Walter Murch In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing
Murch asserts that by looking at the fringe or extreme cases of things tells you more about the average than the average itself does.
Editing is not a "putting together" it is a "discovery of a path". I love the sentiment that editing is not just a thoughtless action and not a paring down/cutting away but more of a joyful foraging sort of activity that requires backtracking and new direction.
In my opinion, cuts are one of the major standout techniques of film. As a medium, the fact that you can splice in and blink to another place/time makes it astonishingly different from theatrical/live dance/opera formats. It's part of why I don't think theater's should be afraid of pro-shots because it's so different to watch a theater piece where you can cut to a close up of an actors face still in time. That's a different emotional experience than watching a theatrical piece, which will still draw an audience for the live, complete stage picture.
I don't......... know that I agree about total continuity in experience until edited film. Theater has always had scene jumps. That's not a cut, but it is a leap in time. Audiences were primed to see things edited by the time film rolled around. Also, we blink, we forget, we are not all bastions of objective experience and neither is film. For whatever reason this assertion of experiencing continuity feels like a claim of objectivity that I don't agree with. I think the cut works because humans love patterns and associations.
"motion within a context" (p6)
Two editors with the same material are like the sequencing code of DNA. They will do different things, in different ways. When and what order is the difference.
Overactive editing makes it so you can't properly enjoy anything. Leave things to the viewers own eye or imagination. Resentment grows from an over-guided audience.
Six cuts: Emotion (51%), Story (23%), Rhythm (10), Eye-trace (7) (the location and movement of the audiences focus of interest w/in frame, think psychic lines in composition), Two Dimensional Plane of Screen (5), 3D Space of Action (4). A good cut would do ALL OF THESE THINGS. But, as you sacrifice, move from the bottom of the list up. Most times, the RIGHT cut will be all six, and you should pursue that cut and dive deep to get it.
Editors should put themselves in the place of the audience and how you want them to feel.
Editors should misdirect like a magician - look here, not there to heighten the feeling of the film.
I think it's charming that Murch tricks his brain into seeing the big picture with paper dolls.
Editors are in a unique position because they are not in the room making the film and yet has so much control over the final product of a film. Just because a shot was hard to make does not mean that it is the right shot, and editors don't have that emotional attachment to those moments. Editors should strive to only see what is on the screen. As a part of that, directors should delete the burden of how hard it was to make the film and dedicate themselves to making the final product the best thing possible.
It's funny to me that for Murch, emotion is the key reason to make a cut but that being unemotional about the reason for a cut seems to be important. Like I understand, your emotion as the editor needs to be based in the audience experience, I just thought that was a funny contradiction of sorts. Some other things this made me think of is of editors more like guides than gods. They bring the tour along, they might find the path and the right foraging spots, but beyond that they need to allow the audience to wander satisfactorily through a piece. I feel like this is why something like "Mad Max: Fury Road" works so well. The story is a pretty simple journey, but the scenes are easy to wander through while still following the core of the movie.
Sayles' Principles of Editing
Two stages of editing: 1. the process of assembling shots into rough cut and 2. the editor and director fine-tuning the rough cut into a "fine cut" (is that fine good or fine ok?)
Dramatic Time - replaces real time in film
Editing should never confuse viewers. The lack of confusion creates narrative clarity.
Seamlessness is important. The seamless, smooth cut should be the editors first goal.
Directors should hand editors a variety of shots. Scenes should have lots of coverage so that editors have a lot of options. Having the correct elements repeated in each of those shots is important.
Sayles seems to prioritize an almost mechanical continuity, it feels like narrative clarity above all else.
It's only once you have that narrative clarity that you can start to carve out the pace and style of the film.
Important parts in a sequence are longer, usually, because we need more time with them. This sets a rhythm to a scene, which feels a lot like pace but it seems to be more about how something ~feels~
Sound, much like picture, editing should guide and strengthen the narrative. Choices should be made in line with those goals. Similarly also to picture editing, once you have the functional narrative driven choices, you can begin making creative choices that punctuate a scene.
