FILM EDITING
What is film editing about? Is it a creative process? What makes "good" editing? What is the difference between analog and digital editing? Where can you study film editing? Is there an Oscar for Best Film Editing? Here you are going to find the answers to all your questions. Hopefully:)
For all of you nationalists, who feel dissappointed with the fact that I edit this subject in English, let me explain myself with a first hand anegdote.
A friend-cinematographer once told me about his funny experience with the school production department. He was a student then. A foreign student. A student from Ukraine. His A-mark film was approuved by an international film festival. In order to have his film screened at the festival, he had to provide a DVD copy of the film in due time, what he of course did. Then, suddenly he was called by the department to explain a so-called troublesome matter. What was his surprise when the chef of department asked him: "Why does your film have English credits?" At first he was puzzled and did not know what to say. The chef continued: "After all, it's a Polish film, produced by the school, by the Polish Film Institute and..." And then he interrupted the chef and said: "That's right. So why shall the whole world not know about it?" In my opinion, there was no better riposte one could possibly come up with.
A friend-cinematographer once told me about his funny experience with the school production department. He was a student then. A foreign student. A student from Ukraine. His A-mark film was approuved by an international film festival. In order to have his film screened at the festival, he had to provide a DVD copy of the film in due time, what he of course did. Then, suddenly he was called by the department to explain a so-called troublesome matter. What was his surprise when the chef of department asked him: "Why does your film have English credits?" At first he was puzzled and did not know what to say. The chef continued: "After all, it's a Polish film, produced by the school, by the Polish Film Institute and..." And then he interrupted the chef and said: "That's right. So why shall the whole world not know about it?" In my opinion, there was no better riposte one could possibly come up with.
_I guess the photo above is a great pretext to start the story about film editing with an anegdote (Surprise! Another anegdote...). Well, film editors believe that getting one's fingers caught in the flatbed's rollers, brings good luck. To be precise, it is said to guarantee becoming a sucessful film editor in future. Usually, it is quite painful. I mean getting your fingers caught in the rollers:)
_AND THE OSCAR GOES TO...
Michael
Kahn (ACE) was THE FIRST FILM EDITOR addressed with the following words FOR
THE THIRD TIME IN HIS LIFETIME! The year was 1998 and Kahn had just finished work on another Academy Award winner project Saving Private Ryan with his life long collaborator Steven Spielberg. By the time Kahn had received two Oscars for the films Raiders of the Lost Arc (1981) and Schindler's List (1993) both directed by Spielberg. Nonetheless, he is not the only one to hold the record today. Since 2007 Khan shares the honour with Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorcese's fim editor (Oscars for: Raging Bull 1981, The Aviator 2005, The Departed 2007). The other less known Oscar record-holders are late Daniel Mandell and Ralph Dawson.
The Oscar for Best Editing has been awarded since 1934 (to remind you, the first Academy Award ceremony took place in May 16, 1929), but the name of the award occasionaly changesand now it is called Academy Award for Achievement in Film Editing. The award happens to be closely correlated with the award for the Best Picture as since 1981 all the films nominated to Best Picture, were also nominated for editing, and about two thirds of the Best Picture winners received also the Award for best editing.
Of course, there are also sceptics among film editors, who question the legitimacy of the awards for film editing overall and they have their reasons. Among them is Wim Wender's editor, Peter Przygodda, who generally finds such awards needless. He explains:
"Editing itself has no own aesthetics. Noone can judge whether or not a film has been well cut, because noone has access to all the film footage*. Thus, noone can verify what footage has been rejected. And that is where the decision-making process takes place (Gefühl fürs Material. Interview: Schnittmeister Peter Przygodda, Film&TV Kameramann 11/2008)."**
He also adds that the editor's task is to work out a unique storytelling and style for every film according to the way it was shot. Then, the possibilites of film editing are of course limited, but it does not mean that it cannot play the creative part of filmmaking process.
* From VT: The film you can see in the cinema is generally the final product of a complex decision-making process, where, for example, from 20 hours of footage, at best, you get an hour-long movie. Professionaly, you talk about the shooting ratio, i.e. the ratio between the total duration of the footage shot and that which results from its final cut. For the above example, the shooting ratio would be 20:1.
