds it to her on the street corner. 1039 01:06:55,920 --> 01:07:00,482 And that could easily have been done with the tilt down to the gun, the pan... 1040 01:07:00,558 --> 01:07:04,255 over to her hands fidgeting with the Coke bottle, up to her face... 1041 01:07:04,328 --> 01:07:07,855 but it was done in, her eyes look from him... 1042 01:07:07,932 --> 01:07:10,059 down, gun, back to him. 1043 01:07:10,201 --> 01:07:12,499 It keeps you on edge. There is the excitement. 1044 01:07:12,570 --> 01:07:15,767 There is the danger. There is the eroticism in not being... 1045 01:07:15,840 --> 01:07:19,173 able to fully get every moment because you're cutting it off. 1046 01:07:19,277 --> 01:07:22,508 And you are not allowing the moment to come to fruition. 1047 01:07:22,713 --> 01:07:26,205 Bonnie and Clyde was much more violent than anything we'd done because... 1048 01:07:26,284 --> 01:07:28,980 the Americans like violence much more than we do. 1049 01:07:29,053 --> 01:07:33,319 Well, it was shot in so many wonderful ways because this is the scene that... 1050 01:07:33,391 --> 01:07:35,086 Arthur intended to be... 1051 01:07:35,159 --> 01:07:36,592 cut in this fashion. 1052 01:07:36,661 --> 01:07:39,152 The fact that it was so beautifully executed... 1053 01:07:39,230 --> 01:07:40,822 right from the very first cut. 1054 01:07:41,198 --> 01:07:43,063 Jerry Greenberg was my assistant. 1055 01:07:43,134 --> 01:07:47,002 And on the last scene, I left Jerry alone with that scene and he did all... 1056 01:07:47,071 --> 01:07:50,302 the primary editing on that. All I did was tighten it later. 1057 01:08:06,123 --> 01:08:10,082 Again, one is not saying that this was the beginning of the American New Wave... 1058 01:08:10,161 --> 01:08:13,688 because one is sure that there were smaller films before that. 1059 01:08:14,098 --> 01:08:17,067 But this was the one that, like Birth of a Nation... 1060 01:08:17,134 --> 01:08:19,694 which suddenly an audience sort of said, "Wow." 1061 01:08:21,205 --> 01:08:24,504 Bonnie and Clyde paved the way for films like Easy Rider. 1062 01:08:25,042 --> 01:08:29,445 So I had only had one feature under my belt. We started on Easy Rider. 1063 01:08:29,513 --> 01:08:31,743 I was editing while they were traveling. 1064 01:08:31,816 --> 01:08:33,909 Footage was flowing in by the mile. 1065 01:08:34,452 --> 01:08:39,014 It was great, exciting. It was different than anything I'd been involved in. 1066 01:08:39,390 --> 01:08:40,982 You asshole. 1067 01:08:41,058 --> 01:08:45,119 These transitions that everybody remembers, going from one scene... 1068 01:08:45,196 --> 01:08:49,257 to the next, where it flashes forward to the scene, flashes back... 1069 01:08:49,600 --> 01:08:52,728 to the scene you're in. Dennis didn't want a straight cut. 1070 01:08:52,970 --> 01:08:55,837 I didn't want dissolves. So we kept throwing that around. 1071 01:08:55,906 --> 01:09:00,309 And it was Dennis who cooked part of the idea which was, "What if we... 1072 01:09:00,378 --> 01:09:03,472 "went and then came back?" And I said, "Yeah, but let's do it... 1073 01:09:04,281 --> 01:09:07,546 "three times." Then we finally arrived at the length. 1074 01:09:07,918 --> 01:09:12,116 Each one is six frames. I said, "Now we can use these whenever we want to." 1075 01:09:12,590 --> 01:09:15,753 Well, as it turned out, it started to become a device. 1076 01:09:16,027 --> 01:09:19,622 So we stopped doing that. I said, "No, we aren't going to do that. 1077 01:09:19,697 --> 01:09:23,292 "We'll only use it in special places." Without giving anything away... 1078 01:09:23,367 --> 01:09:25,494 everybody was stoned when they were shooting. 1079 01:09:25,569 --> 01:09:28,834 I learned soon on that I could not be stoned and edit. 1080 01:09:29,173 --> 01:09:31,471 While it was going on, I thought it was grand. 1081 01:09:31,542 --> 01:09:34,670 Then I'd look at it when I was straight and I'd say, "This is awful. 1082 01:09:34,745 --> 01:09:36,872 "I gotta throw it out and start all over." 1083 01:09:36,947 --> 01:09:38,847 This film has become an icon. 1084 01:09:39,216 --> 01:09:41,582 I'm grateful that I had something to do with it. 1085 01:09:41,919 --> 01:09:46,356 Because I had grown up in the '30s, '40s, and '50s... 1086 01:09:46,424 --> 01:09:48,221 with movies as they were then. 1087 01:09:48,759 --> 01:09:51,489 And finally, we were going to run it for Columbia... 1088 01:09:51,562 --> 01:09:54,656 with Leo Jaffe, Chairman of the Board. It ended. 1089 01:09:55,833 --> 01:09:59,030 There was this long pause. Leo finally stands up. 1090 01:09:59,336 --> 01:10:00,633 Then he says: 1091 01:10:00,705 --> 01:10:03,139 "I don't know what the fuck this picture means. 1092 01:10:03,207 --> 01:10:06,199 "But I know we're going to make a fuck of a lot of money." 1093 01:10:06,310 --> 01:10:08,801 One of the things you have to develop as an editor... 1094 01:10:08,913 --> 01:10:10,881 is a very strong intuition about... 1095 01:10:10,948 --> 01:10:12,848 where is their attention. 