Scenes that are too “cutty”

Movies are made by splicing pieces of film together (or film’s digital equivalent). A key to a movie’s success or failure, its quality or lack thereof, is the art of editing. The “Washington Post” has a good feature on the subject: To Appreciate the Art of Film Editing, You Must Start With a Frame of Reference . In the course of the article, I learned a new word–“cutty”–which describes a major annoyance of mine in contemporary movies and now even TV shows:

Editors have a word for movies that are edited in a way meant to draw attention to the editing itself : “cutty.” As in, “Oh man, was ‘Quantum of Solace’ way too cutty or what?!”

In fact, “Quantum of Solace” was way too cutty. The 2008 James Bond installment’s opening chase sequence — a slam-edited jumble of incoherent images that left the audience disoriented (if not a little seasick) — did nothing to establish the movie’s narrative logic and tone. Rather, that sequence and the equally incoherent movie that followed seemed designed mainly to imitate “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum,” which have virtually redefined the visual grammar of action movies. It’s true that their director, Paul Greengrass, favors the sort of whiplash editing style that give his films an edgy sense of realism and reflects the amnesiac protagonist’s own sense of dislocation. But though the approach works in the “Bourne” movies (as well as Greengrass’s films “United 93” and “Bloody Sunday”), it’s a strictly don’t-try-this-at-home strategy best left to filmmakers of his superior gifts. (Other recent offenders in the trump-Bourne sweepstakes are “Speed Racer” and “The Dark Knight.”)

Just because a film is hyper-edited doesn’t mean it was more of a challenge. “Action is the easiest thing in the world to cut,” says Billy Weber, who edited “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Top Gun” and most of Terrence Malick’s movies. “When was the last time you mowed down 40 people with an AK-47? Never? You have no idea what it looks like, except from what it looks like in the movies. But when was the last time you had an argument with your significant other? Two days ago? You know what that looks like. So when you portray that in a movie, if there’s a false moment, it’s picked up instantly by an audience. Drama and comedy are the two most challenging things to edit, because it’s so much about human emotions and timing.”