**Loose translation from German by VT.
The Oscar for Best Editing has been awarded since 1934 (to remind you, the first Academy Award ceremony took place in May 16, 1929), but the name of the award occasionaly changesand now it is called Academy Award for Achievement in Film Editing. The award happens to be closely correlated with the award for the Best Picture as since 1981 all the films nominated to Best Picture, were also nominated for editing, and about two thirds of the Best Picture winners received also the Award for best editing.
Of course, there are also sceptics among film editors, who question the legitimacy of the awards for film editing overall and they have their reasons. Among them is Wim Wender's editor, Peter Przygodda, who generally finds such awards needless. He explains:
"Editing itself has no own aesthetics. Noone can judge whether or not a film has been well cut, because noone has access to all the film footage*. Thus, noone can verify what footage has been rejected. And that is where the decision-making process takes place (Gefühl fürs Material. Interview: Schnittmeister Peter Przygodda, Film&TV Kameramann 11/2008)."**
He also adds that the editor's task is to work out a unique storytelling and style for every film according to the way it was shot. Then, the possibilites of film editing are of course limited, but it does not mean that it cannot play the creative part of filmmaking process.
* From VT: The film you can see in the cinema is generally the final product of a complex decision-making process, where, for example, from 20 hours of footage, at best, you get an hour-long movie. Professionaly, you talk about the shooting ratio, i.e. the ratio between the total duration of the footage shot and that which results from its final cut. For the above example, the shooting ratio would be 20:1.
**Loose translation from German by VT.
How to judge the Best Editing Oscar?
Below a link to short video, where Slate (a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine) asks editor Bonnie Koehler to explain what goes into great film editing. The interview concerns the most likely winners of Academy Awards 2011.
IT'S SHOW TIME, FOLKS!
You wanna have a taste of good editing, then here we go. For the start, 10 Top Must See Scenes.
1/ All That Jazz (1979) dir. Bob Fosse
Editor: Alain Heim
Editor: Alain Heim
An example of a REFRAIN sequence, a special kind of repetition, a recurring motif. Rhythmisizes the film plot or gives the composition of the plot a more distinct framework. We can distinguish between refrains of a constant or a changing semantic [author's comment: deals with meaning] content (Film & TV, Kamera. Montaż jest wszystkim. 4/2004).
2/ The Battleship Potemkin (1925) dir. Sergei Eisenstein
Editor: Sergei Eisenstein
The Battleship Potemkin legendary for, so called, "Odessa stairs" sequence, is frequently quoted in film handbooks as the example of an artistically exceptional use of film editing. The scene is often considered the most famous sequence of all time.
It remains a source of inspiration to filmmakers. For instance, Brian de Palma imitated the scene in Untouchables (1987). Check it out on YouTube (German version): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dr2esCZo90
It remains a source of inspiration to filmmakers. For instance, Brian de Palma imitated the scene in Untouchables (1987). Check it out on YouTube (German version): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dr2esCZo90
FILM EDITING IS EVERYTHING!
They say the author of the above words was the famous Russian film director Siergei Eisenstein (23 January 1898 - 11 February 1948). After all, these were Russians who put a milestone to the development of film editing, and film in general. But this is another story.
What I would like to share here with you are quotes of more or less famous film personas. Quotes concerning film editing. Certainly quotes that I, personally, find valuable and instructive for a film editor.
What I would like to share here with you are quotes of more or less famous film personas. Quotes concerning film editing. Certainly quotes that I, personally, find valuable and instructive for a film editor.
