CL: Absolutely. I think it was the contrast between the younger generation and the older one, and she’s not a part of this brotherhood and friendship this particular clique had from college.
BO: You introduce her in close shot looking the most upset of any of them [Frame grab #13].
CL: She is the most upset.… They always discount her as arm candy, but then they find out she really loved Alex [her boyfriend and the one who committed suicide].
In contrast, Nick, the next character, is presented as a cipher. The first two cuts of Nick don’t show his face, just his hands on the steering wheel driving, smoking, and popping pills. The editor adds visual intrigue here: she starts the shot with an empty car seat before Nick’s pill bottle is popped open and pills are dropped onto it. After Nick’s hand picks up a couple of pills, it leaves the screen with only the pills left (Frame grab #18). The only shot of Nick’s face shows him out of focus, behind his dark glasses, in Frame grab #19. What contributes to the mystique is his black beaten-up Porsche speeding off (Frame grab #20).
frame grab 18
frame grab 19
frame grab 20
BO: Nick is a mystery; you never see his eyes.
CL: But then you see his car [Frame grab #20] and you realize all the information you get from his car. He does drive a Porsche but it’s barely running and he reaches for the glove compartment and he gets the pills [Frame grab #18].… He’s the bad boy they love because he’s such a slouch, and then you realize he was in Vietnam and he was a casualty of the war, too [like Alex]. Interesting that Nick would have taken Alex’s place, in a sense, at the end. [Nick ends up living where Alex did and being paired up with Chloe.]
BO: Did you always intend for Chloe to come just before Nick, and to somehow foreshadow their connection?
CL: I know that Harold and Sarah came first and I know Nick came last, and I think there was a certain amount of shuffling as we went through, as I went through it.… I largely remember trying to make this whole sequence into a tapestry that had a lot of yin and yang. That you would understand by the grief of the women and going through the different vignettes, that you would put the pieces together a little bit like a detective at work so each image would be evocative in its own way.47
THE BODY PARTS
The shots of the Alex’s dead body are placed between each character’s introductory shots. The shots of the male hands dressing the body are cleverly shot in a way that the audience never gets ahead of the fact that the man isn’t dressing himself.
†LK: One of the first ideas that I had for the movie was for the title sequence in which we would see this figure being dressed [Frame grabs #3, #6, and #10] and we might think he was dressing himself.48
frame grab 3
frame grab 6
frame grab 10
BO: Was the order that the body parts specifically described in the script?
CL: The part that was specifically described was the actual motion with the hands, of course, because Larry wanted it to be somewhat ambiguous whether this guy was alive or dead. So that part was pretty well choreographed, the idea of the corpse and the red fingernails [Frame grab #8] and how highly art directed it was, was very much a reflection of what was written in the script.
BO: First you’re supposed to think it’s a man dressing himself, and then maybe his lover when you see the beautiful female hands buckling his belt. [Frame grab #8]
frame grab 8
CL: Well, I do think we needed to make certain that it seemed ambiguous. We needed the audience to be let on to think that this might be very sexual.… In fact the title sequence is very evocative and then you realize bit by bit that she’s dressing a corpse.
BO: You’re not predictable in the sequencing of male and female hands or in your choice of body parts, but then you show the tie and sliding up to the neck [Frame grab #12], so you’re moving closer to the head.
frame grab 12
CL: You’re getting close.
BO: And you do save the intimacy of the man’s forehead and hair [Frame grab #17] to be the next to last shot.
frame grab 17
CL: Why the hair there? I guess it’s the most intimate of all the frames of Alex.
BO: And then comes the last body part of Alex.
CL: Of course it was revealed at the end the slices of the wrist [Frame grab #21].
frame grab 21
THE MUSIC AND MOVEMENT
BO: Was the song “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” selected before shooting even began?
CL: There were two songs actually in the script: “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” and “Too Hard to Beg,” which was the song that they played when they were doing the dishes.
“I Heard it through the Grapevine” is about heartbreak. However, the lyrics, which are about a man finding out that his woman is cheating on him, don’t literally refer to what’s happening on screen. Also, the editor cleverly places the song’s lyrics in a way that doesn’t directly comment on what the audience is seeing. Only occasionally do they reflect what the characters are feeling, as in the scene of Michael, frantic, being comforted by his wife (Frame grab #7, when the words say, “I’m just about to lose my mind, honey, honey”) and as Meg walks to the window and stares out sadly (Frame grab #9, when the words that play over her are “these tears I can’t hold inside”).
BO: Did you shorten the song at all, the recording of “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”?
CL: No, you know with rock ’n’ roll, if it’s a popular song you can’t cut into it. It’s just very, very hard, because people really know and that becomes terribly distracting, especially in an opening sequence when the song is literally the score. It’s like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” If something’s missing, the audience unfortunately has a reaction — what’s wrong?—as opposed to getting inside of it, so no, I didn’t cut into it.
BO: Did that make it harder to work with?
