The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing

Very fine feature length documentary lurking amidst the extras on my Bullitt Blu-ray disc. Little direct relevance to that film except that it did win an Oscar for editing and we do get to see some of the famous car chase. But never mind, all the better for not being directly related for this is a far reaching and informative piece. Kathy Bates narrates the early b/w footage and informs us that women were the first editors. It was considered somewhat related to sewing and stitching we are told and therefore appropriately relegated to ladies until sound came in and men had to be involved because that was far too technical. Before we have a chance to remonstrate we have Tarantino introducing his beloved editor Sally Menke and all is sweet and light. I had never seen Menke or fellow editors Walter Much, Craig McKay and others before and cannot even recall seeing Alexander Payne, Joe Dante or Lawrence Kasden, three of the numerous directors who also put in their pennies worth plus great little anecdotes. Informative, fast moving, colourful and of course, well edited.

I'm a film director/editor from Colombia with more than 45 years in the business and this film is absolutely the best essay on film editing that I've had the good luck of seeing. The examples are great, the explanations on the "unseen" or "hidden art" of editing are perfect, the pacing is just right, etc., etc. The only thing I felt was that it was too short, but then I'm biased on the subject. This should be a MUST SEE FILM for everybody starting out in the business (and not just those who want to be editors).This is a solid "10" for me and I can't understand how anybody would consider it less, except for those mediocre joes who just can't cut it...

This is a remarkable documentary, informative, interesting and successful in clarifying what is, for many, something of a mysterious process. The contributions to film making of directors, actors, designers, cinematographers and sound recordists is self evident, but the film editor's role has seldom been understood nor its importance fully recognised. This documentary is the first to give directors and editors an opportunity to explain exactly what goes on in the editing room and they have done it superbly. What a pity then, that references to the history of film editing woven into this story are cursory, inadequate and in some instances completely wrong. Martin Scorsese refers to Edwin Porters' 1902 film, Life of an American Fireman, as the very first film to be edited using crosscutting as a structuring device, and the commentary supports this view, despite convincing evidence to the contrary that was discovered in 1978. In fact the earliest discovered examples of this practise date from 1906. Equally mistaken is the assertion, made several times in this prize-winning documentary, that D.W.Griffith originated the important editing practise of action matching. In fact there is clear evidence of action matching in a British film made as early as 1903 and Griffith's first film was not made until 1908. There is considerable evidence that Griffith considered action matching to be of very little importance, and when used in his films it is often ill judged and clumsy. All this is curious in a documentary that seeks to explain the history and practise of film editing. One might have expected research on the topic to be as well informed as the comments made by most of the contributors, particularly given that the scriptwriter is Professor Mark Jonathan Harris of the School of Cinema and Television, University of Southern California.

Do you know of the importance of the Film Editor to making a great film or to leave the best on the cutting room floor? Did you know that Spielberg & Scorcese will not let any Actor into the Cutting Room (but that Sean Penn will do so)....that earlier there were "Basic Rules" to editing but that the rules went asunder under the French "New Wave"! PLEASE: Ignore the low score and note that almost all viewers gave this documentary either a TEN or a one....and we all know that there is a small percentage of IMDb'ers that truly HATE films and will do anything in their zeal to burn their path of ignorance behind them in an effort to bring everyone to their level of ignorance. How sad to disdain our basic need to learn about life and specifically to learn about what make a Great Film what it will become.

This is a first-rate job of work, one of the best documentaries on film-making that I've ever seen, opening up the fascinating world of film editing by letting great editors and directors speak to us directly about the mysteries of film cutting--supported by illuminating examples drawn from real films. I can't praise too highly the thoughtful choice of speakers, from Thelma to Dede to Walter Murch and on down the line. Nice to see director Joe Dante too. I was particularly pleased at the inclusion of early film editing examples, such as Dziga Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera and, of course, the down-the-stairs sequence from Potemkin. (The film includes a few sequences from later films that echo the Potemkin sequence, but I bet there's at least five examples they missed!) Bravo! Michael Goodwin