"THE CRITERIUM OF TRUTH IS NEITHER MATHEMATICALLY MEASURABLE,
NOR ABSOLUTE"
KATARZYNA MACIEJKO - KOWALCZYK, FILM EDITOR
DOCUMENTARY FILMS BY MARCEL AND PAWEŁ ŁOZIŃSKI
"(...) SUGGESTION ALWAYS MAKES A STRONGER EFFECT THAN EXPOSITION"
WALTER MURCH, FILM EDITOR
THE CONVERSATION, THE GODFATHER DIR. FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
NOR ABSOLUTE"
KATARZYNA MACIEJKO - KOWALCZYK, FILM EDITOR
DOCUMENTARY FILMS BY MARCEL AND PAWEŁ ŁOZIŃSKI
"(...) SUGGESTION ALWAYS MAKES A STRONGER EFFECT THAN EXPOSITION"
WALTER MURCH, FILM EDITOR
THE CONVERSATION, THE GODFATHER DIR. FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
READ THIS: The annotations below the quotes do not include all the works and all the collaborators of the filmmakers quoted. The choice of the films and people quoted is subjective.
JOKING APART: WHAT DO THEY THINK I DO?
http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/editor-what-my-friends-think-i-do.jpg
In this profession it is quite normal that people are confused when you try to explain to them what is your job about. Even when you adjust the definition to an average man in the street and learn it by heart, still such situations happen and cost you sort of mental breakdown, when you start to wonder yourself what are you really doing and is it in at all useful to the society. Well, you need to get used to such situations. Honestly, it would be simply too much to expect from people not only to know but also to understand what you are doing - the profession of a film editor is simply so highly specialized. OK, LET'S CUT IT SHORT!:) It is all just a question of the point of view!
UNSICHTBARE KÜNSTLER THE INVISIBLE ARTIST
The profession of a film editor is possibly one of the most mysterious and the most ambiguous out of all film professions. Most people, if they know about film editing at all, do not really acknowledge it as a vital part of a filmmaking process. After all, the film editor apparently has no influence on the very film image. Neither the form nor the content of the image captured. He/she rather shapes time and space of the footage captured by the director and cinematographer, which is already a subjective extract from reality. This visual extract becomes the film reality and the film editor is responsible for shaping it temporarily and spatialy according to the subject of the film and the nature (character) of the very footage. The film editor also makes very important choices on this stage of film production. Similar to those that the director and cinematographer make on the stage of the very shooting. In this sense the film editor has great influence on the form and content of the final version of the film.
http://www.hff-muenchen.de/wir/Das%20Kind%20in%20mir_cinearte_2011.pdf
FEMALE EDITORS Montażystki
Nowadays many people believe film industry to be dominated mainly by males. Whenever I talk to people, they are surprised to learn that in the past, for example, in film editing business in Poland there were more women than men. Today, with the dawn of new technologies the ratio is changing and there are more and more men in the postproduction business. But in the time of flatbeds it seemed that only women had the patience to deal for hours with kilometers of film tape in the dark editing rooms. At least that is how the situation looked like in Poland. As far as I know, it was a precedent in the worldwide scale, because in the States and in France mostly men did the job. Still when you have a chance to read about film editing in Poland nowadays, most articles mention in particular female editors as the most successful in the profession. Let me post a link to the article from Wysokie Obcasy where you can read about women in film editing on the example of the three most renown Polish female editors very active on the Polish postproduction scene: Ewa Smal, Lidia Zonn and Milenia Fiedler. I had the pleasure to meet them all as a student and learn from them the secrets of good film editing. The article was originally published in Polish language, but for the sake of this website I will translate it into English especially for you. Check out for the translation soon.
http://www.wysokieobcasy.pl/wysokie-obcasy/1,96856,14555453,Montazystki.html
Let me present the first part of the translation of the text Montażystki by Magdalena Lankosz. The article is quite long. I translate it in my free time, so be patient.
FEMALE EDITORS
Author: MAGDALENA LANKOSZ 16.09.2013
In the 60s a book “Film occupations” was published in Poland. Under the entry “film editing” there was a note: “A task which demands patience and manual abilities, which only women have, that's why women most often work as film editors.”
