Montage
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of watching Visions of Light (1992), especially on the big screen, then you’ll understand my interest in attending the Vancouver premiere of Edge Codes.com: The Art of Motion Picture Editing (2004). It’s playing at the VIFC 29-31 May and tickets are available online.
I have high hopes for this picture, and I’m hoping that my enthusiasm is not misplaced. I had similar expectations for The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing, which, despite the presence of Walter Murch, I found mostly excruciating—all the swordplay really bothered me… Blades cut, I get it!
UPDATE 30 May 2006: Recently back from the theatre and I wish I felt more positive about the experience, especially as director, Alex Shaper was in attendance. Unfortunately, apart from a few surprises and revelatory moments in the interviews, I found the whole endeavour to be somewhat lacklustre and the actual editing rather narcissistic. In that respect the film is very close to The Cutting Edge, both pictures suffer under the weight of self-conscious, “high concept” editing; and both films appear content to trip out the same hermetically sealed narrative—actualities beget narrative beget continuity beget soviet montage beget french new wave beget “movie brats”. Within Film Studies it has long been recognised that the development of cinema needs to be understood within the wider tapestry of 20th century arts and culture. For example, it is well-known that Godard was influenced by Vertov, so I find it hard to understand how we can still continue to associate the jump cut with the French New Wave!
2 Comments
Hi Jonathan,
Sorry to hear that you didn’t 100% love Edge Codes.com. However, we hope that the film will help raise the understanding and appreciation of editing and editors among the general public at a deeper level than currently exists; we also hope that the film’s highlighting of the strong impact of Canadian artists and ideas upon the craft of editing will become more widely recognized.
In addition, one of the aims of the film’s exploration of the connections of perception and the manipulative nature of media and consumption will provide folks some extra ammo to reflect on new dimensions of art, culture and information technology.
Further, we hope that by advancing the canon of great editing to explore and include some more modern films than the usual ones cited, that we could also shine a light on some of the more exciting new guard editors out there.
We appreciate you coming out to see the film, and thanks very much for taking the time to report on it.
Regards,
Phillip Daniels
Producer, Edge Codes.com
Thank you for your comments Phillip.
Before I respond, I’d like to be clear that I do appreciate the scale of the task you’ve undertaken and the tremendous effort that has gone into your film. In that regard I’d very much like to offer you my congratulations.
I was very pleased to see you emphasise the impact of Canadian cinema and feel that was one of the most important and successful aspects of the film. It certainly was a remarkable moment when George Lucas talked about studying Film Board films in the 60s and how influential they were on his thinking.
That said, I do stand by my critique of the film, whether I’m part of your target audience or not. I’d really liked to have see you tackle a more contemporary vision of the development of cinema, perhaps one that reflected on the wider discourses and interconnections between society, films, filmmakers, and the other arts.
In a similar vein, your remark about media literacy and the prescriptive model of reception you suggest, have also been challenged within recent academic work. In particular contemporary audience studies often recognise the active role audience members play in the making of meaning.