Editing vs. Directing Question

[JonathanLB]

Ok, now I think I know how I would answer this question, but I'd like to know what someone like CMJ thinks or anyone else here who is into film a lot.

So you have a movie like 25th Hour, which I liked, for the record, but I feel it was too long and it lost its primary focus in parts. It had scenes and subplots that were not going anywhere, IMO, and I would have cut them out entirely. I could have made the film 1h45 not 2h08. So, is that editing or is that directing? I still think it's the director's fault because he is the one who shoots the scenes and ultimately decides to keep them, right? Then again, it is an editing problem because the actual scenes in the movie ARE well directed, it's only the collection of scenes, i.e. the editing, that is somewhat lackluster.

So my answer would be that it is poor editing, but the director is also to blame. I'm not asking for a debate about 25th Hour either, so it's ok if you've not seen it, I just mean in general, if a movie seems professionally directed, as in you liked the movie overall, but it feels too long and like it has unnecessary parts, do you call that an editing problem, a directing problem, or both?

[Figrin D'an]

Personally, in my totally unqualified and uninformed opinion, that would seem to be an editing problem. I think it would be possible for such scenes to be well directed, but be unnecessary.

But, that's my POV...

[Dutchy]

I'd like to ask an additional question: how can we, the viewers, tell if a directer did a good (Oscar-worthy) job? Can we tell directly from watching the movie or do we have to know stuff about what the director actually did?

[Marcus Telcontar]

I thik it's a bit of both actually Jon. The Director in the end has final say what is in and out, the editor is the person who puts what the director wants together in the best manner possible. If there are unnecessary scenes in, that's the director's fault. The editor is doing his job. However, if they were poorly spliced..... editor. He / she puts the film together in the sequences the director wants. Fades, cuts, swipes are the editor. That may sound fairly easy... but a bad cut may break a film's continuaty and flow. Editing helps the flow between scences.

Problems you describe are more a fault of a director, thence.


I'd like to ask an additional question: how can we, the viewers, tell if a directer did a good (Oscar-worthy) job? Can we tell directly from watching the movie or do we have to know stuff about what the director actually did?

Case in point i think is LOTR, where you really become aware of the extraordiary task Jackson did and one hell of a lot of it is offscreen. I think he was robbed last year, for a director is responsible for the whole sum of the parts of a movie. He ensures how well made a moive will be, by orsetrating all the parts and bringing them together. LOTR was a vastly bigger challenge than a Beautiful Mind by a long, long way and IMO, much better executed. However, an Oscar worthy job, you will be able to tell when you see the sum of all the parts and how they work together.

Jackson surely has to win Best Director somewhere along the line.

[JonathanLB]

I would also say it is more the fault of the director, even though it is an *editing* problem. That's why it's tough to say exactly, I mean... I guess it's just a tough one to pin the blame on anyone really.

I agree, Jackson was robbed of an Oscar. There has hardly been a more deserving director in Hollywood history. Directing is all about doing incredible tasks and putting together an unlikely masterpiece in a rare fashion like that. Jackson's task was one for the ages. Hopefully he wins at least for ONE of the LOTR films.

[ReaperFett]

The director, because he probably has sway over the editing.

[Admiral Lebron]

Jackson will get the oscar for ROTK methinks.

[Ishiva Ruell]

PJ deserved it for FOTR, moreso than say TTT if he was nominated consecutively. Let's hope he gets best director for one of these films. His vision and accomplishments are truly extraordinary. Great movie-making history!

[JonathanLB]

Maybe if he does not win they could later give him a Special Achievement Award or something along those lines.

[CMJ]

It's definitely a director problem Jonathan. I believe the argument has already been made, so I don't have anything else to add.

[JonathanLB]

Thanks, CMJ, that is what I felt.

Did you see 25th Hour yet?

[CMJ]

Not yet...I'm kinda behind. Plus, I'm sorta hesitant Spike Lee is not one of my favorites.

