Realistic, Classical, and Formalistic Film Editing
Realistic film editing needs to be filmed with longer duration of shots so there can be fewer cuts. Shots can go on for minutes (up to over nine minutes) without any cuts. To have variety in these longer shots, the camera needs to move in for close ups and back for medium shots. The camera needs to dolly and track more. So, for realistic editing, the shots will go on longer, with fewer cuts, and more camera movement.
Hitchcock’s Rope is an example of realistic film editing — an experiment he never repeated. In the film clip you will be watching there are no cuts. Notice how it looks more like watching a play than a movie. Watch how the camera moves in and out for variety between close ups, medium and long compositions, of the actors. Each shot in this film is approximately nine minutes and forty seconds. To end the shot, the camera focuses on the back of an actor wearing a dark suit (fade to black) then comes away from the suit (fade from black). This is the way the editor pieced this film together.
Rope is loosely based on the Leopold/Loeb murder case of the twenties. Two young men killed a 14-year-old boy, because they had been acting out Nietzsche’s philosophy taught to them at the university that supermen are not held to the same rules as the common man.
Watch the film clip from Rope
Classical film editing is also called invisible editing because it does not call attention to itself. Editors will break up scenes using several cuts, including shot/reverse shot. Star Wars IV with its 22 cuts in three minutes is a good example of classical film editing.
Formalistic film editing calls attention to itself. Watch the film clip of JFK to see not only a plethora of shots, but also a scene intercut with photographs, newsreel film footage (both real and unreal), other scenes, and a few other surprises.
Watch the film clip from JFK
Before we begin analysis, let’s reshoot the scene as if it would be edited realistically. The actors would be sitting around the table. The camera would move in for close ups and back for medium shots. This scene could be filmed in one continuous shot with no need for cuts. The actors would talk about Oswald, but the whole scene would take place at the table in the restaurant.
If we were to shoot the scene to be edited classically, the actors would again be sitting around the table, but instead of the camera moving to create variety, the editors could use around 66 cuts including shot/reverse shot. There could be some movement of the camera, but it would be minimal compared to realistic editing. The action again would take place at the table in the restaurant.
However, this scene was shot to be edited formalistically. The scene takes place in the restaurant, but has a plethora of images intercut within the scene:
- Photographs of the real Lee Harvey Oswald
- Photographs of Gary Oldman playing Lee Harvey Oswald
- Real documentary film footage of Kruschev, Francis Gary Powers, the book depository, etc.
- Fake documentary film footage of Oswald renouncing his U.S. citizenship, the rented room, the morgue, etc.
- Fake home movies of parties at the Oswald home as well as other scenes from his home life
- Someone doctoring a photograph of Oswald holding a gun
All of these images and scenes call attention to the editing. They are there to manipulate the audience to believe the filmmaker’s conspiracy theory that Oswald was the patsy (the innocent fall guy that takes the rap for the guilty party).
Before continuing, note that it is OK to be manipulated, as long as you realize you are being manipulated. Since the film JFK was made from a fictitious point of view, it probably did not happen just that way. Oliver Stone never marketed the film as a documentary. He had the dramatic license to embellish the story any way he desired.
Oliver Stone is a clever filmmaker. He makes an argument and then backs it up with filmic evidence. Let’s look at a couple of examples.
- When Kevin Costner’s character is questioned about Oswald’s palm print on the rifle, he makes a supposition, “For all we know, it could have been placed there” afterwards in the morgue. Then Stone shows us hidden camera footage of someone rolling the handle of the rifle under the palm of Oswald’s corpse. Stone shows us the morgue footage so the audience can see just how it could have happened. Because the footage looks like real hidden camera film, we believe it to be authentic.
- Before the time of Photoshop, if someone wanted to doctor a photo, they would go through the process of the orange paper with the knife. This is important because the real photograph of Oswald holding the rifle in his hand ended up on the cover of Life Magazine. That picture did more to convince the American public of Oswald’s guilt than anything else. Stone knew there would be people in the audience that would remember the picture, so he showed how the photo could have been doctored. And if the photo was faked, Oswald’s guilt could also have been faked. This is smart filmmaking.
Oliver Stone leaves nothing to the imagination of the audience. He is telling them exactly what he wants them to believe. This is manipulation.
Realists hate manipulation. They want to present the story with as little editing as possible. They want the audience to draw their own conclusion.
Realistic film editing has the least manipulation.
Formalistic film editing has the most.