1096 01:10:13,084 --> 01:10:14,381 And... 1097 01:10:14,819 --> 01:10:18,084 under most ordinary circumstances... 1098 01:10:18,155 --> 01:10:20,919 you're carrying that attention around... 1099 01:10:21,158 --> 01:10:23,183 without doing violence to it. 1100 01:10:23,828 --> 01:10:27,525 It's like a cup full of liquid that you're carrying. 1101 01:10:27,598 --> 01:10:30,032 "I don't want to spill anything." 1102 01:10:30,868 --> 01:10:35,134 And as a result, people feel the invisibility of what you're doing. 1103 01:10:39,110 --> 01:10:41,476 I often forget that what he actually does... 1104 01:10:41,545 --> 01:10:44,844 is assemble the film in a technical way... 1105 01:10:45,049 --> 01:10:49,145 because most of our discussion's about: "Why aren't we caring as much... 1106 01:10:49,220 --> 01:10:52,656 "about this character now as we were two scenes ago? 1107 01:10:52,957 --> 01:10:56,154 "Why have we lost the thread of that character's development? 1108 01:10:56,560 --> 01:10:59,495 "Why does it feel like the end decelerates... 1109 01:10:59,597 --> 01:11:02,430 "when, in fact, the cutting rhythm is faster?" 1110 01:11:02,967 --> 01:11:04,730 But a lot of what a director does... 1111 01:11:04,802 --> 01:11:08,761 is what the immune system of the organism does... 1112 01:11:08,839 --> 01:11:11,706 which is to say, "Yes, that's good. 1113 01:11:11,776 --> 01:11:14,506 "I will allow this to come into the body." 1114 01:11:15,179 --> 01:11:18,478 Or, "No, that's a different blood type. 1115 01:11:19,550 --> 01:11:21,916 "I don't want that to come in." 1116 01:11:22,453 --> 01:11:23,715 Walter's theories? 1117 01:11:23,988 --> 01:11:27,788 I'd say, every day Walter shares a theory with me. 1118 01:11:29,426 --> 01:11:33,055 So they're going up, trying to get away from him before he catches them. 1119 01:11:33,130 --> 01:11:35,860 Then the cavalry come around the corner. 1120 01:11:36,600 --> 01:11:40,092 And Veasey, the Philip Seymour Hoffman character... 1121 01:11:40,204 --> 01:11:44,300 realizes that his only chance now is to yell... 1122 01:11:44,375 --> 01:11:48,368 and maybe the Northerners will shoot the home guard. 1123 01:11:53,450 --> 01:11:57,181 And Brown shoots him in the back. 1124 01:11:57,955 --> 01:12:02,483 Shoots one of the other guys. And they all roll down the hill. 1125 01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:04,357 Then Brown gets shot. 1126 01:12:06,130 --> 01:12:10,863 And the last image is of Inman, our hero... 1127 01:12:11,035 --> 01:12:14,994 in this pile of bodies. We don't know whether he's dead or what. 1128 01:12:25,516 --> 01:12:29,680 Sex scenes, in general, I think, are probably difficult for everyone. 1129 01:12:29,753 --> 01:12:33,052 Difficult for writers, difficult for actors, difficult for directors. 1130 01:12:33,157 --> 01:12:37,594 It's the most intimate sort of moments that humans can have together... 1131 01:12:37,928 --> 01:12:41,125 and you're saying, "Actually, let's put it on a 40-foot screen... 1132 01:12:41,198 --> 01:12:42,563 "for a few thousand people." 1133 01:12:44,235 --> 01:12:48,365 One of the things I wanted to do with Body Heat was make a very sexy movie. 1134 01:12:48,639 --> 01:12:53,167 There had been a whole liberation in American movies in the '60s and '70s... 1135 01:12:53,244 --> 01:12:54,711 about what you could show. 1136 01:12:54,778 --> 01:12:56,871 But as that freedom took over... 1137 01:12:57,147 --> 01:12:59,843 it seemed to me that the movies had become less erotic. 1138 01:12:59,917 --> 01:13:01,248 They had become more explicit. 1139 01:13:01,318 --> 01:13:06,017 Larry really wanted me to bring a woman's sensibility to the film... 1140 01:13:06,223 --> 01:13:10,250 largely in having it be as implicit as possible as opposed to explicit. 1141 01:13:10,794 --> 01:13:13,888 After all, eroticism is born out of what you can imagine... 1142 01:13:13,964 --> 01:13:15,556 as opposed to what you actually see. 1143 01:13:15,633 --> 01:13:18,363 That's the difference between eroticism and pornography. 1144 01:13:19,103 --> 01:13:21,731 You need, not just this incredible technician... 1145 01:13:21,805 --> 01:13:25,571 this artist, but you need a psychologist. Someone who can handle you. 1146 01:13:26,043 --> 01:13:30,275 Because a director, in the quiet confines of that room... 1147 01:13:30,347 --> 01:13:31,575 is like a caged animal. 1148 01:14:17,861 --> 01:14:19,692 In that particular scene... 1149 01:14:20,264 --> 01:14:22,357 we had more footage that was more explicit... 1150 01:14:22,433 --> 01:14:25,163 and there was simply an editorial choice not to show it. 1151 01:14:25,369 --> 01:14:28,566 The erotic landscape in films, the sexual landscape... 1152 01:14:28,739 --> 01:14:32,368 is often the hardest to do because everybody has an opinion. 1153 01:14:32,776 --> 01:14:36,473 And everybody has a point of view about what's sexy and what's erotic. 1154 01:14:36,647 --> 01:14:40,708 And it's an odd place to go to, as a filmmaker... 