Decoupage: editing as ‘mere manual labour’.
The segment of Timothy Barnard’s book ‘Decoupage’ that we were given was certainly an interesting read and definitely gave me a lot of points to think over – especially in regards to the importance of pre-production in planning out a scene. However there was one quote in particular from a Luis Bunuel essay that I found particularly contentious – that editing is essentially just ‘mere manual labour’. Perhaps at the time that Bunuel wrote his essay such a statement would have been far less controversial, but in an age of digital cameras and the ensuing release of filmmaking from the grasp of celluloid limitations (particularly in regards to runtime and instant review), I find myself strongly disagreeing with Bunuel’s assertion. Though I certainly understand what Bunuel is trying to say (even if he is doing so more forcefully than I can agree with) – that editing should be manual labour if a film/scene is planned out thoughtfully in pre-production. In reality the editing process is, and I believe should be, just as much a process of discovery as production and pre-production. To suggest that editing is only manual labour is to suggest that the filmmaker must always get it right the first time – they must always have the best and most fitting idea for how a scene is to be composed before they actually compose it. Such a suggestion however, runs entirely counter to what I have discussed in my last reflection (on the increasing prevalence of discovery based, reactive filmmaking). If a Director’s approach on set is one of openness to a better, or at least different idea and of discovery on the day with their collaborators, then this philosophy must extend to the editing room. It is all well and good to suggest that decoupage is one of the more critical elements in a film’s success, because quite a lot of the time this is indeed the case. But to suggest that decoupage is the most important element – to the exclusion of editing (or indeed any other element of filmmaking), is in my opinion overly reductive and dismissive and misses the point of cinema as a collaborative art form.