re: selective editing. any thoughts on lizzie?
yes!! I’ve talked about lizzie’s editing choices a handful of times before, especially how she’ll often lie via subtitles (whether that’s misattributing lines or misrepresenting what was actually said*) or redub scenes to smooth out her own dialogue. everyone in the life series manipulates their audience, it comes free with having multiple perspectives of the same events, but lizzie’s such an underrated manipulator despite being one of the most egregious of the lot. my favourite example of this, and also one of the coolest instances of editing as memory, is from wild life (13:07 in lizzie’s ep 4; 35:45 in jimmy’s ep 4):
^she’s remembering herself as being not only more articulate (“take this stew and go do the cobweb creeper trick” vs “take this stew, and then tr—you know, do the… do the thing”) but also more supportive of jimmy (“jimmy, I’m so proud of you!” vs not saying that at all). this sort of narrative manipulation is sooo fun. does lizzie remember telling jimmy she’s proud of him because she was thinking it so she just assumed she’d said it? is there a reason she doesn’t remember jimmy thanking her for giving him the suspicious stew? of course she’d remember herself explaining the cobweb creeper trick instead of just stumbling over her words. editing choices are so interesting as facets of characterisation, and lizzie does this sort of stuff all the time. she’s fun!
