tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post5094708133131439302..comments2023-11-03T11:37:13.579-04:00Comments on Something Old, Nothing New: When Did Movies Start To Become Over-Edited?Jaime J. Weinmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15128500411119962998noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-28539608307697712472009-06-27T13:01:33.648-04:002009-06-27T13:01:33.648-04:00Good comments rich and all I can say in response i...Good comments rich and all I can say in response is "hence the plethora of shitty films being made now."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-65283592726265671312009-06-25T20:03:59.135-04:002009-06-25T20:03:59.135-04:00As one who dabbles in screenplays, I get the criti...As one who dabbles in screenplays, I get the criticism that "nothing is happening here" when I have two characters talking, and they're "not doing anything". Your clip of Widmark and Stewart talking is frowned upon now; not just from a directing standpoint, but from a writing standpoint.richnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-15089670929807302102009-06-24T20:11:46.228-04:002009-06-24T20:11:46.228-04:00No, an academic. :)
Don't let that bit of jar...No, an academic. :)<br /><br />Don't let that bit of jargon put you off - it's a very good and accessible book.Stephen Rowleyhttp://www.cinephobia.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-20153371572863064362009-06-24T13:50:18.130-04:002009-06-24T13:50:18.130-04:00"Intensified continuity" has to be a ter..."Intensified continuity" has to be a term originated by a creative executive.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-20837362681206058052009-06-24T04:38:01.462-04:002009-06-24T04:38:01.462-04:00David Bordwell's book "The Way Hollywood ...David Bordwell's book "The Way Hollywood Tells It" is worth a read for a look at fast cutting and other forms of what he calls "intensified continuity."Stephen Rowleyhttp://www.cinephobia.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-39377619268156499352009-06-23T17:43:18.591-04:002009-06-23T17:43:18.591-04:00I caught "Trailer" in progress Sunday af...I caught "Trailer" in progress Sunday afternoon and missed the credits. I didn't know Minnelli directed that thing. Ye cats. Imagine Minnelli trying to direct The Queen of TV at the height of her power. Kinda like Coppola trying to tell Seinfeld how to do stand up. I'll bet there was a lot of aspirin taken on that movie set. Up until now, I just blamed the script.<br /><br />You're right, Edward. Watching Lucy fall in the mud was more painful than funny. On TV, Desi Loved Lucy. In "Trailer," Desi's a jerk. It should've been called, "The Long, Long, Divorce."Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12098471743485897147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-82228692007490132852009-06-23T15:31:05.628-04:002009-06-23T15:31:05.628-04:00"The Long, Long Trailer" is one of the u..."The Long, Long Trailer" is one of the unfunniest comedy films ever made. It is a veritable canonization of comic cliches. Wonder what Lucy and Desi really thought of that thing?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-929188722998187272009-06-23T12:28:16.960-04:002009-06-23T12:28:16.960-04:00Well, since you asked...
Curtiz was, as you sugge...Well, since you asked...<br /><br />Curtiz was, as you suggested, basically a craftsman. He understood his job was to tell whatever story was assigned to him, and he did his job with competence, and occasionally brilliance. He was, no doubt, one of the finest jobbing directors in Hollywood history.<br /><br />Minnelli always exerted a great deal more control over his material, from "Cabin In The Sky" onward. Yes, as a staff director at MGM, he occasionally got stuck with assignments he hated, and when that happened, the results could be pretty dire. ("Kismet" would be the obvious example.) <br /><br />As a stylist, Minnelli's used the strange, vaguely exotic textures he favored in ways that enhanced even the most innocuous material. "The Long, Long Trailer" is ostensibly a slapstick comedy starring TV's Favorite Couple, but it charts their relationship as it falls apart, and it is shot in the same lurid colors as "Some Came Running." To someone as meticulous as Minnelli, that choice had to be intentional, and it gives the movie an unbalanced feel, making the slapstick more painful than funny. <br /><br />I'm not a huge proponent of the auteur theory, but I've always thought Minnelli could be used as an example of a studio director who really WAS the author of his films.Edward Hegstromhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07664617657765541939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-29430266798678025212009-06-23T07:50:24.576-04:002009-06-23T07:50:24.576-04:00Great post, and some great comments. I agree film...Great post, and some great comments. I agree films, and television shows today, are over-edited. I wonder how much is due to technology and how much is due to our (perceived) shorter attention span.Jacqueline T. Lynchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11047941886908178350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-90996596911266854992009-06-22T21:13:16.229-04:002009-06-22T21:13:16.229-04:00You picked one of my favorite not-so-great Ford mo...You picked one of my favorite not-so-great Ford movies, "Two Rode Together," and you picked the best scene in it. Made my day.Guy Nicoluccihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10038097326310753461noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-20740155729121866002009-06-22T20:47:49.098-04:002009-06-22T20:47:49.098-04:00I'm tempted to spend all my time quibbling wit...<i>I'm tempted to spend all my time quibbling with your characterization of Minnelli</i><br /><br />Go ahead -- though keep in mind that the comparison to Curtiz is basically a compliment.Jaime J. Weinmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15128500411119962998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-60241005921094495772009-06-22T19:57:16.441-04:002009-06-22T19:57:16.441-04:00I'm tempted to spend all my time quibbling wit...I'm tempted to spend all my time quibbling with your characterization of Minnelli, but to answer the title of the post, I think movies became relentlessly over-cut around the time digital editing techniques became the norm.