CL: No, in a way, it’s a little bit like poetry. It becomes a challenge; if you’re writing a sonnet it has to be a certain form.
BO: But there’s a domino effect, isn’t there? You time the music and picture out a certain way, it feels right, you’re cutting along and then just when you can’t make it work at a certain point.
CL: You have to say I committed myself to this idea all the way down, but it didn’t work so I’ll back up, chuck it and start something else.
BO: Or you only back up to a certain point.
CL: Or back to the point where it’s starting to go haywire. A lot of times when I get really, really stuck and feel, the hell with it, I just put in on the bench and I come back and do it tomorrow, just move on.…
BO: Do you find that you have to do that more when you’re working with a song that you can’t tamper with?
CL: Yeah, to a large extent, because you have limitations, and any time you have limitations and you’re trying to dominate them, you just get frustrated.
BO: Do you remember being frustrated with this opening sequence?
CL: I know I felt that the first time I showed it to Larry, I felt that I had it pretty well figured out and he liked it.… When he sat down, he wanted me to try a lot of things and I got very frustrated and as I recall we kind of went back to what I had originally. There are a few things that are different, but that’s kind of what editing is, you try a lot of things and some things work and some things don’t, but you have to commit yourself to it.
BO: The timing of the music with the picture seemed so fluid.
CL: You want a moment to occur on a certain beat because it’s strong — or not to occur on a beat — many times you want it to be unpredictable.
BO: Can you explain how you cut the montage to the song: was it based more on content or visuals?
CL: I think it was less intellectual and more one of image size and movement.
BO: Can you elaborate?
CL: Well, if there was a move and there was a rise in the music it would make sense to have that matche
d with the music.… When there’s a change in stanza or when the instrumental break starts in the case of “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” it has an upbeat and downbeat. [She sings the instrumental intro:] “Oh, buh buh buh buh” and there’s a little bit of intro so you would include that with the cuff coming down. [Frame grab #4]
frame grab 4
BO: The way that intro is used to present the man’s calf [Frame grab #3] and then it repeats itself and is used even more emphatically to present the cuff coming down just as the movie’s title is superimposed [Frame grab #4],well, it’s such a significant editing moment. It sets off the whole momentum for the montage. Did the director tell you, “This is what I want?”
CL: Larry had several observations on what he thought should come first and last, you know the cuff coming down, having [the title] The Big Chill come on [Frame grab #4]. He didn’t know exactly how to execute it, but it was an idea he had. You know these things evolve in such a way, it’s kind of tough to say. I know it was a direction he had on the set, and when I saw the shot, I said, “Well, this is so great, it has to be used in the most effective way.”
Clearly, there is no set pattern in the way the sequence is cut to the rhythm of the song. The downbeat is very close to the cut when she introduces both the song and the man’s calf. She not only uses the downbeat within that shot again as the movie’s title is introduced, but keeps the momentum going by cutting on the downbeat in the subsequent shot of Karen’s hands turning the coffee cup. The first word that plays over that shot — “bet” — also happens to be a very percussive word, which emphasizes that strong beat. And the following shot, where the camera pulls back on Karen (the “out” frame is Frame grab #5), does not come in on the downbeat; it’s a “soft cut.” The next cut of the dead man’s shirt being buttoned (Frame grab #6) is again a soft cut. The following shot of Michael comes in as a soft cut, followed by two cuts that come in on a downbeat: a shot of his hands and then a shot of him being comforted by his wife (the “out” frame of that shot is Frame grab #7). The cuts continue to be unpredictable yet fluid for the rest of the montage.
BO: The montage feels so naturally linked to the music because you have visual movement going all the time, especially in the transitions. Even if it’s subtle, you never just let it sit. It’s part of.…
CL: It’s part of momentum and I think a large part of film that has obviously been discovered by the MTV generation is that film is very kinetic.
BO: You create that perfect balance between letting it almost sit and then moving on. You don’t come to a complete.…
CL: You do a California stop, you sort of nudge the break but you keep on going.
BO: Even with something as subtle as the tear flowing down Sarah’s face [Frame grab #2], which sets off both the emotion and the first musical notes of the song. You cut out of that shot just as it flows.
CL: … you don’t want it to go too long.49
After the tear on Sarah’s cheek flows (the “out” frame is Frame grab #2), the shot of Karen’s coffee cup begins and ends with the cup being turned. In the next shot of Karen, the “in” frame is on a camera pull back and the “out” frame (Frame grab #5) happens the moment the camera stops and Karen leans in on her elbows.
The rest of the shots cut in and out on some kind of camera motion and/or body motion. Even the dead body shots transition in and out with motion. For instance, Frame grab #6 (the “in” frame of the shot) starts with a hand-buttoning motion and ends only one frame after the hand leaves the shot. Frame grab #8 (also the “in” frame of the shot) begins with a hand-buckling motion and again ends one frame after the hands leave the screen.
