This week in cinema studies, our reading is on editing, and how editors affect the outcome of a film using various editing techniques. American Beauty (1999) Directed by Sam Mendes, is a great example of how much power editing wields in influencing how a film is constructed. Christopher Greenbury began chopping the film until there was a collision with another project he was working, which then lead to Mendes and an assistant taking over the role. Seeing what Greenbury had produced made him realise that the film didn’t look and feel like he envisioned it to. He had the intentions of creating a “much more whimsical and kaleidoscopic” film than what appeared in the editing suite. Being able to physically see what was produced gave him the intuition to change it with the power of editing.
He begun and noticed that a lot of the shots he was using were shots he initially regarded to be included in the discard pile. Time went on and Mendes had cut the whole film. He then showed Alan Ball, the writer of the film, who initially didn’t agree with all the dramatic changes that he’d done, however, after some arguing, Bell came to terms and understood why Mendes had done so. Ball came to the conclusion that without the scenes the film had become more optimistic and evolved into something that “for all its darkness had a really romantic heart”.
Essentially what happened is, the cut Greenbury was working on orbited the court case, and who killed Lester Burnham (Kevin Stacey) . Then Mendes transported us away from the court case and crafted, what I think to be, a really structured yet precarious film.