1155 01:14:40,951 --> 01:14:45,820 partly because it's been trespassed into so many times by so many other movies. 1156 01:14:46,290 --> 01:14:49,350 I think it's very erotic when you don't see that much. 1157 01:14:50,494 --> 01:14:52,826 It was an interesting problem with Out of Sight. 1158 01:14:52,896 --> 01:14:55,865 The way it was written was just one scene in the bar. 1159 01:14:55,933 --> 01:14:57,958 So I cut the scene where they meet... 1160 01:14:58,102 --> 01:15:01,037 and he sits down and talks to her and they start flirting. 1161 01:15:01,105 --> 01:15:03,938 And then the scene in the bedroom was only shot silently... 1162 01:15:04,008 --> 01:15:08,069 because it was going to have the dialogue from the first scene laid over it anyway. 1163 01:15:08,145 --> 01:15:09,703 So it didn't work as a scene. 1164 01:15:09,780 --> 01:15:13,682 Then we got the idea, Steven Soderbergh and I, sort of between us... 1165 01:15:13,917 --> 01:15:15,214 to start intercutting. 1166 01:15:15,452 --> 01:15:18,649 We just tried one or two things and it started to gel. 1167 01:15:23,560 --> 01:15:26,358 Flashing back, sometimes we flash forward. 1168 01:15:27,031 --> 01:15:31,695 I would say, "Let's do this and cut from here and the hands." And he'd say: 1169 01:15:32,136 --> 01:15:35,469 "Let's try overlaying the dialogue here." We just did it together. 1170 01:15:35,539 --> 01:15:37,029 It was really exciting. 1171 01:15:37,374 --> 01:15:40,172 We did this little thing of stopping the frames. 1172 01:15:40,244 --> 01:15:43,975 It's never really a long freeze. It's just a few frames that we freeze. 1173 01:15:44,348 --> 01:15:47,408 Just heighten the sexual tension between the two of them. 1174 01:15:55,192 --> 01:15:57,990 It tells a story. It's very emotional. 1175 01:15:58,062 --> 01:16:01,327 It's very sexual, I think, without really showing much. 1176 01:16:01,765 --> 01:16:03,926 Some other films I've done have shown more. 1177 01:16:06,170 --> 01:16:08,764 . -You went to see her? - To warn her about Chino. 1178 01:16:08,872 --> 01:16:11,204 - So she did help you? - We shouldn't get into that. 1179 01:16:11,275 --> 01:16:13,505 You know, when they're undressing separately... 1180 01:16:13,577 --> 01:16:15,807 and we've got odd dialogue over the undressing. 1181 01:16:15,879 --> 01:16:19,042 Nothing to do with what they're actually doing. Yet, I think... 1182 01:16:19,116 --> 01:16:22,449 that it's really good and very good storytelling. 1183 01:16:30,194 --> 01:16:34,130 This kind of cutting in Out of Sight and in movies like JFK... 1184 01:16:34,198 --> 01:16:38,225 represents a further break from Griffith's classic style of seamless editing. 1185 01:16:38,302 --> 01:16:41,237 You gotta start thinking on a different level, like the CIA does. 1186 01:16:42,873 --> 01:16:47,037 Where editors once labored to preserve the illusion of continuous time and space... 1187 01:16:47,111 --> 01:16:51,047 they now fracture it at will, creating new possibilities for storytelling. 1188 01:16:51,115 --> 01:16:54,209 ...exactly what he said he was. A patsy. 1189 01:16:54,485 --> 01:16:59,286 Oliver Stone is a very wonderful director for an editor because... 1190 01:16:59,923 --> 01:17:04,326 he gives the editor free rein. He says to the editor, "Play jazz. 1191 01:17:05,395 --> 01:17:07,022 "Just go free form." 1192 01:17:07,097 --> 01:17:08,587 There is a scene in JFK where... 1193 01:17:09,766 --> 01:17:12,997 Oswald walks from a house to a theater... 1194 01:17:13,070 --> 01:17:16,301 and he said, "When you cut this scene just make it very chaotic." 1195 01:17:16,373 --> 01:17:19,171 So I cut the scene in what I thought was a chaotic way... 1196 01:17:19,243 --> 01:17:21,871 and I showed him the next day and he said "No, no, no. 1197 01:17:21,945 --> 01:17:23,970 "It's gotta be way more chaotic than that." 1198 01:17:24,615 --> 01:17:29,245 Since we cut JFK on a three-quarter inch linear editing system... 1199 01:17:29,319 --> 01:17:32,015 one thing it had was the ability to hit these buttons... 1200 01:17:32,089 --> 01:17:33,886 and change where the edit went. 1201 01:17:33,957 --> 01:17:37,154 So I sat there and just banged on the keys like this... 1202 01:17:37,227 --> 01:17:41,129 and I showed it to him the next day and he went, "That's it!" It's in the movie. 1203 01:17:41,498 --> 01:17:44,626 In xXx, I did have a new editing philosophy. 1204 01:17:44,701 --> 01:17:48,193 I had been interested in Cubism all my life. 1205 01:17:48,872 --> 01:17:52,103 And one day I was watching extreme sports videos. 1206 01:17:52,176 --> 01:17:53,803 Somebody will do some amazing stunt. 1207 01:17:54,945 --> 01:17:58,676 They'll do it in reverse and do it forward and then they'll do it in reverse. 1208 01:17:58,749 --> 01:18:01,809 I suddenly thought, "What if I did it in so many angles... 1209 01:18:02,052 --> 01:18:06,182 "that I didn't care whether you saw the beginning of a stunt... 1210 01:18:06,557 --> 01:18:08,286 "from four different angles?" 