Completed Category: Editing

It has been a full week since the Oscar nominations were announced and I've somehow only found time to post about one category. This is, of course, because #IAmVeryBusy. I am looking forward to soon being less #VeryBusy. 

This is another category that I had already completed even before the noms were announced! 

Film Editing

Anora *Sean Baker
The Brutalist * David Jancso
Conclave * Nick Emerson
Emilia Perez * Juliet Welfling
Wicked * Myron Kerstein 

With Editing, first we always have to dispel the notion that editing is "cutting down time."  Of course cutting time is part of it, but anyone who stops to think for three and a half seconds about how a film is made knows about "take one!" "cut!" and filming in various locations.  Therefore, anyone who stops to think for three and a half seconds realizes that an editor does not sit down with a complete linear seven hour film to cut down to two. (Or, you know, nearly four.)  An editor sits down with multiple piles of filmstrips (lolz, it's so obviously all digital now) to craft and construct together into a film. 

Come to think of it, how do we know the editor sits down?  S/he might do some of this work standing up. Standing desks are very healthy! 

Anyway, here are the things we notice about the list of five editing nominees right away, having recently contemplated the Directing nominees: 

- Three of the nominated films are the same: Anora, The Brutal-est, EmiliaUghPerez 
- Two scored Editing nods, not directing: Conclave, Wicked 
(bye-bye A Complete Unknown, The Substance) 
- Sean Baker edited his own movie!  (Anora) 

That last is interesting, because of course I believe firmly that everybody needs an editor - who is not him/herself! It is priceless to have the outside perspective willing to cut things that you fiercely cling to simply because you "had to climb a mountain to get it" as the expert told the amateur in a wonderful anecdote Annie Dillard shared in The Writing Life. And also because after I initially saw Anora a couple months ago, my criticism (besides Why Are Men!) was that it dragged in parts. I read some of Sean Baker's thoughts on editing, and he always edits his own films AND always takes a several months break after shooting before beginning the editing, Like, six months he said, for Anora.  This is all very interesting, and I think he did a fine job of editing Anora. 

But, I don't think he had the most challenging job in a category with Wicked, Emilia Perez, and even dear gods The Brutalist. 

David Jancso, who edited the challenging film experience I think of as The Brutal-est, is Hungarian and millennial, and I'm really starting to fantasize about having an entirely Gen X set of Oscar winners, but that is of course beside the point. He also edited Dev Patel's recent directorial debut, Monkey Man, and Pieces of A Woman - remember Vanessa Kirby a few years back?  But! We have an exciting controversy a-brewin' here with his work this year!  Jancso and the flick have come under fire for using artificial intelligence (AI) in the editing process to "tweak" the Hungarian vowel sounds spoken by Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones! They apparently used "Respeecher," an AI technological aid, for some of the parts where Brody and Jones speak Hungarian, to make them sound more like native Hungarian speakers, since there are vowel sounds in that language that don't exist in other languages.  Now some folks are mad that AI was used at all and call for the film to be disqualified.  Woo-hoo, a big AI controversy!  I am definitely on team shut-the-fck-up-about-how-wonderful-AI-is, so I find this juicy and delicious. And of course, I have taught language and studied multiple languages for years and years and am well aware that many languages contain sounds your mouth will simply never learn to make if it isn't your native language.  So, what do you think? Is this a fair use of editing technology?  Is it like digitally aging or un-aging someone?  Brody and Jones apparently studied Hungarian for months and learned to speak it; is it OK to tweak their vowels?  Ahhh, life can be so brutal. 

Speaking of people with questionable, tweakable languge accents, Emilia Perez is a hot mess but honestly Editing might be one of the nominations or even awards it deserves. (I said the same thing about the travesty that was Everything Everywhere All At Once.) Like, if you can assemble this shitshow into something that is reasonably cohesive and recognizable as a two-hour narrative, you have indeed accomplished something.  Juliette Welfling is a previous nominee in this category for the wonderful The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and she has edited previous Jacques Audiard films, but this was her first time editing a musical. A challenge, a learning experience, and she pulled it all together into... well, something. IndieWire quoted her as saying "there's nothing realistic in this movie; it's about anything."  Indeed! 

Also not realistic, but much much much more beautiful, entertaining, and about something is Wicked. Myron Kerstein (Gen X-er!) is also a previous nominee in this category, for tick, tick...BOOM!  He also worked on Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights, and a ton of other stuff. I think Wicked was spectacularly assembled, and it is interesting to note that they filmed everything, to the tune of 250 hours, and now of course split it into the two movies, of which we this year have Wicked Part One.  That's an interesting component of editing choices, not just divvying up footage but creating the two stories, the tone, the leave-'em-wanting-more feelings...  Myron told Filmmaker magazine that musicals are the hardest thing he could ever cut because there are so many balls in the air and so many things that could go wrong. But with Wicked, I would say those things decidedly went right. 

As for Conclave, I love that film. The editor, Nick Emerson is from Northern Ireland and has a whole bunch of experience editing a whole bunch of different stuff, and I think he might be Gen X, although I don't have a confirmed birthdate. What I do have is a link to  this interview with him from CineMontage, and I highly recommend it for a look at what editing can be like, and what subtle and cool choices went into editing this film. The editing of a highly talky film that superbly builds tension and masters pacing and multiple points of view is a thing to behold. 

Order in which I saw these flicks: Conclave, Wicked, Anora, The Brutalist, Emilia Perez
Order in which I like them:  same 
Order in which I want them to win this category: 
Conclave or Wicked, then Emilia Perez, then The Brutalist or Anora 

Order in which I think they will win:  Hmmmmm...
Maybe Conclave, The Brutalist, Emilia Perez, Anora, Wicked

I could see myself maybe being a film editor in some parallel universe. Of the many, many jobs that go into making a film, that is certainly up there. 

Which of the nominees do you think has the greatest achievement in Film Editing?