Here's a question for you.
Who directed Citizen Kane? Or Jaws? Lord of the Rings? Goodfellas?
It's Orson Welles, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Martin Scorsese.
Now, without resorting to Google, who edited the above-mentioned films?
It's alright if the names don't automatically pop out, because the best editors are never noticed. That's what they strive for. If you do notice the cuts, then the film experience is ruined. You become aware that you are watching a movie. And if the editing is truly bad, then you are reminded over and again that the experience is phony.
Rhythm, pace, timing and meaning are provided in editing. A close-up creates emotion. A long shot reveals isolation. All this is created in editing. Of course it's all done hand-in-hand with the director. You can't cut what you don't have. That is why the above-mentioned films are so good, because the director is in tune with the editor.
John Ford was known to shoot his films to be "editor-proof". Otto Preminger said that an editor's job is to cut one frame either side of where he tells them to.
Both these guys were jerks.
As the director interprets the script and enhances it, so does the editor to the footage provided. Many young turks in the movie business beg to differ. They believe that learning an editing system makes you an editor, therefore they diminish the role of the editor to that of a key puncher. A typist for the video world. The true masters, young and old, remember that what made film truly dramatic, was editing.
The Great Train Robbery (1903), brought the newly-born art of filmmaking into a different dimension. Before then the camera rolled, action took place, the camera stopped and you had your one-reel film. The difference with The Great Train Robbery was that the drama was intercut. The bad guys ride up - cut to inside the train cabin, people scared - cut to the train engeneer - cut to the bad guys - cut to people waiting at the train station ... and so on. The narrative is born. The importance of editing is born.
Along with my reviews I will also post some of the lessons I have learned along the way. This is "The Film Prof" afterall.
By the way, Robert Wise cut Citizen Kane. Verna Fields was the editor on Jaws. Thelma Schoonmaker for Goodfellas and John Gilbert, Mike Horton, Jabez Olssen, Jamie Selkirk and Annie Collins were the editors on all three Lord Of The Ring Films.
So now you know their names. Search them out in the credits.