1211 01:18:08,358 --> 01:18:11,657 And the way we would cut it you would feel... 1212 01:18:11,962 --> 01:18:15,159 that you were going around the event in pieces... 1213 01:18:15,465 --> 01:18:18,764 so that by the time that motorcycle lands... 1214 01:18:18,969 --> 01:18:21,233 you've actually experienced the jump... 1215 01:18:21,305 --> 01:18:23,330 almost as if you're on the motorcycle... 1216 01:18:23,407 --> 01:18:27,002 as opposed to standing back at a safe distance... 1217 01:18:27,277 --> 01:18:30,474 observing the event like you would in real life. 1218 01:18:40,290 --> 01:18:42,155 This is not real life. 1219 01:18:42,426 --> 01:18:44,553 This is really relishing... 1220 01:18:45,429 --> 01:18:47,260 this action moment... 1221 01:18:47,331 --> 01:18:49,925 by making a Cubist editing approach. 1222 01:18:53,070 --> 01:18:56,528 Another change in editing is the accelerated pace of movies... 1223 01:18:56,807 --> 01:18:59,139 a subject of controversy among filmmakers. 1224 01:19:01,812 --> 01:19:04,645 An encounter with two swords 30 years ago... 1225 01:19:07,217 --> 01:19:10,846 would have been probably done in a master shot and a couple of exchanges. 1226 01:19:12,422 --> 01:19:16,825 Today that encounter could evolve into 200 shots. 1227 01:19:17,494 --> 01:19:19,758 Split-second eye blink. 1228 01:19:20,030 --> 01:19:23,363 A blade going into a chest. Slight movement of a wrist. 1229 01:19:23,600 --> 01:19:25,966 So the audience is taken right down... 1230 01:19:26,036 --> 01:19:30,234 into this roller-coaster ride of minutiae. And that's what they want. 1231 01:19:32,476 --> 01:19:37,106 Because kids today are raised on television and then MTV... 1232 01:19:37,180 --> 01:19:38,909 and commercials... 1233 01:19:39,049 --> 01:19:43,884 they not only can process information faster... 1234 01:19:44,221 --> 01:19:48,590 and understand what images mean, but that they demand it. 1235 01:19:48,925 --> 01:19:52,019 I think the MTV generation in the '80s kind of... 1236 01:19:53,297 --> 01:19:55,265 created this style of editing. 1237 01:19:56,733 --> 01:20:00,100 And Billy Weber and I on Top Gun, we were pushed in that direction. 1238 01:20:01,938 --> 01:20:05,897 Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson were very much in tune with their audiences. 1239 01:20:06,276 --> 01:20:09,905 They felt that that was what the audiences liked. 1240 01:20:09,980 --> 01:20:12,175 And I think they were proven right... 1241 01:20:12,382 --> 01:20:14,850 given the box-office on some of those early movies. 1242 01:20:15,018 --> 01:20:18,886 And I mean fast cutting was not invented now or with MTV. 1243 01:20:19,156 --> 01:20:22,592 Just look at Lou Lombardo's work on The Wild Bunch. 1244 01:20:31,268 --> 01:20:35,864 Sometimes a cutting style is effective inside of a movie... 1245 01:20:36,373 --> 01:20:38,967 to shake you up and rattle your soul. 1246 01:20:39,343 --> 01:20:42,642 But consistently to have that style... 1247 01:20:43,280 --> 01:20:48,149 pounding away at you like a metronome on high speed for two and a half hours... 1248 01:20:49,019 --> 01:20:52,477 is a little bit, at least for me, maybe I'm just getting old... 1249 01:20:52,856 --> 01:20:54,915 but it's a little bit debilitating. 1250 01:20:55,192 --> 01:20:56,750 Now, it doesn't bother my kids. 1251 01:20:56,827 --> 01:20:59,921 Because my kids were raised on 30-second commercials and on MTV... 1252 01:20:59,996 --> 01:21:02,430 and VH1 and they were raised on video games. 1253 01:21:05,202 --> 01:21:08,968 I feel like I was born 80 and I'm growing backwards. 1254 01:21:09,339 --> 01:21:12,570 So now I'm somewhere around 27. You know, I get a tattoo... 1255 01:21:12,642 --> 01:21:15,941 and I'm feeling closer to a generation that has... 1256 01:21:16,079 --> 01:21:19,981 learned to absorb information at a speed that was... 1257 01:21:20,050 --> 01:21:21,574 heretofore unthinkable... 1258 01:21:21,651 --> 01:21:25,985 and where their rhythms are well... 1259 01:21:26,990 --> 01:21:29,982 more hungry than a traditional narrative pace. 1260 01:21:30,360 --> 01:21:34,490 What I'm afraid of is the tendency for everything to go by quickly. 1261 01:21:36,199 --> 01:21:39,191 And I'm afraid of what it does to the culture. 1262 01:21:40,637 --> 01:21:43,538 A sense of consuming something and throwing it away... 1263 01:21:43,607 --> 01:21:46,167 as opposed to being enveloped with something. 1264 01:21:46,243 --> 01:21:49,804 Of taking the time to see and experience time in a different way. 1265 01:21:59,689 --> 01:22:01,919 First, one understands... 1266 01:22:01,992 --> 01:22:05,393 that he causes much of his own suffering needlessly. 1267 01:22:06,296 --> 01:22:09,925 Second, he looks for the reasons for this in his own life. 1268 01:22:10,600 --> 01:22:15,003 To look is to have confidence in one's own ability to end the suffering. 1269 01:22:16,072 --> 01:22:19,564 Finally, a wish arises to find the path to peace. 