Journeys
What is editing a movie about? Milenia: “It's about journeys to other worlds than mine. I function somehow like a cameleon – for some time I have to enter the world of directors, producers, actors, art designers, cinematographers. Decipher their logics. And then compromise, add something from myself, contribute to communicate it to the viewer. Apparently I spend all days long in a dark room, but I feel like travelling all the time.” Lidia: “Editing has a mystery in itself. It has something to do with editors job in a publishing house. The editor does not write the text himself/herself, but he/she will switch a paragraph here and there, cross a sentence and the text, which lagged or sounded badly, gains energy. And the ability of switching? Predisposition, you can't learn it in school. Inborn sense of storytelling rhythm.” Ewa: “There are manuals, studies, rules, but these are only tools, they do not work in everybody's hand. It's something elusive, something one cannot tell. Nobody knows the answer to the question, why two things combined together suddenly began to generate new meanings. Film editors do not know it either, but they do have the intuition what to combine with another. When people watch a film, they judge acting, photos, directing, but hardly anyone discusses editing, because it is the most mysterious and least known side of the film to viewers.”
So what should I write, what is your profession about? Milenia: “Do you want a definition? I would say that editing is like travelling around the world, which creates itself along the journey. Film editor, travelling, gives every element of this world its place. We do not edit pictures, we edit meanings.”
Dreams
What predispositions do you need for this profession? Ewa: “One needs to be a good observer. And one needs lots of patience: to the footage, to the director and to oneself as well. Once I edited a one-minute action scene for a month. It's such a bizarre feeling as if the world stopped. Days, weeks pass and I still live the same minute. You know, the film editor engages so much in the footage that then he/she keeps dreaming about it. When I edited a film in Japanese, I had dreams in Japanese and I was not even surprised with it, just dreadfully upset that I did not understand a thing.”
Milenia: “It's easy to lose oneself in it. There was such a moment, when I realized that the film reality absorbed me so much that I hardly experience the real one. It seemed to me that it's not that day, but one of its versions. I had such a nightmare then: someone visits me, we say hallo and I have to tell them something important, but I do postpone this moment. For the time being the conversation is disobliging. I feel increasing pressure to come to this important message and when I am almost there, the dream goes back to the beginning and the conversation starts from the beginning, but in a slightly different way: the rhythm changes and some parts fall out. And it happens so a few times. I edited the beginning in a dream and could not break through to the essential part of the conversation.”
Maybe instead of film editing I should write about the dreams of (female) film editors [montażystek]? Ewa: “Then it could be a text about nightmares. When I started in the profession, in moments of high tension in work, I kept on dreaming about standing next to the flatbed, with film tape around my neck, as they used to do then, and the mechanism of this flatbed cannot be stopped. It draws me in and strangles, but these nightmares were a side effect of intensive concentration and not the whole truth about (female) film editors.”
Milenia: “You should write about people. People in film are the most important. The most part of the film editor's job is to create the character, who the people will follow, with whom they will tie up emotionally. Then comes the story, the dramaturgy. The intellect is secondary.”
About people then. It's going to be a text about three women of different ages. Lidia Zonn is the most reknown female documentary film editor. She cocreated the most important films of Kazimierz Karabasz and Krzysztof Kieślowski. As the professor of the film school in Lodz, she brought up a few generations of film editors. Ewa Smal made her debut in the profession as the editor of Kieślowski's “Decalogue” and later worked with Wajda and Holland. For over a decade she is the coworker of Marek Koterski. She teaches in the film school in Lodz. About Milenia Fiedler they say she is the godmother of digital editing in Poland. Her latest film is Wajda's “Wałęsa”. She worked on the films by Wojciech Marczewski and Janusz Majewski. She also teaches in the film school.
Lidia
The story of Lidia is a story of one of the most interesting film duos in Poland. I wanted to write that it;s a story of great love, but Lidia insists to stress the cooperation, because making films together was how it really began. The feeling came later.
