FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2021 ENTERTAINMENT An invisible art7 films that are great examples of the work movie editors do PHOTOS COURTESY THE STUDIOS CHRIS HEWITT | Star Tribune ‘Raging Bull’ (1980) hat makes a movie a movie Martin Scorsese is making an adap- is the editing,” says Zach tation of “Killers of the Flower Moon” ‘W Staenberg in the documen- right now, and that means editor Thelma tary “The Cutting Edge.” Admittedly, Schoonmaker is making a new movie, too. Staenberg is an editor, most famously of She has been with Scorsese in the editing the “Matrix” movies, but he’s not wrong. suite since 1967. She’s won three Oscars Editing can create emotion, speed up or for Scorsese movies (triple his total!), slow the pace, explore the psychology of including this one, in which the slowed- a character or find meaning that even the down, sped-up, knocked-sideways box- actors and writers didn’t know was there. ing scenes are the most striking. Along with the director, an editor decides what we look at and for how long. You’ll find examples in the clip-filled and entertaining “The Cutting Edge,” which examines the art of editing and which you can watch for free on YouTube. In it, we see editing legend Walter Murch solve “problems” created in the filming of “Cold Mountain,” hear his compadres talk about why it’s so much fun to work on chase scenes, learn why women broke into the craft much earlier than others (spoiler alert: sexism worked in their favor) and see how famous scenes might have been ‘Out of Sight’ (1998) altered if an editor had made different Possibly inspired by a scene from “Don’t choices. ‘Jaws’ (1975) Look Now,” a sexy, mixed-chronology The job is one of the most misunder- The tension created in “Jaws” has so much to do with Verna Fields’ skill that, in “Cut- George Clooney/Jennifer Lopez snog- stood in Hollywood. You’ll often hear ting Edge,” Steven Spielberg says that they often battled over her insistence that elim- fest gets most of the attention, but I love it said, “Why didn’t the editor make it inating just two frames would make most scenes better, and that she was always right. the little moments where editor Anne V. shorter?,” which misrepresents the role of Coates and director Steven Soderbergh an editor, who is more likely to determine cut away from the main character to how individual shots fit within scenes someone in the gifted cast for a reaction than the movie’s length (that’s a director’s shot. or producer’s call). Even Oscar voters get it wrong. They generally throw up their hands and award the editing statue to the best picture winner, unless there’s a flashier option. “The Cutting Edge” is mostly about American movies, but it pays tribute to the pioneering ’50s and ’60s French ed- itors whose jittery technique spread to Hollywood films such as “Bonnie and Clyde” and continues to this day in, for instance, “Moonlight.” It also acknowledges the founders of editing, many of them Russian, who ‘Mulholland Drive’ (2001) figured out basics such as the Kuleshov David Lynch has said that a key to en- Effect, which established that you could joying his movies is a willingness to get juxtapose a blank-faced actor with an lost. Mary Sweeney, who edited “Mulhol- image of, say, a birthday cake or a dead land” and several others for Lynch, has body, and the audience would interpret said that she’s like the moviegoing pub- the blank expression as showing emotions ‘Rear Window’ (1954) lic’s first pair of eyes because she usually such as delight or horror. We don’t no- At least as far back as “Battleship Potemkin” in the silent era, movies have used doesn’t know what’s going on when she tice it, but this effect is in literally every editing to build suspense with alternating points of view. An almost unbearably tense starts working on his films. As a result, a movie. example is the practically dialogue-free, George Tomasini-edited scene where Grace big part of her job is massaging footage to These greats say a lot about the editors Kelly stumbles upon a murderer while Jimmy Stewart watches from across the court- that moment where a dream logic emerges who decide what makes the cut: yard, unable to intercede. for her (and, hopefully, audiences). ‘Memento’ (2000) There’s no more obviously “edited” movie, since half of Christopher Nolan’s tricky ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015) thriller is in chronological order and half is backward. That it even makes sense, and that Another editing Oscar, another movie-long chase scene. George Miller’s masterwork the actors’ performances track so beautifully, was celebrated by the Motion Pictures is nonstop action, so heavily chopped up that it could be chaotic, but even as trucks are Editors Guild, which called Dody Dorn’s effort the 14th best-edited movie of all time. doing back flips and trapeze artists are firing cannons at each other, editor Margaret (The out-of-order work of another great, the late Sally Menke, on “Pulp Fiction,” may Sixel makes sure it’s clear where we are and what is going on. have inspired Dorn.).