电影剪接的魔力 The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing (2004)

The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing is a 2004 documentary film directed by filmmaker Wendy Apple. The film is about the art of film editing. Clips are shown from many groundbreaking films with innovative editing styles.

Finally, in the film, I see Walter Murch, who is one of the greatest modern editors.

I first saw this name on a book “In the Blink of an Eye - A Perspective on Film Editing” which was wrote by him. This book was very thin, and very easy to read. After that I was aware of how great Walter was, as he was the film editor of “Cold Mountain”, “The English Patient”, “Apocalypse Now” and the trilogy of “The Godfather”.

Walter has the most scenes in the film. When doing the film-cutting, he has a lot of his own habits. For example, he likes standing, which is easy to follow the film’s rhythm; he likes choosing one or two pictures for each shot, and sticking them on the wall in order to get some clues when doing film cutting; he does not like to go to studio to keep himself an impartial person who only concerns with what is shown on the screen (he even suggests all of the directors to travel after finishing filming, so that the editor can get enough freedom in the stage of rough cut.); there is also a small detail, there are two small cardboard paper-men on each side of the screen where Walter watch the finished film. This is because we will face a big screen in the cinema, and these two paper-men can make Walter have the feeling of watching a film in the cinema. For this documentary, like some said, it does not involve editing skills, because technique is a hardware which you can learn from the book of final cut pro or Avid. Originality is the most important thing for editing, and it is also the re-creation of the film. As what is mentioned in the film: editing is manipulating.

终于在影片里看到Walter Murch本尊了。现代最伟大的editor之一。 

最早见到这个名字是因为他写的一本书 In the Blink of an Eye -A Perspective on Film Editing。这本书很薄，而且很易读，之后才知道Walter有多牛逼，是《冷山》，《英国病人》，《现代启示录》，《教父》三部曲等名片的剪辑师。 

Walter 在影片里面出场镜头算是最多的。他剪片有很多自己的习惯，比如喜欢站着，方便跟随影片的节奏；比如喜欢每一个shot选择一到两张照片，然后贴在墙上，为在剪片的时候提供线索；比如他不喜欢去片场，这样可以使自己作为一个做公证的人，只管种屏幕上所展现的 （他甚至建议所有导演在拍完片后选择出去旅游，给editor在rough cut 阶段充分的自由）；还有一个小细节，在Walter看成片的屏幕上，两边各有一个纸片的小人，这是因为电影院我们面对的是大屏幕，所以两个小人相比屏幕给Walter在电影院看片的感觉。如今看到这个纪录片，虽然就像有些人说的，没有涉及剪辑的技巧，因为技巧这个东西是硬件，你可以随便买本final cut pro 或者Avid自己去学，但是editing最重要的就是创意，是对影片的再创造。正如影片说的：editing is manipulating.