On Basilico: The Editor

This piece is great. Basilico really opened my eyes to the process and importance of editing (before I began playing with Final Cut Pro myself to realize it). I really enjoyed reading the first segment where he discusses gestural editing. He begins the essay by mentioning famous directors that people praise but do not realize the necessity of the Editor. But "The editor is in control of what you see." They are the ones that allow the movie to flow smoothly without hiccups that may disturb the viewer. They are the ones that perfect the movie so seamlessly that many people don't even know they exist.

Basilico also talks about Douglas Gordon's 24-Hour Psycho, where he plays with the idea of time by slowing Hitchcock's film to fill a 24 hour time slot. By doing this, Hitchcock's every cut and edit is revealed, showing how meticulously and beautifully he rendered the scenes. It's amazing what you can see when time is slowed down and I can't help but think of the phrase "stop and smell the roses." Gordon's revision really makes the hard work of the editor known.

Candice Breitz' Soliloquy Trilogy is a rendering of three famous actors from famous movies separated from their environments and placed on a black background where only their voices are heard. The point of this piece was to extract the actors' voices and what is found is that these main characters only speak in their movies for a fraction of the time that the movie runs. It's a pretty incredible realization, that just the actors' presence over what they say is enough to satisfy the movie and the viewers. And Breitz's editing is fantastic. To key out all of the busy background and isolate only the characters and their voices really shows what editing can be.

I also really enjoyed reading about (and watching) Christian Marclay's piece Telephones, where he juxtaposes scenes from a variety of movies that involve telephones ringing, people answering them, talking on them, and hanging up. What I appreciated about this piece was the patience required to mix all of these parts together in a way that flows as well as being entertaining and even pretty funny.

Basilico's essay touches on various editing techniques that are important in the world of film.