montage

paul harrill over at self-reliant filmmaking has called for a blog-a-thon on jessica winter's 'the lost art of film editing' article. paul disagrees with her points (as do i), and makes a good case against them, however i disagree with the reasons he then gives for the increase in cuts in films.

so i'll do the following in this post:

• explain why i think paul's three reasons aren't correct...
  
• give two reasons of my own...
  
• and note a point paul and i do agree on.

paul's points:

• 1. inexperience in new filmmakers
  

  First, there is the issue of inexperience. Winter bemoans a scene in Little Miss Sunshine that’s cut all to hell. I’ve seen the movie and, though I didn’t have the same reaction, I see her point. (If it were me, I’d have probably cited as an example the early kitchen scene in Junebug) Anyway, I think both scenes are a case of first-time feature filmmakers still finding their way through covering a scene.

  the irony of this is that often first timers are surrounded by experienced people. so most first time directors don't have first time editors working for them.
  
  in my experience the opposite has been true with neophyte directors. they think everything they shot is important and have a much higher tolerance for lingering on a frame than anyone else, which often results in shots and scenes going on much longer than they should.
  
  
• 2. low-budget/independent films
  

  A second reason is that when you’re making an independent film you shoot fast, you get what you think you need, and then you move on quickly. Sometimes you don’t have time to nail the long take, however much you’d like to.You hope it works in the editing room and you do the best you can with what you have.

  sure you move quickly and sometimes don't get coverage, but i don't believe anyone is shooting so fast and furiously that they can't get a long take. in fact, many independent filmmakers shoot moving masters specifically for budgetary reasons – so they don’t have to do as many setups.
  
  but here’s the second and more statistical problem with that argument. if it's true that low-budget = faster cutting, we would already know this trend. it wouldn’t be a modern phenomenon. we’d be able to look back at all the b-movies and low-budget independents and see a observable correllation between budget and the amount of edits in a movie.
  
  
• 3. lack of exposure to slower films in film school
  

  Finally, I don’t know if this is a reason for fast cutting, or if it’s just a related effect, but it is sad (to me) that even in film schools young filmmakers are rarely exposed to “slow” films, like Carl Dreyer’s later works, or Tarkovsky’s, or Ozu’s.

  i definitely fall into this category. i graduated from film school and i've never heard of these filmmakers. however i do find it hard to believe that if students saw these films they'd be more likely to make slower films. there are plenty of slow-paced recent films for them to draw influence from, such as 'capote.'
  

do i agree that overall editing styles are speeding up? yes. but my reasons are more culturally generated and the second builds on the first.

christopher's conlusion:

• 1. film is culturally biased
  
  american filmmaking is storytelling. and stories to us are about something happening - action, movement, progression, story arc. these elements of story-telling require a more kinetic style of film. obviously longer takes can work, but when folks decry the modern style of cinema they often evoke the works of foreign filmmakers and to me that's comparing apples to oranges.
  
  

  films from other cultures may not share our basic tendency to make films as stories, rather than experiences, fables, dreams or something other than a linear narrative.
  

• 2. film language is constantly evolving
  
  the amount of edits in a film is no more an indication of the quality of editing today than any other time. in 'psycho,' hitchcock crammed 43 cuts into 31 seconds in 1960. there have always been good movies with fast-cutting and bad movies with long takes.
  
  

  however we are able to process information more quickly than ever before, especially when it comes to visual motif and thematic complexity (see steven johnson's everything bad is good for you), so an overall increase in edits is predictable as we as an audience become more sophisticated in our understanding of film language.
  

  in general our lives have increased in speed. we are exposed to more information, experiences and people than ever before. we do more and process more than any people ever have. it's really no surprise that our media reflect that.
  

finally paul makes an excellent point that i completely agree with:

As for cases like Miami Vice (or whatever other movie you want to supply) well, I think there’s a simpler issue here: The stories we’re being told these days at the movies are getting worse and worse. Indeed, slowing down the cutting of practically any studio movie released this summer would reveal what vacuous and boring spectacles these films really are. It’s not that they’re “bad”; it’s that there’s hardly any content at all.

absolutely. if you don't have content, you have to do something else to keep attention. quick cutting is a poor substitute for good content, as is any other over-used technique or style choice like flashy camera moves, nudity, sex, violence and blowing things up. not bad things themselves, but easily abused in the wrong hands.