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Editing Today – another Philippic
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[Herb Sevush] “You did leave out the Cohen Brothers”
I did, but only because they’d already been mentioned. My post was more a “for your consideration,” and not an attempt to cover everyone.
I COMPLETELY agree with you about the indie guys, though. Edgar Wright came thiiiis close to winding up in my post, and I still can’t believe that anyone made three movies as distinctive as McCarthy did. They’re like three hymns to character actors. Giamatti had already established himself at the top of the game, I’m a huge, huge fan of Richard Jenkins who’d done a lot of terrific “there’s THAT guy” work, but Dinklage was barely on the radar before “The Station Agent.”
The first time I noticed him was in “Living in Oblivion” by Tom DiCillo. He was actually my next in line, but I decided I had to stop adding to the list at SOME point. LOL This really wasn’t meant as anything more than a conversation piece, but if it was an article, he would DEFINITELY have made my cut.
But McCarthy would have to be there too.
I consciously left off Jackson is that I only love three of his movies. LOL I like the first Hobbit picture too, but I don’t LOVE it.) But the reason why I perhaps should have put him on is, talk about intent! The features on the extended LOTR editions are better than film school, and a lot more entertaining. The care that he took with every detail of fabrics, physical objects (like deer fur instead of feathers on arrows), and so much more — astonishing.
But compared to Cameron, across both of their careers, not even vaguely in the same league I’m afraid.
[Herb Sevush] “And for TV you somehow left out the single most prominent writer/producer of our time – Aaron Sorkin”
You’re right. A complete lapse on my part. The perfect guy to span TV and movies, and an auteur whose cinematic intent begins on the page.
In my slight defense, that post was pretty stream of consciousness. I didn’t take time to think about ANY of it. Once I hit the “post direct” button, I only went back to fix punctuation.
But you’re right, Sorkin deserves to be closer to the top of my head.
[Herb Sevush] “There is no more consistent voice in American pop culture.
“The one guy I’d add as a writer, although much more limited in scope, is David Mamet.
Again off the top of my head, I’d call it exactly three guys — Sorkin, Whedon, and Mamet, in that order — whose LANGUAGE as writers is immediately distinctive, and who use that voice as the starting point for their authorial imperative as producers…but the gap between Sorkin and the other two is pretty wide…and I’d put Mamet higher than Whedon if he just did more stuff, in more venues.
You know who else also made my list is Michael Bay. There are a lot of reasons people don’t like his stuff, but he’s an auteur in spades, espeically around the idea of CINEMATIC INTENT at the intersection between shooting (hahaha! Michael Bay! Shooting!) and editing.
I also think that even people who hate his movies would love his TV show, “The Last Ship” on TNT. I loved the first season, and can’t wait for it come back around this summer.
But no kidding. I wasn’t “thinking” about this all. I was just riffing.
An article, or even a post, focused on answering the question of “who’s an auteur,” would have been considerably different.
I may have let that part of the post get away from me, but in my mind, the “auteur” part was strictly secondary to the consideration of CINEMATIC INTENT at the intersection of cinematography and editing, so I tried to focus on auteurs along those lines.
Which is why I put Wes Anderson first. I’m not especially a fan, but I can’t imagine any list along these lines that he wouldn’t deserve to top.
Which actually might should have dropped Linklater off the list, and maybe a couple of others. Auteurs, but the visual elements of their style aren’t their long suits, which is all I meant to talk about.
If I’m being really, really honest with myself, once I started replying to Simon’s observations at all, I had starting teeing up Fincher’s music videos in my mind. LOL Some of the best examples of the intersection of cinematography and editing to express CINEMATIC INTENT ever made.
In fact, I’ve been meaning to write up a proper consideration of the filmmaking aspect of those, and not just a couple of sentence of capsule intro. I’ll put it on my list of things to do again.
Frankly, should probably add a proper consideration of auteurs to the list. I love a lot of the debate about this in the critical community since the French critics introduced it, in ways much richer than I think we tend to treat the idea now.
