OVP: Best Film Editing (2015)
The Nominees Were...
Hank Corwin, The Big Short
Margaret Sixel, Mad Max: Fury Road
Stephen Mirrione, The Revenant
Tom McArdle, Spotlight
Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Margaret Sixel, Mad Max: Fury Road
Stephen Mirrione, The Revenant
Tom McArdle, Spotlight
Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
My Thoughts: The Best Editing category, the invisible art as it were, is always fascinating for me to look through the list because editing is such a subjective craft to honor. Honestly-there's no real way to know if the editing in a film is stupendous compared to the final product. A director may end up giving you six hours of garbage, and you manage to rescue 90 minutes of passable film, making you a hero but you won't be noticed because it still wasn't that good to begin with. Editing is perhaps the only Oscar category where you probably should be judging on a curve, but unfortunately you can't. Thankfully, the Oscar Viewing Project at least picks my nominees for me ahead-of-time, so I don't have to worry about sussing for my own citations.
We're going to start with The Revenant, because it's the type of film that probably needed "the most" editing. Based on past experience with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, his films tend to be a pit-of-despair for several straight hours, and considering the impact of climate change during this picture, one has to assume that there was a lot of continuity issues with making sure that the snow was prevalent enough to actually make a picture. I do give Mirrione credit for continuity-if there was a struggle to make the film seem like it's all filmed chronologically, I don't see that as a viewer. That being said, the film is continually repetitive and feels like we're watching the same struggle and fight between DiCaprio & Hardy over-and-over again. I don't know that anyone could have made me like The Revenant, but the call-backs and tropes don't help even save a bad movie.
Despite me disliking its editing, The Revenant isn't an unusual nomination here-it's showy, pretty, and shot outdoors (and filled with action), so one would assume that it belongs in this lineup. Spotlight, on the other hand, feels entirely like the sort of nomination that happens when you have a Best Picture winner who isn't going to be nominated in enough categories to warrant winning Best Picture. Spotlight is a good movie, something I'm going to have to keep reminding myself of as it gets perhaps too many nominations (and it's a considerably better movie than The Big Short or The Revenant, its chief competition at the Oscars that year), but its editing is hardly revolutionary. The interviews are sharp, and the way that they try to backdrop the world of print journalism against this staggering story (subdued versus jaw-dropping) deserves some credit, but there's nothing showy, flashy, or succinct about the editing here-it's just doing its job. Maybe that deserves some praise (since it did result in a good movie), but it doesn't really warrant an Oscar nomination.
The same cannot be said for Mad Max: Fury Road, which does give us some impressive editing. I loved the opening scenes, and how they slowly link to the manic world of the Citadel. There's something so ferocious and confident in the way the movie is edited, not waiting for us to entirely understand what is happening in this bizarre nuclear wasteland, but instead just pushing us ahead, knowing that we'll catch up eventually to what is happening. I liked the way that, in particular, it keeps the blaring sun out long enough for us to feel the emptiness of this world, and the sharp jarring roar of its action sequences, giving us a sense of the danger approaching. Plus, any editor that keeps wide shots in a movie that deserves them should get kudos in a world where it seems like we're practically staring down movie stars' nostrils during chase sequences directors have fallen so in love with close-ups.
The Big Short, unlike Spotlight, does at least have some showy editing, and one moment where the movie (in my opinion) actually sells its overly aware, hyper-sexualized and masculine energy (the Margot Robbie in a bubble bath scene). It's a dangerous game breaking the fourth wall, but it creates an energy that's impossible to deny, and if the entire movie had had this sort of brazen confidence, it'd be a proper love-it-or-hate-it movie instead of just one that has a good beginning but a soggy ending. The film becomes too television multi-character drama in the final third, not linking together often enough the various plots that we have been juggling for the entire movie, and I do blame that on the editors, but in a field that's not particularly exemplary, I'll say that The Big Short at least stuck one of its landings.
The final nomination is the token "not a Best Picture nominee, but it's a classy action adventure so it needs to make it somewhere." Star Wars: The Force Awakens is also not a bad movie, but it is the sort of movie that is so steeped in nostalgia that it's difficult to entirely discern where your feelings for the actual movie end and your feelings for a childhood dream begin. The movie's action sequences are well put-together, and they intersperse the story quite well, even though they heavily rely upon past Star Wars tropes (like the screen wipe away to the bad guys), and so much of this is copying from A New Hope.
We're going to start with The Revenant, because it's the type of film that probably needed "the most" editing. Based on past experience with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, his films tend to be a pit-of-despair for several straight hours, and considering the impact of climate change during this picture, one has to assume that there was a lot of continuity issues with making sure that the snow was prevalent enough to actually make a picture. I do give Mirrione credit for continuity-if there was a struggle to make the film seem like it's all filmed chronologically, I don't see that as a viewer. That being said, the film is continually repetitive and feels like we're watching the same struggle and fight between DiCaprio & Hardy over-and-over again. I don't know that anyone could have made me like The Revenant, but the call-backs and tropes don't help even save a bad movie.
