Charles Harris

HUM1900
October 31 2014
Cutting Edge: Movie Magic
The Cutting Edge
When a general audience experiences a cinema feature, they rarely think about how it is
constructed. In fact one of the main objectives for most films is to cloak the process so the
viewer becomes at one with the story rather than the technology that helped execute it. By far the
most overlooked yet central component to movie magic is the editing. Over the century, this role
has become more important due to the advances in technology and the art form but yet still
struggle to receive the recognition deserved. The editor can be seen simply as the one who chops
and pastes frames together or the true storyteller conveying the vision of the director. The Film
Cutting Edge exposes the brilliance behind this topic by shedding light on the role of the film
editor.
Michael Kahn (Raiders of the Lost Ark) said editing is manipulation. ...We are
manipulating the audience to respond a certain way. We saw this often in Hitchcocks films that
would utilize the timing of editing to draw suspense. In Psycho, the action scenes were cut fast as
to only give the viewer little time to adjust to what was seen on the screen. When the audience
cant tell whats coming next, the thriller has done its job. Hitchcock so meticulously drafted
storyboards because he knew he could control how the story was being conveyed by doing so.
Other film directors may loosely follow their storyboards and enjoy the magic of improvisation.
When Scorseses Raging Bull was being completed the editor had to go through miles of
documentary style footage of Robert De niro and Joe Pesci going back and forth. Editing is also
used to evoke feelings of eroticism, lunacy and to enhance comedic timing to name a few.

Apparently there were many explicit shots taken out of the movie Body Heat to heighten erotic
tension in the mind of the viewer.
In the old days of cinema many Hollywood filmmakers were merely following the rules
set in place by D.W Griffith. It was thought that psychologically the best way to convey a story
to a viewer was through a series of smooth seamless cuts. Though some challenged this style it
remained as the blueprint for many years. In many ways it was regarded more as a mechanical
operation than an extension of the creative process. The role of the editor seemed to get more
respect as it began to sway away from the schoolbook techniques that were followed in
Hollywood for years. In the 1960s we began to see more movies in America that allowed for the
editor to become more artistically risky with continuity, such as in Bonnie and Clyde. Although
there had been plenty of experimental films before, this was the first time it was accepted as a
mainstream method and paved the way for many more. Editors who were once considered just
engineers were then finally being excepted as artists. As editors explored further away from
D.W Griffith's smooth cuts by fragmenting time and space they created new possibilities for
storytelling. By the dawn of the MTV generation fast-style editing we see an extreme mixture
of all styles in modern Hollywood.
Its hard to imagine the yards of film strips stretching across cutting tables in a factory
style setting. Through archival footage this movie brought the history of editing to light. So
much work goes into choosing the best moments, combinations of human emotion and elements
of story and it massively falls on the shoulders of the editor. Its interesting to learn that behind
many of the best films ever made are a league of editors who are dedicated to this hidden art.