Marooned [1969]
1. “We’ve been in this business for ten years, and I’ve learned the best thing is for us girls to keep our feelings to ourselves and let the men get on with their work.”
2. They enter a dark, empty office. A blinking telephone on the desk.
3. A Russian spacecraft shaped like a diving bell.
As many have pointed out, editing is a lot like writing. I’d go even further and say that it’s also a lot like rewriting, which I guess should be self-evident but is easy to lose sight of when you’re not actually doing it. Over the past few weeks as I’ve restarted work on the film, I’ve discovered some ways that editing is, for me, exactly like writing and rewriting.
For instance, I’ve discovered that working in the evenings is problematic. After spending 8-4 at my day job, when I come home and sit in front of my footage my brain is just not firing on all cylinders. Even worse are the few nights I’ve tried editing after working and then going to the gym; my body is pleasantly tired and my mind wants nothing to do with figuring things out or learning a new skill. And basically this is exactly how I function when it comes to writing. More often than not writing doesn’t go very well after the sun goes down. I can read for hours, watch a movie, carry on a long conversation, or even do housework. But rarely do I have the necessary frisson to write.
On the other hand, in the morning ideas come easily and I have plenty of energy to play around with them. (Shades of Ray Bradbury.) Everything about me feels sharper. Yesterday and today (Saturday and Sunday) I got up very early, put on a pot of coffee, turned on my computer and got right to work. I accomplished more in four hours Saturday morning than I had the whole rest of the week. This is very useful to discover. It means that, unfortunately, because of my day job it’s going to be tough to do much work on the film Monday-Friday. I think I’ll still be fine with doing some tweaking and adjusting, minor type stuff, but clearly I ought to save the hard work for the weekend. I don’t particularly look forward to sleeping in anyway (I’m more attached to siestas) but now I really have to let go of that. At least for now.
Coriolanus [2011]
1. Fidelus TV.
2. “Go, get you home, you fragments.”
3. Dusty black suit.
The Ice Storm [1997]
1. Jim Croce skipping. “Is that my record? You have messed with my shit, Charles.”
2. She tests the stiffness of the whip.
3. In the final moment, what is Paul thinking? That they’re getting a divorce?
Okay, perhaps it’s just a Campari-created celebration, but it’s for a good cause. I couldn’t resist posting my recipe. Truth be told, I’ve enjoyed many Negronis many different ways. (Does that make me promiscuous?) But this is how I like to serve them at home.
Rob’s Negroni
2 oz. gin (I like Letherbee’s original, or Death’s Door, or even Gordon’s)
.5 oz. Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
.5 oz. Campari
Place a very large ice cube in a double old fashioned glass. Add ingredients and stir well. Garnish with a broad strip of orange peel and serve.
If you’re ready to take it up a notch, why not try a Bunueloni?
Being John Malkovich [1999]
1. “And 50 other lines to get in a girl’s pants.”
2. Lounge singer Malkovich.
3. He lies alone in bed. The fitted sheet has pulled away, exposing the mattress.
Still brilliant after all these years.
The Deep Blue Sea [2011]
1. “If it gets too cold, you could always rub two boy scouts together.”
2. The camera follows the smoke as it dissolves in the air.
3. Near the light switch the wallpaper is worn and faded.
At the risk of sounding incredibly pretentious, when I conceived Pause of the Clock I thought of it a chronology-scrambling way to explore the porous boundaries between “reality” and fiction. 18 years later, as I’m editing the film, I find myself smoothing things out by arranging the scenes in order. Such is filmmaking. You never quite know what will actually work.
Je t’aime je t’aime [1968]
1. “Are you feeling tired?”
“I’m tired of that question.”
2. A Magritte print in his bedroom.
3. He silently sheds a tear and then lies still.
Paper Moon [1973]
1. “Now finish your Coney island.”
2. She stands up on the radiator in the corridor and cracks open the transom window.
3. The frame split horizontally by the horizon, the road zigzagging towards it.