1270 01:22:20,243 --> 01:22:24,646 For all beings desire happiness. All wish to find their purer selves. 1271 01:22:26,149 --> 01:22:28,674 Many times editing is about when not to cut. 1272 01:22:28,819 --> 01:22:30,446 When to have the silence. 1273 01:22:30,520 --> 01:22:32,613 When to let the moment be itself. 1274 01:22:34,357 --> 01:22:38,316 The musicality of Places in the Heart, is one of the things that is the strongest. 1275 01:22:38,395 --> 01:22:39,794 And I don't mean the score. 1276 01:22:39,863 --> 01:22:42,991 I mean the musicality in the way that the scenes flow together... 1277 01:22:43,066 --> 01:22:46,126 the ambience of that rural Texas summer... 1278 01:22:46,203 --> 01:22:48,194 hot, with the cicadas... 1279 01:22:48,505 --> 01:22:52,032 and there's a Foursquare Protestant feeling. 1280 01:22:56,880 --> 01:23:01,112 After her husband has been shot by this drunk black kid on the railroad tracks... 1281 01:23:02,452 --> 01:23:05,649 there were no funeral parlors, you couldn't afford one anyway... 1282 01:23:05,722 --> 01:23:06,916 in the Depression... 1283 01:23:06,990 --> 01:23:10,790 the body was brought back to the home and laid out on the dining room table... 1284 01:23:10,861 --> 01:23:13,022 where they just had Sunday dinner. 1285 01:23:14,397 --> 01:23:16,524 An incredibly moving moment. 1286 01:23:16,700 --> 01:23:20,192 And we just held on her. 1287 01:23:22,806 --> 01:23:25,604 We would have been married 15 years this October. 1288 01:23:28,245 --> 01:23:29,678 We had two children... 1289 01:23:32,916 --> 01:23:36,283 and I never knew till just now Royce had a scar right there. 1290 01:23:37,087 --> 01:23:40,887 And it was just exquisite, moving, beautiful. 1291 01:23:41,992 --> 01:23:44,392 If we had cut it, it would have destroyed everything. 1292 01:23:44,528 --> 01:23:48,931 Editing is like poetry. It has to do with rhythms, with visual... 1293 01:23:48,999 --> 01:23:49,897 It's visual poetry. 1294 01:23:53,303 --> 01:23:57,740 The digital revolution has further enhanced the poetic powers of the editor. 1295 01:23:59,576 --> 01:24:02,409 George Lucas, who began his career as an editor... 1296 01:24:02,779 --> 01:24:05,646 is one of the pioneers of this new technology. 1297 01:24:07,050 --> 01:24:11,009 All art is technology. That's the very nature of it. 1298 01:24:11,421 --> 01:24:14,254 The artist is always bumping against that technology. 1299 01:24:14,658 --> 01:24:17,593 And the advent of whether it's a new color of blue... 1300 01:24:17,661 --> 01:24:21,529 whether it's a proscenium arch, whatever it is... 1301 01:24:21,598 --> 01:24:25,557 it changes the way we work in that art form. 1302 01:24:28,338 --> 01:24:33,139 With computer technology, editors now can make changes within the frame... 1303 01:24:33,276 --> 01:24:36,507 adding or removing elements from the original image. 1304 01:24:37,080 --> 01:24:39,446 This increases the editor's control... 1305 01:24:39,516 --> 01:24:42,417 but also multiplies the number of decisions to be made. 1306 01:24:43,887 --> 01:24:45,912 Now you can edit in what I call 3D. 1307 01:24:46,056 --> 01:24:49,423 Which is, you have a scene... 1308 01:24:49,960 --> 01:24:53,225 and you have people in the scene and you can cut those people out... 1309 01:24:53,430 --> 01:24:55,261 you can move them around in the scene. 1310 01:24:55,332 --> 01:24:57,266 You can go in for a close-up, go out. 1311 01:24:57,334 --> 01:25:00,201 You can sort of direct the film in the editing room... 1312 01:25:00,470 --> 01:25:03,496 which is, growing up as an editor, what I've always wanted to do. 1313 01:25:05,175 --> 01:25:07,507 The new technology also makes it possible... 1314 01:25:07,577 --> 01:25:09,943 to cut the movie before shooting begins. 1315 01:25:10,680 --> 01:25:15,049 Pre-visualization gives an editor much more input in planning the movie. 1316 01:25:16,052 --> 01:25:19,920 I have a system now, because of the digital world, I have a group of kids... 1317 01:25:19,990 --> 01:25:23,118 who do little videomatics of things. We have a little blue screen. 1318 01:25:23,193 --> 01:25:25,855 We can send these editors in and shoot scenes... 1319 01:25:25,929 --> 01:25:27,658 on just an amateur video camera. 1320 01:25:27,998 --> 01:25:31,559 So I can actually shoot the film and make the film and write the film... 1321 01:25:31,768 --> 01:25:33,326 right there in the editing room. 1322 01:25:33,603 --> 01:25:36,766 Every main character in our movie has a digital counterpart. 1323 01:25:37,207 --> 01:25:40,176 We have totally virtual actors now and we use them quite a bit. 1324 01:25:40,243 --> 01:25:42,268 Mostly we use them for stunts and things. 1325 01:25:42,345 --> 01:25:46,679 We have a lot of situations where it's better to use a digital actor... 1326 01:25:46,750 --> 01:25:48,411 than it is to use a real actor. 1327 01:25:49,219 --> 01:25:51,244 Christopher Lee is 80 years old. 1328 01:25:51,321 --> 01:25:54,552 He can't really fight the way he did in Attack of the Clones. 