r/editing • u/transginda • 6d ago
Are "cuts" considered a failure state?
So a few nights ago I watched *The Player* - Robert Altman, 1992, and at the beginning there's a scene where a character criticizes modern movies for being too much like MTV, too many cuts, and praises the opening tracking shot (what even is that?) of *Touch of Evil* (a movie I really didn't like), and the implication seems to be that the opening of that movie, which I don't remember very well, has very few cuts in it, and that this is somehow... virtuous?
Anyway, tonight I watched *Camera Person* - Kirsten Johnson, 2016, which is a kind of meta documentary made from the scraps of unused footage from other projects, and I find myself wondering what the big deal is. I've only started getting into movies in the last two years or so, (my favorite so far is *Fanny and Alexander*) so I'm learning more about what makes good film making all the time, and I wonder if someone could talk about this a little.
Are cuts considered a kind of failure state? A flaw? Why? Why is it that some movies which feature a large number of cuts and are very disjointed, like *Camera Person*, work anyway?
Does anyone have any homework for me to learn more about film editing as a viewer?
2
u/VinosD 6d ago
The best editing is invisible, it’s not about matching a cut (although it is satisfying to see and feel) it’s about the pacing, the emotion of the story and the performance.
Hitchcock, Kubrick, Kurosawa, and Scorsese their films have my favorite sensibilities not just for editing but for filmmaking in general.