It was the end of the 50s. Breath thaw could already be felt in the cinema. Taking advantage of the temporary freedom, a group of young filmmakers concentrated around the WFDiF (Documentary Films' Production Company) in Warsaw, took their cameras and investigated the nooks and crannies of the reality so far hidden from the filmmakers. That's how the cycle of documentary films “Black Series” was created. One of the most prominent filmmakers from the group was Kazimierz Karabasz. He became interested in a four-year younger female colleague who run around in a white smock with cans of film under her arm as an editing helper. He asked if she would like to edit his film by herself after hours. “It concerned a very simple task of editing a film about children' drawings, a debutant could easily cope with.” They enjoyed one another. He invited her to do another project – “The Musicians” - still an indisputable masterpiece and one of the most important Polish films. The documentary was shown around the world and received awards in Venice and San Francisco. And Lidia and Kazimierz stayed together, in profession and in life.
“I ended up in WFDiF, because my diploma film was rejected in the department of directing. I did well as a student, so the dean Jerzy Bossak offered that he will help me find a job of an assitant director (AD) in a feature film. I said that I prefer editing. To be honest, I realized it already in the middle of the studies that I won't be a good director. A year ago somebody found my school film on the basis of “The First Step in Clouds”. The screening was accompanied by peals of laughter. When I made the film, I naively imagined that Hłasko's text read from off and a mute scene between actors was enough. My visual invention was very weak, today it's a caricature. Film editing does not require such an all-round talent as directing and at the same time gives a wide range of creative independence.”
Why did she at all decide on the Film School? |I was not interested in film more than my colleagues, but already in secondary school I had the feeling that I am not a inborn solo, that I would like to do something that involves cooperation with people. In some magazine I came about an article about the film crew, where I learned how it works: that there is the director and his/her coworkers, who each has quite a wide range of independence in work and at the same time it's sort of group work. I became convinced that I will find my place in such a crew.”
Lidia came to Lodz in the golden age of the Film School. Wajda had just graduated, Morgenstern and Kutz were in the last year, Polanski and Majewski had just began studying. “There were maybe three or four girls and we were all treated like a funny school folk.” But then, according to Lidia, it was not the gender, but the age census that was crucial at the time in the School. The students could be easily divided into those who took active part in the war and those younger. “Four, five years of metrical difference, but a generation gap when it came to maturity. We were like two different generations. I survived the uprising in Warsaw, but as a 10-year-old I spend it under my mother's wings. If I were a bit older, I would have to take part in the uprising. There was a strong pressure, one could just not do otherwise. After such an experience one does not come back to childhood. I had the luxury to stay infantile for long.
Lidia is the daughter to Włodzimierz Zonn, an outstanding astronomer and professor at the University of Warsaw. How did the family react to the idea of studying at the Film School? “Very well. The decision was made for me at the stage of the secondary school – as a student from a protestant family I had continuous conflicts with catechists – so I was send to Mikolaj Rej, school set up by the Evangelical chruch. For instance, my father, a very tolerant man, believed that after final exams it's up to me.”
When Lidia came back to Warsaw after studies, only women worked as film editors in WFD. “I cannot tell why they looked only for women to do the job Maybe this profession reminded of sewing or knitting – so highly female activities? On the other hand, there was Wacław Kaźmierczak in WFD, a pre-war film editor of PAT* chronicles and he brought up the first postwar generation of female film editors. The situation in Poland was a precedent in the scale of the world; in the States and in France mostly men worked in the profession. I have not asked why it was different in Poland and today there is nobody to ask.”
Documentaries were made differently than today. The professional ethics was different. “It was somehow forced by the technological conditions: one had to make it in a concrete film tape ration, nothing was made spontaneously, everything was carefully planned. There was, for example, sort of a casting for a documentary character. In “The Year of Franek W.”, my husband decided to accompany for twelve months the swashbuckler of Voluntary Labour Corps. It;s not so easy to find a man, who will forget that he's being followed by an 80-kilo-heavy camera. Twenty potential characters were put in one room. The cinematographer took an extremely noisy Arriflex camera and wandered around them, showing the horribly whirring arri almost under the nose. It made no impression on Franek, who became our character, he just continued chatting with his colleague and totally ignored the machine. Kazik is certain that there exists a sort of human autonomy: some people get confused in such a situation, some behave the same as the do normally when there is no camera. But there was one more, maybe the most important matter. The people were authentic, because they trusted us. We always guaranteed our character the possibility to remove fragments from the film, which he/she did not approve of. The most important assumption of our documents was not to hurt the character.”