<br /><br />Consider Martin Scorsese. Though his cutting always betrayed a certain flashiness, he always held still for his actors--remember the many long takes in "Taxi Driver" or "New York, New York" (partly an hommage to Minnelli...Hmmm) and "The King Of Comedy".<br /><br />But once he (and Thelma Schoonmaker) got hold of an Avid, such moments went out the window, and it became cut, cut, cut. The quality of the performances suffered, too--the actors lack the space to find their own rhythms, and fall back on their usual mannerisms (especially Alan Alda and Alec Baldwin in "The Aviator" and Jack Nicholson in "The Departed"). The films suffer in much the same way--they can't find their own identity because their restless auteur is covered in flop sweat, afraid the audience might get bored.Edward Hegstromhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07664617657765541939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-71904711639002907082009-06-22T14:49:00.403-04:002009-06-22T14:49:00.403-04:00Commercially, the evolution of where we are now ci...Commercially, the evolution of where we are now cinematically took hold with the accelerated cutting of MTV, then things like the TV show NYPD BLUE added incessant hand held shots, then former music video directors began shooting on five different film stocks. But those are just the mainstream influences. Orson Welles actually did all of this stuff first in his "F for Fake" movie, the last feature he completed. People thought his cutting had gone south at the time, but Welles was, as things turned out, no less visionary than ever.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-65684210024718392382009-06-22T14:12:22.221-04:002009-06-22T14:12:22.221-04:00To understand the cultish fetish for cutting in to...To understand the cultish fetish for cutting in today's movies, you really need to go back to where many of today's directors either got their starts or became enamored of the technique -- by watching the music videos of the mid-to-late 1980s.<br /><br />That's where, in lieu of any ability to create action with a bunch of people either singing and/or playing instruments, the rapid cutting technique to create a feeling of action really took hold, and in some cases with cuts as rapid as anything Frank Tashlin was experimenting with in his cartoons of the mid-1930s.<br /><br />The idea to bamboozle the viewer into believing there was more action going on than there actually was did make MTV a hip place to be for about half a dozen years or so, and that idea of keeping the images shifting to avoid letting people know nothing much was really happening in terms of plot or character began making its way into feature films by the late 1980s, and into some TV production even before that (remember, the idea behind "Miami Vice" from NBC's Brandon Tartakoff was "MTV Cops").<br /><br />If there's actually a reason to be throwing all those rapid-fire images at a viewer, then it's a useful technique; but as used by most directors, it's more akin to a strobe light at a discotheque during a boring dance song. You may think the changes mean something's happening, but it's not.J Leenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-70703800967571972592009-06-22T14:05:12.942-04:002009-06-22T14:05:12.942-04:00Check out Peter Bogdonavich's "What's...Check out Peter Bogdonavich's "What's Up Doc" for some long takes. I was surprised at that when they were pointed out in the director's commentary. But Peter admits he was going for the feel of the '30's screwball comedy style of Howard Hawks. <br /><br />The MTV influence has definitely changed cutting practices. CGI makes it easier to cut within special effects shots. I wish I could remember what show it was, but I recently watched something where two people were talking on a park bench, and the camera actually 360'd completely around the bench during the conversation. Back when I went to film class, that was called Showing Off.Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12098471743485897147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-81988299680781033662009-06-22T01:12:25.226-04:002009-06-22T01:12:25.226-04:00During our great DVD Splurge a few years back, we ...During our great DVD Splurge a few years back, we bought a lot of movies from the '80s and early '90s, and noticed the same thing. Longer shots, a lot less editing (also a lot less cursing, look at the extended teen-party scene in "Say Anything" -- with almost no cursing (I think the whole movie maybe two explicatives) and one kid huddled over a toilet bowl (no signs of vomit). I shudder to imagine how it would have been handled today.<br /><br />I don't know where the boundary year lies, but we just saw "Mad Dog and Glory" (1993) with Bill Murray and Robert De Niro. Low-key character study -- it's fun to watch both of them play against type and succeed. (In brief, De Niro plays a mild, good-hearted police photographer, Murray a loan shark who wants to be a stand-up comic, and Uma Thurman the girl between them). In two scenes, they're on a stoop, talking, and it's a two-shot with not much editing. Good pacing, not hyper, but it gives you time to take in the situation, and their acting. Fine movie.<br /><br />I suspect part of the problem is that some of the directors are influenced by music videos, or came up from their ranks.Bill Peschelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15257587479467531187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-17842889896159001122009-06-21T22:54:15.435-04:002009-06-21T22:54:15.435-04:00Oh, AMEN.
A few possible explanations.
1 - I n...Oh, AMEN. <br /><br />A few possible explanations.<br /><br />1 - I notice that the term "New Wave" do not appear in this post. Do you not think that the jarring cutting they did eventually inbreed into just quiet scenes? <br /><br />2 - Perhaps some filmmakers had in mind the films would be cropped for television, and over-edited to accommodate it, but I doubt it. <br /><br />3 - Or maybe the rise of ADD made the filmmakers over-edit fearing that they'd lose the audience's interest.<br /><br />The Ford clip (great quality from a great movie I have in bad shape, BTW) is an example of how wonderful and interesting a scene can be of just two people talking. Thanks for posting it.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00650873808188186058noreply@blogger.com