And where else to have a proper debate than THIS forum? LOL
Again, great points, Herb.
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[Tim Wilson] ” “Living in Oblivion” by Tom DiCillo.”
One of my favorite movies-about-making-movies; actually it would be interesting to post a list of movies-about-making-movies — on another day.
[Tim Wilson] “I consciously left off Jackson is that I only love three of his movies.”
I don’t love any movies by Wes Anderson, but I recognize that he should be on this list. Speaking of which,Paul Thomas Anderson should be on this list too, and I loathe most of his movies. This list is about directors that you can care about one way or another – most film’s directors are immaterial, despite the possessory credit.
[Tim Wilson] “compared to Cameron, across both of their careers, not even vaguely in the same league”
True.
[Tim Wilson] “Sorkin, Whedon, and Mamet, in that order — whose LANGUAGE as writers is immediately distinctive, and who use that voice as the starting point for their authorial imperative as producers…but the gap between Sorkin and the other two is pretty wide…and I’d put Mamet higher than Whedon if he just did more stuff, in more venues.”
“Isn’t it just like a dago to bring a knife to a gunfight.”
Most people would put Mamet way ahead of the other two – even if you don’t consider his theatrical work. Though an excellent screenwriter Mamet is a pretty bad film director – I think “State and Main” is his best film work as director and could be included in that list of films-about-making-films I mentioned earlier. He wrote a book “On Directing Film” that is not very insightful about directing but rather a great book on screenwriting. He has another book, “Three Uses of the Knife,” which is the most interesting book on dramatic structure I’ve ever come across – I can no longer talk about the act of writing without paraphrasing it.While I like Whedon – loved Serenity and Firefly – I don’t put him that high up the ladder.
[Tim Wilson] “I may have let that part of the post get away from me, but in my mind, the “auteur” part was strictly secondary to the consideration of CINEMATIC INTENT at the intersection of cinematography and editing,”
Intent is not confined to art direction. John Cassavete’s movies looked awful, sounded worse, and had no narrative flow whatsoever, yet were marked by a fierce directorial point of view and intent.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
The ultimate master of the frame was Andrei Tarkovsky.
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[James Culbertson] “The ultimate master of the frame was Andrei Tarkovsky.”
Absolutely agreed. The Russians got an awful lot of things right. They believed there was a political imperative to get everything right, to which *I* would add that’s a moral and spiritual imperative…even if they wouldn’t.
I’d include a number of cinematographers who’ve mastered the frame, too. Toland is at the top of my list (Welles shared a credits card with him on Kane, something I don’t think is even allowed anymore), but I’m crazy for Caleb Deschanel and a few other guys.
Although I certainly acknowledge auteur-ial visions that don’t emphasize composition.
[Herb Sevush] “Intent is not confined to art direction. John Cassavete’s movies looked awful, sounded worse, and had no narrative flow whatsoever, yet were marked by a fierce directorial point of view and intent.
“The perfect example.
If I was writing that stream-of-consciousness post about the actual point I was trying to make — CINEMATIC INTENT at the intersection of cinematography aned editing — I would have left off half those guys.
I did, and do, reserve the right to leave anyone that I don’t like enough to include. Paul Thomas Anderson — I acknowledge your mastery as I point you to the door.
Auteurs in general, Cassavetes is sure way up the list. Mike Leigh had NO scripts, but it’s hard to imagine anyone more “intentional.”
He was given a Lifetime Achievement BAFTA this year, btw. I could have imagined that, as a maverick, he’d have scoffed at it. Instead, he was obviously, visibly delighted. He did everything but giggle. Maybe he even giggled a little.
I’d also put Lars von Trier way WAY up the list of auteurs.
David O. Russell is my favorite of the guys I left off the list. Other than Three Kings, though, I don’t know that I’d include visual mastery as one of his long suits.