1329 01:25:57,427 --> 01:26:00,191 You're not gonna get an artificial-intelligence computer... 1330 01:26:00,263 --> 01:26:02,231 that's neurotic enough to be able... 1331 01:26:02,298 --> 01:26:04,926 to understand how you create a performance. 1332 01:26:05,468 --> 01:26:06,935 Performance is an art. 1333 01:26:07,003 --> 01:26:10,370 At the end of the day, all this stuff has to work... 1334 01:26:11,007 --> 01:26:12,941 to tell a story. 1335 01:26:13,276 --> 01:26:15,210 And if you're not telling a story... 1336 01:26:15,378 --> 01:26:17,312 it doesn't matter how much razzle-dazzle there is. 1337 01:26:17,380 --> 01:26:19,041 It's not about the tools, it's about the story. 1338 01:26:24,421 --> 01:26:26,548 In many ways, we're the last storyteller. 1339 01:26:26,623 --> 01:26:29,717 The movie's been written by the writer and then it's directed... 1340 01:26:29,959 --> 01:26:33,588 and then it comes to the last storytelling which is in the editing process. 1341 01:26:33,830 --> 01:26:38,699 The last draft of the screenplay is the first cut of the movie. 1342 01:26:39,069 --> 01:26:41,230 And the final cut of the movie... 1343 01:26:41,638 --> 01:26:43,902 is the last draft of the script. 1344 01:26:44,340 --> 01:26:47,138 An editor can take a sequence that a director has shot... 1345 01:26:47,210 --> 01:26:50,509 and reconfigure it so that it becomes a whole different sequence... 1346 01:26:50,580 --> 01:26:53,048 which is much more beneficial to the movie. 1347 01:26:53,717 --> 01:26:55,844 Bob Fosse referred to me as a collaborator... 1348 01:26:55,919 --> 01:26:59,878 on his movies and I don't think there can be a greater compliment for an editor... 1349 01:26:59,956 --> 01:27:02,948 to be called a collaborator, to really... 1350 01:27:04,260 --> 01:27:05,693 have that function. 1351 01:27:05,762 --> 01:27:08,754 And now a word about dykes. Pow. 1352 01:27:08,998 --> 01:27:10,863 I like dykes. 1353 01:27:11,234 --> 01:27:12,861 How could you say that? 1354 01:27:14,170 --> 01:27:17,333 Lenny was a biographical film of the comedian Lenny Bruce... 1355 01:27:17,407 --> 01:27:20,467 who was often arrested for taking language... 1356 01:27:20,543 --> 01:27:23,376 to the legal limits of where it could go in the late '50s. 1357 01:27:23,446 --> 01:27:26,074 The most wonderful thing that happened in it... 1358 01:27:26,149 --> 01:27:30,245 was near the end of the production. We had to show the film to the producer. 1359 01:27:30,820 --> 01:27:33,983 And the script for the film was the best script I ever read. 1360 01:27:34,791 --> 01:27:37,954 But we were having a problem. We hated the ending. 1361 01:27:38,461 --> 01:27:40,759 You're trying to stop the information. 1362 01:27:40,830 --> 01:27:44,027 Bailiff, will you please remove this man from the courtroom? 1363 01:27:44,400 --> 01:27:46,095 It was just not coming together. 1364 01:27:46,302 --> 01:27:48,327 When Lenny is dragged out of the courtroom... 1365 01:27:48,404 --> 01:27:50,031 his life is effectively over. 1366 01:27:50,473 --> 01:27:53,636 Between that period and the time of his death... 1367 01:27:53,977 --> 01:27:58,073 there were 20 minutes of material. And I turned to Bob and I said: 1368 01:27:59,115 --> 01:28:01,379 "Why don't we just kill the son of a bitch?" 1369 01:28:01,818 --> 01:28:03,683 I took out two reels of film... 1370 01:28:03,753 --> 01:28:06,779 and I went straight from "You can't stop the information"... 1371 01:28:07,056 --> 01:28:08,648 to Lenny's body on the floor. 1372 01:28:08,892 --> 01:28:12,225 And that was the most exciting thing I've ever done in a cutting room. 1373 01:28:12,295 --> 01:28:14,661 I mean, we just loved that. 1374 01:28:18,735 --> 01:28:22,603 The opening scene of Apocalypse is a good example... 1375 01:28:22,672 --> 01:28:25,505 of what you can achieve editorially... 1376 01:28:25,575 --> 01:28:28,476 that is not based on the original script. 1377 01:28:28,945 --> 01:28:33,348 There were some collisions of images that occurred to Francis... 1378 01:28:33,416 --> 01:28:35,316 as he was shooting the film... 1379 01:28:35,385 --> 01:28:40,084 that were at variance with how he had planned to begin the film originally. 1380 01:28:40,824 --> 01:28:45,284 The trees being napalmed was originally shot for the surfing scene... 1381 01:28:45,428 --> 01:28:47,362 which comes much later in the film. 1382 01:28:47,864 --> 01:28:50,731 There was a shot of jungle... 1383 01:28:50,800 --> 01:28:54,998 bursting into slow-motion flames with helicopters flying... 1384 01:28:55,138 --> 01:28:58,005 at odd angles in slow motion through the frame. 1385 01:28:58,408 --> 01:29:02,640 And when Francis saw that shot in dailies, which was, I think, simply done... 1386 01:29:03,146 --> 01:29:05,171 to record this explosion. 1387 01:29:05,248 --> 01:29:08,342 It wasn't intended to use it in the finished film. 1388 01:29:08,418 --> 01:29:11,512 But he looked at it and said, "That's the film right there. 1389 01:29:11,588 --> 01:29:14,489 "Jungle, flames, helicopters." 