Sayles ends on this sort of.... nihilistic note? About how movies have gotten both larger and smaller and rely on spectacle. There's a sort of call to consider what we consume and how we can heighten general art? This seems extremely dramatic to me. I think that movies can be spectacular, popular and still be well crafted. "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once" comes to mind. If I'm being honest, I responded way less strongly to Sayles than Murch. I can respect Sayles from a craft perspective, and I do think it's important to prioritize narrative... if narrative is what you're interested in. As such I can get more behind Murch's emotion-driven idea.
What are "The Six" rules according to Murch? Elaborate on each of "The Six", what do they mean and how do they aid in storytelling?Â
The six rules are a series of ideas about how one should prioritize making cuts in editing. I'll list them here in order of importance, from most to least: emotion, story, rhythm, eye-trace, two dimensional plane of screen, three dimensional space of action. Murch says that emotion is how the moment feels and I wonder if that includes how you want the scene to feel to an audience. It is the most important because if you can capture the right emotion, an audience will usually forgive most other things. The next is story, which pertains to the continuity of the story. It is followed by rhythm, which has to do with the cut happening at a time that is interesting and "right". Murch says that these three traits are deeply linked, getting the first right will often lead to also getting the next two right. I believe that storytelling is in part done to evoke an emotion in an audience, thus having your tone right will help the plot advance in the correct pace and rhythm. It's like how you don't expect a golden age movie musical to advance at the same pace as a Baz Luhrmann film. They could be telling the same story and trying to evoke a similar feeling, but between the two moments the tone a cut could set by being at the right place for that films emotion/story/rhythm would make two entirely different things. Eye-trace is the fourth rule and it's the way an audience members eyes move around a frame. My understanding of it is that it's the composition of a shot. This can tell us about character relationships, power or comfort in the context of a shot. According to Murch, getting this right will often lead to at least some success at getting number five, two dimensional plane of screen, right. This fifth idea is about how 3D is transposed into 2D, and understanding the relationship of one to another. It makes sense that having a well-composed shot per eye-tracing leads to a strong sense of the 3D within 2D. And finally, the one Munch says is least important but often prioritized in film school, three dimensional space of action. This trait seems to have most to do with continuity. Continuity can be important in storytelling, if only because a lot of people love accuracy and consistency. That being said, I think we can forgive minor inconsistency if it serves the greater feeling of the piece and heightens the story being told in the way the story wants to be told.
How does Sayles' approach to the same topic of editing? Where do they differ in strategy?Â
To my mind, it seems like Sayles prioritizes narrative and continuity over anything else. Once those things are in place, that is when Sayles would start making choices that drive the emotion of the piece. On the other hand, Murch puts narrative in the second slot. It feels as though Murch wants one to carve out the feeling of a thing, and believes that this will create a more dynamic approach to story. Sayles on the other hand wants a solid base to mold on top of. The story needs to function before you can start heightening the base that having a consistent narrative gives you. It also seems like Murch is more interested in a matrix to put shots through. Sayles seems to create a single point through which to edit films and then a second filter. Sayles' approach to me seems like it would need more viewings, Murch's seems like it would get it boldy and loudly wrong more.
What have you watched recently that have utilized or adhered to Murch's tenants of editing? What about Sayles?Â
I feel like most Marvel movies would have to focus on Sayles' approach. You've got so many characters and so much spectacle that when you don't keep your eye on the narrative ball the audience is likely to get lost. And you can then heighten the psychic space of the movie with sound, special FX, and editing once you get that strong central narrative working.
For Murch, I feel like something like "The Handmaiden" is really driven by the feeling/atmosphere first. It's a psychological thriller and so we need to fall into the rabbit hole of the characters experiences. The way the characters feel the story is moving is almost more important that the story itself sometimes, especially when the film revisits events in the second act.
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