When she talks about ethics, defending the characters, sympathy for them, she almost anticipates my question about Kieślowski's document “From a Night Porter's Point of View” - the antihero matter. Lidia, who was the editor of most Kieślowski's documents, accepted the proposition to edit the film together, though then as well as today she has an ethical problem with it. “Kieślowski wanted to make a film about a black character, an antipathetic hero. In this way he imagined his protest against the phenomena, which took place in Poland then. I did not find the subject justified, but I found Kieślowski's decision justified. [Mnie się ten temat nie tłumaczył, ale tłumaczyła mi się decyzja Kieślowskiego".]”••
According to Lidia, the relation film editor-director is being build on trust. Not only professional trust, understood as believing in professional abilities, but also full trust on the human level. “The director is somehow unsheathed to the film editor. The film editor can clearly see his/her weaknesses and strengths reflected in the footage. The director is aware of that. It creates a very intimate relation. We could be very formal with Krzysztof Kieślowski, but at the same time we were close. That's why in conversations with film editors, you won't never meet with gossiping about the director's work. One could gossip that he/she is stingy, likes this or that, comes late, but his creative struggle, which radiates in the footage, wass not subject to discussion with third party.”
In Lidia's and Kazimierz Karabasz' case the professional relation and personal love story became one. “Do we with Kazik took work home? Yes, I guess so, we're so long together and we work together that it is difficult to divide it. The worst were the final jobs on the project, I guess. When closing a project required complex technical operations, where the director was no longer needed while they strongly absorbed the editing room. It resulted in an asynchron: I was still up to my elbows in an old project and my husband already one foot in the new one. Powstawał więc asynchron: ja jeszcze po łokcie w starym projekcie, a mąż już jedną nogą w nowym. This was reflected in our domestic affairs.”
Soon Lidia Zonn and Kazimierz Karabasz will make their debut in a new role – the heros of Andrzej Sapija's documentary. “I do not know how we will find ourselves as the heros of somebody's else film. I do not feel well in front of the camera. Being familiar to the profession does not help me at all. Even when I see a photo camera from a distance, I stiffen up. Only thanks to being so long in the School, I am able to talk to someone without getting nervous.”
Lidia retired from active practice in 2008. Her decision was to some extent dictated by the fact that she has never enjoyed working with the computer. She broke just once – for the husband. “Kazik bought a digital camera and wanted to try it.” It resulted in an autobiographical documentary journey “Meetings”. “The film tape was magic. There was a totally different mood in the editing rooms. The discussions between the director, film editor and assistant were long and deep. And one was very careful with cutting once. Today it's careless, because reversible. On film it was of course also reversible, one could always add something and bind it with scotch, but every connection left a trace, sort of a smudge on the image. It was all about leaving as little smudges as possible. My students cannot get over it that I am able to find out all unclean connections. One shapes such an eye for years. The computer is just a tool, but nothing can substitute a good eye.”
Eve
The story of Eve is a story about destination. Like the destination from Kieślowski, who was her favorite coworker. She run away, did other things, but editing kept coming back to her anyway. When in 1985 she finished the Film Editing Study in Łódź, she already had 23 year-long experience in the profession of a filmmaker, cooperation with Zanussi, Różewicz and Borowczyk.
However at the end of secondary school Eve was convinced that she does not want to have anything to do with film. Her stepfather who worked himself in film as production manager, strongly persuaded her to film editing. “It's such a female profession” - he kept on repeating. But Eve dreamt of conservation of monuments. She began to take up lessons in drawing obligatory on the exams. It all ended on preparation, because the painter, who was her supervisor judged Eve's drawings worthless. “He showed me his children' drawings with reputation hand, technics and perspective. Compared to their works, my drawing was very childish.” Instead of conservation of monuments, she took exams to the Medical Academy. “I did not pass. I finished a two-year study of radiologists technicians and ended up in an X-ray lab”.