1390 01:29:14,924 --> 01:29:18,621 The Martin Sheen character was one that was shaped... 1391 01:29:19,062 --> 01:29:21,553 very significantly in the editing room. 1392 01:29:22,098 --> 01:29:24,191 The film itself was shot... 1393 01:29:24,667 --> 01:29:29,570 with the idea that there would be a narrative glue to hold the film together. 1394 01:29:30,773 --> 01:29:32,866 What exactly that glue was... 1395 01:29:32,942 --> 01:29:36,434 and who the character of the narrator really was... 1396 01:29:36,846 --> 01:29:41,112 was really not shaped until well into the post-production process. 1397 01:29:41,985 --> 01:29:45,182 Willard punches the mirror. Blood comes out of his hand. 1398 01:29:45,288 --> 01:29:49,622 All of this is really happening. That's real blood. That's Marty Sheen. 1399 01:29:49,826 --> 01:29:54,320 None of that was intended to happen. That was just Francis saying. ; 1400 01:29:54,831 --> 01:29:59,268 "Marty, let's shoot an improvisation with you trapped in your room... 1401 01:29:59,335 --> 01:30:00,825 "and what is gonna happen." 1402 01:30:00,904 --> 01:30:04,431 I think as we worked on the film, we realized... 1403 01:30:04,974 --> 01:30:09,308 that the film itself was, in its own strange way, a kind of modern opera. 1404 01:30:09,679 --> 01:30:12,876 And the reality of dealing... 1405 01:30:12,949 --> 01:30:15,713 just in the beginning, with the Martin Sheen character... 1406 01:30:15,818 --> 01:30:18,616 was not sufficient to give the audience... 1407 01:30:18,688 --> 01:30:21,782 not only the emotional state with which to enter the film... 1408 01:30:21,858 --> 01:30:25,055 but the visual iconography of the film itself. 1409 01:30:25,795 --> 01:30:30,129 Going through the dailies of the film, I collected a number of images... 1410 01:30:30,199 --> 01:30:34,226 of the Cambodian heads, burning images from the end... 1411 01:30:34,304 --> 01:30:38,900 and worked them in through a series of multilevel dissolves... 1412 01:30:38,975 --> 01:30:42,877 with the burning napalm and the helicopters flying through... 1413 01:30:42,946 --> 01:30:46,404 and then images of Willard's room and Willard asleep... 1414 01:30:46,582 --> 01:30:51,519 and he's trapped in this nightmare. You have been hearing helicopter sounds... 1415 01:30:51,654 --> 01:30:54,714 and now you see this ceiling fan... 1416 01:30:55,024 --> 01:30:58,983 and what you're hearing is the sound of a helicopter. 1417 01:30:59,529 --> 01:31:02,589 Is that coming from his dream? Is it a reality? 1418 01:31:02,665 --> 01:31:05,759 Is somehow that sound coming from the fan? 1419 01:31:05,868 --> 01:31:08,132 I remember when I was assembling those images... 1420 01:31:08,204 --> 01:31:12,800 almost jumping away from the editing machine when I put that sound... 1421 01:31:13,076 --> 01:31:14,737 with that image... 1422 01:31:14,811 --> 01:31:18,713 because it seemed to me that that fan was making that sound... 1423 01:31:19,182 --> 01:31:23,380 even though I knew it was impossible and if it convinced me, who was doing it... 1424 01:31:23,453 --> 01:31:25,478 it surely would convince others. 1425 01:31:26,522 --> 01:31:30,822 Now they begin to coalesce and they turn into a real helicopter. 1426 01:31:31,160 --> 01:31:32,388 Coming from a fan? 1427 01:31:33,830 --> 01:31:34,922 No. 1428 01:31:35,164 --> 01:31:38,622 And then you hear a real helicopter fly over the room. 1429 01:31:39,769 --> 01:31:43,432 Willard gets up out of bed, goes over to the window and says. ; 1430 01:31:44,374 --> 01:31:45,636 Saigon. 1431 01:31:47,610 --> 01:31:48,941 Shit. 1432 01:31:49,679 --> 01:31:54,309 All of that, the narration, and the helicopter flying over... 1433 01:31:54,584 --> 01:31:56,916 and the napalm jungle... 1434 01:31:57,053 --> 01:31:59,647 is concocted into something... 1435 01:31:59,989 --> 01:32:03,618 that is a powerful beginning to a film... 1436 01:32:03,926 --> 01:32:06,292 not only powerful in and of itself... 1437 01:32:06,496 --> 01:32:09,954 but powerful in the way that it sets the stage... 1438 01:32:10,033 --> 01:32:13,696 for the journey that this particular film is going to take. 1439 01:32:14,237 --> 01:32:18,298 Obviously, great directors give you great material to work with. 1440 01:32:19,642 --> 01:32:22,543 But the ultimate film that you see is the edited version... 1441 01:32:22,612 --> 01:32:25,342 and the editor is greatly responsible for that. 1442 01:32:25,915 --> 01:32:29,043 I find my work absolutely fascinating and absorbing. 1443 01:32:30,720 --> 01:32:34,156 I sat down to work and 30 years went by... 1444 01:32:34,524 --> 01:32:35,923 without my noticing it. 1445 01:32:36,159 --> 01:32:39,617 It's true. When I go into an editing room in the morning... 1446 01:32:39,695 --> 01:32:42,664 I edit. My assistant has to remind me it's lunchtime. 1447 01:32:43,499 --> 01:32:47,333 Or Steven has to come in and say, "Hey, Mike, why don't you stop for a while?" 1448 01:32:47,403 --> 01:32:49,064 Because time goes by like that. 1449 01:32:49,772 --> 01:32:53,230 You're building a whole other world. You're building a whole construct. 