Fine Cuts: The Art of European Film Editing

by Roger Crittenden

Roger Crittenden reveals the experiences of many of the greatest living European film editors through his warm and perceptive interviews which offer a unique insight into the art of editing - direct from masters of the craft.

In their interviews the editors relate their experience to the directors they have worked with,

Agnes Guillemot- (Godard, Truffaut, Catherine Breillat)
Roberto Perpignani- (Welles, Bertolucci, Tavianni Brothers)
Sylvia Ingemarsson- (Ingmar Bergman)
Michal Leszczylowski- (Andrei Tarkovsky, Lukas Moodysson)
Tony Lawson (Nic Roeg, Stanley Kubrick, Neil Jordan)
and many more.

Foreword by Walter Murch - three-time Oscar-winning Editor of 'Apocalypse Now', 'The English Patient', 'American Graffiti', 'The Conversation' and 'The Godfather Part II and III'.

Genres: Film

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Christopher]

This book consists of about thirty interviews with a number of editors who have cut films for British and continental European directors, for example Agnès Guillemot (who worked for Godard and Truffaut), Michal Leszczylowski (who cut Tarkovsky’s Offret), Takis Yannopoulos (Theodoros Angelopoulos), Tony Lawson (Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon).

The interviews vary greatly in how in-depth they get on the process by which famous films were made. Some of these editors were interviewed many years after they worked on the great films, and they are unable to offer more than just a personal credo of the editor’s role. Other editors are able to recount specific moments in the films on which they worked and to describe in detail the agonizing choices that had to be made. This book did however leave me with an appreciation of the editor’s role in the final film, though these figures are relatively unsung compared to the directors.