Not even two years have passed and it turned out that Eve has a diseased thyroid, so she has to keep away from the X-ray. The subject of film came back. She has already decided to work as an assistant editor, when her stepfather suggested that it would be better to work first on the set and get to the bottom of the film. That's how Eve spend the next three years travelling – between shoot halls in Łódź and outdoors scattered around Poland – working as a set secretary.
“Filmmakers say that film set addicts like a drug. Not me. I am a home-bird. I love to come back home from work and go for a walk with my dog. Twelve hours a day in mud, snow, rain, that's not for me. Stanisław Różewicz loved the Polish sea in winter. He would shoot best in December and January. At the time there were no light and at the same time warm jackets or thermal underwear. To such a set one would go in five sweaters and sheepskin coatfootlong borrowed from the caretaker. Torture. For a change, the set of “Obszar zamknięty” by Andrzej Brzozowski, the first film I worked on, took place in the forest. One evening during a walk the cinematographer and the director found an oak with red leaves. It was ideal for the scene we were to shoot next day. In the morning the whole crew set off as in the parade after the director to this three. The only problem was that neither the director nor the cinematographer could not find it. We wandered so confused for hours. Some members of the crew took it as an adventure, I found it funny.”
Stanisław Różewicz offered her the position of assitant director (AD). Later on she was supposed to become second director. "Różewicz was an incredible artist and a great man. Outstanding, underestimated today figure of the Polish cinema. I found it difficult to say no to him in particular, but I have already made up my mind. She left the set and switched to the editing room. “I was starting everything from the beginning again, but this beginning turned out to be lucky.”
Eve believes that in this profession almost everything depends on luck. The first lucky thing that happened to her was to work in editing room led by Urszula Śliwińska. “Mrs Urszula believed that I will be very good in it. Maybe it was the echo of my early artistic interests in, maybe inborn sense of observation. My sister laughs that I am dangerous, because I see everything. When somebody, who she does not know well, is to visit her, and she wants to quickly scan the person, she invites me as well. 'Eve, you see everything, more than anyone else' – she says.”
*Polish Telegraphic Agency (Polish: Polska Agencja Telegraficzna, PAT) was a Polish state-owned news agency established on October 31, 1918. Its main office was at first located in Krakow. Later, it was moved to Lwow, and finally to Warsaw, where it remained until the 1939 Invasion of Poland. As the only such agency in the Second Polish Republic, the PAT was the official supplier of news on Poland both for the Polish press and foreign media (...). Since 1927 the PAT also issued a weekly newsreel. After the Soviet and German take-over of Poland in 1939, the PAT continued its service abroad as the news agency of the Polish Government in Exile. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Telegraphic_Agency).
•• I found this particular sentence quite difficult to translate, because the word "tłumaczyć", i.e. "to translate" is used here in a very unique way and there is no coincidence in it. The film "From a Night Porter's Point of View” to which refers here Lidia Zonn, was and still is a very controversial documentary harshly discussed in the Polish cinema when it comes to the filmmaker's ethics. As Mrs Lidia Zonn admits, she still has not such a clear conscience when it comes to this particular film. That can explain to some extent the ambiguity of this particular part of her comment. It would be best for me to translate it most literally possible. Then it would sound so: "The subject of the film did not translate to me, but Kieślowski's decision did translate." Of course, it would be a badly formed sentence in English, because nothing can translate on its own, at most we can translate or explain something to ourselves and it would be best to translate the sentence so to stress the fact that the person participated actively in the process of judging something as good or bad, because that is the essence of this comment. I was looking for a verb that could somehow replace the verb "to translate", for example, "understand" or "accept", but you cannot really judge if it was the thing that the author of the comment meant. To such an extent is the way the sentence is formed ambiguous. Maybe the best word would be "justify". "I have not found the subject of the film justified, but I found Kieślowski's decision justified."
To be continued...
Zachęcam do zapoznania się z pracą licencjacką Timecode Mike'a Figgisa jako polifonia obrazów napisaną przeze mnie w ramach studiów na kierunku Reżyseria, specjalność Montaż Filmowy w 2010 roku.
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