[Figrin D'an]

Hmmm... I think I need to clarify... because there is a difference between a "director" problem and a "directing" problem, IMO. It can be an editing issue, but is still the director's fault, because, like you said, he in charge of what scenes make the final version and what gets left on the cutting room floor. In this case, it seems that the problem comes more in post-production, during the editing process (ie. leaving in too many unnecessary scenes). But, it's still the director's responsibility.

So, "director" problem, most definately... "directing" problem, not so much IMO.

I have not seen 25th Hour yet, though, so this is all from a generalized POV...

[JonathanLB]

Well maybe other people don't see what I see in 25th Hour, a movie I liked overall, but I just thought 2 hours and 8 minutes was about 28 minutes too long, or at least 15 minutes too long for this film.

CMJ, I don't really know if I like Spike Lee, I honestly think I've not seen any of his movies except this! Maybe there is something I forget, but he's a small director. He's the kind of director everyone has heard of, but few people really have seen that many of his movies. Actually Woody Allen is like that now too, they are both similar in many ways.

I recommend 25th Hour, especially because Norton is in it, but I wouldn't say it's a great film. I noticed it made some top 10 lists for the year, but not mine by any means. Maybe top 50-75, hehe.

I suppose by the time I get all caught up, I'll have seen around 200 movies released in 2002 in the United States. So for me, top 10 is extremely selective, even my top 25 for the year would be a great list of films... Tough to narrow it to 10 really. I'm not even going to bother until all of the movies have opened here and I've rented about 10 that I missed, maybe there are even 15 I have to rent. Kind of frustrating because I want to get to older classics, but I would like to keep up on the newest stuff because that's what gets the traffic. :\

[CMJ]

I'm not sure how many films I've seen from 2002, but I'd guess 60+. Even from that I'd say it's a selective list.

Of course I skip alot of films that may be good but I know I can just see on video that wouldn't affect the list.

I don't have the unlimited funds. ;)

[JonathanLB]

It's not the money that's a problem, it's seriously the time. I mean yeah it costs a lot of money I suppose, when I think about it, but dang it takes SO MUCH time! I couldn't believe it when I started doing the math and realized that on average I watched 4 movies from 2002 every single week of the year. That's really a tough task because I'm trying to see so many other films too that it makes catching up difficult. That's why I have at times wondered if maybe I should just see the biggest or most critically acclaimed releases, but then I think I'd lose a substantial market group for my site too and I wouldn't be as consumate of a critic perhaps. I'm not sure, but I know that I have gotten a lot of traffic from White Oleandor, for instance, and that was a tiny film that didn't get great reviews necessarily. Also from stuff like Not Another Teen Movie, tons of traffic from that, and Donnie Darko, amazingly, is the #1 source of traffic from search engines to JLBMovies.com! I get 7-8 different search terms like "Donnie Darko meaning," "Donnie Darko pictures," "Frank pictures from Donnie Darko," "Donnie Darko ending," "Donnie Darko information," and just "Donnie Darko." I'm happy about that though because Donnie Darko is one of my top 10 films from the last two years I'd say. Anyway, it was top 5 in 2001. I am more pleased with that traffic than the rather substantial number of people who visit my site from searching for "skulls ii," or The Skulls II as its proper name. That movie sucked.

My 16-page Citizen Kane review recently caught with the search engines, I am very excited about that, probably because in 16 pages I believe I wrote the phrase "Citizen Kane" about 75 times. I'm ranked 14th on Yahoo and 15th on Google, I think, which rocks if you consider that Citizen Kane is widely considered the greatest/most important of all American films and my review on it is top 20 online. I've been getting a lot of readers to that lately, so I'm glad my time wasn't just wasted writing it. I doubt that even 5% of the readers actually finish reading my entire review, but if they learn anything at all from it or manage to skim it over even and find a few interesting facts, then I'm happy that I've contributed in some small way to film criticism.

[Mu Satach]

Unless for instance there's been meddling in the film by the people with the paycheck.

For instance like ST: The Movie.... that sequence with Kirk flying around and around and around the Enterprise was not the Director's or the Editor's choice but a mandate from the heads of the studio.

