The Importance of Editing in Film

Editing plays a vitally important part within filmmaking and its role has grown and grown throughout the history of cinema. The very first examples of films used to be one shot, compared to now with the average Hollywood feature film containing between 1000 and 2000 shots. Each of these shots have to be linked, or edited together, in some way whether it be using fades, wipes, dissolves or the standard cut. Even decisions such as these can dramatically effect the look and the feel of a film. Usually in commercial films continuity editing is applied. This is where the following shot should compliment its predecessor so that the viewer is able to easily comprehend what is happening. A basic example of this would be if a man is walking down the street from left to right then the next shot should not be the man walking right to left as this disrupts the audiences viewing.

Also the usual narrative of a film is a linear one meaning that what you see at the beginning of the film is the beginning of the story and we follow the film from the beginning through the middle and right the way to the conclusion at the end. However this is not always the case and in some films having a non linear narrative can really enhance the experience.

Memento is the first film I will be looking at in regards to editing as this is an extremely important factor in the narratives structure and progression of the film. Firstly the film plays both forwards sequentially and backwards simultaneously. This sounds fairly confusing but editing has made this idea possible and added so much to the film. Black and white sequences are scenes that move forward from where the story actually begins. These are inter cut with colour sequences which are shown scene by scene but in reverse order. When these two meet there is a wonderful fade from black and white to colour. This marks the conclusion of the film for the viewer but in reality it is only the middle of the film.

The basic idea used to progress the narrative is the theme of confusion. Given that the central character Leonard has a short term memory condition the filmmakers wanted to convey to the audience the same sense of confusion and disorientation that he experiences. For example the first scene after the title sequence we, as an audience, find ourselves in a room with Leonard as he wakes up. Leonard cannot remember where he is so quick cuts of extreme close-ups are used so that the audience at first cannot grasp his surroundings. As Leonard starts to discover more about his surroundings so do the audience as the pace of editing is slowed down allowing for much more information to be gathered upon viewing.

Also the black and white sequences fade in and out but are interplayed with the colour sequences using a cut. By this I mean at the end of a colour sequence we cut to black then fade in and at the end of a black and white sequence we fade to black before a quick cut back to colour. Apart from these fades, cuts are the only transitions that are used within the film. This adds to the realism of the piece as even though cuts should jar one shot to the next, as an audience, especially one who has grown up with a media orientated society, cuts seem the least interrupting of all transitions.

The introductory title sequence of the film is actually played backwards, this sequence is in place as an introduction to the viewer as to how the films narrative will be presented to them. At first even though playing in reverse nothing really jars the viewer into realising this until a gun flies from the ground into Leonard’s hand and it is obvious that we are watching something in reverse. This in effect is exactly how the narrative plays out. As aforementioned the story is played both sequentially and in reverse order parallel to one another. Also all of the sounds in the reversed introduction are played forward once again using editing to achieve a technique which hints at the films eventual narrative formulae.

There are several dreamlike memory sequences within Memento where Leonard has flashback type memories. Using editing these are conveyed to the audience with ease. The images are presented in extremely quick successive burst intertwined with images of Leonard as he is remembering them. The images are usually close-ups and because of the speed of the edits appear to have lots of motion, this startles the audience so that they do not properly understand what they are seeing. They realise that they are witnessing a memory but once again aren’t able to pick up any large strands of information in keeping with the fact that the audience should be in the same state as Leonard. As well as the rapid cuts there are loud bursts of sounds compliant with the memory but these also add to the startling effect on the audience.

In the film About Schmidt the central character Warren Schmidt has a major change within his life which throughout the film changes the mood dramatically. As in Memento we constantly follow Warren around so we really need to feel how he feels in a similar way.

In the beginning of the film the shot lengths are very long and show the vastness of the city and the building where Warren works. Holding these shots for a sustained amount of time allows the audience to really study the hugeness of the area which in turn when cut to Warren in his office shows his insignificance. These sustained shots continue showing Warren and his wife to on the way to and at his leaving dinner at a restaurant. This really puts across to the audience a sense of boredom which is exactly what the main character is feeling. At points the cuts almost have a slow rhythmical pacing to them which express this feeling of rigidity and routine. This is extremely important to the narrative as Warren is trapped inside this routine that he has been in for 40 years and inside he is really crippled with boredom and annoyance from his work, his job and his wife.

In Film Art an Introduction, Bordwell and Thompson state ‘the patterning of shot lengths contributes considerably to what we intuitively recognise as a film’s rhythm’

This is easy to see within About Schmidt and as such the rhythm is clear throughout even if the viewer is not completely aware of it..

At one point in the films there are shots of photographs of cattle and then it cuts to a shot of a photograph of Warren Schmidt. This could be seen as an example of the montage theory put forward by Sergei Eisenstein. The theory states that when shot A is cut with shot B it creates meaning C. In this instance we have a shot of cattle cut with a shot of Warren which creates the idea that in his company he is one of many workers who are all penned in, used and disposed of like cattle. This being extremely relevant as it appears at the leaving party for Warren.

After the death of Warrens wife, to express the numbness and confusion he is gong through, the editing style completely changes. Previously all straight monotonous cuts become long fades from one moving shot to the next accompanied by fades in and out of what is being said to him. This completely throws the audience who also feels this hazy confusion after watching and coming to expect the monotony they have been presented with. Also at the funeral the diegetic sound is turned right down to almost be muted and instead a louder non diegetic music replaces it. This is coupled with eye line match shots that show Warren and then what he is looking at. This expresses the sense of loss and the feeling of wanting to be anywhere else shown by the lingering lengths of the edits on what he is seeing.

When Warren is writing letters to Ndugu, a boy he is sponsoring, we literally get right into his head. His thoughts are handed to us in the traditional voice over much like in Memento but are accompanied by quirky string music that changes with the moods that he is experiencing. At these points we are often given a montage sequence, not the Eisenstein based theory but, a selection of shots cut together that either show or reflect what Warren is talking about. For example when he talks about what he wanted to do when he was young we see pictures from his school days and when he mentions he doesn’t like the way his wife smells we cut to an extreme close up of her armpit. This goes somewhat to reinforcing what he is talking about but also most of the shots are static close ups of the objects which really do seem to be quite quirky.

Overall the narrative importance of editing is extremely high. The techniques used and the way in which a film is edited can completely change how a viewer perceives what they are seeing. Editing goes a long way into creating the right mood, feelings, expectations and reactions of people on viewing and as such is a necessary tool in which to craft a film. Even a decision in the length of a shot can express a certain feeling towards the audience and it is what the audience feel that effects how the interact with the overall narrative of the film.