The most “musical” section occurs when Chloe is doing stretching exercises and once again, the editor cuts in and out on peak movement. For example, Frame grab #13 (the “out” frame) cuts out just as her leg has stretched all the way upward. The next shot starts with Frame grab #14 showing that same position, in this case a closer shot of her foot pointed up. Then the camera follows her foot down, and when it barely comes together with the other foot, the editor cuts (the “out” frame of that same shot is Frame grab #15). The next shot ends when she’s turned away and her legs have just joined together again (Frame grab #16). Because the editor has timed Chloe’s moves and the cuts so well to the rhythm of the song, she seems to be almost dancing to the music.
As music editor Peric says, “Carol Littleton has such a wonderful sense of tempo and rhythm you feel you’re in that song and the titles fall and the cuts fall as if the song was composed for that sequence.… It seems to us that it flows, but Carol made it flow.… That’s the beauty about editing, when the editor can tell a story without ever showing their work.”50
BO [to Littleton]: How much do you think your background as a musician adds to your effectiveness as an editor, particularly in a sequence like this?
CL: I think when you’re a musician, you learn that you’re not a metronome. You need to be expressive with the line, the line of the song, the line of the melody, the line of the rhythm whatever it happens to be. It’s not even something that you know, it’s something you can feel and I think I was just reacting to that.… It’s all about rhythm and choices, many times unconscious… but if I stop and think about it and look at it, well, I know I came about doing that because it’s musical, but I may not be thinking of it at the time, to tell you the truth.
THE FLASHBACK
BO: In this movie, you fought for an editorial choice that had far-reaching implications.
CL: There was a scene at the end of the movie that was a total flashback to Ann Arbor in 1969.51
†LK: One of the first ideas for The Big Chill that I had was that the movie would end with a flashback to this same group of guys in college on Thanksgiving Day. You would see the life they had been talking about up until then in the movie and you would see Alex who has been missing from the whole movie. The suicide. You would actually see him and what part he played in this group. You would get to compare their memories that you’d been hearing about for the first hour and forty-five minutes of the movie with the reality that you would see in the flashback.… It was a wonderful sort of crystallization of everything we’d been talking about.52
CL: The whole movie was a realization of where they are now, to flash back and realize that they were really the same people, but they’d just gotten older. But we already knew that, it permeates the whole thing. I felt very strongly that an audience, the minute that we dropped the flashback, we had it where it was supposed to be.… We had it [the flashback] throughout the film, we cut it all kinds of [ways]. We spent more time on the flashback trying to integrate it here, there, everywhere and finally I encouraged Larry that we needed to look at it without it, just to see and he really didn’t like it. Having the flashback there makes it so specific to a specific time. All the arguments aside, you make it so specific, it’s only going to work for this audience who’s this age and you’re going to cut everybody out of this experience.53
And ultimately.…
†LK: We discovered that [the flashback] totally confused the mood. We had already accrued in the movie all the benefits of that flashback without actually having to see it.… I wanted to tell a very specific story about people of my generation. I had no thought of how popular it would be or how many people would relate to it. When a film gets an enormous response like [The Big Chill] did, when not only my generation but older people, younger people related to it in a powerful way, you’re thrilled because that’s your highest hope, for something that you told, something so specific that it can be universal for people. It doesn’t always happen and in that case it did, and I was very surprised and very delighted.54
COMPARING MOVIES
BO: What would you say was the difference between cutting The Big Chill and Body Heat?
CL: I think The Big Chill was more difficult than Body Heat. They were both a lot of fun, very challenging for me.
BO: The Big Chill is very talky wi
th not much plot.
CL: This movie is a set piece when you think about it. It’s a play…
When I was cutting Body Heat I was very aware of the style of film noir, and I wanted it to match that. It’s not very cutty, it’s in long, long pieces. It’s not like this at all in [The Big Chill]. One film [Body Heat] is linear in its overall structure, it’s architecture, and The Big Chill is totally circular; and I think if we talk about editing in an abstract way The Big Chill is a really difficult film to do, I’m sure a really difficult film for Larry to write, because each character that’s introduced into a scene leads us to another character that leads us to another scene.… And while it’s very talky, it’s very alive, you’re not even very aware of the fact that it’s just a stage.… You are never aware of the curtain closing, the curtain opening, the curtain closing. It just had to be very fluid from one to the next and the next, building its own kind of steam, have its own momentum. I think the sleight-of-hand in editing has to be in a way more elegant because you don’t want to draw attention to it. What you’re doing has to be imperceptible.55
CHAPTER 14
* * *
MAKING MAGIC
Now that you’ve read all about it, the only way you can really learn how to edit is to get in there and cut a scene. You can watch forever, but until you wrestle with the film, you won’t know how to make the countless decisions every editor must face: Where do I start that cut, where do I end it? What do I cut to and where do I start that cut? There is no real preparation for all this except on-the-job training. With any luck, you would have a talented, experienced editor take a look at your work and ask you why you made the choices you did: Why did you cut there? What’s better about cutting there than cutting here? The master editor might also give you a few words of wisdom before sending you on your way.
The Invisible Cut Page 23