Despite me disliking its editing, The Revenant isn't an unusual nomination here-it's showy, pretty, and shot outdoors (and filled with action), so one would assume that it belongs in this lineup. Spotlight, on the other hand, feels entirely like the sort of nomination that happens when you have a Best Picture winner who isn't going to be nominated in enough categories to warrant winning Best Picture. Spotlight is a good movie, something I'm going to have to keep reminding myself of as it gets perhaps too many nominations (and it's a considerably better movie than The Big Short or The Revenant, its chief competition at the Oscars that year), but its editing is hardly revolutionary. The interviews are sharp, and the way that they try to backdrop the world of print journalism against this staggering story (subdued versus jaw-dropping) deserves some credit, but there's nothing showy, flashy, or succinct about the editing here-it's just doing its job. Maybe that deserves some praise (since it did result in a good movie), but it doesn't really warrant an Oscar nomination.
The same cannot be said for Mad Max: Fury Road, which does give us some impressive editing. I loved the opening scenes, and how they slowly link to the manic world of the Citadel. There's something so ferocious and confident in the way the movie is edited, not waiting for us to entirely understand what is happening in this bizarre nuclear wasteland, but instead just pushing us ahead, knowing that we'll catch up eventually to what is happening. I liked the way that, in particular, it keeps the blaring sun out long enough for us to feel the emptiness of this world, and the sharp jarring roar of its action sequences, giving us a sense of the danger approaching. Plus, any editor that keeps wide shots in a movie that deserves them should get kudos in a world where it seems like we're practically staring down movie stars' nostrils during chase sequences directors have fallen so in love with close-ups.
The Big Short, unlike Spotlight, does at least have some showy editing, and one moment where the movie (in my opinion) actually sells its overly aware, hyper-sexualized and masculine energy (the Margot Robbie in a bubble bath scene). It's a dangerous game breaking the fourth wall, but it creates an energy that's impossible to deny, and if the entire movie had had this sort of brazen confidence, it'd be a proper love-it-or-hate-it movie instead of just one that has a good beginning but a soggy ending. The film becomes too television multi-character drama in the final third, not linking together often enough the various plots that we have been juggling for the entire movie, and I do blame that on the editors, but in a field that's not particularly exemplary, I'll say that The Big Short at least stuck one of its landings.
The final nomination is the token "not a Best Picture nominee, but it's a classy action adventure so it needs to make it somewhere." Star Wars: The Force Awakens is also not a bad movie, but it is the sort of movie that is so steeped in nostalgia that it's difficult to entirely discern where your feelings for the actual movie end and your feelings for a childhood dream begin. The movie's action sequences are well put-together, and they intersperse the story quite well, even though they heavily rely upon past Star Wars tropes (like the screen wipe away to the bad guys), and so much of this is copying from A New Hope.
Other Precursor Contenders: The Eddie Awards have nominees for both Drama and Comedy/Musical, so nearly all of the nominees (save for the bizarre inclusion of Spotlight) got mentioned here. Drama went to Mad Max, besting Star Wars, The Revenant, The Martian, and Sicario, while Comedy picked The Big Short over Ant-Man, Joy, Trainwreck, and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. The BAFTA Awards also picked Mad Max as their victor, with Spotlight and Star Wars getting bumped in favor of The Martian and Bridge of Spies. The clear sixth place was The Martian, and I'm still flummoxed as to how it possibly missed for Best Editing as it's such an obvious option.
Films I Would Have Nominated: Well, The Martian for one-the movie's swiftly shifting between Matt Damon's world and the light comedy of Earth (plus giving us time to enjoy the alien serenity of Mars) deserved its expected nomination far more than most of these pictures. I'm not entirely sure how eligible it was, but I'd continue this list with the crazy editing choices of Embrace of the Serpent, which had to be next to impossible to put together and was rather impressive. I also would have found room for Alex Garland's Ex Machina, which unfolds as a great Sci-Fi thriller that works because of the subtly quickening pace put together by its editing team. And I'd have included the complicated first half of Room, which has to deal with continuity to a degree that almost no other film did in 2015, and makes a small room seem nearly filled the way that Jack looks at the world.
Oscar's Choice: Oscar continued the trend and went for Mad Max: Fury Road, probably over The Revenant.
My Choice: It's not even a contest-Mad Max is miles better than literally any other movie in this competition. I'd follow that with Star Wars, The Big Short, Spotlight, and The Revenant.
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? Are we all in easy agreement that Mad Max deserves this, or does someone want to come out for The Revenant? Can anyone explain to me why Spotlight deserved this citation? And why'd they skip The Martian? Share your thoughts below!
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