Categories One-By-One: Editing

[OscarGuy]

They only get one Oscar. You can't say either of them won it technically b/c neither can possess it at the same time as the other. And by Academy history, they'll hold the record for first non-Red Scare pseudonym to win an Oscar, but name wise, it is NOT their trophy.

[Sonic Youth]

If it's engraved with Roderick Jaynes' name, then I would say it doesn't count as one of their trophies.

Then whose is it?

(And next we'll tackle "if a tree falls in the forest...")

[Sonic Youth]

If NCFOM wins Editing, that's it. This and the screenplay award it's sure to win is your basic Best Picture grouping.

But I think Oscar night is going to allow some suspense. Bourne is the sort of choice that fulfills conventional notions of award-worthy editing. If No Country is our Best Picture winner, it'll come away with four victories (Picture, Director, Screenplay, S. Actor), and Editing goes to Bourne.

[Sabin]

I think the 'Black Hawk Down' comparison is apt. This one goes to 'Bourne' and so does Sound Mixing.

[OscarGuy]

If it's engraved with Roderick Jaynes' name, then I would say it doesn't count as one of their trophies.

[The Original BJ]

I think my question still stands. A record-tying evening would be four wins each for each of the Coens...if Roderick is considered a Coen.

[jack]

One question I have: if No Country wins Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Editing, will that be considered a record-tying accomplishment for most trophies for an individual in a single year? Or would the editing pseudonym disqualify the Coens?

According to a post from OscarWatch, not quite. The Academy will only be handing out one Oscar should No Country win. One Oscar for the sole nominee, and the pseudonym will be engraved.

Stupid idea but there you go.....

[The Original BJ]

One of the things I like about this set of nominees is the way it recognizes many different kinds of editing. (Though I do wish the editors had found room for I'm Not There.)

I agree that Into the Wild could have used some tightening (odd that one of the film's weaker elements was one of the few to survive the nomination shut-out), but it's the type of slow-moving, methodically paced film that too often doesn't receive a nomination here (like, say, Brokeback Mountain). I wouldn't vote for it, but I appreciate the recognition for cutting that's not so in-your-face.

Of course, there's absolutely nothing wrong with flashy editing, especially when it's used to such thrilling effect as in Bourne. I know a lot of people around here dislike Greengrass's style, but I found the action sequences in this film to be some of the most thrillingly cut in recent years -- they're exciting, tense, and never confusing (none of which apply to, say, Transformers).

Diving Bell strikes me as the type of film that is almost written in the editing room, and I give the editor plenty of credit for juggling the numerous abstract images and creating a cohesive whole. Many films seemed to be honored for cutting multiple storylines that had already been clearly outlined in the script -- given the bevy of structural choices available for a like Diving Bell, this honor seems like more appropriate recognition for the person who knew what to choose when.

There Will Be Blood doesn't FEEL like a dazzlingly cut picture -- as Tee said, it's editing is rather classical. But when you realize just how long the film is, and how it seems to fly by, it seems a model of economic cutting, completely absorbing the viewer into the narrative.

And then there's No Country, which seems to feature the whole shebang: taught action sequences are intercut with lyrically paced interludes, the three narratives are deftly interwoven, and even mere dialogue sequences feature expert, razor-sharp cutting. I think, given the quality of its cutting and the Best Picture pedigree, (as well as the fact that Bourne will have at least a sound trophy or two to pick up), it's the favorite.

One question I have: if No Country wins Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Editing, will that be considered a record-tying accomplishment for most trophies for an individual in a single year? Or would the editing pseudonym disqualify the Coens?

[OscarGuy]

Only twice in its history has the winner of this category not also been an ACE nominee.

1969 was the last time and the first was the org's first year 1961. So, the only pic this eliminates is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly since the remaining four all got ACE nods.

They are a little less accurate with winner selections, though they've only failed to forecast the winner once in the last 10 years: 2000 when Traffic took the prize.

Before that, it happened again in 93 and 95 stopping 20 years back with one last failure in 88.

I think the best model for this year's is 2001. Bourne feels an awful lot like Black Hawk Down. However, Blackhawk was at least nominated for Best Director.

