A different way of telling a story

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Blistering performances.

This documentary is seriously odd (More on that below). It's a study of the power of film-editing. None of the information these subjects share is offensive, in fact it's all pretty interesting. Some terrific examples include the dumping of two entire reels from the climax of Lenny with one edit. Snipping five short vignettes from a longer Martin Sheen improvisation in Apocalypse Now. And a love scene assembled very cleverly in Out of Sight (Never heard of it myself) via moving the audio track around, short frame delays and non-linear time sequencing. A personal problem I have with this, is that director Wendy Apple shows you the inventor of a basic editing technique; and then (nine times out of ten) cuts to some loud, superficial action/effects movie that uses it. More than a few times, a technique that would be much better highlighted in a well-chosen clip where the edit can be studied almost in isolation, is instead buried under explosions, green screen razzle-dazzle, car-chases and gratuitous knife.gun.martial arts battles, where a fraction of the impact can be credited to the edit.The larger problem is that this approach continually results in Eisentein, Reifenstahl, Griffith clips sitting in close proximity to, and introducing things like Terminator 2, Scream, Gladiator, Titanic, Top Gun, The Matrix, Star Wars. !??! Equating originators who believed in what they were doing to the depths of their soul (and devised these techniques themselves), with modern filmmakers who frequently just want to increase viewer stimulation to increase their payday with a tried and true technique, is obtuse if not completely grotesque. Jumping from the ingenuity of a filmmaker devising an editing trick to rally people to a political viewpoint, to popcorn movies about surface stimulation and box office receipts is so reductivist as to be offensive. Which is I suppose a back-handed tribute to the meaning that editing can cause. This may be appropriate in one case; as when WW2 propaganda films are used to introduce Starship Troopers, because it's director (Verhoeven) is knowingly riffing on propaganda. But I was not watching this thinking "Thank God Eisenstein invented X so that it could be used in Basic Instinct." Instead, I frequently had a pained expression on my face. One can imagine this dilemma arose out of the need to cut to living, breathing editors who pick up the story, but it imposes some real arrogance on those involved. It almost never chooses to cut to calm, modern art films by thoughtful directors where the spare use of gimmickry allows you to appreciate what the editing tool actually does. In doing so it jumps almost completely over the middle years (60s-70s) where an astonishing burst of rebellion and experimentation occurred, from a second wave of originators. Tarkovsky, Antonioni, Kubrick, Resnais, Truffaut, Polanski..? All missing, to make room for people like Joe Dante and James Cameron.

I'm a film director/editor from Colombia with more than 45 years in the business and this film is absolutely the best essay on film editing that I've had the good luck of seeing. The examples are great, the explanations on the "unseen" or "hidden art" of editing are perfect, the pacing is just right, etc., etc. The only thing I felt was that it was too short, but then I'm biased on the subject. This should be a MUST SEE FILM for everybody starting out in the business (and not just those who want to be editors).This is a solid "10" for me and I can't understand how anybody would consider it less, except for those mediocre joes who just can't cut it...

This is a first-rate job of work, one of the best documentaries on film-making that I've ever seen, opening up the fascinating world of film editing by letting great editors and directors speak to us directly about the mysteries of film cutting--supported by illuminating examples drawn from real films. I can't praise too highly the thoughtful choice of speakers, from Thelma to Dede to Walter Murch and on down the line. Nice to see director Joe Dante too. I was particularly pleased at the inclusion of early film editing examples, such as Dziga Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera and, of course, the down-the-stairs sequence from Potemkin. (The film includes a few sequences from later films that echo the Potemkin sequence, but I bet there's at least five examples they missed!) Bravo! Michael Goodwin

Do you know of the importance of the Film Editor to making a great film or to leave the best on the cutting room floor? Did you know that Spielberg & Scorcese will not let any Actor into the Cutting Room (but that Sean Penn will do so)....that earlier there were "Basic Rules" to editing but that the rules went asunder under the French "New Wave"! PLEASE: Ignore the low score and note that almost all viewers gave this documentary either a TEN or a one....and we all know that there is a small percentage of IMDb'ers that truly HATE films and will do anything in their zeal to burn their path of ignorance behind them in an effort to bring everyone to their level of ignorance. How sad to disdain our basic need to learn about life and specifically to learn about what make a Great Film what it will become.