In that case the fault is out of the director & editor's hands. However you may or may not hear about those decisions until decades later, because if you want to keep working as a director it's not wise to go around bad mouthing the people who give you the money to play with.

Then again... I've heard two directors comment that sometimes it can be cop out to blame a film's problems on the studio execs.

So who knows.

[JonathanLB]

I don't think it's a cop-out at all, I mean I suppose it depends on the situation, but Lucas was incredibly frustrated with the meddling that studios did to American Grafitti and that eventually led him to want his own studio immediately. He was the ultimate risk-taker in pouring his own new fortune into ESB, but you can't succeed without great risk. Ultimately, it may scare most people (and this is why there is only 1 millionaire per 1,000), but without risking it all you won't ever make it to that next level. Even my dad told me that on several occassions if a business deal went bad, he would have lost almost everything he had. He never risks that much anymore because what would be the point?! At the start of his career, though, he had to make choices like that. It's just put up or shut up.

Studios are bothersome in most cases because it is all about the money to them and not the art form. While that is ok because movies have always been this way throughout the world from 1895 on (actually slightly before, even, hehe), it sometimes does hurt the process when an executive with limited film knowledge starts interferring with the decisions of a director. I just think if you pay the money to hire a director, you need to let that director do whatever he wants and not interfere because that has proven to deliver the highest quality of work. If the director screws up and the film bombs, you either don't hire them again or you sign a new contract requiring a certain length of movie or whatever else. I just don't think studio executives know anything about movies. I think they know about business. They very well may be experts in their fields, they may have business majors, but if they want to screw around with someone else's art, and that's what it is, then they need to have the same understanding of film that the director does or at the very least a basic critical understanding, like having seen several thousand significant movies. Of course, most would insist that is "ridiculous" and they "don't have time," so that's why they should leave the directors the heck alone to do what they do best -- direct. Just as the directors leave the studio execs and marketing people to do what they are supposed to do best.

Although in the case of Fight Club and L.A. Confidential (and I would argue BOTH TPM and AOTC), nobody should have trusted Fox to do anything of any value, lol. Their marketing department is enigmatic, at best. Poor, at worst. Same goes with those fools at Dimension. They get both Equilibrium (a great sci-fi film) and Below (a good horror movie by the director of Pitch Black) and they manage to screw them both up with LOUSY marketing. But that's all another issue, grrr!

[Marcus Telcontar]

What annoys me is that Equilibrium is never coming to Australia.

[JonathanLB]

Never? Man those people are retarded. Well hopefully the DVD release anyway...

I wonder when it comes to U.S. DVD, hmm. I love that movie. Sci-fi fans mostly loved it, great average rate, yet critics basically thought it was recycled garbage, lol, just proves they were not at all open-minded about it. Ebert was reasonable in his 3 star review, but it was much better than that, I thought. The action is superior to The Matrix in my book because there is more of it, I felt it was a HELL of a lot cooler, and it's also real action, not effects action.

[Marcus Telcontar]

If the DVD doesnt make it to Australia, I'll be sorely annoyed.

[JonathanLB]

That would just suck.

Well I admit I, ahem, kind of "obtained" Equilibrium today. I'm rather happy about it, LOL, and I would defend the decision because what the heck, it's not in theaters now, it's not on DVD or VHS, and I did travel 180 miles to see it in theaters, spent a few hundred dollars trying to get to a theater to see it, so what the heck, I want to enjoy some of the best scenes again :)

It's not like this LOUSY, awful copy of the movie would replace a DVD copy anyway, jesus. Why would anyone watch a movie like this for the first time?! No wonder some people get negative impressions of great movies. If you saw AOTC like this, it would look like crap. But when I watch Equilibrium on the comp, I just picture the theater print that I saw, so... I guess it just kind of REMINDS me of what I'll get when the DVD comes out and I'm in my home theater ;)

Speaking of DVDs, I'm rather excited about the Kino DVD of Metropolis (Germany, 1927) that comes out here in February. I pre-ordered it already.