I don't think it's the pseudonym that works against the Coens for Editing. I think what works against them is the editors bias against directors-as-editors. That one article posted recently here regarding how editors feel, there may be some animosity among their ranks towards directors that don't hire outside editors and to use a pseudonym instead of citing themselves as editor may be more galling than anything.

The only time it's ever happened (based on a very light skim of the winners) that a director has won an Editing Oscar was Titanic for James Cameron and he had others with him along with a massive sweep for his film.

So, No Country's chances, I think are diminished slightly by that. That's not to say the non-editors among the Academy wouldn't vote for them, but who knows for sure. If they win the ACE award, then they certainly stand a strong chance of winning.

[Mister Tee]

This year's nominees:

The Bourne Ultimatum (Christopher Rouse)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Juliette Welfling)
Into the Wild (Jay Cassidy)
No Country for Old Men (Roderick Jaynes)
There Will Be Blood (Dylan Tichenor)

History Department: As I was researching the results in this category, I came to see that, to the surprise of none, Roger Ebert is full of crap. Specifically, Roger's always defended his beloved Crash's appalling Oscar win by saying it was clear Crash would be the choice because Brokeback wasn't nominated for editing and, why, look, it'd been 25 years since a film had won best picture without an editing nomination, so obviously all history ran against it.

That the editing category has historic correlation with best picture comes as no news to Oscar students. You can go back any ten-year increment you want -- 10, 30, 50 -- and find that roughly half the best picture choices won best editing. And most others were nominated. But what makes Ebert's contention a crock is 1) this is not some new, last-25 years phenomenon -- it goes back practically to the introduction of the category; and 2) despite this, there have always been exceptions. Note: from 1956 to 1962, every best picture winner also won best editing. Yet Tom Jones in 1963 wasn't even nominated…and no one suggested the popular choice was doomed in the top race as a result. Same with A Man for All Seasons three years later, Godfather II in '74, and Annie Hall in '77…all before the last-time-before-Brokeback Ordinary People in 1980. The point is, despite the fact that in most years the best picture winner is an editing nominee, and about half the time the outright winner, there has never been a DGA-like exclusionary aspect to it -- especially for a film as otherwise best picture-bound as Brokeback was in 2005. To repeat: Roger's full of crap.

To this year's race: The editors' branch seems to have missed the season's final memo; they apparently were working off the DGA list, where Diving Bell and Into the Wild seemed hot in the best picture race, and Atonement stone-cold out of it. Thus, with the token techie nod for Bourne thrown in, they manage to cite only a historically-low 2 best picture contenders, making the thinking here a bit simpler…though not exactly easy.

The old snarky comment about this category was "A car chase or a prize fight; otherwise, the best picture winner". That was, of course, reductive, but the winners did mostly seem to be films with showy editing -- lots of cross-cutting (from Ben-Hur's chariot race through Fosse's musical numbers to Saving Private Ryan's Normandy landing), tricky blending of footage (Mary Poppins, Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump), and, in recent years, multiple story lines (The English Patient, Traffic, Crash). If nothing else, some overall sense of tension, even in best picture winners, helped -- hence, The Departed prevailing in a tough field.

First to drop from consideration is surely Oscar-fizzle Into the Wild; if anything, it was a film that needed MORE editing. The Diving Bell is a possible wild-hair choice -- for its swiveling among the various times of Bauby's life, and the film's great popularity with the older set -- but I make it only a 1 in 10 likelihood. There Will Be Blood is in the running, for its best picture nominee status, but it's probably too classically paced to meet the general criteria that decides the category.

Mostly, my thinking wavers between Bourne Ultimatum and No Country for Old Men. Bourne is battling against the best picture-lean of the category, but, once a decade or so, voters opt for a Bullitt or Matrix if they're fast-paced enough. Bourne is widely respected (except, of course, here), grips most audiences, and is our first real car-chase entry in some time.

On the other hand, No Country also meets several of the category standards: it's the best picture favorite; it's got a tense, action-filled story line; and it blends multiple story lines. One odd factor: how disposed are voters to presenting their award to a fictional being?

This is another one I'm going to hold off on deciding till the end -- though a win for either at the Editors' Guild might sway me decisively.