1450 01:32:53,543 --> 01:32:56,944 There's a joy on one level in that it's like putting a puzzle together. 1451 01:32:57,013 --> 01:32:59,777 "I have thousands of pieces and how do I tell the story? 1452 01:32:59,849 --> 01:33:01,942 "And this goes before that. No, that doesn't. 1453 01:33:02,018 --> 01:33:03,610 "Actually, I only need half of that." 1454 01:33:03,920 --> 01:33:07,879 The job is not unlike the Talmudic scholar... 1455 01:33:07,957 --> 01:33:12,417 who goes and sits and argues about the book... 1456 01:33:12,762 --> 01:33:16,528 over and over again, always coming up with new answers... 1457 01:33:16,766 --> 01:33:21,294 that are just more subtly refined than the last answer. 1458 01:33:22,004 --> 01:33:26,168 To sit in a theater at a preview and to hear an audience laugh... 1459 01:33:26,375 --> 01:33:29,902 at that moment when you expect the laugh and it comes back at you... 1460 01:33:30,079 --> 01:33:33,071 or to hear an audience shuffling and crying because... 1461 01:33:33,316 --> 01:33:37,753 it's so sad and you expect that moment to really happen that way... 1462 01:33:38,187 --> 01:33:39,814 that's so marvelous. 1463 01:33:40,356 --> 01:33:42,916 It tells you what power we have. 1464 01:33:43,359 --> 01:33:47,386 I believe in people being able to learn because otherwise, what's the point? 1465 01:33:47,463 --> 01:33:50,364 We're all gonna, you know, be passed one of these days... 1466 01:33:50,433 --> 01:33:53,891 and how are we gonna take this fantastic thing called film... 1467 01:33:53,970 --> 01:33:56,097 and motion pictures and storytelling... 1468 01:33:56,172 --> 01:33:58,265 unless we pass it on and teach people how to do it? 1469 01:34:00,510 --> 01:34:03,843 In the century since Edwin Porter introduced editing... 1470 01:34:04,313 --> 01:34:07,840 editors have emerged from their dimly lit back rooms. 1471 01:34:08,017 --> 01:34:09,780 Once anonymous men and women... 1472 01:34:09,919 --> 01:34:14,117 they have gradually become principal collaborators in the filmmaking process. 1473 01:34:14,824 --> 01:34:19,659 The best-kept secret in the movies, the editor, is finally out. 1474 01:34:19,795 --> 01:34:21,285 The Oscar goes to... 1475 01:36:11,874 --> 01:36:14,434 Thank you. Thank you so much. 1476 01:36:15,845 --> 01:36:17,437 You know, Steven gave me... 1477 01:36:18,514 --> 01:36:22,507 my first editorial advice. I don't know if you remember this or not, Steven... 1478 01:36:23,552 --> 01:36:26,851 but Steven produced I Wanna Hold Your Hand, my first movie. 1479 01:36:27,189 --> 01:36:31,057 I talked to him about a lot of things but when it came to editing he said: 1480 01:36:31,127 --> 01:36:35,723 "Hey, Bob, real easy. When in doubt, cut it out." 1481 01:36:37,300 --> 01:36:38,767 And... 1482 01:36:39,268 --> 01:36:42,237 I've been saying that in the editing room, as you guys know... 1483 01:36:42,305 --> 01:36:44,034 for all these years. 1484 01:36:44,106 --> 01:36:48,042 Steven also was able to... When I was making that movie... 1485 01:36:48,144 --> 01:36:51,443 Steven had just bought his first mansion in Beverly Hills. 1486 01:36:51,947 --> 01:36:53,107 And... 1487 01:36:53,883 --> 01:36:56,249 he said, "Hey, I've got this great pool house. 1488 01:36:56,319 --> 01:36:59,914 "You guys don't have to edit on the lot where there's no windows... 1489 01:36:59,989 --> 01:37:03,220 "in the editing rooms. You guys can edit in this pool house." 1490 01:37:03,492 --> 01:37:04,925 And we said, "Hey, that's great." 1491 01:37:04,994 --> 01:37:08,452 We went in the back of Steven's house and edited I Wanna Hold Your Hand... 1492 01:37:08,531 --> 01:37:11,398 in the pool house. But this strange thing kept happening. 1493 01:37:11,967 --> 01:37:15,903 We'd get there in the morning and the editors would pull the reels... 1494 01:37:16,272 --> 01:37:19,935 off the racks and all the sprockets would be torn up... 1495 01:37:20,643 --> 01:37:22,668 and there'd be, like, ripped film. 1496 01:37:23,012 --> 01:37:25,173 And of course you don't have to, you know... 1497 01:37:25,815 --> 01:37:29,410 think very far to figure out what was really happening. So I asked... 1498 01:37:31,053 --> 01:37:35,547 Steven about it one day and he said, "Sometimes I can't sleep... 1499 01:37:37,059 --> 01:37:40,290 "and so I thought I'd go up to the pool house and run a few reels." 1500 01:37:43,766 --> 01:37:47,463 But what happens in that editing room? You sit around, you talk about girls. 1501 01:37:48,270 --> 01:37:51,671 And you talk dirty. And you lie on the couch. 1502 01:37:52,341 --> 01:37:56,004 And you enjoy yourself. And you eat chocolate bars. 1503 01:37:57,546 --> 01:38:00,947 And like I said before, when somebody hears a director coming... 1504 01:38:01,317 --> 01:38:04,946 you throw everything away and you stand up straight like you're working... 1505 01:38:05,020 --> 01:38:06,009 and... 1506 01:38:07,256 --> 01:38:09,087 that's what editors do.