VANILLA SKY (2001): editing

Like many other reality-bending films across time and genre, the status of truth and consciousness in Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (2001) is always in question. Vanilla Sky opens with initial establishing shots showing breathtaking bird's-eye views of New York City. Eventually, after dropping a viewer in David's lavish bedroom, a tense scene follows in which David leaves for work and finds NYC and Times Square completely abandoned. After David wakes up in a cold sweat and the entire ordeal was revealed to be a dream, the viewer is always aware that what they are watching may not be "reality".

The validity of David's perception and memory are weakened in several other ways throughout the film. For instance, in a clear execution of parallel editing, scenes are filmed once with Penelope Cruz and then filmed again with Cameron Diaz. In addition, shots of photographs and drawings of the two girls in the exact same context were filmed twice. After this, the shots were cut and juxtaposed next to each other during scenes in David's mental breakdown. Seamlessly, Cameron becomes Penelope becomes Cameron-- creating a flickering of memories between the two different girls through perfectly matched parallel editing. This brings the viewer concretely into David's confusion and panic.


The backbone of Vanilla Sky's editing technique lies in its tangled web of flashbacks. Though the forward-moving action takes place when David is being held in prison and a psychologist is investigating his mental stability, most of the film's action happens in the past. This serves an important function. The viewer is immersed in David's past memories in detail and feels the reality of their existence. However, at the same time, the viewer is aware that David is narrating the story and his perceptions of reality could be distorted from reality.

MEMENTO (2000): editing

The editing techniques in Christopher Nolan's Memento (2000) seem to serve two core functions: to present multiple versions of reality to the audience, and to arrange the chronology of the movie in a coherent yet ultimately twisted manner. Christopher Nolan uses very short flashbacks to call the true story of Memento into question, "whipping back and forth" through jump cuts "to check for differences in 'repeated' shots". Tiny fragmented shots of Leonard and his wife are replayed near the end of the scene, for instance, with an insulin syringe added into the otherwise completely parallel shot of the memory, questioning the validity of Leonard's pre-accident memories. In one scene in which Sammy is sitting alone in an asylum, "for literally a split second of screen time, we see Leonard himself in Sammy’s chair" as someone walks in front of the camera. This tiny flash of a scene's altered reality, also implemented notably in David Fincher's Fight Club, is what truly convolutes the film's presentation of reality-- in conjunction with Teddy's verbal explanations of Leonard's true story.

Nolan also uses editing techniques to present the film in an interesting chronology. Evoking the themes of memory loss, true knowledge, and confusion; the plot of Memento is shown backwards over a series of short scenes. These scenes move in reverse through time. Spliced between each scene is another timeline, shown in black and white, in which the chronology moves forwards, detailing a conversation that takes place just before any color scenes in the movie. In a masterful scene in which the "beginning" of the color shots meet the "end" of the black and white shots, Leonard takes a polaroid "and the Polaroid’s color image fades in, so does the color of the entire scene", fusing the timelines together. This seamless transition between timelines clarifies the film's confusing relationship with time, leaving the audience with a perception that is still intriguing but ultimately comprehendible.
.

Quotations taken from Andy Klein's "Everything You Wanted To Know About Memento": http://www.salon.com/2001/06/28/memento_analysis/

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007): movement

Across the Universe (2007), directed by Julie Taymor, is an ambitious project: a musical studded with jaw-dropping effects chronicling a group of young people in New York City during the late 1960s, accompanied by no less than 34 Beatles songs. Amidst the haze of overlaid film footage, clashing musical interjections, and special effects that spin and swirl through the scenes; Across the Universe still has time to enter the individual characters' emotions. Lucy's sadness and hurt over her loved ones being drafted contain perfect examples of action/reaction shots in the storyline. During the "Strawberry Fields" number, shots of the war on television and her brother Max immersed in violence and danger are met

with the movement of tears across Lucy's cheeks. In a scene in which Prudence sings "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" as a ballad to a fellow cheerleader before coming to New York, football players scuffle and fly around her in slow motion as she walks forward at full speed. This formalistic approach to the scene creates the dramatic tension that the slow, emotional retelling of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"demands.

Spaced with into these personal, emotive motions in Across the Universe are bold, fast, almost startling visual effects and choreography. In one musical number, "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", Max checks in with the draft office to determine whether or not he is fit to serve in the US army. In perfect time with the music, Max and other soldiers are pushed and shoved into tightly choreographed lines and moved like puppets by the military officials as well as objects in the room which come to life, sliding Max around the surreal landscape of the transformed office. Posters of Uncle Sam physically reach out from their frames and stretch toward Max and the audience, implying kinetic symbolism as the stretched hands invade his space and march him around as a soldier.

 In contrast to the dark implications of the choreography in "I Want You", in one of the film's opening scenes, a band plays "Hold Me Tight" at a high school dance as Lucy and her boyfriend dance. Here, the choreography is completely different than in the "I Want You" scene, implying carefree times as the camera watches in an areal shot and happy teenagers spin in circles, dizzy and giddy and unaware of the love and tragedy they will face in the coming years.

SNATCH (2000) + AMELIE (2001): masculinity and femininity

The hypermasculine grit of Guy Ritchie's Snatch (2001) is a thin skin laid over something much more complex. Immersed in the violence-ridden underbelly of the city, each character in Snatch puts on a tough face to stay on top of the scuffles that plague their lives. However, this masculine facade really serves to highlight the vulnerability of Snatch's characters. Some gangsters showcase vulnerability through the actors chosen to play them (for instance, the age and implied fragility of Bricktop's physicality, the babyface of Tommy). Others are immersed in details that speak on the contrary to
their tough outer core-- Mickey's tattoos are peppered with hints of femininity and his tenderness and
protectiveness for his mother surfaces repetitively in his plotline. Immersed in Guy Ritchie's dimly lit, unpolished sets and tied together with loosely framed shots and tense anticipatory movements, these elements of Snatch's characters stand out, highlighting the inner delicate parts of his crime-ridden world.






On the contrary, Jean-Pierre Juenet's Amelie (2001) exhibits the opposite circumstance: a world of femininity surrounding a core of masculine attributes. On the surface, the journey of one female character through softly lit, brightly colored, and often tightly framed clear shots seems an easily digestible romance film.

Even though these elements persist through the storyline, even ending in a slow motion shot of Amelie and her new love riding together on a motorcycle, in reality Amelie's character's most important developing attributes are considered very masculine. Amelie's plotlines are all propelled forwards by Amelie's desire to have some form of control or upper hand in the situations she sees around her. Her character largely revolves around serving justice, whether it be giving gifts or punishing others-- a very masculine idea. Her one fear throughout the movie seems to be that she is too fragile for the love she craves-- however, by the end of the film, her main character development is overcoming this fear and seizing the world for her own.
 agency and drive to get what she wants stick out like a sore thumb in the middle of the haze of innocence and naïveté that is used as the lens to view her.