My second favorite of the guys I left off is Terry Gilliam. I love love LOVE his work, and it’s wall-to-wall CINEMATIC INTENT of the highest visual order. He may even be my favorite.
On the side of people whose INTENT is expressed visually, I should DEFINITELY have included Tim Burton. My favorite example is Sleepy Hollow, where the visuals drove storytelling without elbowing other important elements out of the way. His too-hidden gem.
Except, again, that’s the only movie of his I actually enjoyed, so I comfortably left him off.
This vector would also put Tarantino way WAY up the list, especially because of his superlative collaboration with Sally Menke, as strong an author-director / editor collaboration as there’s ever been. I loved how much Quentin loved it, too. Here’s a great clip of people on the set of Inglorious Basterds saying hello to Sally, knowing that she’d see the greetings in the edit suite.
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Steve McQueen was an actual gallery artist, and I think he brings the same visual intensity — note the relation to INTENT — to his work. Hard to believe that 12 Years A Slave is only his third feature, after Hunger and Shame, all worth the time of anyone looking for exceptional execution of visual authorial intent.
I believe that Terence Malick belongs on the same list, but I haven’t seen enough of his work to say anything about it.
Same with Reitman, btw. I understand that he’s working at a very high level, but I’ve only seen Juno, which I loved.
Werner Herzog is absolutely on my list of favorite auteur documentarians, but entirely misses the cut on the visual count.
Wim Wenders would be on a list, for both documentary and narrative filmmaking. He’s tried to push what’s visually possible as much as anyone working today.
I talked about Fincher and music videos. Spots belong on there somewhere. Ridley Scott would never have had the opportunity to direct a single film if his spots hadn’t been so amazing. His most-seen work is surely his Apple “1984” spot.
Not only are spots some of Errol Morris’s best work, he sees them as absolutely integral to what he does, and wouldn’t want to imagine a world where’s not doing both.
His two Oscar shorts are among my favorite anythings ever. LOL
2002: The Movies
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2006: The Nominees, which is also a fantastic overview of creativity…and joy. “But I don’t believe in a hula hula joy.”
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But see, this is the problem with lists like this. I’ve enjoyed kicking around some favorite names and movies, and will surely add plenty more, but ultimately, trying to make complete lists is the opposite of helpful.
Reading my original post again, my error was not establishing MY authorial intent, which was actually very very narrow. My list was easily 30% too LONG. It would have been clearer what I was trying to accomplish if I had FEWER names on the list.
Such is the nature of type-type-typing away in the middle of the night.
Editing. What a concept. LOL
So, if I take some of the suggestions I’ve received and turn it into an article, I’ll do some actual research and come up with something shorter, and hopefully more sensible….
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Happy to meet if circumstances allow. If I’m not on the floor (or at the Supermeet) you can find me in the coffee shop at the Peppermill. Other than that let me know where and I’ll do my best to get there.
Tim
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Lord what an utterly cracking post. Seriously – as a friend of mine would say – that was aces. loved looking back over the fincher videos as well.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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Agreed.
As Jeremy said, this was almost the post that could close down the COW forever.
Which I’m pretty sure was not what Tim had in mind.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
Took a while but was finally able to catch up on this thread. Wow! Great stuff, Tim.
So there one name (who’s in the news these days) I’m surprised didn’t make your list – David Lynch.
I’ve loved David Lynch’s work since seeing Eraserhead as a teenager. It played weekly at The Roxy here in SF and after a while, I’d go just to watch the reaction of friends seeing it for the first time. Big fun. The Guild Navigator in Dune? That’s Eraserhead’s baby, all grown up! LOL.
Here’s one of my favorite Lynch pieces ever – the short film he did for Lumière & Company. This DVD is uneven but the good stuff makes it worthwhile. Then there’s Lynch’s piece, where he takes the possibility of the Cinematographe to a totally different level. One take, one shot, pure CINEMATIC INTENT 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJE0IrDNxsY
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David Lawrence
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